Page 4 - GLNG Week 27

GLNG NEWSBASE’S ROUNDUP GLOBAL (NRG) GLNG

NRG: Bracing for the

second wave

Oil prices have risen further over the past week, but the recovery
could be checked by the second wave of coronavirus infections

NRG WELCOME to the ninth edition of NewsBase’s plant, which left two dead and seven injured.
Roundup Global (NRG), in which our team of The blaze broke out one day after the North
international editors provide you with a snapshot Gauteng High Court cancelled a controversial
of some of the key issues affecting their regional tender for fuel supplies to Pretoria. The court
beats. Get the NRG Oil & Gas Editor’s Picks to issued this ruling after identifying irregularities
your inbox every week for free. Just sign up here. with the tender, which has given rise to allega-
Crude prices regained ground last week and tions of fraud and corruption.
the trend continued into this week, with front-
month contracts for WTI and Brent closing at If you’d like to read more about the key events shaping
$40.63 and $43.10 per barrel respectively on July Africa’s oil and gas sector then please click here for
6. The recovery has been driven by economies NewsBase’s AfrOil Monitor .
reopening and fuel consumption recovering to
normal levels, supported by OPEC+’s sacrificial Australian gas price is competitive, says
cuts. Most of the oil cartel’s members are keeping industry lobby
to their agreed quotas, and they have maintained Australia’s upstream industry lobby has used a
their resolve. new International Gas Union (IGU) report to
However, a second wave of coronavirus counter arguments that the country’s wholesale
(COVID-19) infections is now sweeping across natural gas prices are too high.
much of the world, with daily new confirmed Australia’s wholesale gas price averaged
cases surging beyond 200,000 per day. Oil mar- $5.58 per mmBtu in 2019, according to the
kets are starting to brace for another steep fall IGU’s Wholesale Gas Price Survey 2020. The
in oil demand, and OPEC+ seems unlikely to survey of 53 countries showed that Australia’s
counter this by extending its record deep cuts price was around 40% less than the Asia-Pa-
beyond July. cific’s average wholesale price, while it was just
under 30% cheaper than the Asian region’s aver-
South African divestments, developments age wholesale price.
South African companies have had a busy week. The IGU’s survey results showed that Taiwan,
Sasol, the country’s largest corporate tax- South Korea and Japan paid the highest whole-
payer, is looking to shed some of its foreign sale gas price at or more than $10 per mmBtu,
assets. On July 6, the company confirmed that while China paid the sixth highest price.
it intended to give up its exploration licences for Australia ranked 18th overall in terms of
Blocks 16 and 19, two adjacent sites lying off- prices, with the lowest to be found in countries
shore Mozambique. Its decision appears to have with highly regulated markets where produc-
been driven, at least in part, by the results of an ers sold gas below the cost of production and
environmental impact assessment (EIA) report. transportation.
This move closely followed Sasol’s announce- The Australian Petroleum Production and
ment of plans to divest its indirect stake in the Exploration Association (APPEA) seized on the
Escravos gas-to-liquids (GTL) plant in Nigeria report, saying it put to bed frequently repeated
within the framework of a broader divestment claims that Australia paid more for gas than
programme. The firm is set to sell the asset to the those countries that bought its liquefied natural
US major Chevron, its partner in the project. It gas (LNG) exports.
hopes the sale will help strengthen its financial APPEA chief executive Andrew McCon-
position during the downturn resulting from the ville said: “Even before the sharp contraction
COVID-19 pandemic. we’ve seen in gas prices this year, Australian gas
Meanwhile, Astron Energy is recovering users have enjoyed very competitive wholesale
from a fire that broke out at its Milnerton refin- prices. The widely repeated claim that Austral-
ery in Cape Town on July 2. Jonathan Molapo, ia’s wholesale prices are higher than in the coun-
the company’s CEO, has pledged to investigate tries importing our LNG has once again [been]
the incident at the 100,000 barrel per day (bpd) shown to be without foundation.”

P4 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 27 10•July•2020