After a week of beneficial properties, crude oil began the week on a weaker observe forward of America’s Independence Day. Crude costs have been gaining just lately as signs that the relentless rise in US manufacturing could be slowing down, with Brent is buying and selling at almost US$50/b and WTI on the US$forty seven/b level.

Upstream & Midstream

• Investment in the North Sea seems to be paying off. First oil from EnQuest’s Kraken development has begun to circulation, the first in a phased schedule that may deliver collectively 13 wells comprising seven producers and six injectors. Beneath finances and on schedule, the achievement comes as EnQuest director Dr Philip Nolan stepped down to assume his new function as Chairman of Related British Ports. Else within the North Sea, Repsol announced that first gas has been delivered from its Cayley discipline in the main Montrose Area redevelopment venture. With an expected peak of 40,000 boe/d, this is the sixth main North Sea improvement to deliver first manufacturing in 2017, extending the life of the sphere to past 2030.
• Nigeria’s state oil company NNPC has signed a tripartite deal with home firm First Exploration and Petroleum Growth Firm and US oil service agency Schlumberger to develop new oil fields within the southern Niger Delta. The deal targets the Anyala and Madu fields, falling beneath the Oil Mining Licence 83 and eighty five, with Schlumberger offering the monetary funding crucial to start work.
• After 23 consecutive weeks of additions, the US oil rig complicated finally snapped features, cutting two rigs from service to convey the total American energetic oil rig rely to 756. A single gas rig entered service, leaving the web loss in total rig count to one, all the way down to 941. Don’t anticipate this pattern to proceed, but the pace of additions ought to slow down.

Natural Gas and LNG

• ConocoPhillips is promoting its property within the Texan Barnett shale discipline to Miller Thomson & Companions for US$305 million, one other in a collection of natural gas-heavy belongings to be bought by the US main. After promoting belongings in the San Juan basin to Hilcorp for US$three billion and its Canadian natural gas belongings to Cenovus for US$17.7 billion (along with oil sands acreage), ConocoPhillips is trying to cut back its publicity to this sector of the enterprise. This comes as BHP Billiton admitted that its US$20 billion investment through the height of the US fracking growth was ‘a mistake./li>
• Because the European Fee attempts to deal directly with Russia over the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline challenge, six European gas transmission operators have sounded alarm. Austria’s Gas Join, Czech Republic NET4Gas and Germany’s Fluxys, ONTRAS, GAscade and Gasunie – representing the foremost demand centres- are alarmed by the move, aimed toward representing the geopolitical considerations of the nations the pipeline flows by way of, arguing that it creates authorized uncertainty for future projects.
• Whereas Rosneft and ExxonMobil’s LNG mission in Sakhalin-1 LNG mission continues, the Russian giant can be considering constructing its own LNG plant, unbiased of different partners involved in the huge Sakhalin improvement. Closer in proximity to the main LNG markets of East Asia, Sakhalin gas will probably be joining a vastly competitive Pacific rim LNG race.

Final week in Asian oil

Downstream

• Abu Dhabi’s plans to restart its gasoline-centered RFCC unit at its Ruwais refinery has been delayed a year. Now anticipated solely in early 2019, South Korea’s GS Engineering and Development has been appointed to work on the secondary unit, which was hit by fireplace earlier this 12 months. Repairs at the 800 kb/d Ruwais site had been planned to be completed by 1Q2018, but the delay signifies that Abu Dhabi will stay wanting gasoline and dependent on imports of the gas, while producing excess amounts of gas oil.
• Construction of a crude pipeline in China’s japanese Shandong province has been completed, providing a boost to the country’s independent teapot refineries. Linking crude amenities operated by Mercuria in Qingdao port to the town of Weifang, where several teapots are located, the 608 kb/d pipeline will ease crude distribution bottlenecks for the increasingly important community of refiners. The pipeline will also be expanded into a number of other branches connecting the central and southern elements of the province, finally growing capability to 1.2 mmb/d.

Natural Gas & LNG

• South Korea’s Kogas has inked three separate agreements in take part in LNG projects throughout three states within the USA. In Alaska, Kogas will cooperate on the development of Alaska Gasline’s Alaska LNG project aimed at moving North Slope gas to LNG-hungry markets in Asia. In Port Arthur, Texas, Kogas is teaming up with Sempra LNG and Australia’s Woodside Power on a new LNG terminal on the Houston Ship Channel, which is deliberate to house two LNG trains. In Lousiana, after receiving its first LNG cargo from Cheniere’s Sabine Move, Kogas will be conducting feasibility studies at Power Transfer’s Lake Charles LNG undertaking. It marks the rising participation of Asian LNG buyers in American LNG tasks.
• As China’s appetite for LNG grows – Chinese demand could triple by 2030 – China is pouring resources into securing future provide. Whereas provide from US, Canada, Australia and Qatar will stay plentiful, China is aiming to lock in its own captive provide by planning to speculate virtually US$7 billion into FLNG projects in Africa. There are a number of reasons for this – funding and exploration has unlocked great volumes of natural gas off both coasts of Africa; with little domestic demand, much of this should be exported – and by investing money, China secures provides. FLNG is a nascent technology as properly, and by investing en masse, it hopes it lower the cost of the advanced floating plants in time for the energy markets to recuperate when the FLNGs enter production within the early 2020s.
• Speaking of FLNG, the world’s first FLNG facility- Shell’s Prelude – has set sail from its shipyard in South Korea, heading on a month-long journey to the Browse basin in northwest Australia, where it’ll pioneer a new, extra versatile future for LNG manufacturing. Roughly twice the dimensions of the most important aircraft carrier, Prelude is a joint enterprise between Shell, Overseas Personal Funding Corporation, Kogas and Taiwan’s CPC. Capable of producing, liquefying, storing and transferring LNG at sea, Prelude is flexible enough to journey round, with capability for 5.3 mtpa of liquids and 3.6 mtpa of LNG. Production is expected to begin in early 2018.

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