Page 9 - AsianOil Week 26

AsianOil SOUTHEAST ASIA AsianOil
Samsung wins Vietnamese regas work
PROJECTS & COMPANIES
SAMSUNG C&T has won work on Vietnam’s i Vai LNG terminal. e South Korean com- pany signed the deal on June 24. It has teamed up with a local company, Petrovietnam Techni- cal Services, for the work, which was awarded by Petrovietnam Gas (PV Gas).
is will be the rst LNG terminal to be con- structed in Vietnam. Construction should take 40 months. Work will begin at the end of June and should be completed by October 2022, Sam- sung C&T said. e Vietnamese company said it would be ready for commercial operations ahead of a domestic shortfall, which was expected to emerge towards the end of 2023. e total value of the work is $179.5mn, while Samsung C&T said its share was 61%, or $109.5mn.
The Petrovietnam unit said it would have capacity of 1mn tonnes per year (tpy) and would play a key role in supplying gas to consumers in the region, particularly the Nhon Trach 3 and 4 plants. It will have a 180,000 cubic metre storage tank and jetty.
PV Gas signed a framework agreement in January to supply LNG to the Nhon Trach plants, with Petrovietnam Power (PV Power). e two plants require investment of $1.45bn and will produce 750-800MW each. This statement raised the prospect of expanding the i Vai ter- minal to 3mn tpy by 2025. e January plan, on the supply of LNG to Nhon Trach, was approved on June 21 by PV Gas.
Pertamina predicts Q1 profit will soar 91%
e country produced 9.6bn cubic metres (cm) of gas in 2018, down from its peak of 10.3bn cm in 2015. All its gas production is consumed locally and the power sector is of particular interest. Oil production is also declining.
e government-backed companies have projected Vietnam will be short 2bn cm per year of gas by 2024, absent LNG imports. is shortage would increase to 7bn cm in 2030 and 9bn cm by 2035.
PV Gas signed a memorandum of under- standing (MoU) on the Son My terminal with the Alaska LNG backers in 2017, dur- ing a visit by US President Donald Trump. Given the Alaskan project looks unlikely to go ahead – partly as a result of the US-China trade war – the import terminal appeared less attractive.
Samsung C&T noted this was part of its con- tinuing LNG work in Southeast Asia, which also included work in Singapore and Malaysia.™
PERFORMANCE
INDONESIA’S state-owned Pertamina has pro- jected that its rst-quarter net pro t will expand by 91% year on year to $677mn. e compa- ny’s profit for the first three months of 2018 amounted to $390mn. e oil and gas major’s nance director, Pahala N Mansury, said on June 27 that strong upstream and downstream results were behind the sizeable performance boost.
“ e performance of our upstream business was better, while the downstream business was supported by a better [Indonesian Crude Price] ICP and the currency exchange rate,” Pahala said. e executive noted that the Brent crude benchmark had averaged around $60 per barrel in the rst quarter.
Pahala, however, warned that second-quar- ter pro ts might be weaker, saying that increases in the ICP to $67-68 per barrel meant that gross re ning margins would be squeezed.
“ e projection in the second quarter will not as good as in the rst quarter due to the higher ICP. It will a ect our pro tability [in the down- stream sector],” he said.
e company is projecting a 2% increase to its 2019 pro ts to $1.5bn. Capital expenditure (capex) has been set at $5-5.7bn.
e country’s downstream is particularly vul- nerable to oil price volatility given its ageing and ine cient re neries. Pertamina has been trying to nd foreign partners to invest in new facilities for years, but has repeatedly seen its plans com- promised. In mid-June, Pertamina delayed nego- tiations with Saudi Aramco on forming a joint venture to upgrade and expand the Cilacap re nery in Central Java Province by three months.
e two sides had been expected to sign a deal in November 2018, which would have seen the facility’s capacity raised from 348,000 barrel per day (bpd) to 400,000 bpd, but the deadline was pushed to June. Pertamina said last month that the two sides had been unable to agree a “valuation” for the project but had agreed to hire a nancial adviser to help nalise the deal.
The Cilacap refinery is one of six projects that will help nearly double Indonesia’s re ning capacity to 2mn bpd.™
Week 26 03•July•2019 w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m P9
Co-operation:
Novatek, Total, Siemens and Zarubezh- neft signed a preliminary agreement on co-operating in Vietnam in early June. is focused on developing “an integrated energy-generating project” in the Southeast Asian state using LNG.