Bate Felix News

Sierra Leone's capital Freetown has been hit by power cuts after Turkey's Karpowership switched off the electricity supply due to an unpaid debt of around $40 million, the energy minister said on Friday.Minister Kanja Sesay told Reuters that the outstanding amount "was accrued over time because the government subsidizes more than half the cost the ship charges per kilowatt hour".He said the government had to spend more on the subsidy because it charges consumers in the weak local Leone currency…

An oil supertanker accused by Nigerian authorities of attempting to illegally load crude before leaving its territorial waters is on its way back to the country, a Nigerian Navy spokesman told Reuters on Friday.At the request of Nigerian authorities, Equatorial Guinea detained the Heroic Idun, a vessel capable of carrying 2 million barrels of oil, on Aug. 17 for sailing without an identifying flag, fleeing from the Nigerian navy and sailing in Equatorial Guinean waters without prior authorization.Nigerian officials said Messrs.

A week-long strike by dockers in Ivory Coast's two main ports of Abidjan and San Pedro could hurt cocoa bean exports from the world's top cocoa producing nation after workers blocked access to the ports on Friday.The two ports were at a standstill behind closed gates on Friday morning as stevedores and dockers walked away over demands that the government respect a 2019 agreement to pay them three euros ($3.40) per hour, in line with international standards.They currently earn around one euro per hour.Pierre Guigrehi…

BP's floating, production, storage, and offloading vessel (FPSO) for the Greater Tortue Ahmeyim gas project offshore West Africa is expected in Senegal waters for commissioning and testing by the end of 2022, a company executive said on Friday.The FPSO for the project, which straddles Senegal and Mauritania, is being built in China by France's Technip Energies.Massaer Cisse, BP's vice-president, and Senegal country director told an oil conference in Dakar that the FPSO will be…

Deliveries of cocoa beans to Ivory Coast's two main ports have slowed in recent weeks as an energy crisis hit industries in the world's top cocoa-growing nation, exporters and cocoa cooperative officials said on Thursday.A lack of shipping containers due to the pandemic has also contributed to the slowdown, forcing Ivory Coast's cocoa regulator, the Cocoa and Coffee Council (CCC), to limit the issuance of documents that clear bean deliveries at ports for shipment.This has caused a stockpile of more than 80…

Senegal is set to be partly powered by liquefied natural gas for the first time with the arrival at the capital, Dakar, on Wednesday of a floating gas facility from Singapore, the West African nation's state power company, Senelec, said.The floating storage regasification unit (FSRU) is the result of a joint venture between Japanese shipping company Mitsui OSK Lines Ltd (MOL) and Turkey's Karpowership, which supplies power from its fleet of ships mainly to eight African nations.Once up and running…

Seven neighbors from a village in western Senegal boarded a fishing boat crammed with migrants just after midnight on Oct. 26. Their destination: Europe, 1000 miles away over open ocean.Two of them are now missing, presumed dead, after the boat carrying dozens of people capsized in a collision with the Senegalese coastguard.One can barely walk from his injuries. Another is haunted by the memory of clinging to a piece of flotsam while others around him flailed and sank into the black ocean."You see people die in front of you and you cannot do anything…

Fifty-eight workers tested positive for COVID-19 at an oil production facility run by Tullow Oil off Ghana's Atlantic coast, the company said in a statement on Friday,Fifty-seven workers tested positive on a support vessel for a floating production and storage (FPSO) unit.

Franco-American oil services firm TechnipFMC Plc is putting on hold plans to split itself into two due to turbulence in financial markets linked to the coronavirus outbreak, it said on Sunday.The group, created three years ago via the merger of Technip and FMC, had been planning to separate its engineering and construction activities from its upstream oil services business in the first half of this year."Market conditions have changed materially due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the sharp decline in commodity prices, and the heightened volatility in global equity markets," TechnipFMC said in a sta

French oil major Total has rejected a force majeure notice from a buyer of liquefied natural gas (LNG) in China, a Total executive said during the company's full-year results presentation on Thursday."Some Chinese customers, at least one, are trying to use the coronavirus to say I have force majeure," said Philippe Sauquet, head of Total's gas, renewables and power segment."We have received one force majeure that we have rejected."A Chinese international trade promotion agency…

Container shipping firm CMA CGM will use the French Mediterranean port of Marseille for refueling some of its planned gas-powered vessels, backed by a supply partnership with energy group Total.Total will supply liquefied natural gas (LNG) and a refueling barge to enable CMA CGM to refuel LNG-powered vessels at the Marseille-Fos hub starting in 2021, the companies said in a joint statement on Wednesday.The initiative covers five vessels with a capacity of 15,000 twenty-foot equivalent…

French oil and gas major Total said on Tuesday that the first cargo of liquefied natural gas (LNG) cargo from Australia's Ichthys LNG project has been exported following the production start-up at the end of July.Ichthys LNG, with reserves of more than 3 billion barrels of oil equivalent offshore Western Australia, including around 500 million barrels of condensate, is operated by Japan's Inpex Corp with a 62.2 percent stake.Total is a major partner in the project with a 30 percent stake.(Reporting by Bate Felix, Editing by Sarah White)

