Page 8 - NorthAmOil Week 41

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super-major’s decision to proceed with develop- Quarterly losses mount in North America
ment work at Payara. Production has been coming back online in the
This field is now due to become the third produc- US Gulf of Mexico this week following the latest
ing section of Stabroek in 2024. weather-related disruptions, this time caused by
Hurricane Delta. (See: US oil and gas operations
If you’d like to read more about the key events shaping recover from latest hurricane-related outages,
the Latin American oil and gas sector then please click page 14)
here for NewsBase’s LatAmOil Monitor . The storm also disrupted onshore operations
at refineries and other facilities when it made
Mideast: Divestments, debates and deals landfall in Louisiana on October 9 as a Category
Saudi Aramco has admitted that it is considering 2 hurricane. This disruption came after a num-
divesting non-core assets as it seeks to “optimise” ber of downstream facilities were shut down in
its portfolio. The Saudi giant is also planning to late August by Hurricane Laura, which in some
double down on upstream expansion efforts, cases caused damage that delayed restart efforts.
but it has said that certain assets – that is, assets Reuters quoted sources familiar with the sit-
understood to be in the midstream or down- uation as saying that Total’s 225,500 barrel per
stream sectors – could be sold off in a move day refinery lost power as a result of Delta, while Hurricane Delta
necessitated by the burden of a promise to pay Valero Energy’s 335,000 bpd facility lost a cool-
out a $75bn dividend. ing tower and Motiva Enterprises shut a small was the latest in
Despite having the industry’s most robust unit at its 607,000 bpd refinery.
financials, Aramco has delayed major projects. Offshore, meanwhile, Hurricane Delta was a series of storms
The company has been acutely affected by the oil the latest in a series of storms including Hurri-
price crash and a prolonged period of subdued canes Laura and Sally that forced the evacuation that forced
demand. of manned platforms in the Gulf. According the evacuation
Meanwhile in Israel, towards which Riyadh to the US Bureau of Safety and Environmental
has shown signs of softening its approach, Chev- Enforcement (BSEE), staff from more than 280 of manned
ron has ruffled feathers following its purchase of production platforms and drilling rigs were
Noble Energy, the operator of the offshore Levi- evacuated ahead of Delta’s arrival in the region, platforms in the
athan natural gas field. The US major has alleg- causing most Gulf oil output and 62% of gas pro-
edly cut supplies to Israel Electric Corp. (IEC) duction to go offline. Gulf of Mexico.
and is demanding that gas sales prices be revised As of October 14, staff from around 57 pro-
upwards. duction platforms, or 8.9% of the manned plat-
In the UAE, ADNOC has handed out forms in the Gulf, remained evacuated, while
another infrastructure deal to a Chinese state- 30.7% of oil and 18.0% of gas output remained
backed engineering firm. This time, ADNOC shut in.
Gas Processing (AGP) awarded a front-end The 2020 Atlantic hurricane season is already
engineering and design (FEED) contract to the second most active in recent history, and only
China Petroleum Pipeline Engineering (CPPE) three more named storms are needed to match
for work on the country’s gas grid, including the record set in 2005. For Gulf oil producers,
new gas stations and the extension of the net- this comes during a year of unprecedented vola-
work. In September, the same firm was awarded tility caused by a short-lived Saudi Arabia-Rus-
a deal to replace two major pipelines running sia price war and significantly exacerbated by the
from onshore oilfields to the Jebel Dhanna coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. And while
terminal. there have been hopes that disruptions to out-
put in the Gulf would help to prop up oil prices,
If you’d like to read more about the key events shaping this does not appear to be playing out, with West
the Middle East’s oil and gas sector then please click Texas Intermediate (WTI) still hovering around
here for NewsBase’s MEOG Monitor . $40 per barrel.™

P8 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 41 15•October•2020