Gas Reserves News

Seismic work at offshore gas fields shared by Venezuela and Trinidad and Tobago is expected to start in the coming days, the Caribbean country's energy minister Stuart Young said on Friday on social media.Venezuela in July issued a 20-year license allowing the development of its side of the reservoir, the Cocuina field. The U.S. earlier this year also authorized the project, to be developed by Britain's BP and Trinidad's National Gas Company.The Cocuina and Manakin fields, whose Venezuelan portion belongs to the idled offshore gas project Plataforma Deltana…

Esgian provides an update on Noble and Diamond Offshore’s announcement of merger plans in its Week 24 Rig Analytics Market Roundup.Report SummaryContractsADES has completed the signing of a drilling contract for a jackup with Suez Oil Company (SUCO) in Egypt.Mergers & AcquisitionsNoble Corporation and Diamond Offshore Drilling have entered into a definitive merger agreement under which Noble will acquire Diamond in a stock plus cash transaction. As part of the transaction, Diamond shareholders will receive 0.2316 shares of Noble…

Esgian reports that new drilling contracts have been announced in the North Sea and West Africa in its Week 17 Rig Analytics Market Roundup.Report SummaryContractsShelf Drilling (North Sea) has secured a letter of award with an unnamed operator, believed to be TotalEnergies, for the 400-ft jackup Shelf Drilling Fortress for a campaign in the North Sea.Noble 12,000-ft 7th generation drillship Noble Venturer has secured new contracts in West Africa with Trident Energy and Rhino Resources…

QatarEnergy has announced that it is proceeding with a new LNG expansion project, the “North Field West” project, to raise the nation’s LNG production capacity to 142 million tons per annum (MTPA) before the end of this decade.This represents an increase of almost 85% from current production levels.Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi, Minister of State for Energy Affairs and President and CEO of QatarEnergy, made the announcement during a press conference on Sunday. He said that extensive appraisal…

The Norwegian government on Tuesday proposed opening its waters to deep-sea mining despite opposition from green campaigners and some countries, as it seeks to shift from a reliance on hydrocarbons to new sources of economic activity.Norway, whose vast oil and gas reserves made it one of the world's wealthiest countries, has taken a leading role in the global race to mine the ocean floor for metals that are in high demand as countries transition away from fossil fuels."We need minerals to succeed with the green transition…

Italian gas group Snam has agreed to buy Golar LNG's floating storage regasification unit (FSRU) Golar Tundra for $350 million.The Golar Tundra can operate both as an LNG carrier and as an FSRU. The vessel, built in 2015, has a storage capacity of around 170,000 cubic meters of LNG and a continuous regasification capacity of 5 billion cubic meters per year.In order to maximise its regasification capacity, the vessel will be located in central-northern Italy, close to the areas with the greatest gas consumption. The Golar Tundra is expected to start operations as an FSRU during the spring of 2023, subject to the completion of authorization…

Russian gas giant Gazprom said on Thursday its management had approved investments worth 1.76 trillion roubles ($24 billion) for 2022, up from initial plans of 902 billion roubles for 2021, to fund new production and refining hubs.Gazprom is developing new gas production deposits, including in the Arctic Yamal peninsula, which the government claims holds more than a fifth of global gas reserves.The company said its other priority projects for funding are the Power of Siberia pipeline to China, as well as gas processing plants and the maintenance of its existing pipeline network.Gazprom said ca

Claudio Descalzi, CEO of the Italian oil and gas giant Eni on Friday met with Filipe Nyusi, President of Mozambique, where Eni is working to develop giant offshore gas reserves using a floating LNG unit.Descalzi updated President Nyusi on the Eni-led Coral South Project, which will put in production Mozambique’s gas resources. "The project is on track and the Coral Sul FLNG, being finalized in South Korea, is set to become the world’s first ultra-deepwater FLNG and the first LNG producer in Mozambique…

The U.S. mediator for indirect talks on border demarcation between Lebanon and Israel said on Thursday that the negotiations he was hoping to revive should be concluded in a short period if they were to succeed.Amos Hochstein, speaking to Al Hadath TV during a visit to Beirut, said holding the indirect talks last year between the two sides in the presence of the United States and the United Nations was an important milestone but that it remained to be seen whether the right time to resume the talks was now."Perhaps there should be some shuttle diplomacy first…

Israel is ready to renew efforts to solve its dispute with Lebanon over the delineation of their territorial waters in the Mediterranean, but it will not accept that Beirut dictates the terms of the negotiation, its energy minister said on Tuesday.The talks mediated by the United States were launched a year ago to try to resolve the dispute, which has held up exploration in the potentially gas-rich area. The talks stalled in May.U.S. special envoy Amos Hochstein is due in both…

Oil and gas company Perenco and Cameroon's national oil firm SNH have agreed with Golar LNG to increase the utilization of the FLNG Hilli Episeyo - Africa's first FLNG in operation and the world’s first converted FLNG. The Hilli Episeyo FLNG vessel moored offshore Cameroon and producing from SNH and Perenco's offshore gas fields, started producing in March 2018. The initial agreement was for the use of two of the four liquefaction trains and provided Perenco and SNH the option to increase liquefaction production.Back on March 31…

Lebanese President Michel Aoun said on Tuesday there should be no preconditions for talks with Israel over their Mediterranean border dispute, key to Lebanon's hopes to find gas reserves amid its worst economic crisis since its 1975-1990 civil war.Negotiations between the old foes were launched in October to try to resolve the dispute, which has held up exploration in the potentially gas-rich area, yet the talks have since stalled.A statement by the Lebanese presidency issued after the resumption of talks on Tuesday said the U.S.

