LNG

Shell Plc has confirmed its shareholding with four other partners in the new LNG export plant being developed in the United Arab Emirates by Abu Dhabi National Oil Company’s (ADNOC) at Al Ruwais.

European natural gas prices and US Gulf Coast last day futures for free-on-board cargoes from Louisiana and Texas increased for a second day after the Iranian drone and missile attacks on Israel brought more uncertainty and volatility into oil and gas markets.

Murban crude oil in Abu Dhabi that usually trades at around $3 a barrel below dated Brent crude was trading at $90 a barrel on April 14 after Iran launched its first ever direct state-on-state attack on Israel using drones and cruise missiles, indicating that oil and gas prices in Europe will rise on Monday April 15, though the increase in Brent price could be limited to under $95 a barrel because of previous factoring in of the ongoing crisis.

Adnoc Gas, the natural gas and LNG producer in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, has signed a 10-year supply agreement with GAIL India, the Indian pipeline gas and city-gas player whose facilities include the Dabhol LNG import terminal south of Mumbai.

Under terms of the deal, Adnoc Gas said it would supply GAIL with 500,000 tonnes per annum of LNG.

The latest Adnoc Gas agreement for LNG volumes follows similar deals signed with Japan Petroleum Exploration, France’s TotalEnergies, Indian Oil Corp. and PetroChina International.

Adnoc Gas, which was spun-off in March 2023 from Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. (ADNOC) to become a separate company, is estimated to have the seventh-largest gas reserves globally.

Step forward

“This long-term LNG supply agreement with GAIL India marks a significant step forward in our commitment to continue providing reliable and sustainable energy solutions to our partners and customers around the world,” said Ahmed Mohamed Alebri, Chief Executive of Adnoc Gas.

“India continues to be a key market for Adnoc Gas and this latest supply agreement underscores our ongoing dedication to fostering long-term partnerships,” added Alebri.

The main Adnoc Gas LNG operation is the the Das Island plant in Abu Dhabi with three liquefaction Trains and 6 MTPA of output.

The Das Island facility has operated since 1977 and was the first export plant established in the Arabian Gulf.

“Adnoc Gas continues to leverage opportunities arising from ADNOC’s integrated gas masterplan, which links every part of the gas value chain in the UAE,” said the company.

The ADNOC Group is leading the developments for the UAE that includes the new low-carbon Ruwais LNG export project currently under development in Al Ruwais Industrial City in Abu Dhabi.

Al Ruwais project

When completed, Al Ruwais will have two liquefaction Trains each with capacity of 4.8 MTPA for a total of 9.6 MTPA.

GAIL is a leading natural gas company in West Asia with a presence in India’s gas trading, transmission, city-gas and other sectors including petrochemicals.

The New Delhi-based company currently has a 75 percent share of the gas transmission network.

Its pipeline assets are 14,490 kilometres (9,000 miles) in length and GAIL makes about 50 percent of the country’s domestic natural gas sales.

GAIL has six subsidiaries including GAIL Global USA Inc., which looks after its Cove Point LNG interests in the state of Maryland.

The company also runs an LNG trading business based in Singapore.

Other assets include a majority stake in Konkan LNG, the ownership company of India's Dabhol LNG import terminal, located in the West Coast Indian state of Maharashtra, south of Mumbai, and with 5 MTPA of capacity.

Crescent Petroleum, a leading energy company in the LNG-producing nation of the United Arab Emirates, has started contracts to develop three hydrocarbon fields in Iraq with the aim being to boost Iraqi natural gas resources on a fast-track basis for domestic gas-fired power plants.

Crescent is headquartered in Sharjah, the third-largest of the seven emirates that make up the UAE after Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

As the oldest and largest private upstream oil and gas company in the region Crescent’s operations have previously focused on Egypt and the Kurdistan region of Iraq.

Crescent signed three 20-year contracts to develop oil and natural gas fields in Iraq's Basra and Diyala provinces in February 2023 and the work has now started.

The UAE company plans centre on extracting natural gas from two oil and gas blocks in the country’s northern Diyala province.

Basra oil hub

A third exploration block, located in Iraq’s main oil-producing hub of Basra, will be explored and developed to add further supplies.

The Iraqi Oil Ministry announced on October 15 that the three Crescent energy contracts were now underway aimed at increasing natural gas availability.

Iraqi Oil Minister Hayan Abdul-Ghani said in a statement that the contracts concluded with Crescent are expected to help the country produce 400 million standard cubic feet per day of natural gas within 18 months.

Abdul-Ghani explained that the first step was to help Iraq reduce gas flaring and utilize the processed gas for gas-fired power generation.

The Iraqis said they were are now set on developing strategic energy projects to extract more natural gas from the nation’s vast resources.

Crescent will build a processing plant on site as well as pipelines and infrastructure to supply the gas.

Iraq is the second-largest producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and depends on oil revenue to meet 90 percent of government expenditure.

Exports

The country exports about 3.3 million barrels of oil per day, while production in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region amounts to more than 450,000 barrels per day.

Power plants in Iraq currently depend on gas imports from Iran and which cover one-third of the country’s energy needs.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Turkmenistan stated recently that the Central Asian former Soviet Republic planned to sell 10 billion cubic metres of natural gas annually to Iraq through a swap arrangement with Iran.

The Iraqi Minister of Electricity, Ziyad Ali Fadel, said that Iraq would receive gas from Turkmenistan through the pipeline network from Iran and the volumes would be supplied to gas-fired power plants.

