Page 17 - EurOil Week 27

EurOil PROJECTS & COMPANIES EurOil

Spirit comes up dry in Barents Sea

UK SPIRIT Energy, the upstream arm of the UK’s hydrocarbon discovery was made in the Barents
Centrica Energy, has sunk a dry well in Nor- Sea: the Equinor-operated Snohvit gas field. But
Exploration in the way’s frontier Barents Sea, the Norwegian Snohvit and the Eni-led Goliat oilfield are still
Barents Sea has Petroleum Directorate (NPD) reported on the only projects to have entered production.
generally disappointed. July 6. Equinor is developing the 400-650mn barrel
The well was completed to a vertical depth of Johan Castberg field, but the project has fallen
1,777 metres, in waters 466 metres deep some years behind schedule. First oil is currently
110 km north of the Equinor-operated Johan expected in 2022.
Castberg oilfield. Its main goal was to prove Hoping to spur progress, Norway’s energy
petroleum in Middle Jurassic to Upper Triassic and petroleum ministry said in late June it
layers, while its secondary aim was to collect data planned to offer 125 Barents Sea blocks in eight
on Lower Cretaceous layers. areas in the country’s next frontier licensing
No hydrocarbons were found in the primary round. The contest is expected to be announced
targets, however, and only trace amounts in the in September, with awards taking place in the
secondary ones, NPD said. As such, the borehole second half of 2021.
has been classified as dry and has been plugged The latest well was the first to be drilled at
and abandoned. Spirit has not commented on Production Licence 719, which was awarded to
the setback. Spirit’s parent Centrica in 2013. Spirit operates
Exploration results in the infrastruc- the licence with a 50% interest, while Russia’s
ture-scarce Barents Sea have generally disap- Lukoil has 30% and Norway’s Aker BP 20%. The
pointed in recent years, leading to Equinor and Leiv Eiriksson rig used for drilling is now bound
others scaling back their drilling activity in the for the North Sea, where it will complete another
region. It has been over 35 years since the first wildcat for Spirit at PL 780. ™

Turkish refiner Tupras resumes

production at Izmir plant

TURKEY THE largest Turkish refiner, Tupras, is gradually company’s revenues increased 1.2% last year
bringing Izmir Refinery units online, in line with from 2018. Tupras was also the fifth-largest
The 220,000 bpd its previously announced schedule, according to exporter in Turkey.
refinery shut down in a stock exchange filing. Turkey’s largest conglomerate, Koc Holding,
early May. On April 30, Tupras said that it would halt controls 51% of Tupras via subsidiaries. The
production at its 220,000 barrel per day (bpd) remaining 49% is free-float. Turkey’s privatisa-
Izmir oil refinery from May 5 to July 1, having tion administration has one golden share.
revised down its 2020 expectations. Tupras reported a net loss of TRY2.27bn
The refinery’s annual production capacity of (€324mn) for the first quarter of 2020 versus a
11.9mn tonnes (tpy) makes up 40% of Tupras’ loss of TRY375mn in the same period a year ago.
30mn tpy overall capacity. Sales volumes recorded by Tupras declined
On March 30, Reuters quoted unnamed trad- by 14.5% on an annual basis to 6.2mn tonnes in
ing sources as saying that Tupras had cut runs at Q1. ™
its Izmir refinery by 50%, at its Izmit refinery by
20% and its Kirikkale refinery by 50%.
In April, the company lowered its production
expectation for 2020 from 28mn tpy to 24mn tpy
and had slashed its sales estimate from 29mn tpy
to 25mn tpy due to declines in demand.
On April 16, Fitch Ratings revised its outlook
on Tupras to negative from stable, while affirm-
ing the company at ‘BB-’, three notches below
investment grade, in line with Turkey’s sovereign
rating.
Tupras has, as usual, ranked first on Fortune
magazine’s top 500 Turkish companies list, with
sales at Turkish lira (TRY) 89.6bn ($13bn). The

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