Saturday, July 27, 2024

Black Sea News

OMV Petrom Makes Largest Crude Oil Discovery in Decades

Romanian oil and gas group OMV Petrom, majority-controlled by Austria's OMV, said on Tuesday it discovered new crude oil and natural gas deposits equal to about three quarters of its overall 2022 production.The deposits are the largest crude oil discovery OMV Petrom has made in decades, it said, and were found in southern Romania…

Ukraine's Odessa Gets First WTI Oil Cargo from US

Ukraine's Black Sea port of Odessa is set to receive on Wednesday its first ever West Texas Intermediate (WTI) oil cargo from the United States, according to industry sources and shipping data, just a month after the front-month futures for the blend turned negative.U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) May crude futures sank to minus $38 per barrel on April 20…

TurkStream Gas Pipeline Launched

The Presidents of Russia and Turkey, Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, respectively, officially launched the TurkStream natural gas pipeline designed to ship Russian gas to Turkey and markets in southeastern Europe.TurkStream, which is laid in the Black Sea, is a link between the gas transmission systems of Russia and Turkey.

Russia's Rosneft Tenders Marine Fuel Cargos in Euros

Top Russian oil producer Rosneft has put up marine fuel cargos for sale with the euro as the default currency, a tender document showed on Monday, in line with its plan to sell oil products in the single currency instead of the U.S. dollar.Rosneft said it had tendered to sell up to 70,000 tonnes of low-viscosity marine fuel…

GSP Offshore, Trident Black Sea Bid in Ukraine

GSP Holding company GSP Offshore SRL is the preferred drilling and engineering services provider of Trident Black Sea, in its bid for the right to negotiate a production sharing agreement (PSA) with the Ukrainian government for the offshore Dolphin block in the northwestern part of the Black Sea.According to a press release…

U.S. Oil Makes it to Ukraine, a blow to Moscow

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U.S. crude exports are gaining traction in Europe as even Ukraine turns into a significant consumer of American barrels at the expense of Russian supplies amid heightened U.S. political pressure on Moscow and problems over contaminated Russian oil.Ukraine this month received its first ever barrels from the United States, according to Refinitiv Eikon flows data…

Tainted Oil Set for Russian Refineries, Ports After Dilution

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More than a million tonnes of contaminated oil from Russia's Druzhba ("Friendship") pipeline, expected to be shipped back from Belarus, will end up at Russian refineries and export ports after being diluted to usable levels, sources have told Reuters.The pipeline was halted in April after excessive levels of organic chloride…

Oil Shipments from Georgia's Batumi Port Drop

Oil and oil-related shipments from Georgia's Black Sea port of Batumi dropped 24 percent in the first four months of 2019 from a year earlier, an official at a KazMunaiGas-operated terminal at the port said on Wednesday.Shipments of crude oil and refined oil products from Batumi have fallen in recent years, partly because Azerbaijan…

Saipem Settles South Stream Dispute

South Stream Transport, which is responsible for the construction and operation of the TurkStream Offshore Pipeline, and the Italian oil and gas industry contractor Saipem have settled the arbitration concerning the South Stream offshore pipeline installation contract entered into on March 14, 2014.The subsidiary of Italian…

BSOG Gets Approval in Offshore Romania

Romanian-based Black Sea Oil & Gas (BSOG), controlled by private equity firm Carlyle Group, said that it received approval from the Romanian government for the field development plan (FDP) for the Ana and Doina gas fields.The Ana and Doina gas fields make up the Midia Gas Development (MGD) Project, offshore Black Sea.The MGD Project…

Black Sea MGD Project Gets Government Nod

(Image: BSOG)

Black Sea Oil & Gas (BSOG), controlled by private equity firm Carlyle Group LP, announced it has received Romanian government approval from the Romanian Government through the National Agency for Mineral Resources (NAMR) for its plan to develop the offshore Ana and Doina natural gas fields which make up the Midia Gas Development Project (MGD Project)…

Bourbon Wins Shell Contract in Bulgaria

Photo courtesy of Bourbon

Bourbon Marine & Logistics said on Thursday it has been awarded a contract from Shell to support the oil major's exploration drilling in the Black Sea offshore Bulgaria.The French services company said its project scope covers the full logistics solution project management, offering for the first time both marine logistics together with shore logistics: marine services…

Shell Starts Exploratory Drilling off Bulgaria

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Royal Dutch Shell said on Tuesday it will start drilling an exploration well in a block off Bulgaria's Black Sea coast next month for oil and gas.Shell has teamed up with Spain's Repsol and Australia's Woodside Energy after sealing a contract with Bulgaria in 2016 for deepwater exploratory drilling as part of Sofia efforts to end its almost complete reliance on Russia's natural gas supplies.

Turkey Set to Begin Drilling off Cyprus

(Photo: Turkish Petroleum International Company)

Turkey will begin drilling for oil and gas near Cyprus in coming days, state-owned news agency Anadolu reported Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu saying on Thursday, a move that could stoke tensions with neighboring Cyprus and Greece.Turkey and the internationally recognized Greek Cypriot government have overlapping claims of jurisdiction for offshore oil and gas research in the eastern Mediterranean…

As Traders Tussle Turkmenistan Cuts Exports

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A clash between trading house Vitol and Azerbaijan's SOCAR over Caspian Sea oil shipments is forcing Turkmenistan to slash exports of crude due to a lack of tankers.Turkmenistan typically exports about 200,000 tonnes of oil per month via the Caspian to world markets, mainly from fields operated by the UAE's ENOC and Italy's Eni…

Epic Gas Bullish on LPG Carriers Market

Global seaborne liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) volume is expected to grow by over 6% in 2019 and surpass 100 million tonnes for the first time.Singapore based provider of pressurised LPG vessels, Epic Gas said that it is well positioned to benefit from the improving fundamentals of the LPG shipping market.For the fourth quarter of 2018…

BSOG to Go Ahead with Midia Offshore Project

Drilling at the Iulia-1 well (Photo: BSOG)

Romanian-based Black Sea Oil & Gas, controlled by private equity firm Carlyle Group LP, said on Thursday it has decided to go ahead with its $400 million offshore gas project in Romania, the first such project to be developed in 30 years.The Midia Gas Development Project will extract an estimated 10 billion cubic meters of…

Storms, Snow Disrupt Exports from Russian Baltic

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Storms, snow and freezing temperatures in Russia's northwest to the south have delayed some oil product exports but the fall in volumes so far has not been exceptional for the time of year, industry sources said on Thursday.Products are mainly shipped from ports on the Baltic coast, Black Sea, Sea of Azov and the Far East.

Turkey to Begin Drilling Around Cyprus

(Photo: TPIC)

Turkey will begin drilling for resources around Cyprus, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Friday, a move that could create tensions with neighboring Cyprus and Greece over ownership of natural resources.Attempts to tap gas and oil in the eastern Mediterranean have caused friction between Athens and Ankara.Turkey and…

Putin says TurkStream Gas Pipeline Could be Extended via Greece

© Stanislav Komogorov / Adobe Stock

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that the TurkStream gas pipeline could be extended further into Europe via Greece, as he met Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras in Moscow.The first line of TurkStream, which runs from Russia to Turkey via the Black Sea bed, is intended for Turkish consumption only. Russia has…