Page 6 - MEOG Week 44

MEOG PIPELINES & TRANSPORT MEOG

Snam to develop LNG

supply for vehicles in Israel

ISRAEL ITALIAN gas grid firm Snam has struck deals H2Pro, which has developed an “innovative”
with Israeli firms on the use of LNG and other technology known as E-TAC for producing
alternative fuels in Israel’s transport sector. Snam green hydrogen. H2Pro claims the technology
signed one agreement with the country’s largest can yield 30% more hydrogen from water than
gas supplier Delek Drilling and its main public traditional electrolysis. Snam and H2Pro will
transport provider Dan on developing a supply carry out joint research, and may apply H2Pro’s
chain for using LNG as a transport fuel in Israel, technologies at projects and take part in project
particularly for buses and heavy vehicles. tenders both in Israel and in Europe.
The group will carry out feasibility studies on “With these agreements we are further
building a small-scale liquefaction pilot plant developing Snam’s international presence to
and LNG refuelling infrastructure, leveraging strengthen our contribution to the energy tran-
Snam’s technologies and Delek’s gas reserves. sition and the achievement of global climate
Delek operates a number of onshore and off- objectives,” Snam CEO Marco Alvera com-
shore gas licences in Israel. Its largest projects mented. “The partnerships with Delek Drilling,
are the Leviathan and Tamar fields in the Medi- Dan and H2Pro ... allow us to enter a new mar-
terranean Sea. ket with projects in sectors of our interest such
Snam also signed a memorandum of under- as sustainable mobility and hydrogen and, at the
standing (MoU) with Dan on evaluating the use same time, to increase our know-how in one of
of biomethane, green hydrogen and electricity in the most innovative contexts in the world.”
transport. The deal could pave the way for the Israel wants to ban the sale of new gasoline
conversion of some of Dan’s vehicles to run on and diesel-powered vehicles after 2030, replac-
these energy sources, as well as the development ing them with gas-fuelled and electric cars and
of pilot refuelling and recharging infrastructure. trucks. And thanks to major offshore discoveries
Finally, the Italian firm signed a collaboration over the past decade, it now has more gas than it
and research agreement with Israeli start-up can use or readily export.™

PERFORMANCE

Aramco announces Q3 results

SAUDI ARABIA SAUDI Aramco this week announced its Q3 compared to the full year average for 2019.
results and said that it would follow through Much of this reduction can be attributed to the
with its $75bn full-year dividend commitment nine-month crude output average falling from
despite pre-tax income falling by nearly 44%. 9.5mn bpd during the first half to 9.2mn bpd by
While net income registered a marked the end of September. This compares with the
improvement – $11.8bn against $6.57bn in Q2, company’s full year 2020 plan average of 10mn
the year-on-year comparison shows a drop of bpd and implies that Q3 production was around
nearly $10bn. Despite president and CEO Amin 8.9mn bpd, another significant dip following
Nasser saying that the company had seen “early the Q2 drop to 7.5-8mn bpd, when the company
signs of a recovery in the third quarter due to sought to stem its financial bleeding and comply
improved economic activity”, the Q3 report was with OPEC+ cuts.
notable because of the near omission of opera- The company did not, however, progress on
tions. Instead, much of the attention focused on increasing gas production, noting that it had
the company keeping its promise to pay out its achieved a single-day natural gas output record
$18.75bn dividend for the quarter during Q4, of 10.7bn cubic feet ($303mn cubic metres) on
while the integration of SABIC was also noted August 6 from “conventional and unconven-
in a manner that adds substance to rumours that tional fields”. Though there was no clarification,
the downstream and corporate business units this presumably relates to sales gas production,
will be spun off to protect the upstream cash cow. which the company had intended to reach an
Rather than providing a quarterly produc- average of 9.6 bcf per day (272 mcm) by the end
tion update, Aramco noted that the nine-month of the year, though despite the peak, this target
total hydrocarbon production average had fallen remains unlikely given the reduction in capital
from 12.7mn barrels of oil equivalent per day to spending in the fall-out from the coronavirus
12.4mn boepd, a reduction of 800,000 boepd (COVID-19) pandemic.™

P6 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 44 04•November•2020