Page 7 - AfrOil Week 28 2020

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Energy Aspects said margins had fallen from CNY1,243 yuan ($177) per tonne in late April to negative CNY383 at the end of June, while FGE said margins had dropped from $20 in April to less than $5 per barrel.
If you’d like to read more about the key events shaping Asia’s oil and gas sector then please click here for NewsBase’s AsianOil Monitor.
Downstream: Storage in vogue
ere has been some deal-making in the Africa and Middle East downstream sector recently.
International contractor TechnipFMC has won a contract worth over $1bn to build a new hydrocracking complex near Egypt’s Assiut oil re nery. e award comes a er TechnipFMC carried out front-end engineering and design (FEED) for the project back last year.
e $2.8bn complex will convert low-value fuel oil into around 2.8mn tonnes per year (tpy) of Euro-5 diesel and other products. Egyptian authorities say the investment will help the coun- try add value to its resources and meet more fuel demand with its own supply. Egypt is developing a ra of other new re ning and petrochemicals projects, but how many of these ventures keep to their schedule is another matter, given the economic fallout from the pandemic. e new hydrocracking facility is due on stream in 2022.
In Oman, a Canadian public-private partner- ship called Canada Business Holdings (CBH) has announced plans to invest in a 300,000 bpd re nery to produce low-sulphur fuel oil (LSFO) for ships in the area. LSFO is in higher demand since IMO regulations were imposed, reducing the cap for sulphur content in marine fuel to 0.5% from 3.5% previously.
Meanwhile, Nigeria’s latest auction for mar- ginal elds, if successful, could provide oppor- tunities for the further deployment of modular re neries. Developers say these small-sized oil processing plants are the answer to Nigeria’s fuel dilemma, helping to reduce imports and replace
illegal re neries in the Niger Delta.
Marginal elds are discoveries that have not
been developed either due to their small size, lack of economic viability or a lack of infrastructure. But converting their crude into higher-value petroleum products could be the solution.
If you’d like to read more about the key events shaping the downstream sector of Africa and the Middle East, then please click here for NewsBase’s DMEA Monitor.
Europe embraces hydrogen
e EU is looking to embrace the hydrogen rev- olution and become a world leader in advancing new hydrogen technologies, according to a new strategy unveiled by the European Commission last week.
The strategy has won praise from the gas industry for accepting that in the short to medium term, some fossil fuel-based hydrogen production will be needed to lower emissions. But its priority is very much the large-scale deployment of carbon-free green hydrogen, produced from water using renewable power. e EC wants to use both demand- and sup- ply-side incentives to spur the development of a well-functioning hydrogen market.
Not everyone is happy with the strategy, though, with some gas producers calling for the strategy to create a more level playing eld between the various hydrogen technologies, to ensure that the lowest-cost option succeeds. is means supporting fossil fuel-based hydrogen that is abated, using carbon capture, just as much as hydrogen derived from renewables.
Right now, green hydrogen is more expensive than gas-based blue hydrogen, but the EC’s hope is that it will become competitive against other technologies by the late 2020s.
In the North Sea, Equinor and Neptune Energy have both reported discoveries off Norway. e Equinor gas and condensate nd is estimated to hold up to 63mn barrels of oil equivalent (boe).
The European Commission’s hydrogen strategy has won praise from the natural gas industry
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