Page 12 - LatAmOil Week 01 2021

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Militants with suspected links to Islamic State agreed to take 1 bcm per year each.
have been battling government forces in north- All eyes will now be on the binding phase
ern Mozambique for three years, with attacks of a market test for TAP’s potential expansion
having grown more frequent over the past year. to 20 bcm per year, scheduled to take place in
The latest assault on January 1 was on the village the summer of 2021. There are questions about
of Quitunda, where Total is relocating commu- whether Europe will need this extra supply, given
nities as it builds export facilities and other infra- a projected decline in demand as a result of the
structure. It was repelled by government forces. energy transition and ample alternative sources
The fighting is the closest yet to Total’s con- of supply.
struction camp and the first attack to happen One such source is the Krk LNG terminal in
within the Mozambique LNG concession area. Croatia, which received its first LNG tanker on
It occurred under 1 km from an airstrip that the January 1. The terminal has an import capacity
company has built to serve the project. of 2.6 bcm per year and will serve customers not
In other news, the board of Saudi petrochem- only in Croatia but in some neighbouring coun-
icals giant SABIC has backed the issue of $1.2bn tries as well. Some 80% of this capacity has been
in dividends from earnings in the second half of leased, mostly to Qatar.
2020. The move comes after the company, which Greece, meanwhile, plans to build a second Southeast Europe
was bought by national oil producer Saudi Ara- LNG terminal in Alexandroupolis that will be
mco last summer, returned to profit in the three capable of bringing ashore some 5.5 bcm per started importing
months ending September 30, 2020, after incur- year of gas. North Macedonia’s government natural gas from
ring three straight quarterly losses. said earlier this week that it wanted to take a
Meanwhile in Nigeria, Waltersmith Petro- 10% stake in the project. The project’s existing two new sources
man Oil has secured 2,000-4,000 barrels per day shareholders are Greece’s Copelouzos energy
(bpd) in oil supplies for its modular refinery in group, as well as DEPA Commercial, the coun- at the start of
Imo State under a deal with Seplat Petroleum. try’s main gas supplier, and Monaco-based LNG
The oil will be sourced from the Ohaja South carrier owner GasLog. Bulgaria’s Bulgartransgaz this year
field at the OML53 permit. and Greece’s DESFA are also set to participate as
Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari investors.
launched the 5,000 bpd Waltersmith refinery in
late November. The facility also receives oil from If you’d like to read more about the key events shaping
Waltersmith’s own Ibigwe marginal oilfield. Europe’s oil and gas sector then please click here for
NewsBase’s EurOil Monitor.
If you’d like to read more about the key events shaping
the downstream sector of Africa and the Middle East, FSU: Rosneft’s Arctic plays
then please click here for NewsBase’s DMEA Monitor. Rosneft closed the sale of a 10% interest in its
Vostok Oil venture in the Russian Arctic to
EurOil: Europe gains import options commodities trader Trafigura in late December,
Southeast Europe started importing natural gas thereby taking the ambitious project one step
from two new sources at the start of this year, closer to realisation.
cutting into the market share of Russia’s Gaz- The price Trafigura paid for the stake has
prom, the region’s main supplier. not been disclosed. But given the resources at
BP announced late on December 31 that the play – Rosneft has estimated Vostok Oil’s liquid
Southern Gas Corridor (SGC) pipeline network reserves at 6bn barrels – this likely represents the
was now fully operational. SGC consists of three biggest foreign investment in Russia’s oil indus-
pipelines that run from Azerbaijan through the try in years.
South Caucasus and Turkey and into Southeast Vostok Oil comprises a group of oilfields in
Europe, carrying gas from the offshore BP-oper- Russia’s far north. Rosneft has pinned its hopes
ated Shah Deniz 2 (SD2) field. Construction of for keeping output levels steady over the coming
the corridor’s last section, the 10bn cubic metre decades on these sites, as its older deposits fur-
per year Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), was ther south are nearly depleted.
completed in October. The fields are slated to yield more than 2mn
Italy is contracted to receive 8 bcm per year barrels per day (bpd) at their peak and may also
of gas from TAP, while Bulgaria and Greece have contain natural gas as well.

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