LNG

Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Aramco), which recently signed two US LNG accords in Texas, has awarded contracts worth $25 billion to boost its own strategic natural gas production in the Middle East Kingdom.

Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Saudi Aramco), the world’s largest oil production group, has signed definitive agreements to acquire a strategic minority stake in MidOcean Energy for $500 million and thus enter the liquefied natural gas sector initially in Australia.

Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Saudi Aramco), the largest oil exporter, increased its annual net income to $161.1 billion on stronger crude oil prices, higher volumes sold, improved margins for refined products and as the company strengthens natural gas production capacity and has built its first underground gas storage.

The Saudi Arabian Oil Company, Saudi Aramco, reported a 44 percent drop in annual profits, though still earned a net $49 billion in 2020 as it posted record oil and natural gas output even as revenues were affected by lower crude oil prices and sales tumbled because of the economic slump caused by Covid-19.

Nov 17 (LNGJ) - The Saudi Arabian Oil Company, the world’s biggest oil industry operator with future LNG and natural gas plans, is planning to offer around $6 billion of bonds following a $12Bln bond sale in April 2019 that sparked buying orders of over $100Bln, mostly from US fund managers and making it the most over-subscribed bond sale in history. Dhahran-based Saudi Aramco is said to be offering five tranches maturing in three years, five years, 10 years, 30 years and 50 years.

US regulators have released the environmental review schedule for Sempra Energy’s Port Arthur LNG Phase II expansion in Texas as part of a project expected to be backed by Saudi Aramco, the largest oil production company.

The expansion would add a total of around 13.5 million tonnes per annum of liquefaction capacity to the project with the largest capacity Trains of all proposed US plants.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission said it expected to issue its Environmental Assessment of the expansion on January 15, 2021.

Other federal agencies having jurisdiction over the Port Arthur plant will have until April 15, 2021 to complete their reviews.

Sempra has already said that the site located on nearly 3,000 acres of land along three miles of the west side of the Sabine-Neches waterway is capable of supporting multiple expansions and could become the largest of the US plants.

Sempra’s expansion will include two liquefaction trains, Train 3 and Train 4, which are identical to Train 1 and Train 2 previously approved by the FERC.

Each of the two incremental liquefaction Trains will be capable of producing under optimal conditions 6.73 MTPA.

The addition of Train 3 and Train 4 would double the facility’s output from the current 13.46 MTPA to a total of almost 27 MTPA.

Sempra signed an Interim Project Participation Agreement (IPPA) in January 2020 with Aramco Services Company, a subsidiary of Saudi Aramco, for investment in the four-Train Texas plant.

The IPPA follows a heads of agreement for the potential purchase of 5 MTPA of LNG by the Saudis who are also expected to take a 25 percent equity stake.

The expansion will utilize the same liquefaction Train design as that put forward for the initial plant so that much of the initial engineering design has already been completed.

Experienced US liquefaction plant builders, Bechtel, designed the original two-Train plant and has been retained as the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractor.

Sempra first received its environmental impact statement from regulators in October 2018 for the first phase of the Port Arthur project.

The previous FERC review addressed the potential environmental effects of the construction and operation of the various proposed facilities. as well as the Texas Connector and Louisiana Connector pipelines.

The original filing covered two liquefaction Trains, three LNG storage tanks, each with a capacity of 160,000 cubic metres, a new marine terminal with two LNG vessel berths, an area for support vessels, an LNG transfer system and a truck-loading area. 

Saudi Aramco, the largest oil producing company, has just reported its annual earnings with net profits dropping by around 20 percent to $88.2 billion compared with $111.1Bln for the previous year as it outlined plans to spend billions on unconventional natural gas development after also planning to enter the LNG sector.

Saudi Aramco, the company with LNG plans and behind the global energy turmoil because of the Saudi government pledge to increase crude oil production, still has its shares trading at a high level of 30.90 riyals ($8.24) on the Saudi Tadawul stock exchange.

Sempra Energy, the California company operating the Cameron LNG export plant in Louisiana, has signed a fixed-price contract with US engineer Bechtel to construct its second Gulf Coast plant at Port Arthur in Texas to be backed by a subsidiary of Saudi Aramco, the largest oil producing company.

Sempra Energy, the California-based utility and owner of the Cameron LNG plant in Louisiana and with two other export facilities under development, reported full-year earnings of $2.1 billion and progress on all three ventures.