Page 13 - LatAmOil Week 02 2021

LatAmOil TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO LatAmOil

The Titan plant has been idle since last year, and efficient restart of the plant when a longer-term
the Canadian firm has used the time to carry out gas agreement is reached.”
a $300mn upgrade project. It has also been try- As of press time, NGC had not commented
ing to negotiate a new supply deal with Trinidad publicly on the matter, which appears to have
and Tobago’s National Gas Co. (NGC), but its played a role in the decision by CariCris, a
efforts have borne no fruit. regional credit ratings agency, to downgrade the
“To date, we have not been successful reach- company’s ratings.
ing an agreement for an economic longer-term Trinidad and Tobago’s Energy Minister
natural gas agreement, and given that the eco- Franklin Khan has suggested that Methanex’s
nomic recovery path remains uncertain, we decision was motivated less by failure to come
believe it is prudent to reduce costs while con- to terms with the gas operator than by a decline
tinuing our efforts to secure longer-term gas in global methanol prices. Meanwhile, several
supply,” Methanex said in its statement. members of the country’s Parliament have urged
It also stressed, though, that its decision the government to make another attempt to
would not affect the Atlas plant, another meth- resolve the matter, saying that the idling of the
anol production facility in which it owns a Titan plant would harm the local economy. ™
majority stake. “The Atlas methanol facility
(Methanex interest 63.1%) is not affected by the
change and continues to operate, as it is under-
pinned by a separate natural gas supply agree-
ment that expires in 2024,” it explained.
John Floren, Methanex’s CEO, commented:
“We remain committed to doing business in
Trinidad and Tobago, and we believe that we
will be able to secure an economic longer-term
natural gas agreement for Titan in the com-
ing years. Our operations in Trinidad are well
located to supply global methanol markets and
are an important component of our global pro-
duction network. We are taking the necessary
steps to maintain Titan to ensure a safe and Methanex recently upgraded the Titan plant (Photo: HJ3 Composite Technologies)

BRAZIL
Petrobras output hits record high in 2020

BRAZIL’S national oil company (NOC) Petro- in 2015, it said.
bras said last week that its production levels had On a more granular level, the statement
reached record highs in 2020. said, the company also benefited from positive
In a statement dated January 7, the firm developments at specific oilfields. For example,
stated that it had extracted some 2.84mn barrels it noted that production facilities at Búzios had
of oil equivalent per day of crude oil and nat- been able to operate at more than 100% of nom-
ural gas last year, including 2.28mn barrels per inal capacity last year because of the “greater
day of oil. Both figures were topped the highs temporary availability of power generation and
reported in 2015, when Petrobras produced gas compression on the platforms of this field.”
2.79mn boepd of oil and gas, of which 2.23mn Meanwhile, it said, output levels at the Tupi
bpd was oil. and Sapinhoá fields did not decline as much as
Last year’s output levels were in line with the expected in 2020 because their reservoirs per-
revised targets set by management last Octo- formed better than anticipated.
ber, as outlined in the company’s third-quarter It also stated that Petrobras had been able to
report on production and sales. They were also produce more last year because of the “lower
about 5% higher than the original target figures number of interventions to combat CO2 cor-
set for 2020, Petrobras noted in its statement. rosion in the submarine gas injection pipelines,
The company said it had been able to keep due to the development of new tools and inspec-
production levels high last year thanks to its tion technologies.”
“portfolio of assets with higher value.” It high- Moreover, it said, platforms at offshore oil-
lighted the role played by Brazil’s prolific pre-salt fields were able to improve their production
region, noting that offshore pre-salt fields had efficiency and minimise the effect of produc-
yielded 1.86mn boepd in 2020, equivalent to tion stoppages, despite the complications they
66% of total output. By contrast, pre-salt sites faced as a result of the coronavirus (COVID-19)
accounted for just 24% of Petrobras’ production pandemic. ™

Week 02 14•January•2021 www. NEWSBASE .com P13