Page 10 - DMEA Week 30

DMEA fUels DMEA
Vessels carrying Iranian LPG detained in Singapore
AfriCA
TWO tankers carrying Iranian lique ed petro- leum gas (LPG) headed to China have been detained in Singapore, RFE/RL reported on July 30. Against a backdrop of sweeping US sanctions, several ships with links to Iran have struggled to reach or depart their destinations in recent weeks, including the Grace 1 oil tanker which UK Royal Marines seized a er the UK claimed it had information that it was heading to Syria in breach of an EU embargo with 2.1mn barrels of crude on board.
Iran claimed the UK acted at the behest of the US, which British o cials denied.
Meanwhile, two Iranian grain ships have only just managed to depart a Brazilian port a er the supreme court there ordered that they must be refuelled despite state company Petrobras pro- testing that by providing the vessels with bunker fuel it would be exposed to American seconday sanctions.
Meanwhile, this week saw an Iranian cargo ship sink o the Caspian Sea coast of Azerbaijan near Lankaran, while 48 hours later another Ira- nian vessel, the Tina, traversing the sea requested urgent medical assistance from officials in Russia’s Astrakhan a er an outbreak of acute
sickness on-board. Ten people were hospitalised with signs of a severe intestinal infection, “ARVI”. e ships reportedly detained in Singapore are thought to belong to Kunlun Shipping, a private Hong Kong company with a eet of LPG vessels. It is unclear if the rm is related to the bank of the same name that deals with Iranian
oil sales to China.
e detention of the vessels was related to US
sanctions on the export of Iranian oil and gas to anywhere in the world and was also a direct result of a court order, the report said.
RFE/RL added that the ships are no longer listed in the “vessels under Sheri ’s arrest” sec- tion on the website of the Singapore Supreme Court. One of the ships, a Liberian- agged ves- sel, was last recorded in the Malaka Strait with shipping data noting that the tanker was esti- mated to reach its nal destination on 9 August. The Marne Traffic website, which tracks all tanker movements, recorded that it stopped in the port of Singapore on 24 July.
Meanwhile, the second ship, the Liberi- an- agged Gas In nity, remains anchored in the Singapore Strait near Sudong island, tracking data suggests.™
PiPelines
CNOOC confirms involvement in EACOP
AfriCA
CHINA National O shore Oil Corp. (CNOOC) has con rmed its intention to acquire a stake in the oil pipeline project that will export Ugandan output via Tanzania to the Indian Ocean.
The East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) will connect Uganda’s Lake Albert oil elds to the port of Tanga, following a pro- tracted discussion about proposed routes, with the Tanzania option beating two alternatives running through Kenya. Speaking to Reuters this week, CNOOC Uganda spokeswoman Ami- nah Bukenya said: “CNOOC shall participate in theEACOPproject.”
e Chinese company owns a share in the Lake Albert elds alongside France’s Total and UK-based Tullow, and the partners were all expected to take a 75% stake in the project com- pany, with Uganda National Oil Co. (UNOC)
owning up to 15% and Tanzania Petroleum Development Corp. (TPDC) holding the remainder.
Bukenya noted that the scale of its partici- pation would not be in uenced by other IOCs developing the upstream assets and added that CNOOC intends to produce gas, with output earmarked for the generation of up to 42 MW for its own use and for sale to the national grid.
In May 2017, Kampala and Dodoma signed an intergovernmental agreement (IGA) on EACOP and US-based Gulf Interstate Engineer- ingcompletedtheFEEDstudyinDecemberthat year.
The project calls for the installation of a 1,445-km, 24-inch (610-mm) heated pipeline capable of transporting 216,000 barrels per day (bpd) of oil.
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w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m Week 30 01•August•2019