Page 13 - AsianOil Week 27

AsianOil NEWSBASE’S ROUNDUP GLOBAL (NRG) AsianOil

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

GLOBAL WELCOME to the latest edition of NewsBase’s South African divestments and develop-
Roundup Global (NRG), in which our team of ments
international editors provide you with a snap- South African companies have had a busy week.
shot of some of the key issues affecting their Sasol, the country’s largest corporate tax-
regional beats. Get the NRG Oil & Gas Editor’s payer, is looking to shed some of its foreign
Picks to your inbox every week for free. Just sign assets. On July 6, the company confirmed that
up here. it intended to give up its exploration licences for
Crude prices regained ground last week and the Blocks 16 and 19, two adjacent sites lying off-
trend continued into this week, with front-month shore Mozambique. Its decision appears to have
contracts for WTI and Brent closing at $40.63 and been driven, at least in part, by the results of an
$43.10 per barrel respectively on July 6. The recov- environmental impact assessment (EIA) report.
ery has been driven by economies reopening and This move closely followed Sasol’s announce-
fuel consumption recovering to normal levels, sup- ment of plans to divest its indirect stake in the
ported by OPEC+’s sacrificial cuts. Most of the oil Escravos gas-to-liquids (GTL) plant in Nigeria
cartel’s members are keeping to their agreed quotas, within the framework of a broader divestment
and they have maintained their resolve. programme. The firm is set to sell the asset to the
However, a second wave of coronavirus US major Chevron, its partner in the project. It
(COVID-19) infections is now sweeping across hopes the sale will help strengthen its financial
much of the world, with daily new confirmed position during the downturn resulting from the
cases surging beyond 200,000 per day. Oil mar- COVID-19 pandemic.
kets are starting to brace for another steep fall Meanwhile, Astron Energy is recovering
in oil demand, and OPEC+ seems unlikely to from a fire that broke out at its Milnerton refin-
counter this by extending its record deep cuts ery in Cape Town on July 2. Jonathan Molapo,
beyond July. the company’s CEO, has pledged to investigate

Week 27 09•July•2020 www. NEWSBASE .com P13