Page 11 - LatAmOil Week 29

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NEWS IN BRIEF
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YPF has not said when sales might begin, and it will have to invest in infrastructure in advance, since its lling stations do not have pumps capa- ble of dispensing gas-based fuels. Even so, a ll- ingstationownerwhoattendedarecentmeeting with company executives speculated that the NOC would move forward in the near future. “ ere is already a plan in place, and they will soon come out to o er it,” he said.
The company has indicated that it hopes CNG and LNG sales will help balance the domestic gas market, which is now subject to seasonal uctuations. Argentina’s gas elds typ- ically do not produce enough to meet domestic demand during the winter but yield surpluses during the summer, it explained.
Argentina seen giving the
green light to self-service
filling stations soon
Argentina’s government is likely to approve leg- islation that allows lling stations to give cus- tomers the option of lling their own fuel tanks. Making this option available will help reduce the cost of motor fuel and reduce the amount of time needed to fuel a car, industry specialists say.
Members of Entidades del Comercio de Hidrocarburos y A nes de la Republica Argen- tina (CECHA), the country’s association of retail fuel sellers, said at a meeting last week that Buenos Aires would be ready to take this step
if lling stations could provide assurances that the change would not lead to job losses. “[ e] law will provide that the unmanned system will not be exclusive, but must be shared with an employeeatthesiteinthesamepercentage,”said Gabriel Bomoroni, the president of the Chamber of Retailers of Cordoba.
Since drivers in Argentina are currently accustomed to having their vehicles’ fuel tanks lled by an attendant, the government has said it will draw up a guide to self-service lling stations for them.
SERVICES
Repsol to use Maersk
Valiant to drill wells
offshore Mexico
Repsol Exploracion Mexico, the Mexican arm of Spain’s Repsol, has arranged to use a vessel owned by Maersk Drilling for work offshore Mexico. Maersk Drilling said in a statement that it had signed two contracts for the drillship, known as the Maersk Valiant.
The contracts provide for Repsol and its partners to use the vessel, which offers man- aged-pressure drilling capacity, to sink wells at Block 10 and 29 in the southern Gulf of Mexico. e group is slated to begin work on the drilling programme in March of 2020.
Maersk Drilling has not revealed the value of
the contracts, but it has said that both of them include single-well options.
Guyana’s first FPSO departs from Singapore
e Liza Destiny, a oating production, stor- age and o oading (FPSO) vessel owned by SBM O shore, began its journey from Singapore to Guyana last week.
e ship, which was converted from a very large crude carrier (VLCC) to an FPSO by Kep- pel, will be the rst unit of its kind to operate in Guyana’s o shore zone. It is due to arrive in September and is capable of storing up to 1.6mn barrels of crude oil.
ExxonMobil and its partners will use the vessel to develop Liza, one of 10 confirmed oil discoveries within the 27,000-square km Stabroek block. e group intends to deploy the FPSO at a site that is 200 km from shore and in 1,525-metre-deep water. e Liza eld is due to begin production in the rst quarter of next year at an initial rate of 120,000 barrels per day.
Brazil to account for
largest share of new FPSO
deployments before the end
of 2025
Brazil is reportedly on track to deploy more planned and announced (P&A) oating pro- duction, storage and o oading (FPSO) vessels before the end of 2025 than any other country.
e South American country is set to launch 20 additional FPSOs in its o shore zone during that period, GlobalData reported last week. is puts it far ahead of second-place Angola, with ve P&A FPSOs lined up, and third-place Nige- ria, with four units.
Thirteen of the 20 FPSOs slated to begin operating o shore Brazil by the end of 2025 will go to the national oil company (NOC) Petrobras.
GlobalData noted in a statement that Brazil intended to send four FPSOs to a single oil eld – Mero, also known as Libra Noroeste. It will also send two units to the Marlim eld and another two units to the Lula Oeste eld, the statement said.
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