Gas Discoveries News

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Thursday said the deployment of a British warship to waters off the coast of Guyana breaches the "spirit" of an agreement reached between Venezuelan and Guyanese authorities.Guyana and Venezuela agreed earlier this month to avoid the use of force and avoid increasing tensions in the long border dispute over the oil-rich Essequibo territory.The 160,000-square-km (62,000-square-mile) Essequibo region is generally recognized as part of Guyana…

Britain will deploy a naval ship off Guyana later this month, its ministry of defense said on Sunday, as the South American nation faces a border dispute with neighbor Venezuela over the oil-rich Essequibo region.The deployment follows a visit by a British junior foreign minister to Guyana earlier this month, intended to offer the UK's support for the country, an ally and former British colony.Guyana and Venezuela agreed earlier this month to avoid any use of force and not to escalate tensions in the long-running dispute.Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino said in a social media post

PTTEP has made three consecutive oil and gas discoveries offshore Malaysia and says it is strategically poised to expedite the development of these discoveries through a cluster development approach.Montri Rawanchaikul, CEO of PTTEP, disclosed that PTTEP’s subsidiary, PTTEP HK Offshore Limited and PTTEP Sarawak Oil Limited have made new oil and gas discoveries in three fields offshore Sarawak, Malaysia, including Chenda-1 exploration well in the block SK405B, Bangsawan-1 and Babadon…

Cyprus wants to establish itself as a gateway from east Mediterranean gas resources to Europe via a shipping corridor of LNG carriers, its president said on Monday. Cyprus's new centrist government, which came to power in February, has cooled to the idea championed by its predecessors of an "EastMed" pipeline transferring gas to Europe.Instead, authorities now want to transport, via pipeline, natural gas from fields in the eastern Mediterranean to the island for use in domestic conventional power generation…

At least three proposed U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) export plants have likely found enough customers to receive financial approvals this year, according to Reuters calculations, developments that would make the country the world's largest LNG exporter for years to come.After a dearth of plant approvals last decade, developers have secured dozens of long-term contracts to finance new multibillion-dollar LNG plants. The pace of approvals has accelerated as Europe has shifted…

Israeli and Lebanese leaders finalised a U.S-brokered maritime demarcation on Thursday, bringing a measure of accommodation between the enemy states as they eye offshore energy exploration.Leaders from Lebanon, Israel and the United States have all hailed the deal as "historic" but the possibility of a wider diplomatic breakthrough remains slim. As a result, there was no joint signing ceremony: Lebanese President Michel Aoun signed a letter approving the deal at his palace in Baabda in the presence of the U.S.

Exxon Mobil Corp outlined a major new investment in Guyana amid government calls for delivering economic benefits to residents from deepwater oil and gas discoveries helping turn the South American nation into an oil powerhouse.A coming onshore supply base will expand jobs and boost local fabrication for future projects starting with its fourth production unit, Exxon's president for Guyana Alistair Routledge said in remarks late Thursday. It will bring total investment in Guyana to $30 billion…

Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC) led globally among companies in the third quarter (Q3) 2019 in terms of the highest number of oil and gas discoveries, said GlobalData.Of the total 38 discoveries made worldwide, EGPC had four, all being onshore discoveries. Of these, three were conventional oil discoveries while the remaining was a conventional gas discovery, said a report from GlobalData.Soorya Tejomoortula, Oil and Gas Analyst at GlobalData, explained: “Of the three conventional oil discoveries made by EGPC in Q3 2019, two are in the Western Desert Basin and the remaining is in the Gulf of Suez Basin. This lone conventional gas discovery was made in the Nile Delta Basin.”“Aker BP…

Media reports about Mozambique’s failure to launch a fishing and security fleet and its subsequent $2 billion debt default seem destined to torpedo, or at least set back similar efforts to build needed coastal security and national fishing fleets across Africa. That must not happen.The systems and equipment Mozambique bought a few years ago from shipbuilder Privinvest could serve as a template for coastal African nations seeking to rightfully benefit from their natural resources…

