LNG

Sept 22 (LNGJ) - Australia’s Offshore Alliance union agreed to the pay and conditions recommendation of the nation’s labor disputes arbitration body, the Fair Work Commissioner, and called off the strike by around 500 members at the Gorgon and Wheatstone LNG export plants in Western Australia that had failed to disrupt cargo flows.

   “The Offshore Alliance will now work with Chevron to finalize the drafting of the agreements and members will soon cease current industrial action,” the unions said in a statement. The terms of the new wages and conditions agreements were not disclosed. “Chevron Australia has consistently engaged in meaningful negotiations in an effort to finalize Enterprise Agreements with market competitive remuneration and conditions,” said Chevron in its brief statement. The Offshore Alliance for the country's oil and gas industry comprises the Australian Workers’ Union and the Maritime Union of Australia.

Chevron Corp., the leading LNG production company with operated plants from Australia to Angola, reported 5 percent higher first-quarter earnings, rising to $6.57 billion and noted that planned LNG maintenance was scheduled in the second quarter.

Wintershall Dea, the company viewed as Germany’s national oil and gas player and which is a shareholder in the Norwegian-run Hammerfest LNG export project, has submitted a plan for development of the Dvalin North gas field in the Norwegian Sea to help boost pipelines gas supplies for Europe.

Alturki Ventures, the venture capital arm of Saudi Arabia's Alturki Holding, has provided a significant capital investment in Acoustic Data, a UK-based firm whose technology is cutting-edge for the increasing pipeline of upstream oil, gas and storage projects to meet a rebound in demand.

“The investment will be used to scale global deployments of its retrofittable and cutting-edge acoustic telemetry solutions that deliver real-time data from downhole to desktop, enabling remote optimisation of oil and gas wells and subsurface energy storage,” said a statement.

“We are extremely excited about the growth potential that our investment provides Acoustic Data,” said Rami Alturki, President and Chief Executive of Alturki Holding.

“It’s a technology business with patented downhole solutions that will provide true in-Kingdom value and maximisation of oil and gas production for our customers,” stated Alturki.

Acoustic Data was founded in 2012 and is headquartered in Woking in southern England.

The statement noted that Acoustic Data’s SonicGauge™ is used throughout the entire lifecycle of a well, from drill stem testing surface readout and production optimisation to barrier integrity monitoring and abandonment programmes.

Intelligent completions

It added that the duplex SonicSync™ Command+Control Platform provides third-party downhole equipment providers with a communication system to remotely activate tools in intelligent completions and drill stem testing operations.

“Our team has deployed the SonicGauge in many global markets and applications from brownfield optimisation in Asia-Pacific to underground gas storage in Continental Europe,” said Jesse Tolley, Chief Commercial Officer of Acoustic Data.

“Alturki's capital, technical know-how, and growth mindset will allow Acoustic Data to capitalise on a substantial opportunity to instrument and digitalise Saudi Arabia’s well stock,” added Tolley.

Corey Campbell, Director of Operations at Sawafi, an Alturki Holding subsidiary, is impressed with the UK firm’s technology offering.

“Acoustic Data’s portfolio allows operators to apply a proven communication protocol across multiple disciplines,” he explained.

“We are excited to explore technology synergies and expect collaboration to bring new optimisation and control mechanisms to subsurface assets worldwide,” stated Campbell.

Alturki Ventures has as its role identifying unique investment opportunities which can help technology development and digital transformation efforts.

The firm has a growing portfolio in the Middle East, Europe and the Americas, comprised of companies that are changing the Upstream oil and gas services sectors and other industries.

Woodside Petroleum, the leading Western Australian LNG operator, has applied to list its shares in the form of American Depositary Shares (ADSs) on the New York Stock Exchange and plans to also list its shares on the London Stock Exchange in connection with the proposed merger with the petroleum business of commodities giant BHP Group.

Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), the oldest LNG producer in the Middle East, has marked the first anniversary since the launch of ICE Futures Abu Dhabi (IFAD) platform and ICE Murban Crude Oil futures in a time when the price of oil has doubled and just fallen back slightly.

UK major BP says that natural declines in existing hydrocarbon production imply continuing investment in new upstream oil and natural gas is required over the next 30 years and the LNG sector is expected to see substantial growth.

Norwegian energy and LNG producer Equinor has signed four new contracts with oil and gas services company Aibel, also based in Norway, on behalf of the licence-holders in three offshore fields in the Norwegian Continental Shelf, with two of them having large natural gas and condensate resources.

Royal Vopak, the Dutch global hydrocarbon storage company and project developer, has taken an earnings hit for pulling back from Germany’s main LNG import terminal project near Hamburg, while preferring to proceed with a Hong Kong LNG terminal venture.

UK major BP has issued the 70th edition of its Statistical Review of World Energy, highlighting global energy trends including LNG, the pipeline natural gas sector, oil and renewables and their recovery path from the Covid-19 pandemic and the oil price crash.

Inter-regional gas trade dropped by 5.3 percent, completely accounted for by a 54 Bcm, or 10.9 percent, fall in pipeline trade.

“LNG supply grew by 4 Bcm, or 0.6 percent, well below the 10-year average rate of 6.8 percent,” said the BP report.

US LNG supply expanded by 14 Bcm, or 29 percent, though this was partially offset by declines in most other regions, notably Europe and Africa.

“European gas imports fell by over 8.5 percent last year. The gas-on-gas competition in Europe takes the form of pipeline imports, predominantly from Russia, competing against LNG imports largely from the US as the marginal source of LNG,” said the 72-page Review from BP.

“As LNG imports have increased in recent years it has raised the question of the extent to which Russia and other pipeline gas exporters will compete against LNG to maintain their market share or instead forgo some of that share to avoid driving prices too low,” the UK major's report explained.

On the pricing front, BP noted that natural gas prices declined to multi-year lows with the US Henry Hub averaging $1.99 per million British thermal units, the lowest since 1995.

Asian LNG prices also tumbled in the form of the Japan Korea Marker, which registered its lowest annual average of $4.39 per MMBtu since it was launched in 2009 by US pricing agency Platts.

BP’s report showed that natural gas consumption fell by 81 Bcm, or 2.3 percent.

“Nevertheless, the share of gas in primary energy continued to rise, reaching a record high of 24.7 percent,” said BP.

Declines in gas demand were led by Russia, down 33 Bcm, and US demand fell 17 bcm.

The largest increases in natural gas demand were logged by China at 22 Bcm and by Iran with 10 Bcm of additional needs.

Oil market

In the oil market, linked to long-term LNG cargo prices and the economics of development projects, the North Sea Brent crude price averaged $41.84 per barrel in 2020, the lowest since 2004.

Refinery utilization also fell by a record 8.0 percentage points to 74.1 percent, the lowest level since 1985.

BP reported that oil consumption fell by a record 9.1 million barrels per day, or 9.3 percent, to its lowest level since 2011.

Oil demand fell most in the US, down 2.3 million b/d, the European Union, down by 1.5 million b/d and India where the market declined by 480,000 b/d.

China was virtually the only country where consumption increased with a jump of 220,000 b/d.

Global oil production shrank by 6.6 million b/d, with the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries accounting for two-thirds of the decline. The largest OPEC declines came from Libya, down 920,000 b/d and Saudi Arabia, down 790,000 b/d.

The biggest non-OPEC falls were in Russia where output declined by 1.0 million b/d and the US, down 600,000 b/d.

Overall global energy demand is estimated to have fallen by 4.5 percent in 2020.

The drop in oil consumption accounted for around three-quarters of the total decline in energy demand.

Natural gas showed greater resilience, helped primarily by continuing strong growth in China.

Despite the market disorders of 2020, renewable energy, led by wind and solar energy, continued to grow, increasing last year by 238 gigawatts.