Page 9 - LatAmOil Week 25

LatAmOil
NEWS IN BRIEF
LatAmOil
UPSTREAM
Dominican Republic
to launch first licensing
round in July
e Dominican Republic will o er licenses for more than a dozen sites to investors next month. e country’s Ministry of Energy and Mines revealed last week that it intended to launch the country’s rst licensing round on July 10, at an event held in partnership with Wood Macken- zie. Bidding will close in December, the ministry said, adding that the licensing round would cover
10 onshore blocks and four o shore blocks.
All of the o shore blocks are located in the San Pedro Basin, it noted, while the onshore blocks are split between three basins (six in the Cibao Basin, three in the Enriquillo Basin and
one in the Azua Basin).
Colombia may add 38 blocks to permanent offer list
Colombia’s oil and gas regulatory agency ANH revealed last week that it intended to add up to 38 sites to its list of exploration blocks on per- manent o er.
It did not name the blocks but said it intended to study the sites in question further. Addition- ally, it said it would publicly identify the sites by the start of August, a er announcing the results of the rst round of bidding.
ANH launched its permanent o er bidding process earlier this year in the hope of securing funding for exploration and development pro- jects that would boost the country’s hydrocarbon reserves. All of the entries on the list are sites that ANH has never o ered to investors before.
DOWNSTREAM
US refiners using Mexican, Colombian heavy crude as substitute for Venezuelan supplies
US re neries have partially compensated for the halt in Venezuelan heavy crude imports by pur- chasing more oil from Mexico and Colombia.
According to Refintiv Eikon data cited by Reuters, the volume of Venezuelan feedstock owing into the US dropped from 561,000 bar- rels per day in January to zero in May as a con- sequence of the US government’s decision to impose sanctions on Caracas.
By contrast, deliveries of heavy Colombian crude went up from 118,000 bpd in January to 228,000 bpd in May.
Meanwhile, US re ners on the Gulf Coast imported 459,000 bpd of Maya heavy crude from Mexico in May, up by 12% on the January gure of nearly 410,000 bpd.
ASEA publishes Pemex’s
assessment of Dos Bocas
refinery project
e Mexican oil industry’s environmental regu- latory agency, known by its local acronym ASEA, has published the national oil company Pemex’s assessment of the US$8 billion Dos Bocas re n- ery project.
In the documents, the company describes the scheme as viable, despite certain risks. It acknowledges that the undertaking is likely to have a moderate impact on the environment but
asserts that these negative consequences can be “controlled, mitigated, or compensated.”
Pemex also declared that the Dos Bocas facil- ity would “totally comply” with all current envi- ronmental regulations. Additionally, it said that the project was economically viable.
ASEA now has 60 days to evaluate and com- ment on Pemex’s report.
According to Reuters, the government body has not divulged full details of Pemex’s assess- ment. e pages of the published documents dealing with damage to beaches near the re n- ery and estimates of the refinery’s emissions have been partially blacked out, the news agency reported.
TRANSPORT
Panama Canal reports
bunkering activity down
in 4M-2019
According to the Panama Maritime Authority, the number of ships bunkered at the Panama Canal in the rst four months of 2019 reached 1,961, down by 14% on the previous year’s gure of 2,286.
At the same time, the volume of marine bun- ker fuel sold at the canal dropped by 15% year on year during the same period.Between Janu- ary and April, bunker sales came to nearly 1.48 million tonnes, down from 1.74 million tonnes in the same interval of 2018. Sales on the Paci c coast accounted for most of the total, at 1.11 mil- lion tonnes, while Atlantic sales volumes reached 369,554 tonnes.
Meanwhile, marine diesel oil sales also fell by 5.6% in the January-April period, sinking from 158,510 tonnes in 2018 to 149,697 tonnes in 2019.
Week 25 26•June•2019
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