LNG

Kosmos Energy, a shareholder in the floating liquefied natural gas projects offshore Senegal and Mauritania in West Africa and other regional oil and gas ventures in Ghana and Equatorial Guinea, swung to a fourth-quarter profit from a previous loss and reported good progress on the FLNG development alongside UK major BP and advances in the additional Yakaar-Teranga LNG proposal.

Sanoat Energetika Guruhi (Saneg), an independent oil and gas company in the former Soviet Republic of Uzbekistan with customers in Germany, Poland and the UK has a new Chief Executive in Tulkin Yusupov, who qualified as a specialist in drilling technologies at the University of Texas in Austin as part of a programme for foreign students.

Yusupov, who now has 15 years of experience in the oil and gas industry, said he wouldfocus primarily on production management and optimization as well as improving the efficiency of complicated oil fields. 

As CEO, he replaces Shokir Fayzullayev, who previously led the company since 2017 and has now been appointed Advisor to the CEO.

Uzbekistan, whose largest city is Tashkent, is the second-largest natural gas producer in Central Asia.

Natural gas output

The Uzbek nation produced 53.6 billion cubic metres of natural gas last year and plans to boost production by 2030 to around 66 Bcm, of which about 56.5 Bcm will be consumed by the domestic market.

Saneg's founder, Bakhtiyor Fazylov, explained that Saneg had become one of Uzbekistan's largest oil and gas companies with great potential in production, science and innovation thanks to “our human capital” who have enabled the business to be a “dynamic player” in the market. 

“I express my deepest gratitude to Shokir Fayzullayev, who has been with us since Saneg's beginning, for his years of diligent and responsible work as CEO. I am sure that the foundation that he laid down will further promote the progressive and sustainable development of Saneg under the leadership of Tulkin Yusupov,” stated Fazylov.

Before his appointment as CEO, Yusupov served as Saneg’s Deputy CEO for Innovative Development and Technology. 

Yusupov is aged 43 and graduated from Tashkent State University of Economics with a degree in International Business. 

He then qualified as a specialist in drilling technologies at the Texas institution as part of a program that included rotations in the US, the UK North Sea, the United Arab Emirates and Algeria.

He has also completed the professional management program of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) in Osaka, Japan.

Production rise

Seneg reported an 8 percent increase in production in its most recent earnings as output was boosted while meeting all global oil field standards.

The company reported that the main drivers of growth were the commissioning of 10 new wells as well as geological and technical measures carried out at 159 wells from the areas of Andijan to Ustyurt.

However, Saneg currently concentrates on oil production. Projects were implemented to raise output in the Chegara, Sardob, Sarikum, Sharky and Gharbiy Toshli, Yangi Karatepa and Mingbulak fields.

The company was also able to achieve an increase in average daily production, to 1,578 tons of oil per day, up from the year-ago figure of 1,362 tons, an increase of more than 15 percent.

The company said it continued to diversify its marketing order book.

The earnings showed that more than 103,000 tons of diesel fuel, 96,000 tons of gasoline and 25,000 tons of bitumen were delivered to customers during the first nine months.

To date, contracts for the supply of the company's products have been concluded with 900 customers, 887 on the domestic market and 13 outside the Republic of Uzbekistan.

Exxon Mobil Corp., the leading global oil and gas company and LNG market operator, posted a record $56 billion net profit for 2022 and fourth-quarter earnings of $12.8Bln amid Russian expropriations while it is also being forced to sue the European Union over  $1.3Bln of “unfavorable items” associated with additional taxes on the US shareholder-owned company.

Jan 25 (LNGJ) - Matador Resources of the US has signed a deal to acquire Advance Energy Partners Holdings and natural gas and oil-producing properties and undeveloped acreage in Texas and New Mexico as assets in the LNG-producing region of the US Gulf Coast increase in value.

   Matador, based in Dallas, said the transaction consisted of an initial cash payment of $1.6 billion plus additional cash considerations of $7.5 million for each month during 2023 in which the average oil price as defined in the securities purchase agreement exceeds $85 per barrel. Advance is a portfolio company of EnCap Investments L.P. The acquisition comes after HighPeak Energy, based in Fort Worth, Texas, said a potential sale of the company and its Permian Basin assets was under consideration.

