Page 8 - NorthAmOil Week 37 2022
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NorthAmOil PROJECTS & COMPANIES NorthAmOil
Tourmaline, Kelt shut in gas
production on weak pricing
WESTERN TWO Canadian natural gas producers, Tourma- October. The company also scheduled facility
CANADA line Oil and Kelt Exploration, said on Septem- turnarounds and hedged more gas volumes
ber 12 that they had temporarily reduced their than usual in August in response to the price
output after pipeline bottlenecks caused Western fluctuations.
Canadian gas prices to collapse. Kelt, for its part, cut its full-year output guid-
Spot gas prices at the AECO hub in Western ance by 1,500 boepd to roughly 29,000 boepd.
Canada fell during the second half of August The company warned that there could be more
and briefly turned negative. This came as main- volatility for AECO prices as further mainte-
tenance on TC Energy’s NGTL pipeline sys- nance is carried out on the NGTL system.
tem cut takeaway capacity and left gas volumes An RBC Capital Markets analyst, Michael
stranded in Alberta and at the Station 2 hub in Harvey, described Kelt’s shut-in as a “prudent
British Columbia. move in the face of lower temporary gas prices”.
Tourmaline, Canada’s largest gas producer, He also described Tourmaline’s response as
said it had cut its output for the third quarter of “reshuffling production”.
2022 by 7,500 barrels of oil equivalent per day The price collapse came even as global gas
(boepd), or 1.5%. However, the company’s pro- prices surged once again on rising demand,
duction guidance for the whole year remained especially in Europe, which is urgently seeking
unchanged at 507,000 boepd. new sources of supply to replace its imports of
The price collapse prompted Tourmaline Russian gas. Canadian oil prices have also been
to shut in around 100mn cubic feet (2.8mn vulnerable to price fluctuations brought about
cubic metres) per day of existing produc- by takeaway capacity bottlenecks in recent years,
tion and to delay the start-up of several new with Canadian crude often trading at a discount
drilling pads from August until September or to US benchmarks.
ENERGY TRANSITION
Stakeholder Midstream receives EPA
approval for carbon sequestration project
TEXAS STAKEHOLDER Midstream announced on surface and 10,000 feet (3,048 metres) below
September 13 that it had received approval from the water table. It is located adjacent to Kinder
the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Morgan’s Cortez pipeline, which transports up to
for its monitoring, reporting and verification 1.5bn cubic feet (42.5mn cubic metres) per day
(MRV) plan relating to a carbon dioxide (CO2) of CO2. Stakeholder noted that there are other
sequestration project in the Permian Basin. major CO2 transport lines in immediate prox-
The approval is the first that the EPA has imity to the well, including Occidental Petrole-
granted for an MRV plan for the permanent um’s Bravo and Sheep Mountain pipelines and
sequestration of CO2 in Texas that is not asso- Kinder Morgan’s Central Basin pipeline and
ciated with enhanced oil recovery (EOR) opera- Trinity CO2 pipelines. The proximity of these
tions, Stakeholder noted. CO2 transportation pipelines to Stakeholder’s
Under the plan, the company will store CO2 CCS infrastructure creates opportunities for the
emitted from its Campo Viejo natural gas pro- company to service third-party carbon seques-
cessing plant in the Pozo Acido well, close to tration customers in the Permian Basin and
Texas’ border with New Mexico. If other stat- beyond, it said.
utory requirements are met, Stakeholder and Stakeholder added that it was currently
other parties that use the injection well to store developing the final phases of its carbon cap-
CO2 will qualify for 45Q carbon capture and ture equipment buildout, and planned to install
storage (CCS) tax credits. additional facilities in 2023. The company said
The Pozo Acido injection well would store it operates two permanent sequestration wells
the CO2 in the Devonian formation, which is responsible for the geologic storage of more than
located more than 2 miles (3.2 km) below the 85,000 tonnes per year (tpy) of CO2.
P8 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 37 15•September•2022
