Page 12 - EurOil Week 27 2019

EurOil PROJECTS & COMPANIES EurOil
OMV plots new Black Sea wells
ROMANIA
THE Romanian arm of Austrian oil and gas pro- ducer OMV has kicked o a new drilling cam- paign at the Istria block in the Black Sea.
In a statement last week, OMV Petrom said it planned to sink two wells by the end of this year at a cost of €30mn ($33.7mn), e boreholes will be drilled to 2,000 metres below the seabed, at water depths of around 50 metres, and will be used to expand production at the Lebada East oil and gas eld.
OMV Petrom is Romania’s largest oil and gas company, with control of dozens of elds as well as re ning facilities and a fuel retail network. e Istria block was the rst o shore site to be developed in Romania, with production start- ing back in 1987. ough the project is past its prime, OMV Petrom still ows around 25,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd) at its Lebada East, Lebada Vest, Sinoe, Pescarus and Delta elds, accounting for 17% of the company’s overall output last year.
“ e Istria block in the shallow waters of the Black Sea has a history of over 30 years of oil and gas production,” OMV board member Peter Zeilinger said. “Although the elds are
mature and reached their plateau production years ago, sustained investment and adequate engineering solutions enable us to unlock additional resources and to mitigate produc- tion decline.”
In its statement, OMV Petrom noted that it had invested €350mn ($393mn) in its Black Sea operations between 2014 and 2018. Besides Istria, its other main o shore asset is the Neptun Deep eld, where it is partnered with Exxon- Mobil. e pair discovered the deposit in 2012, and estimate its gas resources at up to 82bn cubic metres. ey have repeatedly delayed taking a nal investment decision (FID) on its develop- ment, however, with OMV Petrom attributing its caution to recent tax hikes and restrictions on gas prices in Romania.
OMV has a 51% stake in OMV Petrom, which it acquired from the Romanian state in 2004 during the company’s privatisation. e Romanian energy ministry has a 20.6% interest, while local investment fund Fondul Proprietatea owns 10%. e remaining shares are free- oated on the Bucharest Stock Exchange (BVB) and the London Stock Exchange (LSE).™
Total cuts ribbon on large biorefinery
FRANCE
FRENCH energy major Total has launched operations at one of the largest biore neries in Europe.
The plant is situated at La Mede near the southern French city of Marseille and was con- verted from a former crude oil processing plant. It is capable of turning out 500,000 tonnes per year of hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO), which can be used as a biodiesel as well as biojet fuel.
According to Total, vegetable oils such as rapeseed, palm and sun ower will constitute 60-70% of the facility’s 650,000tpy feedstock intake, while treated waste including animal fats, cooking oil and residues will serve as the remaining raw material. No more than 300,000 tonnes of palm oil will be annually imported for the plant, while at least 50,000 tonnes of French- grown rapeseed will be used.
“Biofuels are fully renewable and an immedi- ately available solution to cut carbon emissions from ground and air transportation,” Total’s
president of refining and chemicals, Bernard Pinatel, said in a statement. “When produced from sustainable raw materials, as at La Mede, they emit over 50% less carbon than fossil fuels. Our biore nery will allow us to make biofuels in France that were previously imported.”
Total will now join the ranks of Europe’s lead- ing biofuel producers, alongside the likes of Fin- land’s Neste Oil and Italy’s Eni.
Neste runs a 1mn tpy plant in Rotenburg, the Netherlands, and a 600,000 tpy re nery in Por- voo, Finland. Italy’s Eni operates a 360,000tpy facility in Venice and plans to bring on stream a second 750,000tpy plant in Gela later this year. It also aims to expand the Venice complex’s capac- ity to 560,000tpy by 2021.
Total began work converting its La Mede refinery to produce biofuel in 2015, with the project costing 275mn euros ($309mn) to imple- ment. Production had been slated to start last year but was delayed for “technical reasons.”™
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w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m Week 27 11•July•2019