LNG

UK-based major Shell reported better-than-expected earnings to start 2024 despite lower prices and a decline in LNG sales as the natural gas, oil and chemicals trading units all  performed well.

Woodside Energy, the Australian LNG plants operator with overseas assets in the US and Senegal, and UK major Shell are moving forward with separate oil and gas project, the Trion joint venture for Woodside and Shell’s Sparta deep-water development located in the Mexican and US portions of the Gulf of Mexico.

Woodside said it awarded a major contract to Mexican company Eseasa Offshore SA to supply shore base facilities and services for Woodside’s operations supporting the Trion oil and gas project offshore Mexico.

Woodside operates the Gulf of Mexico field, located in a water depth of 8,202 feet (2,500 metres), with a 60 percent stake while state-owned Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) holds the remaining 40 percent of the field discovered in 2012.

Support role

“The Mexican owned and operated company demonstrates the great capacity available in-country to support a world-class oil and gas project like Trion,” said Woodside Vice President for Trion Stephane Drouaud.

“It also reinforces Woodside’s commitment to investing locally and ensuring that the economic benefits of our investment in Trion are felt as broadly as possible across Mexican suppliers,” Drouaud stated.

“Eseasa will provide a broad range of services out of its shore base location on the Panuco River coastline The award of the contract is critical as we continue to progress the Trion project toward first oil in 2028,” he added.

Eseasa’s scope of includes shore base infrastructure, operations planning and management for vessel mooring, loading and discharge and freight and material management and dedicated laydown and staging areas.

Shell Offshore Inc., a subsidiary of London-headquartered Shell plc, said a final investment decision has been made the for Sparta field, a deep-water development in the US Gulf of Mexico that represents a “competitive approach” for Shell to simplifying and replicating projects.

Shell and Equinor

Shell Offshore owns 51 percent of Sparta and is the operator and Norway’s Equinor owns the remaining 49 percent.

Sparta is expected to reach a peak production of around 90,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day and currently has an estimated discovered recoverable resource volume of 244 million boe.

Sparta will be Shell’s 15th deep-water host in the Gulf of Mexico and is currently scheduled to begin production in 2028.

“Shell’s latest deep-water development demonstrates the power of replication, driving greater value from our advantaged positions,” said Zoë Yujnovich, Shell’s Integrated Gas and Upstream Director.

“This investment decision is aligned with our commitment to pursue the most energy-efficient and competitive projects while supplying safe, secure energy supplies today and for decades to come,” she added.

Shell explained that Sparta was building on more than 40 years of deep-water expertise and marks Shell’s first development in the Gulf of Mexico to produce from reservoirs with pressures up to 20,000 pounds per square inch.

The Sparta development spans four Outer Continental Shelf blocks in the Garden Banks area of the US Gulf.

“Sparta will feature a semi-submersible production host in a depth of more than 1,400m/4,700ft of water, initially with eight oil and gas producing wells,” Shell said.

July 7 (LNGJ) - Shell Plc, Europe’s largest energy company, has issued a second-quarter 2023 earnings forecast update. The Integrated Gas unit, one of six Shell divisions and including LNG, is set to maintain steady production levels. However, trading and optimisation is expected to be significantly lower compared with a strong first quarter of 2023 “due to seasonality” and fewer optimisation opportunities.

   Shell added that overall Upstream oil and gas output is expected to fall to between 1.650 million barrels of oil equivalent per day and 1.750M boe per day, down from 1.877M boe per day in the first quarter because of “scheduled maintenance, including assets in the Gulf of Mexico, Norway, Malaysia and Brazil”. The company’s refinery utilisation has declined in the second quarter from 91 percent to between 85 percent and 89 percent. Shell publishes its next earnings on July 27.

UK major Shell plc reported an increase in net profits for the first three months of the year as liquefied natural gas sales volumes rose by 6 percent on the previous quarter, though were slightly less than the same quarter of 2022.