NextDecade Corp., the developer of the Rio Grande LNG export project in Texas, has formally taken a final investment decision to build the first three liquefaction Trains and export facilities with anticipated full capacity of around 27 million tonnes per annum with funding from the US, the Middle East and Asia.

NewMed Energy, the Israeli natural gas company and LNG project developer in the East Mediterranean, has taken a positive final investment decision for a third natural gas pipeline for production wells in the Leviathan gas field amid LNG export and domestic supply plans.

Technip Energies, the leading LNG and energy project company, said a consortium which it heads has been awarded a pre-construction services agreement (PCSA) related to the onshore facilities for the Hail and Ghasha Gas Development Project in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates.

Technip’s partners in the contract are South Korea’s Samsung Engineering and Italian firm Tecnimont SpA.

Hail & Ghasha is a conventional gas development located in shallow water in the emirate of Abu Dhabi and is operated by Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC).

The fields lie in the Ghasha Concession block in water depth of around 328 feet and are expected to start commercial production in 2025.

“The PCSA phase follows the successful completion of an updated front-end engineering and design (FEED) for the entire development, executed by Technip Energies,” said  Technip.

Next phase

“This next phase covers early project activities for onshore facilities, such as initial detailed engineering and procurement services of critical long lead items,” explained Technip.

The PCSA scope of work also includes the preparation of “an open book cost estimate” for the project delivery of the onshore scope, which will be considered as part of the final investment decision-making process.

“We are honoured to be trusted by ADNOC to continue from the successful FEED execution to the initial activities for the onshore facilities for this important gas growth project and to prepare an open-book cost estimate for project delivery,” said Arnaud Pieton, Chief Executive of Technip Energies.

“This reinforces Technip Energies' long-standing relationship and trust developed over the last four decades with ADNOC, supported by our long-term presence in Abu Dhabi,” added Pieton.

“Together with our joint venture partners, Samsung Engineering and Tecnimont, we will utilize our global experience on mega project execution and open book estimate conversions to transparently and diligently work with ADNOC and their international concession partners to continually optimize the project and successfully meet their requirements,” declared the CEO.

The multi-billion-dollar Hail and Ghasha project is also seen as playing a vital role in meeting the UAE’s gas self-sufficiency objectives.

ADNOC’s partners in the project with a concession term of 40 years include Italy’s Eni, Germany’s Wintershall Dea and Austria’s OMV

Sept 26 (LNGJ) - German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has signed an agreement with the United Arab Emirates over unspecified future energy supplies which could involve receiving the odd cargo from the emirate of Abu Dhabi, which ships one of two cargoes a week from its Das Island plant. Scholz signed an accord after talks with the UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan during a three-day tour of the Gulf. “I welcome the signing of the joint declaration on energy security,” said Scholz after the talks.

Germany said Chancellor Olaf Scholz would discuss energy supplies, including possible LNG shipments, when he begins a tour on September 25 of the Arabian Gulf states.

A statement said that Scholz was scheduled to visit three countries Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

“The gas offering is slowly broadening,” said German Economics Minister Robert Habeck while visiting the Baltic Coast town of Lubmin.

Lubmin is in the German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and came to prominence in the gas business by being a landfall for the cancelled Nord Stream II natural gas pipeline under the Baltic from Russia.

Nord Stream II would have doubled German pipeline imports from Gazprom, though the completed project was blocked by the European Commission and also by Chancellor Scholz’s new coalition government that won the elections in September 2021.

Lubmin will now become one of four coastal hubs for LNG imports from the US, other European countries and possibly Qatar and the UAE.

“We must show that in times like these, we can plan, authorize and build faster than is usually the case in Germany,” said Habeck on the plan to site a floating storage and regasification unit at Lubmin.

Habeck is also Vice Chancellor and a member of the Green Party.

Start-ups

The operators of the Lubmin FSRU to be chartered by the German Government is aiming for an operational start-up by the end of 2023.

Germany’s opposition parties that won power before the events in Ukraine have mostly been against using natural gas.

The country was also one of the few leading European Union economies without LNG infrastructure, though one terminal was planned on the Elbe River but constantly opposed and demonstrated against as recently as last year by Habeck's Green Party and its supporters.

They quickly changed their minds on LNG after the gas crisis erupted and it was deemed to be a “transition” fuel by the panicked European Commission late in the day in 2022.

Other German LNG import terminal plans include a mixture of FSRUs and onshore facilities, though a final project list has yet to be published.

Among those advancing is an FSRU venture and a possible onshore facility at the port of Stade on the Elbe River backed by state government of Lower Saxony and by a development company, Hanseatic Energy Hub GmbH.

German is acquiring at least five FSRUs to move away as fast as possible from dependence on Russian pipeline natural gas from Gazprom.

The Stade seaport is situated on the Elbe sea-lane between Hamburg and the Elbe estuary at Cuxhaven and is close to the North Sea.

Chancellor Scholz said in a speech on September 13 that a series of planned new LNG import facilities would be ready for imports by the end of 2023.

He expected facilities to be developed quickly at the North Sea port of Wilhelmshaven and at Brunsbüttel, located south of Hamburg on the Elbe River and near the entrance to the Kiel Canal.

According to the German government, Wilhelmshaven will become the first LNG hub. Brunsbüttel will be the second to be completed and is backed by the Government, German utilities and the Dutch utility Gasunie.