Norway’s Equinor posts fall in profits as first-quarter pipeline price for Europe drops to under $9.50 per MMBtu
Equinor, the Norwegian LNG exporter and main supplier of pipeline natural gas to Europe, reported a 46 percent drop in net income as oil and gas prices declined, with pipeline gas values falling to under $9.50 per million British thermal units.
Australia LNG operator Woodside praises cooperation as FPSO heads for Sangomar project offshore Senegal
Woodside Energy, the operator of the Northwest Shelf and Pluto LNG plants in Western Australia, has received a boost for one of its main overseas ventures, the Sangomar project offshore Senegal in West Africa, with the sail-away from Singapore of the “Léopold Sédar Senghor” floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) facility.
Appomattox venture in US Gulf of Mexico gives success to Shell and Chinese major CNOOC
Royal Dutch Shell has started production at its huge Appomattox platform in the deepwater zone of the US Gulf of Mexico a few months ahead of schedule with a Chinese major as its partner in one of the few Gulf ventures to start in the past few years in the face of investment competition from onshore for LNG and pipeline gas exports.
Appomattox is the only platform start-up in the Gulf in 2019 and is expected to produce 175,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day from its position about 80 miles southeast of the Louisiana coastline.
The project is the first large-scale production from Gulf's Norphlet formation.
Appomattox is a joint venture between Shell and China National Offshore Oil Corp. Inc., a subsidiary of Beijing-based CNOOC. Shell owns 79 percent and CNOOC has a 21 percent stake.
The Appomattox venture is named after the courthouse building in the state of Virginia where Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered in 1865 to end the American Civil War.
Shell had made the decision to authorize and build the project back in 2015 during the most recent energy slump and Appomattox had not originally been expected to start production until the fourth quarter of 2019.
“That Appomattox was safely brought online ahead of schedule and far under budget is a testament to our ongoing commitment to drive down costs through efficiency improvements during execution,” said Andy Brown, Shell's Upstream director.
“Appomattox creates a core long-term hub for Shell in the Norphlet through which we can tie back several already discovered fields as well as future discoveries,” Brown explained.
Shell announced in 2018 the Dover discovery near the Appomattox platform and means it can be developed through connections, called tie-backs, to the Appomattox platform.
The Mattox Pipeline is also part of the project and is 90 miles (145km) in length with 300,000 barrels per day capacity that will move the produced crude oil from Appomattox westward to the Proteus pipeline system and then onshore.
The Mattox pipeline is jointly owned by Shell GoM Pipeline Company and CNOOC Petroleum Sales USA Inc.
US Gulf of Mexico federal waters have 16 gas projects in start-up mode to reverse decline
After a 20-year decline in natural gas production in US federal waters of the Gulf of Mexico, a total of 16 production fields are currently in start-up mode, according to a report from the US Department of Interior.
