Page 7 - AsiaElec Week 15

EurOil COMMENTARY EurOil
only $17.62 per barrel.
Europa has endured a difficult time, booking
GBP3mn ($3.8mn) in exploration write-offs off Ireland in the six months ending January 31, causing it to sink to a GBP3.5mn post-tax loss. The company’s revenues came to GBP778,000, down from GBP859,000 a year earlier. It ended January with GBP1.5mn in cash.
Europa said that operations at its three pro- ducing UK fields were continuing despite the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. All its directors, London-based staff and consultants have been working from home since March 16 and have agreed to a temporary salary cut of 20% since April 1.
Elsewhere, the company still has ambitions to farm out stakes in its high-impact projects in Ireland and Morocco.
“While the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic may impact activity on the ground, there is much we are still able to get on with, notably working towards the farm-out of our strategic position in the Slyne Basin and continuing desktop work and launching the farm-out of our licence off- shore Morocco,” Oddie said.
Europa has suffered setbacks in Ireland, where the government last year declared an
end to all oil exploration off the country’s coast, plunging the upstream industry into disarray. The search for gas will continue, however, as the government sees the fuel as key for Irish energy security.
Europa surrendered three licences off Ire- land last year where the main target was oil, resulting in the bulk of its write-offs. A farm-in deal with a “major oil company” at three of its other licences collapsed in January. Europa’s main focus now is on the Inishkea gas prospect, which it estimates has 42.5bn cubic metres in gross unrisked prospective gas resources. It is seeking a farm-in partner there to fund drilling work.
“With gas set to play a key role in Ireland’s energy mix and our licences located in a gas play proven by the producing Corrib field, Inishkea represents a compelling investment opportunity with an attractive risk/reward profile,” Oddie said.
While its offshore Moroccan operations are still at an early phase, Europa has engaged a number of parties that have expressed interest in the Inezgane licence. It has identified multiple targets there with up to 250mn barrels of pro- spective resources. ™
PIPELINES & TRANSPORT
Total agrees to charter LNG- fuelled VLCCs
FRANCE
Total is the second biggest LNG player after Shell.
FRANCE’S Total has signed an agreement to charter its first LNG-powered super-tankers, known as very large crude carriers (VLCCs). The dual-fuel newbuild vessels have a capacity to carry around 300,000 tonnes (2.2mn barrels) of crude each, Total said in an April 7 statement. They will be chartered from Malaysian ship- owner AET, and are due to be delivered in 2022.
The French company noted that the vessels have been designed with LNG propulsion in order to reduce their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and with the “latest technologies” to lower their consumption further. The move follows the implementation of International Maritime Organisation (IMO) 2020 rules at the start of this year, limiting the sulphur content of marine fuel to 0.5%. The new rules have boosted interest in the use of LNG as a bunkering fuel as ship owners consider their options for limiting sulphur.
Total hopes to reduce the carbon footprint of its operations through the use of LNG for
bunkering. While there has been some debate about the impact of using LNG, the French company says it results in a reduction of 99% in sulphur dioxide emissions, 99% in fine particles emissions, up to 85% in nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions and about 20% in GHG emissions.
Total Marine Fuels Global Solutions, the busi- ness unit in charge of Total’s global bunkering activities, will supply LNG for the two VLCCs.
AET, MISC Group’s petroleum shipping subsidiary, currently operates two LNG dual- fuel Aframax vessels and two LNG dual-fuel dynamic positioning shuttle tankers within its global fleet. The deal with Total allows the com- pany to expand its fleet to include LNG dual-fuel VLCCs for the first time.
“As a group, we took early and bold deci- sions to invest in LNG dual-fuel vessels and I am pleased to see the industry responding so posi- tively to our strategy,” AET’s chairman, Yee Yang Chien, who is also the president and group CEO of MISC, commented. ™
Week 15 16•April•2020 w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m P7