Argentina offshore auction attracts international oil producers
Oil firms, including Norway’s Statoil, U.S.’ Anadarko Petroleum Corp, China’s CNOOC and Malaysia’s Petronas, have shown interest in Argentina’s auction this year of offshore blocks for exploration and production, the country’s energy minister said on Wednesday. Argentina is still defining the blocks to be included in its auction, expected to receive bids in late November. The South American nation is also giving incentives for oil companies exploring at its large Vaca Muerta shale play to move from pilot to full development phase. Argentina faces growing regional competition as countries with large oil reserves, including Brazil and Mexico, are offering this year a record number of areas while starting a new wave of energy reforms to attract foreign investment. “It’s an unexplored area… We are expecting (to have) some companies already working in Argentina and new companies as well,” Minister Juan Jose Aranguren said on the sidelines of an energy conference. The country last year started creating a new framework for firms to move their projects to the production stage, which is boosting the unconventional gas output. The terms include lower labor costs, reduced taxes on imported drilling equipment and a fixed purchase price for the gas produced. In recent months, six projects in Vaca Muerta operated by France’s Total and Argentina’s Tecpetrol, CGC Combustibles and YPF have been granted access to the incentives for starting the production stage. The government expects 13 more concessions operated by Pan American Energy, YPF, Pluspetrol, Tecpetrol and Capex to adopt the incentive program in the coming months. A $500 million railway project to move raw material and equipment to Vaca Muerta – infrastructure needed by 2021 – is expected to be tendered by the end of May, Aranguren said. As the country’s unconventional gas production increases, Argentina is also in talks with its neighbors Chile and Bolivia to solve its seasonal gas deficit by increasing winter imports from Bolivia while selling its surplus to Chile in the summer. “This is quite a constraint. I’m prepared to pay more (to Bolivia) during the summer if we can adjust the volumes,” the minister said. Argentina under President Mauricio Macri has been pushing to reverse the nation’s oil and gas production decline while re-regulating the retail fuel market. But as global oil prices continue rising, refiners in the country are struggling to avoid transferring the hike to consumers. The minister said he will call oil producers to participate in a program recently agreed with refiners Royal Dutch Shell , Pan American and YPF to defer fuel price increases planned for May and June to the second half the year. “I think they could try to make sale terms easier for refining companies,” Aranguren said. P.K Subban Authentic Jersey
Indian refiners in no rush to seek alternatives to Iranian oil
Indian refiners said on Wednesday they were in no hurry to replace Iranian oil with alternatives, counting on the fact that many Western countries have so far declined to join the United States in pulling out of a nuclear deal with Tehran. U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he would reimpose economic curbs on Iran after withdrawing the United States from the 2015 agreement that lifted sanctions against Tehran in exchange for limits on its nuclear programme. But the leaders of Britain, Germany and France, which were signatories to the deal along with China and Russia, said in a joint statement that Trump’s decision was a cause for “regret and concern” and were seeking to salvage the deal. “We are largely unaffected,” said A.K. Sharma, finance chief at Indian Oil Corp (IOC). “This time the situation is different from the last time. We hope clarity on the real impact of sanctions will emerge in 10-15 days.” IOC, India’s biggest refiner, hopes to stick to its plans to buy as much as 180,000 barrels per day (bpd) of oil from Iran in 2018/19, more than double the volume in the last fiscal year that ended in March, Sharma said. It would be difficult to replace Iranian oil given the “commercial terms” offered by Tehran, he said. India, which has long-standing ties with Iran but also has close political relations with the United States, is Iran’s top oil client after China. Its state refiners had chalked out plans to almost double oil imports from Iran this fiscal year, drawn to the virtual free shipping on oil sales offered by Iran, Reuters reported last month. The South Asian country remained a big buyer of Iranian oil even during previous Western sanctions, though it had to cut purchases to win some waivers as the trade was mostly done in U.S. dollars. Since the 2015 agreement, however, Indian refiners have been settling oil dues with Iran in euros. And given that three top European countries are still part of the deal, trade won’t be affected much, at least in the short term, said R. Ramachandran, head of refineries at state-run Bharat Petroleum Corp. In any case, oil sanctions will kick in in about six months, by which time most Indian refiners “may have consumed most of their Iranian volumes”, Ramachandran said. The U.S. Treasury Department has indicated that sanctions won’t be reimposed immediately, and will take up to 180 days to allow Iranian oil customers and other companies involved in doing business with Tehran to make plans. M.K. Surana, chairman of Hindustan Petroleum, said refiners may use that time to step up purchases from Iran. The Indian oil ministry has not commented on the U.S. pullout, but the foreign ministry on Wednesday called for diplomacy to resolve the dispute over the nuclear deal with Iran. Separately, South Korea said on Wednesday it would seek U.S. exemptions to buy Iranian oil, a path many big oil consumers are likely to follow in the wake of new U.S. sanctions on Tehran, which will tighten world oil markets and push up prices. Andreas Athanasiou Womens Jersey
Mitsui expects investment decision on Mozambique LNG project in 2018-19
