Page 9 - LatAmOil Week 29 2020

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The supplier is taking steps to cut its operat- largest ever project financing for a development
ing costs and capital investments in 2020, with in Africa, according to the French company. The
the latter due to be reduced to RUB1.3 trillion financing includes direct and covered loans from
($18.21bn), from an earlier forecast of RUB1.6 eight export credit agencies (ECAs), 19 commer-
trillion ($22.42bn). cial bank facilities and a loan from the African
Azerbaijan’s state energy group SOCAR has Development Bank (AfDB)
warned that some of the infrastructure that car- The agreement secures the majority of the
ries Caspian oil and gas to world markets could required funds for the $20bn Mozambique LNG
be at risk, following border clashes with Arme- project. Construction on the terminal is under-
nia. 15 servicemen from Azerbaijan and six from way, and LNG production is due to begin around
Armenia died last week. The countries have a 2024. Total and its partners will hope that the
long-standing dispute over the Nagorno-Karab- global glut of LNG will have eased significantly
akh region that has periodically flared up. by then.
The infrastructure to which SOCAR was In the immediate term, however, the glut
referring includes various oil and gas pipelines, continues to be exacerbated by new liquefac-
some of which are situated not far from the terri- tion coming online in the US. Last week, Kinder
tory where clashes took place. Morgan said the seventh liquefaction train at
In Kazakhstan, a long-standing dispute its Elba Island LNG terminal was ready to enter
between the government and Moldovan busi- service.
nessman Anatolie Stati wages on. Stati claims The facility is a comparatively small-scale
that in 2010, oilfields controlled by his com- one, with each of the terminal’s 10 trains having
panies were expropriated by the Kazakh state. a capacity of 300,000 tpy of LNG. Nonetheless,
The Amsterdam Court of Appeal last week all of the remaining units are anticipated to be
confirmed it had rejected Kazakhstan’s appeal online by the end of the summer, contributing
against a $543mn award in favour of Stati by a to the rise in US liquefaction capacity. It is worth
Stockholm arbitration tribunal in 2013. Stati noting, however, that no cargoes have been
continues to seek the arrest of Kazakh property exported from Elba Island since January amid
overseas, to put pressure on the government to the downturn in global demand.
settle the award. Total US LNG export capacity is anticipated
to rise from 9.7 bcf (274.7 mcm) per day cur-
If you’d like to read more about the key events shaping rently to 9.8 bcf (277.5 mcm) per day by the end
the former Soviet Union’s oil and gas sector then of 2020 and 10.5 bcf (297.4 mcm) per day by the
please click here for NewsBase’s FSU Monitor . end of 2021.

GLNG: Export projects proceed If you’d like to read more about the key events shaping
Despite the challenging conditions in the LNG the global LNG sector then please click here for
market, export projects for the fuel in the US NewsBase’s GLNG Monitor.
and Mozambique have announced steps forward
during the past week. At the same time, however, Mideast: Cuts remain in vogue
setbacks have come for others. As OPEC+ announced that cuts would be eased
In one of the most significant developments from August 1, Iraq’s State Oil Marketing Organ-
for a new LNG export project in the past week, ization (SOMO) stated that shipments to Asian
France’s Total announced that it had signed a and European refineries would be reduced in
$14.9bn senior debt financing agreement for order to ensure compliance with the country’s
the Mozambique LNG venture.The deal is the quota.

Week 29 23•July•2020 www. NEWSBASE .com P9