Page 12 - AsianOil Week 07 2023
P. 12

AsianOil                               PIPELINES & TRANSPORT                                         AsianOil


       OVL eyes Argentina’s gas





        INDIA            ONGC Videsh Ltd (OVL), the overseas arm  conference in Bangalore.
                         of India’s Oil and Natural Gas Corp. (ONGC),   Singh did not say whether the parties
       OVL has signed a   is showing interest in Argentina’s natural gas  had identified any specific targets for future
       memorandum on     reserves.                            cooperation.
       upstream cooperation   In a statement dated February 7, the Indian   Argentina is currently extracting gas from
       with Argentina’s YPF.  company revealed that it had signed a memo-  both conventional and unconventional fields,
                         randum of understanding (MoU) with Argen-  but it expects unconventional sites in the Vaca
                         tina’s national oil company (NOC) YPF on  Muerta shale basin to make up the largest share
                         cooperation in the area of upstream exploration  of future production growth.
                         and development activities. The document,   Vaca Muerta is one of the largest shale for-
                         which was finalised on the sidelines of the India  mations in the world. It is around the size of Bel-
                         Energy Week 2023 conference in Bangalore,  gium and contains about 308 trillion cubic feet
                         aims to establish links between the two coun-  (8.722 trillion cubic metres) of shale gas, accord-
                         tries’ research and training centres and promote  ing to estimates from the US Energy Information
                         Indian investment in and cooperation with  Administration (EIA).
                         Argentina’s oil and gas sector, OVL said.  ONGC has some experience in the area of
                           The  statement  spoke  in  general  terms  onshore shale exploration. It mounted a five-year
                         about cooperation in the hydrocarbon sec-  exploration programme of its own in 2014 but
                         tor, but Arun Kumar Singh, the chairman of  ultimately wound the campaign down in 2019
                         ONGC, indicated that OVL was particularly  after determining that the areas it had surveyed
                         interested in Argentina’s gas reserves. “This is  in the Assam-Arakan, Cambay, Cauvery and
                         an enabling MoU. They have gas [assets] ... so  Krishna Godavari basins did not contain com-
                         we will explore investing there,” he said in the  mercial quantities of hydrocarbons. ™








       Vintage Energy begins commissioning



       of Vali-1 gas field





        AUSTRALIA        AUSTRALIA’S Vintage Energy said this week  as soon as possible.”
                         that commissioning had begun on the Vali-1 gas   Discovered in 2020, the Vali gas field is being
       The field is in the South   field production facilities in the Cooper Basin.  connected to the South Australian Cooper Basin
       Australian Cooper   First gas flow is expected within the coming  gas gathering infrastructure for the purpose of
       basin.            days.                                supplying eastern Australia with a new source of
                           Vintage said in a statement that mechanical  gas supply.
                         handover of the facilities took place on February   Vintage holds 50% of the license and is oper-
                         11 with control passing to Upstream Produc-  ator of the ATP 2021 joint venture that includes
                         tion Solutions (UPS), the contractor engaged  Metgasco Ltd with 25% and Bridgeport (Cooper
                         to commission, operate and maintain the infra-  Basin) Pty with 25%. Vali has certified proved
                         structure. It said construction and installations  and probable reserves of 101 petajoules and the
                         work is continuing at the Vali-2 and Vali-3 sites  joint venture is contracted to supply between 9 to
                         and that mechanical handover and commission-  16 petajoules to AGL Energy from gas produc-
                         ing of those facilities is due to take place in early  tion start-up until end-2026.
                         March.                                 Metering facilities have been installed at the
                           “The project transition from construction to  Vali facility with three flowlines running from
                         commissioning marks a long-anticipated mile-  three completed wells to the metering facil-
                         stone for the company and our shareholders,”  ity. Twin export pipelines run from the field to
                         Neil Gibbons, managing director of Vintage  tie-in at the Moomba gas gathering network at
                         said in the statement. “Vali is now one step away  the Beckler gas field. The export flow lines were
                         from first gas and with that the commencement  successfully tested in December. Commission-
                         of revenue generation. Our focus is firmly on  ing involves purging the system with nitrogen to
                         executing commissioning safely and efficiently  expel air as well as inspection prior to the intro-
                         so Vali gas can start flowing to eastern Australia  duction of natural gas. ™



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