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AfrOil INVESTMENT AfrOil

As for the Brazilian field, experts questioned the requirement of [more than] 1mn tpy of gas as of
BPCL subsidiary’s willingness to partner with a now, and we plan to grow it to 2mn tpy this year.
company that was new to oil and gas. The 1mn tpy gas we will get from Mozambique
Eventually, India’s Ministry of Petroleum and will be very beneficial for us,” he said. “Also, since
Natural Gas lodged a complaint against Video- our contract with Qatar will [be] over in 2027, it
con. In June of this year, CBI responded to the will help to compensate for that. Logistics-wise
ministry’s complaint by charging the company’s also, it is closer to other locations, as it is just
CEO, Venugopal Dhoot, with corruption in across the Indian Ocean.”
connection with the financing of the Mozam- Mozambique LNG is led by the French major
bique LNG stake purchase. Total, whose subsidiary Total E&P Mozambique
As of press time, neither BPRL nor its par- Area 1 has a 26.5% stake in the consortium. The
ent company BPCL had commented on the remaining equity in the group is split between
CBI’s concerns – or on New Delhi’s decision to two Japanese companies, Mitsui and Japan Oil,
approve its investment in Mozambique LNG. Gas and Metals National Corp. (JOGMEC),
with 20%; BPRL, with 15%; Beas Rovuma
Long-term LNG supply deal Energy Mozambique, a 60:40 joint venture
BPCL recently confirmed that it had signed a between OVL and OIL, with 10%; Mozam-
long-term supply deal with Mozambique LNG. bique’s national oil company (NOC) ENH, with
Late last month, the company’s CEO, Neelakan- 10%; and PTTEP (Thailand), with 8.5%.
tapillai Vijayagopal, told reporters that the con- The partners are building a gas liquefaction
sortium would be delivering at least 1mn tonnes plant on the Afungi Peninsula. This onshore
per year (tpy) of LNG to BPCL over a period of facility will process natural gas from Area 1,
15 years. Shipments will begin after Mozam- which lies offshore in the Rovuma Basin, and
bique LNG’s first train comes on stream in 2024, turn out 12.88mn tpy of LNG.
he said. It will eventually have two production trains,
Vijayagopal described the deal as advan- each of which will have a production capacity of
tageous on several fronts. “We have a total 6.44mn tpy. ™

PERFORMANCE
Libyan oil output reportedly

approaching 300,000 bpd

LIBYA LIBYA has reportedly succeeded in boosting operations on September 19.
crude oil output levels more than three-fold Preliminary loading schedules for October
since the lifting of a blockade on its Mediterra- show that Brega is slated to transfer 1.8mn bar-
nean export terminals. rels of crude to three tankers in October, while
Citing an anonymous source, Bloomberg Zueitina is due to lift and export five cargoes, he
reported at the weekend that the North African said.
state was now extracting 295,000 barrels per day The source did not say when NOC expected
of oil, up from 250,000 bpd just a week before. to deem Libya’s other coastal ports “safe” – that
Reuters, by contrast, said early this week that is, free of foreign troops or militias – and eligible
production was only 270,000 bpd. for the lifting of force majeure.
Both figures are 200% or higher than the
numbers recorded before the coastal terminals
began re-opening last month. (Libya’s National
Oil Corp. (NOC) was able to lift its declaration
of force majeure on three ports – Brega, Marsa
El Hariga and Zueitina – in the second half of
September.)
Conditions are likely to continue improving
in the near future, the news agency’s source said.
As tankers dock at the coastal terminals and lift
oil that has been in storage, oilfield operators will
have room to ramp up production even more,
he explained.
According to the source, the Marsa El
Hariga terminal has already loaded two tankers
with 1mn barrels of oil each since it resumed Marsa El Hariga has already loaded two oil cargoes (Photo: ShipSpotting.com)

Week 40 07•October•2020 www. NEWSBASE .com P15