The Texas-based Energy Workforce and Technology Council said it had honoured Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma with the “Champion of American Energy” award for his “relentless and uncompromising commitment” to the US oilfield services industry and the domestic energy sector.

Schlumberger oil field services company Chief Executive Olivier Le Peuch said a super-cycle may be underway for natural gas and oil markets as the firm reported fourth-quarter revenue of $6.22 billion, an increase of 6 percent sequentially and 13 percent year-on-year.

The Houston, Texas-based company, listed on the New York Stock Exchange, said fourth-quarter cash flow from operations was $1.93Bln and full-year revenue was $22.9Bln.

The company reported net income of $587 million, an increase of 90 percent from the $309M reported in the same three months of 2020.

“The macro environment is increasingly supportive of a potential super-cycle with both onshore and offshore market growth well beyond 2022,” Le Peuch told analysts during a conference call on the earnings statement.

He stated that Schlumberger expected oil demand to exceed pre-pandemic levels by the end of 2022, with growth in 2023 and beyond.

“Some characteristics of the cycle have accelerated and some have been accentuated in the recent months,” added the CEO.

Energy intensity

He explained that the first sign is the outlook of economic GDP growth and that concerning the oil intensity and energy intensity that will drive the oil demand beyond the previous peak.

“So the first is the macro demand situation is set to be favorable for the next few years. Secondly, I think the supply demand imbalance and the supply, I would almost call it tardiness that we are facing, is pointing not only to an uplift on to the commodity price, but also is pointing to the return to investment across the broad portfolio of our customers,” said Le Peuch.

The CEO added that North America was still and would remain structurally smaller than in the previous cycle due to the capital discipline but also due to the crunch of supply, including on the services side.

“Secondly, I think the international underinvestment for the last few years, actually, the last down cycle, combined with the dip in the last two years is creating conditions for unnecessary injection of short-cycle capital and then long cycle capital investment to respond to the supply,” stated Le Peuch.

“So we are seeing growth in North America, we are seeing a rebound - a visible rebound in short and long cycle investments, internationally,” he explained.

Market share

“And I will insist on the long cycle because I believe that both oil capacity is being looked upon and by some OPEC member to secure future supply market share, but also the international and majors are investing into their advantaged offshore basins and we are seeing not only infill-drilling, but we are seeing FIDs for offshore that are accelerating going forward,” added Le Peuch.

“So it's a mix of offshore rebound, solid including deepwater, international short cycle and oil capacity in land. And finally, solid growth in North America. So these are unique conditions that are tightening the capacity and that are creating the underlying pricing improvement condition,” declared the CEO.

Le Peuch said Schlumberger was well placed to benefit from the coming surge.

“Strengthening activity, accelerating digital sales, and outstanding free cash flow performance combined to deliver another quarter of remarkable financial results to close the year with great momentum,” he added.

“These financial results conclude an exceptional year of financial performance for Schlumberger, at a pivotal time for the company and in our industry at large,” he said.

“We restored our North America pre-tax operating margin to double-digits and expanded our international margin, both exceeding pre-pandemic 2019 levels,” said Le Peuch.

Texas State Governor Greg Abbott has told the United Nations to get lost after it singled out the state for over-using oil and natural gas, even as Texas has the largest wind-power system in America as well as being a centre of increasing clean liquefied natural gas exports to Asia.

Ovintiv Inc., the shale oil and gas company with assets in key basins in North America, has signed an agreement to sell its Eagle Ford resources in south Texas to Validus Energy for $880 million to reduce debts as exploration and production companies in the LNG-exporting region of the US Gulf Coast have been badly hit by the combined oil price and Covid-19 slump since early 2020.

TC Energy, the natural gas pipeline company based in the Canadian province of Alberta and a supplier of feed gas to North American LNG projects, is the subject of attention in the US as Texas and 17 other states are suing the administration of President Joe Biden over his cancellation of a permit for TC Energy’s Keystone XL pipeline.

Natural gas and LNG for export fare better that oil and coal in the latest US Annual Energy Outlook as the US Government stated that the Covid-19-related decline in demand for delivered energy was 70 percent more than in the financial crisis of 2008, with some US demand sectors taking up to 10 years to recover to 2019 levels.