Azerbaijan reports steady supplies to Southern EU on Trans-Adriatic Pipeline in competition to LNG cargoes
Azerbaijan, the Central Asian nation and former Soviet republic, has issued its quarterly natural gas pipeline export data that affects LNG requirements in Southern Europe.
Storage giant Vopak reports higher profits amid progress on domestic LNG and projects in the US and Singapore
Royal Vopak, the Dutch global storage company, reported higher net profits and revenues for the third quarter amid progress on liquefied natural gas projects in the Netherlands and storage ventures in Singapore and the US.
Congo LNG project formally launched as Africa takes leadership in rapidly developing FLNG production sector
The Republic of the Congo has formally launched two floating liquefied natural gas production projects that may make the West African nation an LNG exporter by as early as this year as African nations assume leadership of the FLNG sector to monetize their resources backed by Western oil majors.
Norway awards 26 production licences to Equinor and other companies had winning bids for 47-licence round
Equinor, the Norwegian state energy company and supplier of pipeline natural gas and LNG to Europe, has won 26 new production licences from Norway’s Ministry of Petroleum and Energy in the latest awards for predefined areas.
The awards included 18 licences with Equinor as operator and eight others as a partner to various other energy players.
“The rounds are important, and we are very pleased with the awards,” said Jez Avery, Equinor’s senior vice president for subsurface in Exploration & Production in Norway.
Equinor noted that as the production from existing oil and gas fields declines continued exploration and replenishment is essential to maintaining long-term, important energy deliveries from Norway.
The company said that its analyses show that active exploration activity is the most important single measure to ensure continued value creation towards 2030 and beyond.
Three basins
Equinor's production licences are divided into 16 in the North Sea, nine in the Norwegian Sea and one in the Barents Sea.
The company plans in 2023 to participate in 25 exploration wells, most of them around existing infrastructure.
“Around 80 percent of the exploration wells will be drilled in known, mature areas,” explained Averty
“Discoveries near existing infrastructure require less volume to be commercially developed and can be quickly put on stream and with low carbon-dioxide emissions,” he said.
“We thus maximize the value creation from existing infrastructure that has been developed over a long period on the NCS,” the Equinor executive added.
“Exploration is essential to our ambition to transform the NCS from and oil and gas province to a broad energy province,” he stated.
In total the Ministry offered 47 new production licences in the latest NCS licensing round.
“I was able to offer 47 new production licenses in the predefined areas to a wide variety of companies. Further exploration activity and new discoveries are important to maintain the production of oil and gas over time, both for Norway and Europe,” stated the Minister of Petroleum and Energy Terje Aasland.
The 47 production licenses offered in this year's round are distributed over the North Sea (29), the Norwegian Sea (16) and the Barents Sea (2).
A total of 25 different oil and gas companies, from large international companies to smaller Norwegian exploration companies, were offered shares in one or more of these licences and 12 companies were offered one or more operatorships.
Natural gas crisis in Europe to last several years after lack of investment in securing long-term supplies
The European energy crisis is expected to last for several years and in addition to limits on global liquefied natural gas supplies there has also been less than adequate investment in regasification facilities.
