Freeport LNG Plant Suffers Explosion
A explosion occurred on Wednesday at the Freeport LNG liquefied natural gas plant on the Texas Gulf Coast, according to police, and prompting an evacuation of nearby residents in Quintana, Texas.The plant can process up to 2.1 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day into a supercooled liquid for export.Freeport LNG acknowledged an incident occurred around 11:40 a.m. local time with providing further details. There were no injuries and all employees had been accounted for, a company spokesperson said. There currently is no risk to the surrounding community, she added.(Reuters - Reporting by Liz Hampton and Sabrina Valle)
Robotics: Autobots Transform in the Offshore Energy Sector
Robots and robotics have slowly been entering our lives, in various shapes and forms (and fictional characters), from self-driving household vacuum cleaners to highly automated manufacturing systems. Now they’re heading for the offshore world – in just as many shapes and forms.There could be a lot to gain from robotics, but platforms and offshore wind turbine structures are also very challenging places to put them on. For oil and gas, key drivers are around safety and cost . For the offshore wind sector…
Yamal LNG Exceeds Nameplate Capacity
Yamal LNG, a liquefied natural gas plant located in Sabetta at the north-east of the Yamal Peninsula, Russia, announced that since the beginning of 2019, the LNG plant produced more than 16.5 million tons of LNG.The Project exceeded its annual nameplate production capacity during the first eleven months of the year, when all three LNG trains were in operation, as the third LNG train was launched at the end of 2018.Yamal LNG has reached 25 million tons of LNG shipped since the start-up of Train 1 in December 2017…
West of Shetlands Ups Offshore Production
West of Shetland production likely to overtake North Sea for Shell and BP’s UK portfolios by 2020, said a report.Over the last four years oil and gas production in the West of Shetlands has risen and with that, a growing relevance for the biggest players still active in the UK continental shelf (UKCS), says GlobalData.The company’s latest research reveals that the West of Shetland (WoS) area retains the attention of major Exploration and Production (E&P) players in the region; however infrastructure restraints could hinder future growth potential in the basin.Despite the US based E&P majors…
Woodside Plans Maintenance at Karratha Gas Plant
Australia's Woodside Petroleum has planned maintenance at its Karratha gas plant, part of the North West Shelf liquefied natural gas (LNG) export project, in the third quarter of the year, according to a notice on the company website.The first scheduled maintenance will affect one unidentified LNG train at the Woodside-operated plant in Western Australia from July 26 to Aug. 13, according to the notice.The second maintenance will be carried out on multiple LNG trains from Sept. 5 to Oct.
U.S. Energy Hits Records in 2018: EIA
U.S. energy consumption, production, and exports have reached record highs in 2018, said U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).The United States produced a record amount of energy from various sources in 2018, reaching 96 quadrillion British thermal units (quads), an 8% increase from 2017. This increase in production outpaced the 4% increase in U.S. energy consumption, which also reached a record high of 101 quads.At the same time, U.S. energy exports increased 18% to a record high of 21 quads in 2018, reducing net energy imports into the United States to a 54-year low of 4 quads, or less than 4% of U.S.
Santos Finds Gas Off Western Australia
Santos announced Tuesday it has confirmed significant gas resource in the Corvus-2 appraisal in the Carnarvon Basin, offshore Western Australia.Corvus-2 is located in 63 meters water depth, approximately 90 kilometers northwest of Dampier in Commonwealth waters within petroleum permit WA-45-R, in which Santos has a 100% interest.The well was drilled approximately 3 kilometers southwest of Corvus-1 (drilled in 2000) using the jack-up mobile offshore drilling unit Noble Tom Prosser and reached a total depth of 3,998 meters.
Sole Offshore Construction Phase Completed
Installation and testing of the 67 km control umbilical connecting the Sole gas field with the Orbost Gas Plant has been completed, marking the conclusion of the offshore construction phase of the Sole Gas Project, operator Cooper Energy said in an update on Monday.The offshore project, which was 93% complete at the end of February, is expected to be fully completed, ready and available to deliver gas from the Gippsland Basin offshore Victoria to APA Group’s Orbost Gas Plant by end-May 2019. The only work remaining on the offshore project is repair of the damaged pipe section which is expected to commence in late April…
BHP to Drill More Wells in Trinidad
BHP Group Ltd has stepped up exploration drilling in deep water off Trinidad and Tobago hunting for gas which could supply the country's Atlantic LNG (liquefied natural gas) plant in the 2020s, a senior executive said.The company expects to complete drilling of three wells in block 14, located in its northern contract area, by the middle of this year, Niall McCormack, BHP's vice president for exploration, said on the sidelines of the CERAWeek energy conference in Houston."It's an attractive opportunity so we're looking to de-risk it a bit more…
Workers at Total's North Sea Platforms to Strike
Workers at three of Total's North Sea oil and gas platforms will hold a series of strikes between March 11 and May 8, Britain's Unite union said on Tuesday.Unite members on the Elgin Franklin, North Alwyn and Dunbar platforms will take part in a continuous ban on overtime on March 11, the union said in a statement.Discontinuous strike action consisting of a series of 24-hour stoppages on the platforms will take place on March 11, March 27 and April 12, it said.The Union said 24-hour stoppages will also take place at the Shetland gas plant between March 13 and May 8.Reporting by Swati Verma
Scrubber Manufacturers Slams Singapore Open-Loop Scrubbers Ban
Exhaust Gas Cleaning Systems Association (EGCSA) has attacked Singapore's restrictions on open-loop versions of the systems as "disappointing" and "politically motivated."The scrubber manufacturing industry body said in a press release: "The recent announcement by the outgoing CEO of the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) banning the discharge of process water from open loop scrubbers for vessels visiting Singapore came without prior notice or discussion with the IMO despite the fact that the…
Norway Eyes Offshore Wind to Power Gas Plant
Norwegian gas system operator Gassco and Canadian energy firm Enbridge are working on reviving a 350 megawatt (MW) offshore wind project to boost power supply security at Norway's Nyhamna gas processing plant, they told Reuters.The project, which would be the country's first offshore wind farm, is called Havsul 1 and was fully licensed by Norwegian energy regulators in 2009 before being abandoned in 2012 due to profitability concerns and insufficient subsidies.Nyhamna is one of Norway's biggest gas processing plants, handling output from Shell's Ormen Lange field.
