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is reeling from the impact of the coronavirus This approach illustrates the growing flexi-
pandemic. But Ukraine’s lenders are concerned bility in the LNG market and Commonwealth,
that the government is backtracking on reform. with support from Gunvor Group, hopes that
it will win over customers more easily than its
If you’d like to read more about the key events shaping competitors thanks to the variety of options it
the former Soviet Union’s oil and gas sector then please has on offer.
click here for NewsBase’s FSU Monitor .
If you’d like to read more about the key events shaping
GLNG: Transit bottlenecks, project pro- the global LNG sector then please click here for
gress NewsBase’s GLNG Monitor .
Congestion delaying LNG shipments from the
US to Asia via the Panama Canal is expected to Latin America: Mixed results in
last for the duration of the winter months, when Guyana-Suriname basin
demand peaks, according to traders cited by Offshore South America, the Guyana-Suriname
Reuters. This comes despite the canal’s regulator basin continues to draw strong interest – and
saying it had made changes designed to speed up mixed results.
transit through the waterway. In Guyana, the US super-major ExxonMobil
The bottleneck is contributing to record- has reportedly experienced a disappointment at
high Asian spot prices, alongside freezing win- the Stabroek block.
ter weather and some supply outages. Reuters A spokeswoman for the company’s Guya-
reported that LNG carriers had to wait for up nese subsidiary told OilNOW earlier this week
to two weeks to transit the canal in December. that the Hassa-1 well had not encountered any
However, the canal’s regulatory authority told hydrocarbons in the primary target intervals.
the news service that the wait had now halved to She also stated that there had been hydrocarbon
one week. Analysts and traders expect the con- shows in other intervals but did not provide fur-
gestion to last until March. ther details.
Meanwhile, certain LNG developers are “This serves as a reminder that geologic risk
showing signs of confidence in longer-term is inherent to frontier oil and gas exploration
demand for the super-chilled fuel. Last week, activities,” the spokeswoman remarked. “None-
Tellurian’s co-founder and executive chairman, theless, ExxonMobil remains committed to
Charif Souki, said his company was targeting evaluating the potential in our offshore Guyana
this summer to begin construction of the Drift- blocks using our world-class technology and
wood LNG terminal in Louisiana. technical capabilities.”
“There is a strong need for additional lique- The US giant and its partners have already
faction capacity and we’re probably the project discovered crude oil in more than a dozen sec-
that is the closest to starting construction,” he tions of Stabroek. They have estimated the recov-
said. A final investment decision (FID) has not erable reserves of the block at around 9bn boe.
yet been reached on Driftwood, but Souki said Meanwhile, France’s Total has had better luck
the level of customer interest in offtake from the in Suriname’s offshore zone.
project had increased “pretty dramatically” over The French company and its US-based
the past month. partner Apache revealed last week that they
Separately, a tender was launched this week had struck oil at Block 58. In a statement, Total
for offtake from the planned 8.4mn tonne per reported that the Keskesi-1 well had encoun-
year (tpy) Commonwealth LNG project, also in tered “63 metres net pay of hydrocarbons, com-
Louisiana. The company noted that this is “the prised of 58 metres net black oil, volatile oil, and
first ever tender process in which prospective gas pay in good quality Campano-Maastrichtian
LNG customers can secure future term supply at reservoirs, along with 5 metres of net volatile oil
volumes, pricing and durations of their choosing pay in Santonian reservoirs.”
through competitive bidding”. Keskesi-1 is the fourth discovery made at

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