Page 5 - AsianOil Week 29 2020
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AsianOil SOUTH ASIA AsianOil
US, India take steps towards
oil reserve co-operation
POLICY OFFICIALS representing the US and India crude until a later date. The Asian country has
have signed a memorandum of understanding the capacity to store 39mn barrels in its strate-
(MoU) on co-operation relating to emergency gic reserve, while the US SPR has a capacity of
crude reserves. The two sides are discussing 714mn barrels. Pradhan said in May that India
sharing knowhow on the establishment of stra- had resorted to using floating storage, having
tegic petroleum reserves (SPRs), and also the filled its strategic capacity.
possibility of India storing oil in the US’ SPR. In March, US President Donald Trump
US Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette ordered Brouillette to fill the SPR to capacity
told reporters during a teleconference that the after oil prices collapsed and the coronavirus
two countries’ officials would discuss details of (COVID-19) pandemic began to hit demand.
the emergency reserves in the coming months. However, US Congress failed to agree on fund-
Indian Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas ing this initiative. Instead, some SPR capacity is
Dharmendra Pradhan also participated in the now being leased to several oil companies, but
teleconference. additional spare capacity is thought to remain.
The MoU comes as India seeks to overcome The discussions between India and the US
its domestic SPR capacity constraints and benefit have taken place after the latter finalised an SPR
from the current low oil price while storing the lease agreement with Australia in early June. This
agreement, which was described by US officials
as “historic”, allows Australia to lease space in the
SPR to store Australian-owned oil and access
this oil during an emergency. Australia agreed
to spend around $59mn on the initiative, need-
ing to increase its stockpile to meet International
Energy Agency (IEA) fuel security rules when its
own storage tanks were full and also seeking to
take advantage of low crude prices.
This was the first time the US had agreed to
lease SPR capacity to another country. Brouil-
lette said last week that co-operation on the
issue with India could follow the same path as
Australia, but that there was “no predetermined
outcome” for talks with the Asian country.
SOUTHEAST ASIA
Indonesia’s H1 oil, gas
output tumbles
PERFORMANCE INDONESIA’S oil and gas production has fallen “The upstream oil and gas sector nationally
in the first half of the year, driven both by weaker and internationally is going through extraor-
domestic energy demand and natural declines at dinary pressures due to lower prices,” SKK
mature fields. Migas chairman Dwi Soetjipto said. “This is
The country produced 713,300 bpd of then followed by the [coronavirus] COVID-19
crude oil in the first six months of the year, pandemic, which impacted consumption and
upstream regulator SKK Migas said on July demand. With these pressures, we are having
17, noting that this was down from the problems achieving targets.”
755,000 bpd that was lifted in January-June Upstream investors across the world have begun
2019. Natural gas production, meanwhile, rationalising their spending in order to survive the
tumbled from 6.67bn cubic feet (188.89mn industry downturn, a development that the agency
cubic metres) per day to 5.61 bcf (158.88 has acknowledged by lowering its full-year upstream
mcm) per day. investment target from $13.83bn to $11.6bn.
Week 29 23•July•2020 www. NEWSBASE .com P5
