Page 18 - AfrOil Week 20 2020

AfrOil
NEWS IN BRIEF
AfrOil
New gas master plan
to boost Africa’s first
offshore gas mega-hub
in the Gulf of Guinea
Equatorial Guinea continues to lead the devel- opment of natural gas production and monet- isation in the Gulf of Guinea, with the award of a new contract for a new Gas Master Plan to support the ongoing development of its offshore Gas Mega-Hub.
In collaboration with Marathon Oil Corp and EG LNG, the Ministry of Mines and Hydrocar- bons (MMH) awarded a contract for the devel- opment of a Gas Master Plan to British company Gas Strategies on Tuesday. The work is part of the development of Equatorial Guinea’s Gas Mega- Hub, for which Definitive Agreements towards the monetisation of the Alen site were signed in April 2019.
The offshore gas mega hub will be the first such venture offshore Africa and aims at pooling stranded gas across the Gulf of Guinea by max- imising existing infrastructure at Punta Europa. While key facilities there, such as EG LNG and Marathon’s methanol plant, have traditionally been relying on gas feedstock from the Alba Field, declining output requires to gather gas from additional fields and reserves in the region.
“Equatorial Guinea has given natural gas a priority in terms of development and monetisa- tion, and we believe gas is the key to industrialisa- tionandjobscreation,”declaredGabrielMbaga ObiangLima,MinisterofMinesandHydrocar- bons. “With key initiatives such as LNG2Africa, the ongoing offshore Gas Mega Hub and the Year of Investment 2020, we are going to complete key gas projects in upstream, midstream and down- stream that will further diversify our economy, provide opportunities for our local companies, and create jobs for our citizens.”
African Energy Chamber, May 13 2020
SERVICES
Africa Oil & Power
highlights opportunities
for local content in
Angola’s energy sector
As the Angolan and global oil and gas indus- try faces unprecedented financial, logistics and safety challenges induced by COVID-19, Africa Oil & Power, together with the African Energy Chamber, presented a public webinar under
the theme “Mitigating COVID-19: Preserving Angola’s Momentum for 2021” on Monday, in which industry leaders united to generate sur- vival strategies for 2020 and reset Angola on its path to growth for 2021. The panel was com- prised of Sergio Pugliese, President, Angolan Chapter, African Energy Chamber; Frederico Martins Correia, Oil & Gas Partner, Deloitte; Frederico Costa, Country Finance Controller, TechnipFMC and Adilson Paulo, Country Gen- eral Manager, DOF Subsea.
Local content was a key topic of the discus- sion, as the country’s energy sector has made immense progress in the last few years in terms of increasing local capacity and involving nation- als and local companies in the petroleum sec- tor. According to Frederico Martins, although unfortunate, the COVID-19 pandemic has been a local content enabler for the time being: “From a local content perspective, this crisis is an opportunity to continue efforts and to have more people engage with the industry to per- form key tasks such as operation maintenance in the upstream space.”
Frederico Costa from TechnipFMC expressed the government’s will to push local content while recommending patience. “We have seen a lot of support from the ministry, and I believe COVID-19 will push the local content issue. However, we must understand that this process takes time. An efficient know-how pro- cess can take between 10 to 15 years. We must be patient but determined.”
Furthermore, he expressed that Angola has not been the hardest hit by the crisis as the gov- ernmentandtheprivateplayershavemanagedto delayprojectsratherthancancelthem:“Angola made important fiscal reforms at the beginning of 2018 of which we saw positive signs earlier this year. Most importantly, the National Bank of Angola liberalised foreign exchange currency, thus drastically increasing financial flows in the oil sector in particular. Of course, these levels have dropped since the beginning of the crisis. Companies are reviewing their capital expend- iture costs and reducing risks. Thankfully, most projects in Angola have been delayed, but not cancelled, which is a very important feature and must be a tool for the Angolan government to promote its oil and gas sector.”
Mitigating the decrease in oil production is a priority of Angola’s National Development Plan (PND), which is built around the government’s economic priorities. According to Pugliese, “The PND and COVID-19 together are opportunities for companies to create leaner models, transition to more efficiency to absorb potential shocks to the market. The key is removing the unpredict- ability as it will give us an opportunity to better manage and plan.”
Although indigenous companies don’t yet have the financial power and resources to
compete with oil producers, Paulo concluded that the first step is increased involvement in the services sector: “Today, the supply chain of key industries like oil and agriculture are outside the country. The fuel we use and the food we eat comes from outside. In order for us Angolans to create local business opportunities, we need to local at the supply chains and find ways to fill the gap. Let’s have Angolans more and more involved in the local services to oil and gas com- panies. That’s the first step to local content.” Africa Oil & Power, May 19 2020
INVESTMENT
Tanzania: Aminex provides Ruvuma farm-out update
Further to recent updates on progress towards completion of the Ruvuma Farm-Out, Aminex has announced that following payment by the Company’s subsidiary of the capital gains tax bill, and payment by ARA Petroleum Tanza- nia (APT) of the stamp duty bill, the Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA) has issued the Tax Clearance Certificate to the Company.
The Tax Clearance Certificate has now been submitted to Tanzania Petroleum Development Corp. (TPDC) to be forwarded to the Ministry of Energy. The Company has now completed all the requirements to allow the Minister to grant approval of the assignment of the 50% interest in the Ruvuma PSA to APT, the final remaining conditiontocompletionoftheFarm-Out.
RobertAmbrose,ChiefExecutiveofAminex commented: “This is a major milestone. With the receipt of the Tax Clearance Certificate from the TRA and with the onward submission to the TPDC, Aminex has now accomplished all of the conditions within our control in order to com- plete the Ruvuma Farm-Out.”
Aminex, May 19 2020
Qatar Petroleum farms into
Blocks CI-705 and CI-706
offshore Cote d’Ivoire
Qatar Petroleum has entered into a farm-in agreement with Total to acquire a 45% partic- ipating interest in Blocks CI-705 and CI-706, located in the Ivorian-Tano basin, offshore the Republic of Cote d’Ivoire.
The two blocks cover an area of approxi- mately 3,200 square km, and present multi-tar- get hydrocarbon prospects in water depths ranging from 1,000 to 2,000 metres, 35 km from shore and about 100 km from nearby Foxtrot, Espoir and Baobab fields.
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Week 20 20•May•2020