Page 9 - NorrthAmOil Week 43 2021

NorthAmOil PROJECTS & COMPANIES NorthAmOil

Cheniere, Glencore strike

long-term LNG supply deal

GLOBAL CHENIERE Energy has struck a long-term Gas. Indeed, Cheniere’s chief commercial officer,
deal to supply LNG to commodity trading and Anatol Feygin, was quoted by the Financial
mining firm Glencore. The deal marks further Times on October 24 as saying his company saw
progress for Cheniere towards a final investment Asia as the “growth driver” for LNG demand
decision (FID) on the Stage 3 expansion of its over the long term, with China “the single big-
Corpus Christi LNG export terminal in Texas. gest piece in that”.
The binding sale and purchase agreement However, the Glencore deal illustrates that
(SPA) between subsidiaries of Cheniere and commodity traders also have a role to play for
Glencore covers 800,000 tonnes per year (tpy) producers seeking to contract new volumes.
of LNG, which will be delivered over a 13-year Earlier this year, another US LNG developer,
The deal marks further period starting in April 2023. The LNG will be Tellurian, signed two separate supply deals
progress for Cheniere purchased on a free-on-board (FOB) basis, with commodity traders Vitol and Gunvor
towards an FID on the and will be indexed to the Henry Hub natural Group, covering 3mn tpy each over a 10-year
Stage 3 expansion at gas benchmark. A liquefaction fee will also be period.
Corpus Christi LNG. included in the purchase price. The Glencore deal’s comparatively small
“This SPA further builds upon Cheniere’s size suggests caution on the part of the trading
commercial momentum, marking another firm. However, even these smaller deals are
important milestone in contracting our LNG building up for Cheniere. In late September
capacity ahead of an FID of Corpus Christi Stage Cheniere said it expected to announce a num-
3, which we expect to occur next year,” stated ber of transactions that would support an FID
Cheniere’s president and CEO, Jack Fusco. on Corpus Christi Stage 3. And in mid-October
The announcement comes in the same the company, along with rival US LNG devel-
month that Cheniere signed a 13-year SPA for oper Venture Global LNG, was reported to be in
900,000 tpy of LNG with China’s ENN Natural “advanced” talks with various Chinese buyers.™

Shell reportedly targets

Ursa restart in November

GULF OF MEXICO ROYAL Dutch Shell is reportedly hoping to and onshore oil and gas operations in the Gulf
bring its Ursa platform in the US Gulf of Mexico Coast region. Around 30mn barrels of offshore
back online in the first half of November, after production are estimated to have been lost as a
the facility was shut down as a result of Hurri- result of the hurricane. Various platforms have
cane Ida in late August. This was reported by gradually been returned to service following the
Bloomberg, which cited an anonymous source storm, including Shell’s Olympus, which was
familiar with the matter. restarted earlier in October following repairs to
Shell had previously said that the 100,000 part of that facility. The restart of Olympus came
barrel per day Ursa, as well as the 60,000 bpd earlier than previously expected.
Mars platform, both depended on the comple- The 2021 Atlantic hurricane season was ini-
tion of repairs to the West Delta 143 (WD-143) tially active – potentially set to run out of storm
transfer facility in order to return to service. The names before the season ended for only the third
super-major said on October 22 that WD-143 time in history. However, not a single named
was expected to start up in the first half of storm has formed since October 6, and since Ida,
November, after which the Mars pipeline is further storm-related disruption in the Gulf has
anticipated to resume normal operations. been minimal.
This would suggest the restart of Mars Shell’s outages at Mars, Ursa and WD-143
and Ursa around the same time, shortly after have affected supplies of medium-sour grade
WD-143, though last month Shell estimated that Mars crude, which is heavily used by Gulf Coast
they would remain offline until the first quarter refiners. Prior to Ida, the Mars pipeline trans-
of 2022. ported over 480,000 bpd of oil over the month of
Ida had a severe impact on both offshore July according to Louisiana state data.™

Week 43 28•October•2021 www. NEWSBASE .com P9