Page 16 - LatAmOil Week 35

LatAmOil ARGENTINA LatAmOil

The facility is capable of importing and regasi- understanding (MoU) with Norway-based
fying the equivalent of 20mn cubic metres per Norsk Hydro to develop an LNG terminal in
day of LNG. Brazil’s northern region. The parties are looking
The winner of the lease contract will also to install an FSRU near Norsk Hydro’s Alunorte
control a 45-km pipeline that runs from termi- alumina-processing plant, which is near Vila do
nal facilities in the port of Bahia to exit points in Conde Port in Barcarena, Pará State.
São Francisco do Conde and São Sebastião do The proposed terminal is slated to start oper-
Passé, but it will not gain access to the Excelerate ations in the first half of 2022, and the compa-
Experience, a floating storage and regasification nies hope to take a final investment decision
unit (FSRU) that Petrobras has installed. (FID) within the next six months. The fate of the
Petrobras is auctioning off a lease to the facil- project will depend on a final supply agreement
ity within the framework of its plan to divest with Hydro.
its gas transport and distribution assets and to Meanwhile, Golar Power also said last month
allow third parties to access gas infrastructure. It that it aimed to invest $2mn to develop a net-
drew up the outlines of this plan last year, under work of pipelines in Brazil’s northern Pernam-
an agreement with the Brazilian government’s buco State, which borders Bahia to the south. ™
anti-trust agency, known as Cade.
Bahia LNG is one of three LNG regasification
terminals that Petrobras has built along the coast
of Brazil.
Two of these facilities – Bahia and Pecem –
are currently operating below design capacity,
and the third terminal – the Guanabara termi-
nal, which is in Rio de Janeiro – has been out of
service since 2018.
Golar Power is eyeing several other LNG-re-
lated projects in Brazil. Last month, the com-
pany said it had signed a memorandum of Bahia LNG regasification terminal (Photo: Bahia Pilots)

ARGENTINA
Official: Vaca Muerta production

could take 18 months to recover

It could take up to a year and a half for activity “If we want to have a sector that can create an
at Argentina’s Vaca Muerta shale formation to export platform, we need to have an adequate
return to the levels prevailing prior to the coro- tax system when compared with other countries
navirus (COVID-19) outbreak, an Argentinian we are competing with for hydrocarbons pro-
official has warned. duction,” he said.
Alejandro Monteiro, the energy minister “That’s why we’re asking for export duties to
of Neuquen Province, where most of the vast be reduced,” he commented.
formation is located, noted that production According to local press reports, Monteiro
levels had declined because of the coronavi- and his counterpart in Chubut, a neighbouring
rus pandemic. Global energy demand is still oil-rich province, have already made similar
weak enough that development activity may suggestions. The two officials recently asked
not recover for another 12-18 months, he said Argentina’s federal government to remove or
during an industry webinar last week. “[It] will reduce oil export duties to spur production
take a while for fuel demand to fully recover,” development.
he declared. Foreign majors Total, ExxonMobil, Chevron
Monteiro also noted that logistical con- and a subsidiary of BP are among the interna-
straints were affecting the pace of recovery. He tional companies with a stake in Vaca Muerta,
explained that many wells had been drilled but which is one of the largest shale formations in
not connected and said that storage constraints the world. But in April, Argentina’s national
would keep drilling activity from returning to oil company (NOC) YPF cut oil production at
pre-pandemic levels even after demand had Loma Campana, its key oil play in the basin,
fully recovered. because demand had fallen off during the
The best way to encourage the process, he lockdown imposed to try to curb the spread of
added, would be for the government to offer coronavirus. Several other domestic and foreign
financial incentives to upstream operators. firms have also cut production. ™

P16 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 35 03•September•2020