Oil and gas exploration is off to a flying start in 2019, with majors taking a bigger bite of the conventional resources discovered in the first quarter, according to Rystad Energy.Global discoveries of conventional resources in the first quarter reached a robust 3.2 billion barrels of oil equivalent (boe). Most of the gains were recorded in February, posting 2.2 billion barrels of discovered resources – the best monthly tally on record since August 2015.“If the rest of 2019 continues at a similar pace, this year will be on track to exceed last year’s discovered resources by 30%,” says Taiyab Zain Shariff, Upstream Analyst at Rystad Energy.ExxonMobil was the most successful, with three significant offshore discoveries accounting for a whopping 38% of total discovered volumes.

In its 2019 “Annual Energy Outlook” the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) projects that electric generation from renewables (wind, solar, hydro) will go from 500 billion KWh in 2018 to 1500 billion KWh in 2050, just 30 years from now.“The AEO highlights the increasing role of renewable energy in the US generation mix,” said EIA Administrator Linda Capuano. “Solar and wind generation are driving much of the growth. In fact, our reference case projects that renewables will grow to become a larger share of U.S.

Maritime Assurance & Consulting (MAC), a Bureau Veritas company, has won a contract from Chrysaor for marine assurance services. The contract also includes engineering, DP assurance, marine warranty surveying (MWS), project assurance and compliance services. Chrysaor is focused on the development and commercialization of dormant oil and gas discoveries and incremental reserves. The company acquired stakes in 10 North Sea fields from Shell last year and was recently granted acreage in the UK’s 30th licensing round.

French energy group Total said it had signed a memorandum of understanding with the government of Oman to develop natural gas resources in the country."Total and Shell as operator will develop several natural gas discoveries located in the Greater Barik area on onshore Block 6 with respective shares of 25 percent and 75 percent, as per the agreement between both companies and before possible State back-in, with the objective of an initial gas production of around 500 MMcfd and a potential to reach 1 bcf/d at a later stage," Total said in a press release on Sunday."Total will use its equity gas entitlement as feedstock to develop in Oman a regional hub for liquefied natural gas (LNG) bunkering service to supply LNG as a fuel to marine vessels.

Total has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Government of Oman to develop natural gas resources in Oman. This MoU covers both upstream and downstream businesses. Total and Shell as operator will develop several natural gas discoveries located in the Greater Barik area on onshore Block 6 with respective shares of 25% and 75%, as per the agreement between both companies and before possible State back-in, with the objective of an initial gas production of around 500 MMcfd and a potential to reach 1 bcf/d at a later stage. Total will use its equity gas entitlement as feedstock to develop in Oman a regional hub for Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) bunkering service to supply LNG as a fuel to marine vessels.

Egypt is planning to import 80 cargoes of liquefied natural gas during the 2017-18 financial year that began in July, down from the 118 cargoes imported last year. Reuters reported that Egypt has been trying to speed up the development of recent gas discoveries with a view to halting imports by 2019. The report quoted Petroleum Minister Tarek El Molla saying that the country was  planning to import 154 cargoes of LNG in 2016-17 but it only imported 118 cargoes because of the increase in local gas production. Egypt expects to increase its LNG production by 1 billion cubic feet per day by the end of the current financial year to reach 6.2 billion cubic feet per day.

Italy's ENI and U.S. oil and gas firm Anadarko signed agreements with the Mozambique government on Thursday to build two liquefied natural gas terminals in the southern African country. The terminals will be built in Cabo Delgado province, where Mozambique has made massive gas discoveries that could transform it from a poor African country into a major energy supplier to Asia. The agreements were signed by Mozambique's energy minister Letícia Klemens and the regional heads of ENI and Anadarko, a Texas-based oil producer. The two companies will separately build their own terminals, Klemens told a press conference. She declined to give the size of the investments.

Van Oord has been awarded two contracts by international contractor Subsea 7. The assignments include the construction of a landfall and the execution of subsea rock installation works in Egypt. The projects are part of the West Nile Delta project, which comprises the development of a series of gas fields, located 65 km off the northern coast of Egypt. Final client is oil and gas company BP. Preparations on site have already started. The landfall scope of work consists of the installation of a cofferdam, trenching and pipe pull activities and will be executed in 2017. The landfall location is at the Burrulus terminal near Idku, 50 km from Alexandria. Van Oord will deploy a trailing suction hopper dredger, backhoe dredger and 600 tonnes winch.

