Page 9 - AfrOil Week 28 2020

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And in Brazil, state-owned Petrobras has pre-qualified 10 bidders for leasing its Bahia LNG import terminal and associated infrastruc- ture over the long term. e company is exit- ing natural gas distribution and transport and opening third-party access to its infrastructure under a 2019 agreement with Brazil’s anti-trust regulator.
No timeline has yet been issued for the next stage of the bidding process.
At the same time as these various moves are being made, though, the downturn continues to weigh on the LNG industry. According to Ref- initiv data, Latin American LNG imports this year so far have dropped to 6.7mn tonnes, down almost 38% from a year ago. Separately, Re nitiv showed that gas pipeline ows to US LNG export terminals had fallen to an average of 3.1bn cubic feet (87.8mn cubic metres) per day in the rst week of July from a 20-month low of 4.1 bcf (116.1 mcm) per day in June.
If you’d like to read more about the key events shaping the global LNG sector then please click here for NewsBase’s GLNG Monitor.
Latin America: US-Mexico ties
Ties between the US and Mexico have continued to make headlines over the last week.
Mexico saw crude oil exports to the US rise to 834,000 bpd, the highest figure reported since February 2012, last week. The uptick occurred because Pemex, the national oil com- pany (NOC), was trying to cope with oversup- ply stemming from full inventories and a re at its largest re nery in late June. It also served to bring US net oil imports up to their highest level reported since August 2019.
In related news, Pemex has been instructed by Mexico’s Ministry of Energy (SENER) to hammer out a deal with Talos Energy (US), Win- tershall Dea (Germany) and Premier Oil (UK) on the unitisation of Zama, an o shore eld that is believed to hold 700mn barrels of oil. e com- panies now have 120 days to draw up and submit a Unitisation and Unit Operating Agreement (UUOA) to the ministry.
In other news, Brazil’s National Agency of Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels (ANP) is set to restart the open season for access to a pipeline that carries natural gas from Bolivia to Brazil.
This process had to be put on hold in late March, owing to uncertainty about gas demand in the face of the coronavirus pandemic.
Meanwhile, o cials from Argentina’s state natural gas regulator Enargas have met with representatives of gas distribution companies to discuss plans for expanding the country’s pipe- line network. e parties reportedly focused on options for restarting work on a number of pro- jects, in line with the government’s wider e orts to keep production up at the levels prevailing before the pandemic struck.
If you’d like to read more about the key events shaping the Latin American oil and gas sector then please click here for NewsBase’s LatAmOil Monitor.
Mideast: Quiet despite Houthi attacks
e Middle Eastern oil and gas market was quiet this week despite renewed efforts by Yemen’s Houthis to disrupt Saudi Arabian infrastructure.
e Houthis said that they had attacked and hit an oil facility in the southern Saudi Arabian city of Jazan.
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