French oil and energy group Total said on Monday it had made a major gas discovery on the Glendronach prospect, located off the coast of the Shetland islands in the North Sea.Total said preliminary tests on the new gas discovery confirmed good reservoir quality, permeability and well production deliverability, with recoverable resources estimated at about one trillion cubic feet (1 tcf).It said Glendronach, located near its Edradour field, will be tied back to the existing infrastructure…

Tough new rules on marine fuel are forcing shipowners to explore liquefied natural gas as a cleaner alternative and ports such as Gibraltar are preparing to offer upgraded refueling facilities in the shipping industry's biggest shake-up in decades.From 2020, International Maritime Organization rules will ban ships from using fuels with a sulphur content above 0.5 percent, compared with 3.5 percent now, unless they are equipped to clean up sulphur emissions. This will be enforced…

Total is determined to push ahead with its plans to drill for oil in the Amazon basin, it said on Friday as Greenpeace activists interrupted its annual general meeting in protest at the project.The French oil major wants to explore Brazil's Foz do Amazonas basin, but Brazil's environmental agency rejected its licence application on Tuesday for a fourth time.As the company's annual general meeting opened in Paris on Friday, four activists from Greenpeace descended by rope from the ceiling above the stage…

European oil companies are not ruling out reducing Iranian oil imports after the threat of new U.S. sanctions, with some expecting banking issues to hinder trade, but there was no rush to immediately cut volumes.U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday the United States was exiting an international nuclear deal with Iran and would impose new sanctions that seek to reduce oil exports from OPEC's third-largest producer.But as of Friday, companies in Europe said they were still taking Iranian oil.

A French judge on Wednesday placed tycoon Vincent Bollore under formal investigation over allegations his company undercharged for work on behalf of presidential candidates in two African nations in return for port contracts.Bollore's company, Groupe Bollore, announced the decision by Judge Serge Tournaire, which came after Bollore had been questioned for two days by French fraud police.Bollore, whose logistics empire is a powerhouse in former French colonies across West Africa…

Container shipping group CMA CGM said it expects a rebound in the industry to continue this year on the back of brisk economic growth, playing down the immediate impact of geopolitical tensions. French-based CMA CGM, one of the world's biggest container lines, reported on Friday a $701 million net profit for last year, confirming its turnaround after a shipping downturn in 2016 when it suffered a $452 million loss. "We are rather optimistic about 2018, despite the geopolitical problems," Chairman and CEO Rodolphe Saade told Reuters by telephone.

A decision on the first floating, production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessels on the giant Libra project in Brazil will be made by the summer, Total's head of exploration and production said on Thursday. "We are actively working actively on Libra to have the first FPSO decided before summer," Arnaud Breuillac told an oil summit in Paris. Total is one of the partners in Libra with Brazil's state-controlled oil company Petróleo Brasileiro SA. The project will see the installation of four FPSOs in the field with a capacity to produce 180,000 barrels of oil a day (bpd) in 2020.     (Reporting by Bate Felix)

French oil and gas company Total said on Monday that crude exports from its Djeno terminal in Congo Republic was ongoing and unaffected following a strike last week and the sinking of a loading buoy in an unrelated accident.   Traders said on Friday that the company had declared a force majeure on exports of Djeno crude following the incident.   A spokeswoman for Total said: "exports from Djeno remain unaffected and safely continue with the second available loading buoy," adding that the tanker that was loading at the time of the buoy incident was safely disconnected.   She added that the strike at the terminal ended on Friday, while an investigation into the buoy accident was ongoing. (Reporting by Bate Felix, Julia Payne and Edward McAllister; Editing by Michel Rose)

France will make new proposals to Italy with the hope of resolving their differences over the sale and joint control of STX shipyards before a Franco-Italian summit in September, Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Monday. Paris angered Rome last month after it ordered a "temporary" nationalisation of STX, cancelling a deal in which Italy's state-owned Fincantieri and another Italian investor had agreed to buy a 54.6 percent stake. France took the decision after Fincantieri…

French oil and energy group Total said on Wednesday that it had made a significant oil discovery at the Ballymore prospect in the deep offshore in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, its largest discovery in the area. "This major discovery gives us access to large oil resources and follow on potential in the emerging Norphlet play," Arnaud Breuillac, Total's president for exploration and production, said in a statement. "While already deemed commercially viable, we will work together on the appraisal of this discovery and a cost-effective scheme to ensure a rapid, low breakeven development," he added. An assessment of the resource estimate was ongoing, the company said, adding that the discovery will bolster Total's new exploration strategy put in place since 2015.

With years of austerity in their rear-view mirrors, the world's biggest oil companies are locked in a beauty contest to lure investors with promises of growth and greater rewards. Royal Dutch Shell and Total are emerging as frontrunners after a three-year slump thanks to strong growth projections but Exxon Mobil, the biggest publicly traded oil company, has largely disappointed with a weaker outlook. Major oil companies slashed spending and cut costs after oil prices collapsed…