Page 13 - MEOG Week 10
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oIL
ADNOC lowers selling price
following collapse of OPEC
deal
Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. (ADNOC) lowered the price for its flagship Murban crude by $11.70 per barrel to $56.10 per barrel for February, the company said in a note to
its customers. The UAE’s largest producer followed Saudi Arabia’s lead in offering discounts to buyers following the collapse of the OPEC+ pact.
ADNOC, which currently prices its crude retroactively, had previously set the selling price for Murban, its main crude grade, at $67.80 per barrel in January. “ADNOC has always sets a fair and reasonable retroactive price for its crude that is consistent with market conditions,” the company told its clients in a statement.
“We can assure our customers that this practice will continue,” it added.
The state-owned producer also cut its official selling prices for other crude grades for February.
The move mirrors action taken by Saudi Arabia’s state-owned oil producer Saudi Aramco, which issued guidance to the market on Sunday that it would reduce its selling price to Asia by $4 to $6 per barrel, much higher than the cut of $2 per barrel expected by analysts prior to the OPEC meeting in Vienna last week.
The move comes amid plans by Riyadh to significantly ramp up production to as much as 10.5 million barrels per day following the collapse of the OPEC+ alliance consisting of OPEC members and non-OPEC countries led by Russia, who could not agree on a proposal to cut an additional 1.5 million bpd from global supply last week.
The discounts on Aramco’s Arab light crude grade for Asian buyers are the steepest so far. Saudi Arabia also lowered the prices of its crude grade for customers in the US, Europe and the Mediterranean by up to $7 to
$8 per barrel.
Oil prices crashed nearly 31 per cent
during early trading hours on Monday, the steepest daily drop since the Gulf War in 1991. Brent, the most widely traded commodity, was down 21.45 per cent to $35.56 per barrel at 5.28pm UAE time, while West Texas Intermediate was down 21.27 per cent at $32.50 per barrel.
neWsnoW
Gas
Iran announces installation
of final platform for Phase
13 of South Pars
The last platform required for the Phase 13 development of the South Pars gas field off the coast of Iran has been installed, official energy news agency SHANA has reported.
The entirety of South Pars in the Persian Gulf is thought to make up the largest gas
field in the world. Shared by Iran and qatar, its development in Iranian waters, has been hampered by US sanctions that in August 2018 put an end to French energy major Total’s participation in planned South Pars hydrocarbon extraction. last October, Tehran announced that the China National Petroleum Corporation had also withdrawn from its role in helping to develop the giant field.
The local contractor of the project said the new mega-structure would raise the daily gas production of Phase 13 to 56mn cubic metres.
The platform weighs some 2,500 tonnes and was produced by local firm Marine Industrial Company (SADRA) in the southern Iranian city of Bandar Abbas.
Earlier, in February, the final platform required for the gas field development’s Phase 14 was installed. Platform 14D was shipped from the SADRA shipyard.
Its operation should add 500mn cubic feet (14.2mn c/m) of gas to Iran’s South
Pars output, according to Pars Oil and Gas Company (POGC), which is solely in charge
of South Pars development. Mohammad Mehdi Tavasoli-Pour,
manager of Phase 14, said it was anticipated that production of 56 mcm/d of rich gas would be extracted from that phase of South Pars.
A previous platform, Platform 14B, was installed in mid-July last year. It was built over the course of 115 months by Iranian firms.
The first Phase 14 platform, 14A, started operations during summer 2018. The second platform to go operational, 14C, went into service in October 2018.
shana
serVICes
Coronavirus could delay
FPSOs under construction in
Asia up to one year
The outbreak of the coronavirus is set to cause extensive staffing and supply shortages as well as delays on floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessels under construction in China, South korea, and Singapore, according to energy intelligence firm Rystad Energy.
Rystad said on Friday that 22 out of a global total of 28 FPSOs under construction were being built at shipyards in China, South korea, and Singapore.
According to the company, the coronavirus outbreak could delay project deliveries by at least three to six months.
If the epidemic escalates, the delays could increase to nine or even 12 months, especially taking into account the restricted time windows for heavy transport, installation and hook-up.
The average development time for an FPSO is 36 months, meaning that companies could face a 30 per cent delay.
Rystad Energy partner and head of oilfield service research Audun Martinsen said: “Although operators and contractors are looking into ways to make up for some of the time that will be lost by fast-tracking other stages of development, we anticipate first oil or gas for these projects will face clear delays.”
At present, 28 FPSOs are under development globally, 15 of which are being built in China. Seven are under construction in COVID-19 hotspot South korea as well as in Singapore, while six additional vessels are being constructed elsewhere.
Rystad added that many Chinese workers received a holiday extension in early February after the Chinese New Year, aimed at limiting
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