Angola Battles to Revive Oil Exploration
On Saturday, nearly two decades after securing the initial rights, Total's CEO Patrick Pouyanné was in Luanda to snip the ribbon on a $16 billion oil project. It's not clear when he, or his peers, will be cracking open the bubbly in Angola again.Without another mega-project like Total's Kaombo on the horizon and fields getting old, Africa's second-largest crude producer is facing a steep decline unless it can revive exploration in what was once one of the world's most exciting offshore prospects.Sonangol…
Cooper Energy: Sole Pipeline Test Fails
Australia-based Cooper Energy says testing of the newly installed Sole pipeline in the eastern Gippsland basin offshore Victoria, southeast Australia has revealed localized damage."Laying of the 65 km pipeline to link the recently completed Sole production wells offshore Victoria to the Orbost Gas Plant has been completed by the contractor. The pipeline has been laid on the seabed, is unconnected to the gas fields and not carrying hydrocarbons," said a press release from the oil and gas exploration company focusing its activities in the Cooper Basin of South Australia.The contractor has advised Cooper Energy that…
Norwegian Oil, Gas Plants Restart after Ship Collision
An oil tanker and a Norwegian navy frigate collided off Norway's west coast on Thursday, injuring eight people and triggering the temporary shutdown of a North Sea crude export terminal, Norway's top gas processing plant and several offshore fields.The frigate, which recently took part in a major NATO military exercise, was aground and tilting on one side, live television pictures showed. The Norwegian military was attempting to save the ship."We are working on stabilizing the vessel," Norwegian Navy Counter-Admiral Nils Andreas Stensoenes told a news conference, adding that the eight injured were all Navy crew.
RWE Freezes Plans for Tilbury Gas Plant in Britain
German utility RWE has frozen development of its Tilbury Energy Centre in Britain, which included plans for a 2.5 gigawatt (GW) gas plant, it said on Monday.Britain needs to invest in new capacity to replace ageing coal and nuclear plants that are due to close in the 2020s, but new large facilities have struggled to get off the ground because of high costs and weak electricity prices."This decision was based on current market conditions and project costs," RWE said on its website.The gas plant would have been able to generate enough electricity to power about 3 million homes.
Woodside Energy GWF-2 Commences Production
Australian oil and gas company with a global presence Woodside announced that the Greater Western Flank Phase 2 (GWF-2) Project off the north-west coast of Australia has commenced gas production.A press release from the operator of the North West Shelf (NWS) project quoted its CEO Peter Coleman saying that the project has been delivered $630 million below the expected cost of approximately $2.0 billion (100% basis) and six months ahead of schedule.“The project team has done an outstanding job executing and delivering GWF-2…
Total Makes Major Offshore UK Gas Discovery
French oil and energy group Total said on Monday it had made a major gas discovery on the Glendronach prospect, located off the coast of the Shetland islands in the North Sea.Total said preliminary tests on the new gas discovery confirmed good reservoir quality, permeability and well production deliverability, with recoverable resources estimated at about one trillion cubic feet (1 tcf).It said Glendronach, located near its Edradour field, will be tied back to the existing infrastructure and developed quickly…
Total's North Sea Oil Platforms Hit by 24-hour Strike
Around 40 rig workers started a 24-hour strike on Monday on the Alwyn, Elgin and Dunbar platforms in the British North Sea, curbing gas flows to shore, but stored crude was expected to mitigate any oil supply disruption.The platforms halted production at 0500 GMT, said Unite, Britain's largest labour union. Unite and Total, which operates the platforms, earlier failed to agree on work shifts and pay, a union spokesman said.No fresh talks are currently planned, another union spokesman said.The fields account for about 10 percent of Britain's gas output…
China Harbour Engineering to Build Berri Field in Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabian oil giant Saudi Aramco has awarded a contract to China Harbour Engineering Arabia for the construction of two drilling islands under the company’s Berri Increment Program (BIP).The objective of the BIP is to produce an additional 250,000 barrels per day of Arabian Light crude oil from the Berri Oil Field to reach 500,000 barrels per day to maintain Saudi Aramco’s maximum sustained capacity by early 2023.A signing ceremony to mark the contract award was held in Dhahran. Signing on behalf of Saudi Aramco was its Vice President of Project Management…
