LNG

Algeria is preparing for more pipeline natural gas deliveries to the European Union as well as more LNG exports as new gas fields are developed amid more discoveries in the prolific gas basins of the North African nation.

The Algerian state oil and gas company Sonatrach has just appointed a new Chief Executive in Rachid Hachichi and he has just held talks with Claudio Descalzi, the CEO of Italian major Eni, the company with the most widespread interests in Algeria.

The talks between Descalzi and Hachichi in Algiers on October 12 were also attended by the Algerian Minister of Energy and Mines Mohamed Arkab.

“Eni and Sonatrach shared the joint programs for the development of Eni’s operated gas production as well as gas and LNG exports to Europe,” said Eni.

Descalzi also updated Minister Arkab on the progress of the accord signed by Eni and Sonatrach in January 2022 on upstream decarbonization, includingdetection of fugitive gas emissions in pipelines and plants and the identification of flaring-down opportunities in Sonatrach’s fields.

Eni currently has equity production of about 130,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day and is the key international energy company in terms of Algerian oil and gas operations.

Ten discoveries

Sonatrach also revealed that Algeria had made 10 new hydrocarbon discoveries in the nine months to the end of September 2023, adding to the 16 other discoveries made in 2022.

Arkab met the Eni CEO after also attending the 25th ministerial meeting of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) held on October 10 in Malabo, the capital of  Equatorial Guinea, an LNG producer and exporter from its Punta Europa plant on Bioko Island.

The GECF ministers issued a statement declaring that it was “ill advised” to call for any halt in natural gas investments.

“Halting gas investment would curb supplies, lead to an excessive rise in prices and a potential return to coal, as happened in 2022, undermining emissions reduction targets,” said the GECF final communiqué.

Arkab noted that participants at the Malabo meeting highlighted the need for “unrestricted investment” while “strengthening transcontinental financial cooperation in this matter”.

The GECF also advocated more “equitable access” to all technologies related to the exploration, extraction and exploitation of natural gas.

Électricité de France, the French utility business known as EDF and a former large player in the LNG market before partially pooling its activities separately with Japan’s JERA Co. Inc., is now being overtaken by its financial difficulties amid concerns about future power shortages in the country.

France is moving ahead with its fifth LNG import terminal with a floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU) being deployed at the port of Le Havre on the northeast coast of Normandy where there had previously been an onshore facility that handled deliveries of LNG from Algeria for Gaz de France.

The European Commission, the executive arm of the 27-nation European Union, has decided on emergency plans to immediately reduce natural gas demand now so that there would be more in reserve for winter as concerns persist of a complete cut-off of Russian supplies as LNG shipments are set to decline compared with last week.

The US Department of Energy published its latest LNG monthly export data with European nations solidifying their places in the top six while Sempra’s Cameron LNG plant shipped the most expensive cargoes and Venture Global’s Calcasieu Pass plant ramped up supplies to an array of countries.

The winter jump in natural gas prices in Northeast Asia reiterated several known points about demand for energy and shipping, with weather still playing the key part in gas demand and revealing some capacity constraints post-expansion at the Panama Canal.

French shipping line CMA CGM has set a world record for the number of full containers loaded on a single vessel, the first Ultra Large LNG-powered container ship, the “CMA CGM Jacques Saadé”, on departure from Singapore on its maiden voyage with 20,723 containers.

Venture Global has told regulators it was making steady progress on the Calcasieu Pass LNG export plant in Louisiana, expected to come on stream in 2022 along with the TransCameron Pipeline, though recent work was hampered by the very active hurricane season on the Gulf Coast.

May 18 (LNG) - Total has strengthened its positions in power generation and the supply of electricity and natural gas in Spain with the acquisition from Energías de Portugal (EDP) of its portfolio of 2.5 million residential customers and two combined-cycle gas-fired power plants with a capacity of nearly 850 megawatts.

   “The transaction, concluded with EDP on the basis of a price of €515 ($557M) in value, remains subject to preconditions, including the approval of the competent authorities, and should be finalized by the end of 2020,” said Total.

   Total now also enters the Spanish residential market and becomes the country's fourth-largest supplier of gas and electricity with residential market shares of 12 percent and 6 percent respectively. “This deal allows Total to become one of the main players in the energy market in Spain, from the import of LNG to the production and sale of electricity, based on renewables and gas,” said Patrick Pouyanné, Chairman and Chief Executive.

Italian energy company Eni and Sonatrach, the Algerian state-run company and LNG producer, have completed the construction of the natural gas pipeline connecting the Bir Rebaa Nord and Menzel Ledjmet Est fields in the Berkine Basin in southeast Algeria.