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It also revealed that the winners had pledged to invest a total of BRL15.32mn ($3.74mn) in these 33 elds. Additionally, it said the highest bidders had agreed to commit to minimum levels of investment in the areas surrounding the sites.
e Open Acreage programme gives poten- tial investors the right to submit offers on a rotating basis for sites that were passed up in previous bidding rounds or handed back to the state. ANP launched the initiative in the hope of drawing attention to elds that lie outside the o shore pre-salt zones that draw the most investment.
Decio Oddone, the director-general of the agency, has said in the past that he hopes the programme will bring recovery rates for oil in place (OIP) up from the current level of 24%
to 30-35%, closer to the industry average. On September 10, he stated that he also saw Open Acreage as a good opportunity for small and medium-sized oil operators.
One of the independent companies that took advantage of the opportunity to bid was Eneva, a Brazilian rm.
Eneva reportedly pledged to pay about BRL3.5mn ($854,439) for several onshore licence areas in Maranhao, a state in north-east- ern Brazil.
Meanwhile, as noted above, ExxonMo- bil also attended the auctions. As the largest shareholder in a consortium that also included Murphy Oil and Enauta Participacoes (Brazil), it won the rights to several deepwater blocks located off the coast of Alagoas and Sergipe states for the price of BRL7.85mn ($1.9mn).
ARGENTINA
YPF execs voice optimism about plans for new LNG plant
Two high-ranking representatives of Argen- tina’s national oil company (NOC) YPF said last week that they remained optimistic about the prospects for ramping up LNG exports. ey argued that the outlook for the project was favourable, despite recent signs that the coun- try’s next elections are likely to see the current president, Mauricio Macri, replaced by Alberto Fernandez, whose populist party is less keen on market economics.
The case for turning Argentina into an exporter of LNG through the construction of a new plant and terminal is a compelling one, no matter which party holds power, said Mar- cos Browne, YPF’s executive vice president for natural gas and power.
“We can’t put the cart before the horse by distracting ourselves with current events,” he was quoted as saying by Bloomberg. ” is is the direction we need to move in.”
Similarly, Sebastian Mocorrea, the NOC’s executive vice president for corporate a airs, argued that both le -wing and right-wing par- ties were likely to be keen on the revenues that LNG exports could generate. “ e LNG termi- nal will be a machine for bringing in dollars,” he told Bloomberg. “Nobody in their right mind would meddle with it.”
YPF has been in discussions with potential investors on its plans for building a high-capac- ity gas liquefaction plant, along with a marine terminal and associated infrastructure. It is hop- ing to nd a partner that can supply the technol- ogies and funding needed to construct a facility that is larger than Tango LNG, the 500,000 tonne per year (tpy) oating LNG (FLNG) plant that
came on stream earlier this year.
e YPF executives did not identify any of
the companies with which it has been negotiat- ing or say where the new LNG complex might be built. Browne did say, though, that his com- pany was considering several options for con- struction. One of these would involve anchoring multiple FLNG facilities similar to the Tango LNG unit at a site o the coast of Argentina, as partners in the Golar LNG project did o shore Cameroon, he said.
Tango LNG, anchored in Bahia Blanca, is currently the only gas liquefaction facility in Argentina. YPF used the FLNG vessel, owned by Exmar, to load its rst cargo for export in June. It is due to load its rst full cargo in October and will remain in operation until May 2020, when it will shut down so that Argentinian gas can be reserved for the domestic market during the heating season.
Tango LNG is Argentina’s only gas liquefaction facility. Photo: Exmar
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w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m Week 36 11•September•2019
