Page 7 - AsianOil Week 47 2022

AsianOil EAST ASIA AsianOil

CNOOC seeks buyers for US oil assets

INVESTMENT CNOOC has alerted buyers it is interested in the assets if it did not receive suitable offers or if
divesting its US oilfields, sources told Reuters political circumstances changed quickly.
CNOOC is scaling last week, as the Chinese national oil company In the US, CNOOC has stakes in projects in
back in the West amid (NOC) looks to pull back from the West amid the onshore Eagle Ford and Rockies shale basins,
sanctions fears and a sanctions fears and focus more on domestic as well as interests in two large offshore depos-
push to invest more investment. its, Appomattox and Stampede, in the Gulf of
domestically. Reports first emerged that CNOOC was Mexico. In the Eagle Ford basin of south Texas,
eyeing an exit from the UK, Canada and the CNOOC has an interest in oil and gas operations
US in April, because of concerns that the West controlled by US player Chesapeake Energy,
could slap sanctions on those assets in response Chesapeake has put its own stakes in the fields
to Beijing’s refusal to condemn Russia’s war in up for sale, but Reuters reported that this was not
Ukraine. At the same time, the Chinese govern- anticipated to affect CNOOC’s plans.
ment is ramping up efforts to improve the coun- CNOOC is also in talks with UK energy
try’s energy security, issuing quotas to CNOOC group Harbour Energy on the sale of its Gulf of
and others to step up production, including by Mexico operations.
spending on new, more expensive and hard-to- Meanwhile, the Norwegian press reported
recover resources to offset decline at more con- in October that CNOOC was mulling the sale
ventional reservoirs. of UK oil assets to Norway’s Equinor for an
According to Reuters, CNOOC has hired expected NOK20-30bn ($1.9-2.9bn), although
JPMorgan to advise it on a potential withdrawal neither company has confirmed this. CNOOC
from the US shale gas sector, with the sale report- holds interests in a number of UK North Sea
edly anticipated to raise about $2bn. There is no fields, including Buzzard, one of the largest in
guarantee of a deal, the news agency said, not- the region, as well as Golden Eagle, Scott and
ing that CNOOC could decide to keep hold of Telford. ™

SOUTH ASIA

India's imports of Russian goods swell

in 2022, oil trade is key

PIPELINE & INDIA'S imports of goods from Russia have it does not use Western financing, insurance or
TRANSPORT grown sharply this year, and in September their sea transportation.
value was almost five times higher than a year India and Russia discussed the future of their
ago, the Bank of Finland Institute for Emerging trade relations during Foreign Minister Jais-
Economies (BOFIT) said in its weekly update. hankar's visit to Moscow in early November.
India's exports to Russia have at the same Jaishankar and Russian Foreign Minister Lav-
time become significantly weaker, adding to a rov stated that they are satisfied with the growth
large trade deficit for India. of mutual trade and that the two countries will
Crude oil in particular has been behind the continue to develop economic relations in the
strong growth in imports. Russian oil sold at a long term. However, even critical voices were
discount price has replaced India's oil imports, heard when Jaishankar complained about the
especially from Middle Eastern countries. war in Ukraine and the growing deficit in bilat-
India's oil imports from Russia were expected eral trade. ™
to decline in early autumn, when rising shipping
costs began to weaken the attractiveness of Rus-
sian oil for India. The price ceiling system of the
G7 countries, which is scheduled to enter into
force at the beginning of December, may make it
difficult to transport Russian oil to India.
India has announced that it will not par-
ticipate in the price cap system and plans to
continue importing Russian oil. US Treasury
Secretary Janet Yellen commented in Novem-
ber that India is free to continue buying oil from
Russia outside the price ceiling system, as long as

Week 47 28•November•2022 www. NEWSBASE .com P7