Page 9 - LatAmOil Week 26

LatAmOil
NEWS IN BRIEF
LatAmOil
SERVICES
Repsol subsidiary to use
Maersk drillship for two-well
programme offshore Mexico
Maersk Drilling has arranged to let the Mexican subsidiary of Spain’s Repsol use one of its drilling vessels for work in the Gulf of Mexico. e com- pany revealed last week that it had signed con- tracts that will allow Repsol Exploracion Mexico to lease the Maersk Valiant, a seventh-generation drillship that is currently warm-stacked at Port Fourchon in Louisiana, for two periods lasting 138dayseach.
e Repsol a liate will use the vessel to sink one well at Block 10 and another well at Block 29. It is slated to launch the two-well drilling pro- gramme in March of next year.
As of press time, neither party had disclosed the value of the contracts, but Bassoe O shore has estimated that Repsol will be paying about $175,000 per day to use the drillships.
Fluor affiliate to provide
maintenance services at
Colombian refineries
Stork, a division of the diversi ed services seg- ment of Fluor, has won a contract from Colom- bia’s national oil company (NOC) Ecopetrol for work at the 165,000 barrel per day (bpd) Carta- gena re nery, as well as the 250,000 bpd Barran- cabermeja plant.
e contract calls for Stork to provide turn- around maintenance services at the re neries’ process units during scheduled shutdowns. It also states that the company will carry out
emergency works and other corrective and pre- ventive maintenance services that Ecopetrol des- ignates as necessary for optimising the re neries’ performance.
e deal has a term of four years, and the par- ties will have two opportunities to push the end date back by two more years. As of press time, neither Ecopetrol nor Fluor had disclosed the value of the contract.
PRODUCTION
Pemex sees oil and gas
output rising following
launch of 22 new fields
output up to a record high at their fields – Ara-Canadon Alfa, Argo, Aries, Carina, Hidra and Kaus – located o the coast of Argentina’s Tierra del Fuego province.
ey explained that production levels had climbed to 22.8mn cubic metres per day follow- ing the completion of an infrastructure project that included the expansion of compression capacity at the Canadon Alfa plant and the construction of a 2-km gas export pipeline con- nected to the General San Martin trunk line.
e new pipe will improve fuel supplies in the areas served by the General San Martin conduit, thereby allowing Argentina to import less gas during periods of peak demand.
POLICY
Maduro supporters file suit
in US court to secure control
over Citgo
Representatives of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro have led suit in a US court with the aim of con rming their control over Citgo and other US-based subsidiaries of the national oil com- pany (NOC) PdVSA.
ey launched the legal action in the Dela- ware Chancery Court last week, saying that they were seeking to con rm the legitimacy of the ve-member board of directors appointed by Maduro.
Juan Guaido, the Venezuelan opposition leader who has served as interim president since January, has appointed his own board at PdVSA, and in turn, this ad hoc body has asserted the right to name the directors of Citgo Holding, Citgo Petroleum and PdV Holding.
FINANCES
YPF launches $500mn bond issue on world market
Argentina’s national oil company (NOC) YPF returned to the international bond market last week, issuing $500mn worth of 10-year securities.
e bonds are denominated in US dollars and carry an interest rate of 8.75%.
YPF intends to use the proceeds of the sales to increase its working capital and re nance its existing liabilities.
The issue is being managed by a group of three banks: Itau Unibanco Holding, HSBC Holdings and Citicorp. It marks the rst time YPF has sold securities on the world market since 2017.
Mexico’s national oil company (NOC) Pemex said last week that it anticipated a signi cant increase in crude oil and natural gas output following the launch of development at 22 new elds. All of these sites are due to come on stream this year, it said.By 2024, it added, these elds are set to yield 1.6mn barrels per day of oil equiva- lent (boepd).
Ixachi, the rst of the new elds, is due to begin commercial production in August. Pemex has said it intends to invest $6.412bn in the onshore site over the next 20 years.
By 2022, Ixachi will be yielding 82,500 bar- rels per day (bpd) of condensate and 18mn cubic metres per day of gas.
CMA-1 consortium raises gas
production to record high at
Tierra del Fuego fields
France’s Total and its partners in the CMA-1 consortium said last week that they had pushed
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