Page 11 - Euroil Week 39 2019

EurOil PROJECTS & COMPANIES EurOil
Pavilion targets Europe in bid to become global LNG trader
UK
Pavilion bought the LNG assets of Spain’s Iberdoda in June.
SINGAPORE-BASED Pavilion Energy is tar- geting new markets in Europe as well as expand- ing in Asia as the gas importer and marketer aims to become a global trader of LNG. Pavil- ion’s group CEO, Frederic Barnaud, told Reuters that the company was anticipating a turnover of $3bn next year, with its Europe portfolio com- prising half of this amount while Singapore would account for the rest.
This follows Pavilion’s acquisition in June of the LNG assets of Spain’s Iberdrola, which dou- bled the company’s portfolio and gave it access to Atlantic supplies and European regasification terminals. In the wake of the acquisition, Pavil- ion is planning to open its European headquar- ters in Madrid in January 2020. The company is aiming to boost its global headcount to 150 by adding around 40-50 positions at its Madrid office.
According to Barnaud, the company will anchor its global LNG business around three markets – Singapore, Spain and the UK.
Pavilion is owned by Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, Temasek Holdings. The company supplies one-third of Singapore’s downstream natural gas demand, and is seeking more
flexibility in where it buys and sells LNG in a changing market. US LNG is taking an increas- ingly larger share of the market, while a grow- ing focus on environmental goals is compelling more countries to consider switching from coal to natural gas for power generation and indus- trial use.
“We are not looking at extremely aggressive or taking excessive risk in the market; we are looking at being agile and reasonably balanced in our supply,” Barnaud said.
The company is intending to re-export LNG from Singapore to nearby countries, seeking to take advantage of the city-state’s geographical proximity to centres of Asian LNG demand such as Japan and South Korea.
According to Barnaud, the company is in talks with LNG terminal operator Sin- gapore LNG (SLNG) to extend its storage lease, which is due to expire in March 2020. Pavilion has also indicated its interest in a potential fifth LNG storage tank that SLNG is considering building, he said. The tank space would allow the company to break up large cargoes of LNG into smaller ones for re-export. ™
Romania faced blackout
twice this year says OMV
Petrom executive
The Romanian power system has been close to blackout twice this year because of insufficient investments in generation capacities, said Franck Neel, a member of the OMV Petrom board responsible for the sale and trading of gas and electricity, as quoted by Profit.ro.
Neel said this while arguing in favour of a bill that would allow investors in new generation capacities to sign long-term forward contracts before being licensed as power producers, in order to make their projects bankable. Such a bill is currently being considered by Romanian lawmakers.
Romania has indeed imported electricity at the maximum technical capacity in late September, during the peak consumption hours and this might have happened during cold winter days — but the electricity power system operator OPCOM operates a system under which selective power reductions and
NEWS IN BRIEF
cuts are pursued in such situations.
The country’s power system was close to
blackout for the first time during the cold winter days and later a few days ago, when one of the two reactors of the Cernavoda nuclear plant was undergoing unplanned outage, Neele confirmed.
“The two situations incurred because no investments were made in the power plants, since such investments are not stimulated. In order to be able to finance such investment projects by banks, one must be able to have long-term contracts,” Neel said at a round- table organised by Financial Intelligence.
Although the statements related to the imminent blackout seem slightly exaggerated, given the existing selective power cuts procedures, the lack of sufficient generation units and the problematic mix of resources are visible. Steps to address these issues are rather slow: the expansion of the Cernavoda nuclear plant has lingered for more than a decade and the conversion of outdated coal-fired power units is advancing at a slow pace if at all. Both topics are on the government’s agenda, but the steps to be taken are not clear.
CE Oltenia, which generates roughly
one quarter of the country’s electricity, is
near insolvency since it cannot pay its CO2 emission allowances. But closing down its coal fired plants would generate a deficit
that cannot be covered from imports under existing interconnection capacities. Separately, the two new reactors at Cernavoda, which would produce nearly 20% of the country’s electricity, are even more problematic
after Romania signed a memorandum of understating in the civil energy with the
US. Currently, Romania is negotiating the expansion of the nuclear plant with Chinese investors.
bne IntelliNews, September 30 2019
MOL acquires Hungary- Slovakia gas link
The gas transmission system operator (TSO) arm of Hungary’s MOL is set to own and operate the 92-km gas interconnector between Hungary and Slovakia. According
Week 39 03•October•2019
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