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On September 3, Chevron Australia said it Latin America: Policy initiatives
would require extra time to complete repairs of Mexico, Colombia and Brazil are all wrestling
propane heat exchangers on Train 2 at the Gor- with new policy initiatives this week.
gon terminal on Barrow Island, off the northwest In Brazil, the Chamber of Deputies, the lower
coast of Western Australia. Chevron had initially house of the National Congress, has approved
anticipated completing the repairs and returning the basic text of a bill that calls for opening up
Train 2 to service in September, but now says it the domestic natural gas market to even more
expects the restart in October. private competition. The legislation is designed
The company said that following its ongo- to support previous efforts to break state-owned
ing technical work, it was further refining its Petrobras’ monopoly on the production, pro-
approach and had decided that some welds in cessing and transport of gas.
targeted areas would require additional work. A In Colombia, legislation that aims to provide
trade union had previously raised concerns that tax breaks for unconventional oil and gas pro-
the heat exchangers would need to be replaced jects has stalled in the legislature, raising new
altogether, so while the repairs are more exten- questions about plans for pilot projects involving
sive than Chevron initially expected, it appears the use of hydraulic fracturing (fracking).
that this was not the worst-case scenario. These projects have generated no small amount
Chevron is due to take Trains 1 and 3 offline of controversy in Colombia, with opponents
to inspect the heat exchangers for similar issues, playing up the environmental risks of frack-
and now says it hopes that the work at Train 2 ing and backers emphasising the potential for
can help those inspections – and any necessary increasing the country’s reserves.
repairs – to be more efficient. In Mexico, the government is preparing to
Separately, Royal Dutch Shell said on Sep- unveil a new programme for supporting the
tember 4 that it had begun restart procedures at energy industry within the next few weeks. The
its Prelude FLNG facility and the gas fields off- programme is likely to prioritise the interests of
shore Broome that supply feedstock to the vessel. Pemex, the national oil company (NOC) over
However, Shell is reported to have run into the private sector. According to the head of a
challenges almost immediately. A source on local trade group, the government’s plans do not
board the vessel was quoted by news agencies as include any exploration of development projects
saying the restart had some issues with “multi- open to the participation of foreign investors.
ple trips” of the plant and two swivels inside the Meanwhile, Refineria di Korsou (RdK), the
turret that moors the giant LNG facility in place. operator of Curaçao’s only oil refinery, has taken
And Shell is reported to have suspended gas legal action against Venezuela’s national oil com-
flows to Prelude as a precaution. pany (NOC) PdVSA in a US court. RdK said in
There is now speculation that Prelude – documents filed in a New York state court that it
which is thought to be one of the most complex was seeking to recover $51mn worth of overdue
LNG facilities in the world – may not be back on service payments from PdVSA. So far, neither
stream until 2021. The facility has been offline the NOC nor the Venezuelan government has
since February as a result of technical issues. responded to the lawsuit.

If you’d like to read more about the key events shaping If you’d like to read more about the key events shaping
the global LNG sector then please click here for the Latin American oil and gas sector then please click
NewsBase’s GLNG Monitor. here for NewsBase’s LatAmOil Monitor.

Week 36 09•September•2020 www. NEWSBASE .com P9