Shell Plc, Europe’s largest energy company, has issued a first-quarter 2023 earnings forecast update with higher natural gas production and “higher uptime” at the Queensland Curtis LNG and Prelude FLNG plants in Australia.

The UK’s North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA) has concluded its offshore bidding round for oil and gas exploration and production licences as the nation reaches a crisis point in securing future energy needs amid rising deliveries of imported LNG as well as pipeline gas volumes from Norway.

Oct 6 (LNGJ) - UK major Shell issued a third-quarter earnings forecast update saying cash flow from operations was impacted at the end of August 2022 by working capital outflows of around $2.5 billion. “Prevailing volatility could lead to additional outflows in CFFO in September from the combined effect of price, changes in inventory volumes (including gas storage), margining effects on derivatives and movements in accounts payable and receivables balances,” said the company.

   In Integrated Gas, one of four Shell divisions and including LNG, production was expected to be between 890,000 and 940,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day. In adjusted gas earnings, pre-tax depreciation is expected to be between $1.3Bln and $1.7Bln and taxation to be between $1.3Bln and $1.6Bln. “Trading and optimisation results for Integrated Gas are expected to be significantly lower compared to the second quarter 2022 as a result of seasonality and substantial differences between paper and physical realisation in a volatile and dislocated market,” said Shell.

TechnipFMC, the US oil and gas services company based in Houston, was awarded an engineering, procurement, construction and installation contract by UK major Shell plc for the Jackdaw gas development in the UK North Sea to help offset rising LNG imports.

The company said the contract, whose value was not disclosed, covered pipelay for a 30 kilometres tieback from the new Jackdaw platform to Shell’s Shearwater platform, as well as an associated riser, spool-pieces, subsea structures and umbilicals.

The tieback will use pipe-in-pipe technology, which is designed for high-pressure, high-temperature usage.

“We’re excited to embark on this significant project together in the UK North Sea,” said Jonathan Landes, President, of Subsea at TechnipFMC.

“Our strong technical record and our ability to design, engineer, construct and install were key to our success in winning this award,” stated Landes.

Shell in the UK took the final investment decision in July 2022 to develop the Jackdaw gas field following regulatory approvals granted earlier in the year as European countries tried to underpin their domestic supplies hit by the Russian war in Ukraine that led to sanctions.

Development plan

The Jackdaw field is located about 250 kilometres (155 miles) east of Aberdeen, Scotland, and is adjacent to the UK-Norway median line.

The field is 100 percent owned and operated by an affiliate of Shell UK which became part of the Shell group of companies in 2016 after BG Group was taken over.

The Jackdaw development consists of a new Wellhead Platform (WHP), four production wells and the 30km pipeline from the Jackdaw WHP to the Shearwater gas hub.
Peak production from the field is estimated at 40,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day.

Shell said that the UK North Sea remained one of Shell’s core Upstream positions, attracting capital to high margin hydrocarbon projects that can be resilient to commodity price cycles.

The gas from the Jackdaw field will come ashore at the St Fergus gas terminal in Scotland.

The project is expected to come on stream by 2025 and at peak production rates could represent over 6 percent of projected UK North Sea gas production in the middle of this decade.

Shell has said that the Jackdaw gas field was part the company’s broader intent to invest up to £25 billion ($30Bln) in the UK energy system in the next decade.

The company added at the time that the St Fergus terminal that will handle the Jackdaw gas will also be part of the development of the Acorn Carbon Capture and Storage project, which will aim to sequester carbon dioxide from industrial clusters in Scotland, the UK and northern Europe.

Shell’s earnings skyrocketed in the second quarter as more projects in Qatar, Australia and UK are set to boost liquefied natural gas and pipeline gas volumes while the company sold more than 15 million tonnes of LNG during the quarter at high prices.

Shell, one of the world’s leading LNG traders with about 64 million tonnes per annum of sales, is increasing its UK offshore activities for its Integrated Gas division by re-submitting an amended environmental statement to the UK Oil and Gas Authority (OGA) for the Jackdaw natural gas and condensate field in the North Sea.