Going after oil & gas and LNG at full pelt while supercharging low-carbon energy transformation
Shielding people from energy price volatility by finding ways to cushion the inevitable spikes when they occur, given the current geopolitical fragmentation and overall uncertainty both in the power sector and within the current world order, is not only an art in itself but also a science of sorts all wrapped up in one. With climate change challenges in full swing, the risk of a lid being kept on the investments in oil, gas, and LNG plays has gone up, primarily in Europe, where the UK leads the charge in putting pressure on the industry to shift to less-emission intensive fuels to power their operations. Energy analysts pinpoint gas, with LNG as the crown jewel in the low-carbon toolset, as a bridge fuel spearheading the pivot from the high-emission coal epoch to a low-carbon era.
However, opposition to all types of fossil fuels runs deep in some political circles just like love for Big Oil as a money maker dominates others. The ones whose feet are firmly planted in the net zero aspirations tend to be oriented toward greening the grid with renewables and other zero-emission variants within the clean energy's arsenal. Their counterparts, mired in the positive changes the fossil fuels industry has brought about and concerned with the intermitted nature of renewables, energy storage issues, and rising development costs, are willing to trade coal for gas and adopt low-carbon technologies in response to the energy transition demands.
While claiming that Britain needs to get gas out of its system, E3G recently underscored the importance of creating a plan to navigate the complexities surrounding the future of these fossil fuel assets, since it is convinced that some might use carbon capture and storage to clean up their act, others could convert to green hydrogen with many most likely requiring a full decommissioning package.
"Beyond investments in renewables, there are other technologies needed to squeeze fossil gas out the power system. These include storage, flexible demand and hydrogen power stations. These assets are often less talked about than solar panels and wind farms, but are equally essential for ensuring the UK can meet its energy needs without gas. Rolling these out needs to be coupled with a plan for phasing out and evolving the existing fleet of gas power stations," underlined E3G.
The state of play on the global energy scene does not seem all that supportive of cutting all fossil fuels, especially natural gas and LNG, out of the energy mix, since the worldwide gas market demand keeps growing, pushing diversification of market participants and the acceleration of innovation and technology development to new levels.
🚢𝐋𝐍𝐆 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐠𝐥𝐨𝐛𝐚𝐥 𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐠𝐲 𝐭𝐨𝐦𝐞 🛳️
◈ NextDecade has made Bechtel Corporation a multibillion-dollar deal it could not refuse, thus, the U.S. player will handle the construction of Train 4 and related infrastructure for a huge LNG export project at the Port of Brownsville, Texas.
◈ bp and Golar LNG have found a way to sort out the ongoing disputes by putting in place a commercial reset for an FLNG unit which will be part of a mega gas project offshore Mauritania and Senegal. The first LNG production from the largest project in the oil major's portfolio has now been bumped from Q3 to Q4 2024.
◈ Cheniere Energy, Inc. 's 20-year LNG offtake deal with Galp is a positive sign for the pending final investment decision for the second train of the Sabine Pass Liquefaction (SPL) expansion project, known as Train 8. If greenlighted, the project will release a fresh flow of LNG to quench Europe's energy thirst.
◈ More vessels are on the cards to undergo conversion, following a recent approval in principle (AiP) for ammonia (NH3)-ready notation which American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) bestowed upon GTT (Gaztransport & Technigaz) for its Mark III containment system on LNG-fueled vessels.
◈ After the first LNG load is out of the way, New Fortress Energy 's FLNG is scheduled to be out of service for several days due to maintenance activities, with operations slated to resume after the maintenance work is complete. The unit's LNG production is anticipated to go full throttle later this month.
◈ After a seven-year hiatus, a proposed gas transmission project in northern British Columbia, Canada is getting a new owner as TC Energy sells the project to NW Infrastructure Limited Partnership, a joint venture between Canada’s Nisga’a Nation and Western LNG LLC . The partners are not wasting any more time, as they have proposed changes to the pipeline route, which expand the corridor before entering Nass Bay, adding a 9.4-kilometer reroute within the bay, and shortening the pipeline to end at the proposed Ksi Lisims LNG project on Pearse Island, rather than on Lelu Island, where it was envisaged to terminate in the original project route.
◈ Excelerate Energy has set the wheels in motion to co-develop a greenfield LNG import terminal in Haiphong, Vietnam.
