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Qatar Petroleum takes 10% stakes
in two exploration blocks offshore Guyana
QATAR Petroleum is set to join two explora- tion projects o shore Guyana under a deal with France’s Total.
e two companies signed an agreement last week that provides for the state-owned Qatari company to become a minority shareholder in the Orinduik and Kanuku blocks. e docu- ment calls for Total to transfer 40% of its 25% stake in each block to Qatar Petroleum. As a result, equity in Kanuku will be split 37.5% to Spain’s Repsol (operator), 37.5% to Ireland’s Tullow Oil, 30% to Total and 10% to Qatar Petroleum. Meanwhile, Orinduik will be split 60% to Tullow Oil, 15% to Canada’s EcoAtlan- tic, 15% to Total and 10% to Qatar Petroleum.
e deal will make the Qatari company a participant in the exploration drilling pro- grammes scheduled to take place at both blocks this year. Repsol and its partners are due to sink one well at Kanuku before the end of 2019, and the Tullow-led group will drill two wells at Orinduik. ( e latter has already begun work at the block and spudded its rst well at the Jethro- Lobe prospect on July 4.)
The Kanuku block lies about 100km off the coast of Guyana, covering an area of 5,200 square km in waters ranging from 70 to 800 metres deep. Meanwhile, the Orinduik block lies 120km o shore, in water depths of 70 to 1,400 metres. It covers an area of 1,800 square km.
e parties have not divulged the value of the deal. ey have indicated, though, that they signed the agreement within the framework of
wider long-term e orts to foster co-operation. Qatar Petroleum’s president and CEO, Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi, who also serves as Qatar’s Minister of State for Energy Affairs, com- mented: “We are pleased to expand our global exploration footprint into Guyana together with our valuable long-term partner Total in these o shore blocks in this prospective basin.”
Al-Kaabi also expressed optimism about the outcome of the company’s new projects. “We hopethattheexploratione ortsaresuccessful,” he said, according to a Qatar Petroleum press release. “I would like to take this opportunity to thank our partners and the government of Guyana for their collaboration in this e ort, and we look forward to working together in these blocks.” ™
Tullow Oil
BRAZIL
Petrobras trims 2019 production target
BRAZIL’S national oil company (NOC) Petro- bras has trimmed its production target for 2019 to 2.7mn barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd).
Roberto Castello Branco, the company’s CEO, con rmed last week that Petrobras had revised previous forecasts that put this year’s output levels at 2.8mn boepd, steady on the 2018 gure. He indicated that the new gure was more plausible, telling Reuters in an inter- view that Petrobras wanted to maintain its cred- ibility with investors.
“Transparency is always better,” he remarked. “Petrobras has a history of promis- ing and not delivering, and that’s why I made a point of lowering the target and setting a more realistic one.”
Castello Branco stressed, though, that the NOC did have a chance of hitting the higher target gure. Even though this year’s projec- tions are on the conservative side, there is still a possibility that Petrobras will reach the 2.8mn boepd mark in 2019 or 2020, he said.
He was speaking on the same day that the company released a report on its performance in the second quarter of this year. In the report, it said it had extracted 2.633mn boepd of hydrocarbons between April and June. This represents a rise of 3.8% on the gure reported for the previous quarter, it stated in a securities ling.
Despite the increase, the second-quar- ter report sparked disappointment among investors..
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