Japanese trading house Mitsui & Co Ltd expects a final investment decision (FID) on a U.S. Anadarko-led offshore liquefied natural gas project in Mozambique in the year to March 31, 2019, its chief executive said on Wednesday. “The FID on the Mozambique Area 1 project during this financial year is in our sights,” Mitsui’s CEO Tatsuo Yasunaga told an analyst meeting. Spending on the 2 trillion yen ($18.3 billion) project will start in the following financial year, he said. The two-train, 12 million-tons-per-year project is expected to be completed in 2022-2023, and has secured more than 9 million tons a year in total binding and non-binding commitments from buyers, Yasunaga said. Asked whether Mitsui will increase its 10 percent stake in the project if Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation (JOGMEC) sells its 10 percent stake, Yasunaga said many parties are interested in taking a share in the project. “If JOGMEC decides to sell its stake, we have a basic interest (in buying), but we don’t have a plan to hold a 20 percent stake for a long time,” he said. “Companies that are interested in joining the project are lining up,” he said, adding that Mitsui’s basic policy is to hold a 10 percent stake in the project. ($1 = 109.5100 yen) Willie Cauley-Stein Authentic Jersey
IOC has temporarily moderated fuel prices: Chairman
Indian Oil Corp (IOC) has kept prices of transport fuel unchanged since April 24, temporarily suspending the dynamic pricing regime and despite a rise in international rates, to avoid panic among consumers, IOC Chairman Sanjiv Singh said on Tuesday. Speaking to reporters here on the sidelines of the launch of bids for City Gas Distribution (CGD) licenses, Singh said the decision is based on the belief that current global prices “are not supported by fundamentals.” “We have decided to temporarily moderate retail prices by not passing on the required increase as we believe the current international oil product prices are not supported by fundamentals. So we have decided to wait for a while,” Singh said. “Passing them on to consumers will unnecessarily create panic,” he said. The price of petrol per litre, on Tuesday, was Rs 74.63 and diesel was at Rs 65.93 — rates of both have remained unchanged since April 24. On that day, domestic retail petrol prices which had been rising for six consecutive days touched the highest in Delhi since September 14, 2013 when it reached Rs 76.06 a litre. The price of the Indian basket of crude oils, composed of 70 per cent sour grade Oman and Dubai crudes and the rest by sweet grade Brent, has gone upwards of $70 a barrel last month. Singh said it was a mere coincidence that the spike in international rates and the company’s decision to put a lid on prices comes just ahead of the assembly elections in Karnataka on May 12. Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan told reporters at the event that the government had no role in the pricing of petrol and diesel by companies. Dexter Fowler Womens Jersey
Petroleum ministry refutes hike in non-subsidized price LPG price
The Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas has refuted reports of alleged the hike in Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) price in the recent months. In a statement, the ministry said that there has rather been a fall of around Rs 100 in the retail selling price of non-subsidized price LPG price. “This is in reference to some news reports on increase in LPG prices in the recent months which is not based on facts. In this connection, it is clarified that the retail selling price of LPG (non-subsidized price) at Delhi has come down from Rs 747 in the month of December, 2017 to Rs.650.50 in the month of May, 2018, a fall of Rs.96.50. This is the price at which a consumer purchases the cylinder refill and the subsidy gets transferred to his account,” the statement said. Linval Joseph Authentic Jersey
PNGRB appoints CRISIL for framing gas trading hub regulations
etroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board (PNGRB), India’s downstream oil and gas regulator, has appointed ratings agency CRISIL as consultant to prepare regulations for the planned Natural Gas Trading Exchange. PNGRB Chairman D K Sarraf stated CRISIL has been appointed, and added the natural gas trading hub is likely to start operations by December 2018 or early 2019. Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Tuesday said at the launch event of the ninth round of City Gas Distribution (CGD) licensing that post the establishment of the Natural Gas Trading Exchange the industry can expect a unified rate of natural gas. PNGRB will be working with Oil Industry Development Board (OIDB) to work out the complete regulation, operations and location of the upcoming gas exchange platform. An executive requesting anonymity said that CRISIL has been given 18 weeks to prepare its report and OIDB has appointed KPMG to consult on location and operational functions of the gas exchange. Sarraf said the plan to establish a natural gas trading platform is part of a larger effort by the government to build a vibrant and transparent gas market in India, according to Sarraf. “The idea is to create an ecosystem where the competing buyers would be able to buy gas from competing sellers and transport the same from gas source to the place of their requirement by getting a non-discriminatory access to the pipeline capacity. This end-to-end solution would reduce customer risk and enhance customer confidence on gas as an alternate fuel and feed,” he told said in an interview. He added that PNGRB will act the market regulator for the upcoming natural gas trading platform and natural gas sector, on the lines of the capital markets regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI). As domestic production of natural gas is not sufficient to meet the demand, India’s LNG terminal space has witnessed a flurry of activities over the past few years with over eight LNG terminals proposed across the east and west coast — Mundra, Ennore, Digha, Jafrabad, Dharma, Jaigarh, Chhara and Hazira. When commissioned, these projects are expected to raise the country’s installed base of LNG terminal capacity to 64 million tonne per annum (MTPA) from the current 26 MTPA. India’s natural gas product 2017-2018 grew by 2.35 per cent to 32.64 Billion Cubic Meter (BCM) as compared to the year ago period. Data shows the country’s natural gas production grew for the first time in six years as output from onshore blocks offset the decline from offshore blocks last fiscal. Kareem Martin Authentic Jersey