Page 13 - AsianOil Week 01 2021
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AsianOil OCEANIA AsianOil
venture that supplies gas to both the LNG plant Australian LNG projects in which Shell owns
and the domestic market as well as operating the an interest.
LNG facility – or to QCLNG. Shell will remain In its statement, Shell noted natural gas was a
the operator and majority interest holder in “core component” of its strategy to provide more
QGC, while China National Offshore Oil Corp. and cleaner energy owing to “the advantages it
(CNOOC) will retain a 50% equity in Train 1 of offers as a complement to renewable energy and
the LNG terminal and Tokyo Gas will continue as the cleanest burning hydrocarbon”. This sig-
to own a 2.5% stake in Train 2. nals its ongoing commitment to both natural gas
The LNG terminal has a capacity of 8.5mn and LNG, even as the super-major sheds non-
tonnes per year (tpy) and is one of several core gas assets.
Eni shelves Australian asset sale
FINANCE & ITALIAN major Eni has reportedly put its sale of
INVESTMENT natural gas assets in Australia on hold after fail-
ing to attract bids of sufficient value.
Although Eni is understood to have valued its
Australian assets at around $1bn, Reuters quoted
two unnamed sources on January 5 as saying that
the offers it had received were “well below” the
company’s expectations.
While Eni decline to comment on market
speculation, a spokesman said: “Eni confirms
its strategy of rationalisation of its production
portfolio, which will only become effective when
conditions are met for the assets concerned to be
adequately valued.”
Eni’s assets include a 10.99% stake in Darwin
LNG and the plant’s feedstock field Bayu-Undan,
as well as 100% of the producing Blacktip field
offshore the Northern Territory and attached
Yelcherr processing plant. The federal government has been increasing
The Italian major also owns stakes in four its scrutiny of the offshore decommissioning
exploration licences, including the Joint Petro- segment following the liquidation of Northern
leum Development Area in the Timor Sea and Oil and Gas Australia (NOGA) in February
the undeveloped Evans Shoal gas field, which 2020. One of NOGA’s subsidiaries had bought
could be a potential backfill for Darwin LNG. into petroleum titles in the Timor Sea, which
Reuters’ sources added that Eni had expected it exploited through the Northern Endeavour
binding bids for by the end of November. How- floating production storage and offtake (FPSO).
ever, a prospective sale become more compli- The situation forced the state to take control of
cated after the National Offshore Petroleum the facility’s operations.
Safety and Environmental Management Author- Australian Resources, Water and North-
ity (NOPSEMA) directed the major to decom- ern Australia Minister Keith Pitt revealed on
mission the Woollybutt field offshore Western December 14 that the government had opted to
Australia in the WA-25-L permit while also clar- decommission Northern Endeavour.
ifying that decommissioning of Blacktip must Although the directions do not impose new
occur before title expiry. obligations on Eni, they improve the govern-
ment’s legal position in case of non-compliance.
Similar pressures are believed to have encour-
aged ExxoMobil to shelve its $2.5bn sale of
Gippsland Basin assets in the Bass Strait. The com-
pany announced in late November that it would no
longer seek to sell the 50-year-old assets following
an “extensive market evaluation”. However, Credit
Suisse suggested that looming decommissioning
liabilities and heightened federal scrutiny of off-
shore deals were likely deterrents.
Week 01 07•January•2021 www. NEWSBASE .com P13
