Page 20 - MEOG Week 01 2021

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expected to yield more than 2mn barrels per day with the port.
(bpd) at their peak and may also contain natural The Australian asset sale involves Royal
gas as well. Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin recently Dutch Shell, which said on December 21 that
speculated that Vostok Oil might eventually be it had agreed to divest a 26.25% stake in the
able to deliver as much as 50mn tonnes per year Queensland Curtis LNG (QCLNG) common
(tpy) of LNG to the world market. facilities to Global Infrastructure Partners Aus-
Meanwhile, Rosneft has also consolidated its tralia. The stake will be sold for $2.5bn, in a deal
control over Vostok Oil by buying out a private anticipated to close in the first half of 2021.
partner. The company announced over the hol- Shell currently owns 100% of the QCLNG
iday break that it had closed the acquisition of common facilities, as well as a 73.75% interest
100% stakes in firms called Taimyrneftegaz and in the overall QCLNG project. The super-major
Taimyrburservis. The former is a subsidiary of said the sale would bring its interest in the com-
Neftegazholding, a private oil firm with rights mon facilities into alignment with its stake in the
to the Payakha fields, which will serve as part of overall project as it works to sell non-core assets
Vostok Oil, as well as several other large onshore and high-grade and simplify its portfolio.
licences. In Croatia, meanwhile, the Krk floating LNG
The ins and outs of Rosneft’s transaction (FLNG) terminal entered service on January 1.
with Neftegazholding are unclear. However, the On that date, the Tristar Ruby tanker arrived to
available evidence suggests that some form of offload the first commercial cargo, consisting of
asset swap is underway. Russia’s company reg- LNG from the US, at the facility.
istry shows that Neftegazholding has become These developments occurred as the pros-
the owner of a 9% share in RN-Severnaya Neft, pects for US exporters of the super-chilled fuel
a Rosneft subsidiary working in the Timan-Pe- improved, thanks to higher LNG prices. There
chora Basin. are even signs of greater long-term confidence,
In other news, the Austro-Romanian oil as illustrated by Texas LNG signing a 50-year
firm OMV Petrom has agreed to sell its assets in lease agreement with the Port of Brownsville
Kazakhstan to a local private company, drawing to support its proposed export terminal. Texas
a close to two decades of work in the country. LNG joins Annova LNG and Rio Grande LNG
OMV Petrom will transfer 100% interests in its in making the commitment.
Kazakh subsidiaries Kom-Munai and Tasbulat
Oil to a private company based in Nur-Sultan If you’d like to read more about the key events shaping
called Magnetic Oil. Kom-Munai controls the the global LNG sector then please click here for
Komsomolskoye oilfield in Kazakhstan’s Man- NewsBase’s GLNG Monitor.
gistau Province bordering the Caspian Sea, while
Tasbulat Oil manages the nearby Tasbulat con- LatAmOil: Venezuelan sanctions
cession, which contains the Aktas, Tasbulat and US sanctions continue to dog Venezuela’s oil
Turkmenoi deposits. industry, which has seen output plummet over
the last few years.
If you’d like to read more about the key events shaping Halliburton, one of the world’s largest oilfield
the former Soviet Union’s oil and gas sector then please service providers, said in late December that it
click here for NewsBase’s FSU Monitor. had reduced the size of its workforce in the South
American country. The Houston-based firm has
GLNG: A busy period been ramping down its Venezuelan operations
Various developments took place across the for some time, in line with US sanctions policy,
global LNG industry over Christmas, which is but it is now trimming staff levels even further.
typically a quiet period. These included a signif- As of press time Halliburton had not revealed
icant LNG asset sale announced in Australia in the extent of the staff cuts. However, a spokes-
late December, as well as the start-up of a new woman told Reuters that the company was
import terminal in Croatia. Meanwhile in the not closing up shop completely. “Halliburton
US, the third of three companies proposing to halted its primary operations in Venezuela as
build a new LNG export terminal at the Port of a result of US sanctions imposed on the coun-
Brownsville in Texas signed a long-term lease try. Because of this, Halliburton is reducing its

P20 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 01 06•January•2021