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Train 2 to service in September, but now says it Latin America: Policy initiatives
expects the restart in October. Mexico, Colombia and Brazil are all wrestling
The company said that following its ongo- with new policy initiatives this week.
ing technical work, it was further refining its In Brazil, the Chamber of Deputies, the lower
approach and had decided that some welds in house of the National Congress, has approved
targeted areas would require additional work. A the basic text of a bill that calls for opening up
trade union had previously raised concerns that the domestic natural gas market to even more
the heat exchangers would need to be replaced private competition.
altogether, so while the repairs are more exten- The legislation is designed to support pre-
sive than Chevron initially expected, it appears vious efforts to break state-owned Petrobras’
that this was not the worst-case scenario. monopoly on the production, processing and
Chevron is due to take Trains 1 and 3 offline transport of gas.
to inspect the heat exchangers for similar issues, In Colombia, legislation that aims to provide
and now says it hopes that the work at Train 2 tax breaks for unconventional oil and gas pro-
can help those inspections – and any necessary jects has stalled in the legislature, raising new
repairs – to be more efficient. questions about plans for pilot projects involving
Separately, Royal Dutch Shell said on Sep- the use of hydraulic fracturing (fracking).
tember 4 that it had begun restart procedures at These projects have generated no small amount
its Prelude FLNG facility and the gas fields off- of controversy in Colombia, with opponents
shore Broome that supply feedstock to the vessel. playing up the environmental risks of frack-
However, Shell is reported to have run into ing and backers emphasising the potential for
challenges almost immediately. A source on increasing the country’s reserves.
board the vessel was quoted by news agencies as In Mexico, the government is preparing to
saying the restart had some issues with “multi- unveil a new programme for supporting the
ple trips” of the plant and two swivels inside the energy industry within the next few weeks.
turret that moors the giant LNG facility in place. The programme is likely to prioritise the inter-
And Shell is reported to have suspended gas ests of Pemex, the national oil company (NOC)
flows to Prelude as a precaution. over the private sector. According to the head of a
There is now speculation that Prelude – local trade group, the government’s plans do not
which is thought to be one of the most complex include any exploration of development projects
LNG facilities in the world – may not be back on open to the participation of foreign investors.
stream until 2021. The facility has been offline Meanwhile, Refineria di Korsou (RdK), the
since February as a result of technical issues. operator of Curaçao’s only oil refinery, has taken
legal action against Venezuela’s national oil com-
If you’d like to read more about the key events shaping pany (NOC) PdVSA in a US court. RdK said in
the global LNG sector then please click here for documents filed in a New York state court that it
NewsBase’s GLNG Monitor. was seeking to recover $51mn worth of overdue

Week 36 10•September•2020 www. NEWSBASE .com P17