Page 16 - LatAmOil Week 31

LatAmOil ARUBA LatAmOil

It also reported that Promigas, a natural gas Aruban authorities have also offered foreign
transporter based in Colombia, had submitted investors the right to lease storage capacity at
an offer for the first-tier contract. the refinery, which has remained idle for some
RdA’s next step is to review all of the bids time. Prime Minister Evelyn Wever-Croes’
it has received. The company has not yet said office said last month that RdA was considering
when it will make a decision about the fate of three offers for the contract, and Argus Media
the San Nicolas plant. reported in late July that one of these offers had
Previously, RdA had contracted PdV Hold- been accepted. It did not name the bidders but
ing (PDVH), a US-based affiliate of Venezuela’s said that the company hoped to close the deal
national oil company (NOC) PdVSA, to serve as by August 1.
the operator of the refinery. However, it termi- The winner of the lease will have the right to
nated its agreement with PDVH after that com- use 10 storage tanks with a combined capacity
pany’s subsidiary Citgo Aruba Holding (CAH) of more than 6mn barrels at the refinery. The
failed to uphold its commitment to renovate the tanks are capable of holding 5.224mn barrels of
plant, along with its storage, docking and termi- crude oil, 665,000 barrels of clean refined fuels
nal facilities, and keep it supplied with crude oil. and 518,000 barrels of naphtha.. ™

BRAZIL
Petrobras begins accepting

bids for Bahia LNG lease

BRAZIL’S national oil company (NOC) Petro- in LNG – Excelerate Energy (US) and Golar
bras has begun accepting bids for the right to Power Latam, a subsidiary of Bermuda-reg-
lease Bahia LNG, an underutilised gas import istered Golar LNG. Additionally, it noted that
terminal in the north-eastern part of the Petrobras would accept offers from Compass
country. Gas and Energy, a new Brazilian gas transport
Petrobras said in a statement that it was for- and distribution company set up by the Cosan
mally launching the bidding process and was industrial group, and two Brazilian gas distrib-
ready to accept offers from companies that had utors, Bahiagas and Naturgy.
pre-qualified to participate. The deadline for Petrobras is auctioning off a lease to the facil-
submitting proposals is September 30, and the ity within the framework of its plan to divest
NOC has said it will offer the lease to the com- its gas transport and distribution assets and to
pany that makes the highest bid. allow third parties to access gas infrastructure. It
The winner of the auction will have the right drew up the outlines of this plan last year, under
to negotiate a leasing contract for the Bahia an agreement with the Brazilian government’s
LNG terminal, which is capable of importing anti-trust agency, known as Cade.
and regasifying the equivalent of 20mn cubic Bahia LNG is one of three LNG regasification
metres per day of LNG. The contract will also terminals that Petrobras has built along the coast
cover a 45-km pipeline that runs from terminal of Brazil. Two of these facilities – Bahia and
facilities in the port of Bahia to exit points in São Pecem – are currently operating below design
Francisco do Conde and São Sebastião do Passé, capacity, and the third terminal – the Guanabara
but it will not include access to the Excelerate terminal, which is in Rio de Janeiro – has been
Experience, a floating storage and regasification out of service since 2018. ™
unit (FSRU) that Petrobras has installed at the
port.
The terminal has been operating below
capacity for some time. According to data from
Brazil’s Mines and Energy Ministry, it regasified
the equivalent of 4.34 mcm per day of natural
gas in the first four months of 2020.
Last month, Argus Media reported that
Petrobras had authorised nine entities to par-
ticipate in the bidding process. It said the list
of pre-qualified firms included four vertically
integrated international oil companies (IOCs)
– BP (UK), Repsol (Spain), Royal Dutch Shell
(UK/Netherlands) and Total (France) – as
well as two international firms that specialise The LNG import terminal is in north-eastern Brazil (Photo: Bahia Pilots)

P16 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 31 06•August•2020