◈ Once refrigerants come to LNG Canada , a joint venture between Shell , PETRONAS , PetroChina International , KOGAS International Pte. Ltd. , and Mitsubishi Corporation , these will be used for cooling the natural gas delivered to the LNG export facility, under construction in Kitimat, Canada’s British Columbia.
◈ The construction of a project, which is believed to be geographically positioned to connect Asia, the Pacific Basin, and international LNG markets alongside potential markets on the west coast of Mexico to North America's natural gas supplies directly from the Pacific coast, is coming along nicely despite certain challenges it recently faced, according to Sempra 's Sempra Infrastructure . This LNG export project is located north of Ensenada in Baja California, Mexico.
◈ ADNOC Gas ' latest LNG offtake deal, which will mostly be covered by the Ruwais LNG project, is with Japan’s Osaka Gas Co., Ltd.
◈ As climate change generates more heatwaves, the blame for its devastating effects on people and the environment continues to be placed on the fossil fuel industry's shoulders by activists. As a result, attempts to take down existing coal, oil, gas, and LNG projects and prevent new ones from springing up are gaining ground, despite energy security concerns and predictions that LNG, as the cleanest of all fossil fuels, will play a vital role as a bridge fuel in the energy transition journey to a more sustainable future. The latest win for opponents of LNG projects has been achieved in the United States, as two such export projects, owned by NextDecade and Glenfarne Energy Transition, LLC 's Texas LNG at the Port of Brownsville, Texas have now run into setbacks in the form of a court ruling, which vacated the previous authorizations and sent them back to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).
◈ Zachery Group 's bankruptcy move ground the construction activities to a halt at an LNG export terminal project in Sabine Pass, Texas, which ExxonMobil and QatarEnergy are developing. As the former lead contractor on Golden Pass LNG has managed to sort out the issues to ensure it can exit the project, the short-term construction plan is expected to give way to a long-term construction completion one between Chiyoda Corporation , McDermott International, Ltd 's CB&I to proceed to bring the project online in late 2025.
◈ DET Deutsche Energy Terminal GmbH has tucked a new milestone under its belt with a 100th LNG shipment at one of its four LNG terminals in Germany and confirmed the beginning of dredging works ahead of the commissioning stage of an FSRU anchored at another one of its terminals.
◈ VTTI has become Shell 's new partner in Dragon LNG and Dragon Energy , a major import terminal supplying LNG to the United Kingdom market.
🛢️𝐎𝐢𝐥 & 𝐠𝐚𝐬 𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐠𝐥𝐨𝐛𝐚𝐥 𝐨𝐟𝐟𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐠𝐲 𝐛𝐨𝐨𝐤𝐬 ⛽
◈ American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) will lend a helping hand in the endeavors to raise the oil production bar at Qatar’s largest offshore oil field, which is operated by North Oil Company Qatar , a joint venture between QatarEnergy and TotalEnergies .
John McDonald, ABS President and COO, commented: “ABS is providing a powerful solution for GNA, with world class engineering services developed through more than 70 years of experience supporting offshore operations. We are proud to be able to support this project, which has such potential to boost production from a globally significant field.”
◈ With proved gas in place of over 100 billion cubic meters, China National Offshore Oil Corp. 's recent discovery is said to be the first large-size ultra-shallow natural gas field in ultra-deepwater in the world, which adds the final touch to the trillion-cubic-meter gas region in the South China Sea.
“The newly discovered ultra-deep-water ultra-shallow gas field is an important composition of the trillion-cubic-meters gas region in the South China Sea. The completion of the trillion-cubic-meters gas region embodies the enormous achievements CNOOC Limited has accomplished in the South China Sea in the past 40 years," highlighted Zhou Xinhuai, CEO and President of CNOOC.
◈ SBM Offshore 's most recent assignment comes from Woodside Energy , which hired the Dutch player to construct a new FSO unit, which will be deployed at the Australian energy giant's deepwater oil project in the Gulf of Mexico.
◈ PETRONAS has decided to wind up its business in South Sudan as part of its long-term investment plan, taking into account the gains the energy transition continues to make.
◈ Tower Resources will now be able to extend the initial exploration period of the PEL 96 license for two to three years. This license covers 23,297 km² of the northern Walvis Basin and Dolphin Graben offshore Namibia.
