Page 10 - EurOil Week 04 2022

EurOil PIPELINES & TRANSPORT EurOil

Greece-Bulgaria gas link operator

joins capacity platform

BALKANS THE operator of a gas pipeline connecting Bul- suffered delays and asked for more time. ICGB’s
garia and Greece due to be commissioned later operator now says the pipeline should be up and
ICGB will provide this year has joined Europe’s Prisma platform for running in 2022.
Bulgaria with up to 3 auctioning transmission capacity. In its own statement, ICGB said that more
bcm per year of gas. In a statement on January 25, Prisma said that than half of the pipeline’s capacity, or 1.57 bcm
Interconnector Greece Bulgaria (ICGB) join- per year, has already been reserved. The rest will
ing the platform “represents an important step be offered on Prisma.
towards the integration of the Eastern European “Four out of the five shippers that have
market into our well-established community of booked capacity are entirely new to the Bulgar-
European operators, thus increasing the harmo- ian market and that leads us to believe the inter-
nisation and transparency of the gas market.” national and market interest in the project will
ICGB will provide Bulgaria with up to 3bn only be growing after its commercial launch,”
cubic metres of gas, ending Russia’s monopoly ICGB said.
over the country’s gas market. This will be gas Forty infrastructure operators in 19 Euro-
that has arrived in Greece in LNG form, or has pean gas markets auction off their capacity on
been sent from Azerbaijan via the Southern Gas Prisma, with some 660 shippers participating.
Corridor (SGC). There is a proposal to expand While reaching out to gas from Greece, Bul-
the pipeline’s capacity to 5 bcm per year at a later garia is also cementing its energy relationship
stage. with Russia by hosting part of the European
The pipeline had been scheduled for start-up extension of TurkStream, known as Balkan
in 2020, but Greek construction contractor Avax Stream. ™

INVESTMENT

Var Energi reveals IPO plan

NORWAY ENI’S Norwegian joint venture with private Norway. The business included shares in 20 pro-
equity firm HitecVision plans to stage an initial ducing fields.
Var Energi is banking public offering (IPO), banking on strong pros- Var Energi is the largest pure play on the Nor-
on a strong outlook for pects for natural gas, the company reported on wegian Continental Shelf (NCS). It produced on
gas. January 24. average 247,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day
Var Energi will also apply for a listing on the (boepd) for the three months ending September
Oslo stock exchange, Eni said, giving it access to 30, 2021. It had 1.1bn boe in net reserves as of
Norwegian and international capital markets that date. ™
and diversifying its ownership structure. The
company added that the sale would free up capi-
tal it could use to accelerate its energy transition
strategy.
Eni will retain a majority ownership in Var,
the company said, adding that the offering would
take place in Norway, Sweden, Finland and Den-
mark. It will also make a private placement to
certain institutional investors internationally, it
said.
Eni has a 69.9% interest in Var, launched in
2018, while HitecVision has 30.2%. It expanded
its portfolio significantly in 2019 through the
$4.9bn purchase of ExxonMobil’s business in

P10 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 04 27•January•2022