Lebanon and Israel resumed U.S.-mediated talks on Tuesday over a dispute about their Mediterranean Sea border that has held up hydrocarbon exploration in the potentially gas-rich area, an official Lebanese source said.The longtime foes held several rounds of talks in October - a culmination of three years of diplomacy by the United States - hosted by the United Nations at a peacekeeper base in southern Lebanon.But negotiations stalled after each presented contrasting maps outlining proposed borders that actually increased the size of the disputed area.On Tuesday, the talks resumed at the same

A senior cabinet minister said on Monday he had signed a document expanding Lebanon's claims in a row with Israel over their maritime border that has held up hydrocarbon exploration in the potentially gas-rich area.The amendment would add around 1,400 square kilometers (540.54 square miles) to the exclusive economic zone claimed by Lebanon in its original submission to the United Nations.Negotiations between old foes Lebanon and Israel were launched in October to try to resolve the dispute.

Australia's southern states will need to import natural gas to fill a looming shortfall by 2024, as last year's COVID-19 induced oil and gas price slump has slowed investment in new fields, the country's competition watchdog said on Tuesday.Regulators have warned of a potential gas shortfall since 2016 as the market's mainstay gas source off the south coast is drying up, but the supply crunch is now rapidly approaching, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) said."It is concerning that the risk of a gas supply shortfall in Australia's southern states continues…

Norway's oil and gas reserves have made it one of the world's wealthiest countries but its dreams for deep-sea discovery now center on something different.This time, Oslo is looking for a leading role in mining copper, zinc, and other metals found on the seabed and in hot demand in green technologies.Norway could license companies for deep-sea mining as early as 2023, its oil and energy ministry told Reuters, potentially placing it among the first countries to harvest seabed metals for electric vehicle batteries…

Lebanon wants maritime border talks with Israel to succeed and difficulties that surfaced in the last session round can be overcome, President Michel Aoun told a U.S. mediator on Wednesday after the latest round was postponed.The negotiations between the old foes were launched in October, with delegations convening at a U.N. base to try to resolve a dispute about their maritime border that has held up hydrocarbon exploration in the potentially gas-rich area.But a session scheduled for Wednesday was postponed with U.S.

Liquefied natural gas shipping firm Golar LNG and the engineering giant Black & Veatch on Thursday said they would expand their long-standing FLNG relationship, and start working on projects involving floating ammonia production, carbon capture, green LNG, and hydrogen.Golar LNG said that the partnership's first area of interest was floating ammonia production with carbon capture and storage - Floating Blue Ammonia. The two companies plan to jointly publish a thought leadership paper on Floating Blue Ammonia by the end of the year.After this, the companies plan to jointly publish their thoughts "as we focus in on the technical and commercial…

Israel and Lebanon resumed U.S.-mediated talks on Wednesday on a dispute about their Mediterranean Sea border that has held up hydrocarbon exploration in the potentially gas-rich area, the Israeli energy minister, and Lebanon’s state news agency said.The longtime foes held three rounds of talks last month hosted by the United Nations at a peacekeeper base in southern Lebanon which the world body and the United States have described as “productive”.But sources had said that gaps…

NATO is looking at ways to avoid accidental clashes in the Eastern Mediterranean while supporting German diplomatic efforts to defuse the worsening dispute over energy resources there, the alliance’s chief said on Thursday.NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told Reuters the Western alliance was considering so-called deconfliction measures to prevent naval accidents in an increasingly congested region, although he did not go into details.“I am also exploring the possibilities of NATO developing mechanisms to prevent incidents and accidents, a set of deconfliction mechanisms,” Stoltenberg s

Greece urged the European Union on Wednesday to reconsider its customs union with Turkey in response to Ankara's continued gas exploration in contested Mediterranean areas, deploring what it termed Ankara's "imperial fantasies."After meeting Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades and Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Nicosia, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said they all agreed that Ankara is "blatantly" violating international law."Turkey's leadership has fantasies of imperial behavior with aggressive behavior from Syria to Libya, Somalia to Cyprus, from the Aegean to the Caucus," he said.The EU should also take note of Turkey's 'many violations' of the EU-Turkey customs union accord…

France will increase its military presence in the eastern Mediterranean, President Emmanuel Macron said on Wednesday, calling on Turkey to halt oil and gas exploration in disputed waters that has heightened tensions with Greece.The French leader voiced concern over "unilateral" exploration by Turkey in a call with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Macron's office said in a statement. It added that prospecting should "cease in order to allow a peaceful dialogue" between the neighboring NATO members.The standoff deepened this week with the arrival of Turkish seismic research vessel Oruc Reis in a disputed area of the Mediterranean…

The United States on Wednesday blacklisted 24 Chinese companies and targeted individuals it said were part of construction and military actions in the South China Sea, its first such sanctions move against Beijing over the disputed strategic waterway.The U.S. Commerce Department said the two dozen companies played a “role in helping the Chinese military construct and militarize the internationally condemned artificial islands in the South China Sea.”Separately, the State Department said it would impose visa restrictions on Chinese individuals “responsible for…