Page 11 - EurOil Week 09 2021

EurOil POLICY EurOil

Norway invites consultation on next APA round

NORWAY NORWEGIAN authorities launched a con- development costs and giving a new lease of
sultation on February 25 on the 2021 Awards life to these platforms, pipelines and other
The bulk of the acreage in Pre-defined Areas (APA) licensing round, facilities. Norway also holds numbered
is in the Arctic Barents proposing 84 new blocks should be offered for rounds on a less regular basis that offer acre-
Sea. petroleum exploration. age in frontier zones.
The bulk of this acreage – some 70 blocks – is Licensing contests have increasingly
located in the Arctic Barents Sea. The blocks are focused on the Barents Sea, where authorities
situated south-east of Bear Island, around half have hopes of finding new large-sized discov-
way between the Arctic Svalbard Archipelago eries that can sustain production levels in the
and mainland Europe. Four new blocks were future. Norway invited bids in the latest num-
offered in the North Sea and 10 in the Norwegian bered round in November, with 125 of the 136
Sea, according to the statement. blocks on offer situated in the Barents Sea. The
“Predictable access to a new exploration area deadline for applications was February 23, and
is crucial for further development of the petro- among the contestants were Equinor, Royal
leum industry,” Norwegian Oil Minister Tina Dutch Shell and Eni subsidiary Var Energi. Oil
Bru said in a statement. “It enables us to maintain Minister Bru has said awards should take place
activity and value creation on the Norwegian in the second quarter.
[Continental] Shelf [NCS] and in the supplier Norway’s last APA round wrapped up in Jan-
industry.” uary, and in contrast only three of the total 61
The aim of APA rounds is to encour- licences awarded were in the Barents Sea. A fur-
age exploration in areas where there is ther 34 licences were in the North Sea and 24 in
already infrastructure in place, lowering the Norwegian Sea. ™

Shell to build first commercial

bio power-to-liquids unit

GERMANY ROYAL Dutch Shell is looking to construct the February 25 it was planning to buy Next Kraft-
first ever commercial bio-power-to-liquid (bio- werke, a Cologne-based virtual power plant
Hydrogen and biomass PTL) unit at its Rheinland refinery in Germany, operator, giving it access to biomass-to-power
will produce green the company said on February 26. and solar capacity.
fuels. The project will involve expanding an exist- Shell is also getting involved in other electro-
ing 10-MW electrolyser to a capacity of 100 lyser projects. In January it teamed up with Vat-
MW. Using green hydrogen produced from tenfall and others to propose another 100-MW
the electrolyser as well as biomass, the PTL unit electrolyser at Hamburg-Moorburg. It is also
would produce 100,000 tonnes per year (tpy) of studying a large electrolyser project at the Dutch
synthetic kerosene and naphtha. Construction port of Rotterdam that would be supplied with
could start in 2023, Shell said, with commercial offshore wind power.
operations kicking off in 2025. Shell recently announced a new strategy that
Shell, alongside partners ITM Power and puts more emphasis on reaching its net-zero
Linde, is already in the process of commission- 2050 target. As part of the strategy, the company
ing the 10-MW polymer electrolyte membrane wants to downsize its conventional oil refining
(PEM) electrolyser, which will be the biggest business and build up early positions in hydro-
of its kind in Europe. Work on expanding the gen and biofuels.
facility could begin in 2022 pending a final The Germany government last summer set
investment decision (FID), with ITM and Linde aside €7bn ($8.4bn) in financial support for
remaining partners, the Anglo-Dutch major domestic green hydrogen projects, along with a
said. further €2bn to help establish partnerships with
Both projects are vying for EU and German other countries. Germany wants to develop sev-
subsidies, the company said. eral gigawatts of electrolyser capacity to produce
Shell has begun securing offshore wind power hydrogen, but is also looking at securing hydro-
operations to supply the electricity needed for gen supplies from abroad, including Australia
electrolysis. The company also announced on and Russia. ™

Week 09 04•March•2021 www. NEWSBASE .com P11