Page 18 - EurOil Week 02 2021

EurOil PROJECTS & COMPANIES EurOil

ADX clinches concession deals in Austria

AUSTRIA SYDNEY-LISTED junior ADX Energy has building with RAG E&P and the Austrian des-
reached 16-year concession deals with authori- ignated authorities by our local ADX team,” he
ADX plans to launch a ties in Austria giving it rights to 450 square km said.
farm-out process by the of acreage in the prolific Molasse Basin in Upper The new licences surround other produc-
end of this month. Austria. ing fields with export infrastructure already in
The licences cover exploration, production place, offering low-risk, early cash flow appraisal
and gas storage operations in the area, which targets. They cover an area between the city of
contains 10 drill-ready prospects with up to Linz and the German border, providing easy
42mn barrels of oil equivalent (boe) in prospec- access to the key German gas demand centre of
tive resources, ADX said in a stock exchange fil- Munich.
ing. They will complement the firm’s existing oil ADX said it was aiming to launch a farm-out
and gas fields in the Lower Austria region, it said. process by the end of this month, noting that it
ADX obtained 3D seismic and well data of had been approach by a number of interested
the area from RAG Exploration & Production in parties. Drilling will commence “within a short
2019, as part of a deal to acquire the company’s time,” the company said. Under concession
Gaiselberg and Zisterdorf oil and gas fields in terms, ADX will need to sink two wells within
Lower Austria. It later reached an agreement on the first four years, with a minimum financial
using RAG’s infrastructure. obligation of €2.2mn ($2.7mn) in this period.
“ADX has secured a very privileged acreage “We are particularly encouraged by the Aus-
position in Upper Austria which is substan- trian government’s continued commitment to
tially enhanced by the existence of a drill-ready domestic energy sector investment as well as the
portfolio and guaranteed access to oil and gas encouragement of renewable opportunities that
infrastructure on favourable terms,” company exist such as geothermal or hydrogen storage,”
chairman Ian Tchacos commented. The deals are Tchacos said.
“the culmination of over 18 months of technical The explorer is also working in Italy and
work, commercial discussions and relationship Romania. ™

Watchdog flags up Linge safety breaches

NORWAY NORWAY’S Equinor has made “serious NOK2bn ($237mn) to replace some unsafe ones
breaches” of safety regulations at its prob- completed by former operator Total. The pro-
The “serious” breaches lem-stricken Martin Linge oil and gas project, ject’s overall budget is now roughly NOK61bn,
have been flagged up at the country’s industry watchdog has said. versus an original estimate of NOK31bn.
a time when Equinor’s The Petroleum Safety Authority (PSA) said Equinor did not say whether PSA’s findings
safety standards are on January 5 that an audit it had carried out on would result in a further delay, and nor did it say
under intense scrutiny. control, monitoring and safety systems had iden- what added costs it would incur.
tified nine “deviations” from standards at the The company’s safety standards are under
project. These included issues with the reliable intense scrutiny after fires broke out at two of
detection of gas leaks and in the configuration its fires last year in the space of just two months.
of alarm systems. A “dramatic” fire tore through its Hammerfest
“Serious breaches of the regulations were LNG facility on Melkoye Island in early October.
identified,” the PSA said, noting that Equinor After a subsequent investigation, the PSA said
would need to fix the problems before starting it had found “serious breaches” of regulations
production. Equinor responded in an emailed at that site as well. Hammerfest LNG, Norway’s
statement that it would “comply with the order only LNG export terminal, is not due to resume
and deliver a plan to close the non-conformities production until October 2021.
within the deadline.” A second fire broke out in early December at
The complex high-pressure, high-temper- the company’s methanol plant in Tjeldbergod-
ature Martin Linge field was originally cleared den. The facility is the biggest producer of meth-
for development in 2012 and was scheduled to anol in Europe, accounting for a quarter of the
start up in 2016. But the project has incurred continent’s total output.
multiple delays and cost overruns. Earlier set- The PSA also recently flagged up issues at
backs were in part owing to a fatal crash in Equinor’s upcoming Johan Castberg oil pro-
2017 at a Korean shipyard tasking with sup- ject in the Barents Sea. The watchdog said there
plying its platform. were welding problems with the hull of the
Equinor said in May last year it was pushing field’s floating production storage and offload-
back Linge’s launch again from 2020 to 2021. Last ing (FPSO) unit. Castberg’s start-up has subse-
September the company warned it would have to quently been delayed by a year until the fourth
drill several more wells at the field at a cost of quarter of 2023. ™

P18 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 02 14•January•2021