Page 15 - Euroil Week 03 2020

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NEWS IN BRIEF
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Turkey’s Global Yatirim
Holding plans IPO for gas
unit
Turkish conglomerate Global Yatirim Holding has applied to the country’a Capital Markets Board to float shares in Naturelgaz.
It announced the public offering plans in a filing with Borsa Istanbul without providing further details.
Global Yatirim owns 95.5% of Naturelgaz.
Naturelgaz is Turkey and Europe’s leading CNG (compressed natural gas) distributor in terms of station infrastructure and bulk sales volume, according to information on Global’s website.
The company sells and distributes CNG to industrial and commercial customers – such as factories, power generators, hotels and asphalt plants – in addition to urban households not connected to a natural gas pipeline due to economic or geographic constraints.
In 2018, Naturelgaz distributed a total of 138 mn Sm3 of CNG, capturing a 16.9% share of the total non-piped natural gas market in Turkey.
Naturelgaz CNG infrastructure consists of 12 CNG plants and stations, 4 co- operation plants, 50,200 CNG cylinders and 47 industrial scale compressors.
bne IntelliNews, January 21 2020
BP CFO to step down, successor chosen
BP CFO Brian Gilvary will retire on June 30 2020 after serving 34 years at the company, BP said on January 21. He will also step down from BP’s board.
His replacement Murray Auchincloss, currently BP’s upstream CFO since 2015.
BP is also losing its CEO Bob Dudley to retirement in February. His successor will be Bernard Looney, who served as upstream CEO.
January 21 2020
Chrysaor files decomm plan for Caister platform
North Sea operator Chrysaor has submitted a plan for decommissioning of the Caister CM offshore platform in the UK North Sea to the authorities.
The Caister Bunter field and Caister Carboniferous field are situated in the southern North Sea within block 44/23a, covered by licence P452.
The Caister CM platform and associated sections of pipeline risers attached to the installation will be removed to shore for re-use or recycling.
The 44/23-1 discovery well was drilled in 1967 and the Caister CM platform was installed in 1993. The platform is a small installation with total combined topsides and jacket weights of 2,696 tonnes in 41 meters of water.
The installation is tied back to the Murdoch Complex via a 16 mmdiameter gas pipeline and a 3.5 mm diameter methanol pipeline were laid to the Murdoch complex.
The decommissioning program will include the removal of the platform and truncated riser sections attached to the Caister platform.
The remaining pipeline lengths spanning from the base of the Caister CM jacket to Murdoch MD will be included in a subsequent decommissioning program. The field covered by these decommissioning programs produced 296bn cubic feet.
Chrysaor took over operatorship of the Caister field in 2000 during which time the platform ceased production, the wells were plugged and abandoned and the platform was put into cold suspension.
In 2019, the operatorship and associated remaining decommissioning operations were taken over by Chrysaor.
January 22 2020
Lithuania to receive first
crude oil shipment for
Belarus this week
The first shipment of crude oil for Belarus is expected at the Lithuanian port of Klaipeda this week, local media reported on January 21.
Belarus is looking for alternative oil supplies to reduce its dependence on Russia amidst a spat with Moscow over price of Russian oil in 2020. The backstory of the dispute is Russia’s geopolitical influence on Belarus, whose leader Alyaksandr Lukashenko tries to maintain a balance between the EU and Moscow.
Russia stopped oil supplies to Belarus on January 1 after Lukashenko said Russia’s offer for 2020 was too expensive. Supplies were restored on January 4 but not in full.
In effect, Belarus has faced shortages of Russian oil for its two refineries. Minsk later secured a temporarily solution on shipment from oligarch Mikhail Gutseriev’s companies.
Lukashenko has now pledged to reduce the intake of Russian oil to just 30%-40% of
domestic demand. The rest, he said, could come via ports in the Baltic states as well as Ukraine.
The shipment to Klaipeda arrived from Norway, The Baltic Times reported. From the port, it will continue to Belarus via rail.
It is unclear whether there are more deliveries from Norway to come, although the Belarussian oil company BNK said earlier this week it was continuing negotiations with the Norwegians, Reuters reported.
bne IntelliNews, January 22 2020
Romania reportedly
considers switching to in-
kind oil and gas royalties
Romania’s government is considering amending the Oil and Gas Law so as to accept in-kind royalties from oil and gas companies for concession contracts, at least for offshore perimeters, unofficial sources told Profit.ro.
According to the current oil law, the royalty is paid in money, and calculated as a percentage of the value of the gross output extracted based on the benchmark prices as set by the relevant authority (mineral resources agency ANRM).
The rumours come in the context of the new government having promised foreign investors to streamline the legislation in the sector so
as to unblock offshore investments, after two major obstacles were raised last year by the previous government: the Offshore Law and the emergency decree (OUG) 114/2018. Separately, ExxonMobil is planning to sell its 50% stake in the key Neptun deep natural gas perimeter that it operates with OMV.
The state could use the natural gas thus obtained for supplying vulnerable consumers or state-owned heating and electricity plants (CETs), Profit.ro assumes. By accepting in-kind royalties the state would hold control over at least part of the gas production and direct it to the local market.
However, it’s not yet clear whether switching to in-kind royalties is a serious intention, a new negotiation strategy with the companies in the sector or just a working scenario.
Romania’s oil and gas royalties regime has changed repeatedly over the past decades.
It is also unclear whether the government is considering returning to the production sharing system, in place until 1995, or to an intermediary system of in-kind royalties, a system that
applied after the adoption of the former oil law (134/1995) until the entry into force of the current oil law (238/2004).
bne IntelliNews, January 22 2020
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