Page 8 - NorthAmOil Week 47 2020

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50% owned by BP, has expressed satisfaction If you’d like to read more about the key events
with the government’s four-year tender scheme, shaping the Middle East’s oil and gas sector then
under which producers can offer gas to the please click here for NewsBase’s MEOG Monitor .
market at a price of up to $3.70 per mmBtu.
The tenders will cover 70mn cubic metres per North America: Pipeline and production
day, equivalent to just over half of current pro- moves in Canada amid net zero push
duction, and they may save the country around It has been a busy news week for the Canadian
$5bn by reducing the need to import gas to cover oil and gas industry. TC Energy announced that
seasonal demand. it had signed a deal paving the way for a poten-
As Rodolfo Freyre, PAE’s vice-president of tial investment in Keystone XL, Imperial Oil
gas, electricity and commercial development, unveiled spending and output plans and more
said: “Thank goodness the gas plan is being details of the country’s path to net-zero green-
implemented, because if you don’t stop this level house gas (GHG) emissions emerged.
of decline [in gas production], it will continue TC Energy said on November 17 that it had
to decline.” signed a definitive agreement with Natural Law
Energy (NLE), a group that comprises several
If you’d like to read more about the key events shaping First Nations. (See: Steps forward for major pipe-
the Latin American oil and gas sector then please click lines, page 11) The deal allows NLE to invest up
here for NewsBase’s LatAmOil Monitor . to CAD1bn ($768mn) in the Keystone XL pro-
ject – a cross-border pipeline that would carry
MEOG: Middle East stays busy with con- oil from Alberta’s oil sands to the US. TC Energy
tracts, M&A and finds said similar deals could be struck with indige-
The Middle East oil and gas sector has remained nous groups along the pipeline’s route in both the Imperial Oil said
busy over the past week with new contract US and Canada.
awards, M&A interest and large discoveries all The move comes as TC Energy prepares in its virtual
announced. for US President-elect Joe Biden to take office.
The biggest news came unsurprisingly from There are fears that Biden could revoke the pro- investor day
Saudi Arabia, where state oil firm Saudi Aramco ject’s presidential permit, which would stop it
has launched a new contracting pool for brown- from being built, so the company will be keen to presentation
field oil and gas projects and plant upgrades. demonstrate how Keystone XL aligns with Bid- that it would
Aramco prequalified seven companies and one en’s ‘Build Back Better’ agenda.
consortium to bid exclusively on the work on a Separately, Imperial Oil said in its virtual raise capital
long-term agreement (LTA) basis similar to the investor day presentation that it would raise cap-
existing contracts offering automatic prequal- ital expenditure and production in 2021 despite expenditure and
ification for offshore EPCI work. While new ongoing market volatility related to the coro-
companies have entered Aramco’s ‘rig of trust’, navirus (COVID-19) pandemic. (See: Imperial production in
Hyundai, Saipem and TehcnipFMC are all now to raise production, spending in 2021, page 13) 2021.
represented in both pools. Imperial – which is majority-owned by Exxon-
Meanwhile in Iraq, two state-owned Chi- Mobil and is one of Canada’s top four producers
nese firms are reported to have shown an inter- – is intending to spend CAD1.2bn ($922mn) in
est in acquiring ExxonMobil’s 34.7% stake in 2021, which would mark a rise of 33% on 2020.
the supergiant West Qurna-1 oilfield, with the The company is targeting a production increase
US firm thought to have grown tired of issues of 5% to 415,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day
with developing the asset and the small returns (boepd).
on offer. Such a move would further emphasise These updates have come against the back-
Iraq’s pivot towards Asia as Western firms bail drop of Canada taking another step down the
out, citing challenging operating conditions and path to decarbonisation. Canadian Prime Min-
low returns on investment. ister Justin Trudeau unveiled further details
With ADNOC dominating recent news flow, of how he intends to achieve net zero by 2050.
it was not out of character that the UAE’s state Trudeau’s Liberal Party has tabled a bill that
oil firm made the headlines again this week with would require the Canadian government to
the announcement of 24bn barrels of oil found set new targets – and a plan on how to achieve
across one unconventional and one conven- those targets – every five years between 2030
tional discovery. and 2050.™

P8 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 47 26•November•2020