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only just resumed exports, having been shut In related news, industry experts believe
down by Hurricane Laura in late August only to that Mexico’s government may have launched
go offline again as Hurricane Delta made land- its annual oil hedging deal. Details are scarce,
fall on the Louisiana coast. But operator Sempra though, as Mexican officials are working hard
Energy reported on October 12 that it had sus- to keep information about the hedge secret
tained no damage from the latest storm, adding this year.
that it had been determined that it was safe to Further south, Ecuador’s government is hop-
restart production at the plant. ing to sign another oil-backed loan deal with
These outages may actually be viewed as China in November. According to Rene Ortiz,
welcome by the LNG industry more broadly, the Minister of Energy and Non-Renewable
as the sector continues to grapple with over- Natural Resources, Quito intends to use the pro-
supply that buyers are struggling to absorb. ceeds of the $1.4bn credit to restructure some of
Despite this, though, various companies are its existing debts.
continuing to move towards the approval of In Guyana, ExxonMobil (US) has extended
new liquefaction capacity. its contract with Noble Corp. (UK) for the use of
Notably, last week US-based NextDecade a drillship known as the Noble Tom Madden at
announced that it would target carbon neutral- the Stabroek block offshore Guyana. The exten-
ity at its proposed Rio Grande LNG terminal, sion, which pushes the end date of the contract
on which a final investment decision (FID) is back from mid-February of 2024 to mid-August
targeted for 2021. NextDecade said it would use of 2030, follows closely on the heels of the US
a combination of carbon capture and storage super-major’s decision to proceed with develop-
(CCS) and “proprietary processes” to achieve ment work at Payara.
carbon neutrality at the 27mn tonne per year This field is now due to become the third produc-
(tpy) Rio Grande facility. ing section of Stabroek in 2024.

If you’d like to read more about the key events shaping If you’d like to read more about the key events shaping
the global LNG sector then please click here for the Latin American oil and gas sector then please click
NewsBase’s GLNG Monitor. here for NewsBase’s LatAmOil Monitor.
Latin America: Permian gas to Mexico Mideast: Divestments, debates and deals
This week’s LatAmOil examines Mexico’s grow- Saudi Aramco has admitted that it is considering
ing importance as a market for unconventional divesting non-core assets as it seeks to “optimise”
and associated gas from the US Permian Basin. its portfolio. The Saudi giant is also planning to
New pipelines are already benefiting CFE, the double down on upstream expansion efforts,
national power provider, by pumping more gas but it has said that certain assets – that is, assets
to the Mexican domestic markets, and they will understood to be in the midstream or down-
also support the establishment of new export stream sectors – could be sold off in a move
facilities capable of serving Asian and South necessitated by the burden of a promise to pay
American markets. out a $75bn dividend.

Week 41 15•October•2020 www. NEWSBASE .com P17