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◈ One of Heerema Marine Contractors ' vessels recently wrapped the installation works in the North Sea related to ONE-Dyas 'new gas platform, which will be powered by offshore wind from a nearby wind firm in the German sector of the North Sea.
◈ Global Petroleum Limited is convinced a farm-in, if successful, could be “transformational” for the business, with a strategic partner potentially enabling the exploitation of the estimated 2,747 million barrels of oil on the license as part of unrisked net best estimate (P50) prospective resources.
◈ If deadlines arrive with no deal in place, Orca Energy Group , through its subsidiaries in Tanzania, intends to set in motion arbitration proceedings against the African country’s government and its state-owned company, Tanzania Petroleum , for alleged breaches of contracts concerning a gas field in Tanzanian waters.
◈ Shell has entrusted McDermott International, Ltd with platform and subsea infrastructure work at its giant gas project off the coast of Trinidad and Tobago, which is part of the huge natural gas field that straddles Trinidad and Tobago’s maritime boundary with Venezuela.
🌊𝐑𝐢𝐠 𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐨𝐟𝐟𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐝𝐫𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐝𝐢𝐚𝐫𝐲⚡
◈ Petrobras ' drilling activities at a well off the coast of Colombia have confirmed the size of a previous gas discovery, shedding more light on what is said to be the development of a new frontier of exploration and production in Colombia, reinforcing the volumetric potential for gas in the region.
Elsa Jeanneth Jaimes, Vice President of Costa Afuera at Petrobras' partner Ecopetrol , commented: “It is very satisfying for Ecopetrol to be able to confirm that we are on the right path to ensure that Colombians can count on new sources of natural gas before the end of the decade. This announcement confirms that the Colombian Caribbean has an important gas province that will offer energy security for the country.”
◈ A five-year special periodic survey (SPS) and refurbishment work have been completed for one of Ocean Oilfield 's jack-up rigs at Khalifa Port in Abu Dhabi, UAE.
◈ Odfjell Drilling has secured more work with TotalEnergies in Africa for a rig it manages on behalf of Northern Ocean Ltd.
🍃𝐄𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐠𝐲 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐩𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐧𝐞𝐭 𝐳𝐞𝐫𝐨 𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐬 ☀️
◈ ADNOC Group has turned to artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced digital technologies to up its oil production ante and ramp up its decarbonization efforts at a field off the coast of the UEA.
◈ InCapture has got a hold of a permit for a carbon capture and storage assessment project on Australia's North West Shelf, thus, it is planning to set a CCS project in operation by the early 2030s.
◈ As the energy transition picks up its pace, Serica Energy plc and SeaTwirl AB will pool resources to pinpoint and explore potential decarbonization opportunities for offshore oil and gas production and electrification options with the employment of renewables and underwater energy storage.
◈ Four European and three U.S. oil and gas behemoths have raked in a combined profit of $31.65 billion in Q2 2024 with bp ($2.8 billion), Shell ($6.3 billion), Eni ($1.65 billion), ExxonMobil (9.2 billion), and ConocoPhillips ($2.3 billion ) being among the lucky ones that beat forecasts while TotalEnergies ($3.8 billion) and Chevron ($4.4 billion) did not meet analysts’ expectations. Some of these oil majors, like Shell and BP, have been accused of backpedaling on green and renewable energy arrangements.
📰For more recent news, check out these headlines and visit our website:
- 🔗Saipem racks up another ‘major’ subsea milestone – this time in pipeline tech
- 🔗Six vessels joining Norwegian shipping player’s managed fleet
- 🔗Aker BP to keep Oceaneering busy for three years or longer
- 🔗More work for Petrofac on TotalEnergies’ North Sea CO2 storage project
- 🔗Japanese government-owned firm joins in on two CO2 acreages off Australia
- 🔗New region unlocked for US subsea specialist
- 🔗McDermott and TAS unite to boost Sabah’s workforce and energy sector
- 🔗Havila PSV secures more time with Peterson
Thanks for reading this newsletter and stay tuned for our next edition!
Kind Regards,
𝑴𝒆𝒍𝒊𝒔𝒂 Č𝒂𝒗č𝒊ć
Senior Editor at Offshore Energy Today
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