Kenya on Saturday inaugurated the first part of a new container terminal at Mombasa which is expected to boost by 50 percent the volume of cargo handled by East Africa's largest seaport. Construction of the 30 billion shilling ($296.74 million)terminal began in March 2012 and was completed in February this year. The project was financed by a loan from Japan through the Japan International cooperation agency (JICA), and Kenya will repay the loan over a 40-year period. A gateway to East and Central Africa, the Indian Ocean port funnels imports of fuel and consumer goods as well as exports of tea and coffee from landlocked neighbours such as Uganda and Rwanda.

This year, the offshore oil and gas industry has had to come to terms with the worst downturn for more than a decade. With commodity prices plummeting to an 11-year low in December, market research and consulting firm Douglas-Westwood (DW) reflects on the year gone by and considers the outlook for the year to come. Offshore rig markets still have a lot to digest before recovery. Rig dayrates have plummeted as a function of significant oversupply. Many of these rigs were ordered in the previous up-cycle, but have only recently entered the fleet at a time when the appetite to drill is poor.

The Italian energy major Eni SpA discovered a “super giant” natural gas field offshore Egypt in what the Italian oil company said is the largest find in the Mediterranean Sea. The Zohr gas field covers any area of 100 square kilometers and Eni said that "it could become one of the world’s largest natural-gas finds” and supply Egypt's needs for decades. Eni, owned by the Italian government, said that the field contains an estimated 30 trillion cubic feet (TCF) of natural gas. This compares with up to 22 TCF in Israel's Leviathan field. "This historic discovery will be able to transform the energy scenario of Egypt," said Claudio Descalzi, chief executive of Eni. Eni, which has full concession rights to the area, is the biggest foreign energy firm in Africa.

Offshore contractor Subsea 7 has been awarded a $150 million subsea, umbilical, riser and flowline (SURF) contract by Maersk Oil for the development of the Culzean field in the UK North Sea. The ultra-high pressure, high temperature field, one of the largest gas discoveries offshore UK, is located in Block 22/25 of the Central North Sea at a water depth of approximately 90 m. The contract scope includes project management, engineering, procurement, construction and installation of a 22-in. diameter, 52-km gas export pipeline connected to the Central Area Transmission System (CATS), and a 3.6-km pipe-in-pipe (10-in. outer pipe and 6-in. inner pipe) providing insulation for the transportation of the condensate to the in-field Floating, Storage and Offloading facility (FSO).

S.Africa wants 30 wells drilled in next 10 years; Total woes a setback to S.Africa exploration drive. French energy major Total has halted oil exploration off the southern coast of Africa due to mechanical problems with a rig, meaning it will not be able to resume searching in the area before 2016, a company official said on Tuesday. The news is a huge setback to South Africa's plans to have 30 exploration wells drilled in the next 10 years as the continent's most advanced economy strives to reduce its heavy reliance on imported oil. "Offshore repair was not possible," Guy Maurice, the company's senior vice-president for exploration and production in Africa, told delegates at an Africa oil and gas conference organised by Global Pacific & Partners.

Drillsearch Energy Limited announced a new wet gas discovery on the Western Cooper Wet Gas Fairway of the Cooper Basin. The Varanus South-1 well in PEL 513 (Drillsearch 40% and Santos 60% and Operator) is the first well to be drilled by Santos and Drillsearch under the joint venture between the companies announced in July 2013. Varanus South-1 was drilled to a total depth of 3,154 metres as a near-field exploration well. Drillsearch’s preliminary interpretation of wireline logs has confirmed an aggregate best estimate of 18 metres of net gas pay over a gross interval of 365 metres in the Patchawarra Formation and an additional 9 metres of net hydrocarbon pay over a gross interval of 37 metres in the Tirrawarra Formation, which was considered a secondary target.