Aramco Suspends 50% of Production
Saudi Arabia has temporarily halted production at two Aramco oil facilities that were attacked by Yemeni rebels, interrupting about half of the company’s total output.Saudi Aramco said the production of 5.7 million barrels of crude a day had been suspended after drone attacks on the world’s largest oil processing plant at Abqaiq – near Dammam in the Eastern Province – and the country’s second-largest oilfield at Khurais, about 200 kilometers away.Earlier, the oil giant said that emergency crews contained fires at its plants.After visiting the incident locations, Amin H.
Elengy's Fos Tonkin LNG Capacity for Sale
French liquified natural gas (LNG) terminal operator Elengy, a unit of the energy giant Engie, is preparing the sale of access capacities to the Fos Tonkin LNG terminal for the period 2021-2030.Within the sale process, Elengy will offer its potential customers several types of services, including the conventional unloading of Medmax-type LNG tankers (vessel with a capacity of 75,000m3 of LNG), the reloading of micro-tankers for LNG bunkering needs, as well as the LNG trucks loading.Compared to currently-used shipping fuels…
Israel Exploring Eastern Mediterranean
Israel will tender off 19 new offshore blocks to oil and gas companies, its energy ministry said on Sunday, hoping to rebound from a disappointing bidding round a year ago.Israel discovered in 2009 that it had large reserves of natural gas off its Mediterranean coast.It will publish details of the tender by the end of the month and, about half a year later, choose the winning companies, said Udi Adiri, the ministry's director general.Last year's auction elicited bids from only two groups of companies…
Hundreds Surf in Record Offshore Gas Protest
Hundreds of Israeli surfers in black skull-and-crossbones shirts took to the waves on Friday in what they said was a record-breaking protest against potential environmental damage from off-shore gas development.Organizers said 992 people, among them athletes and actors, paddled out and held hands to form a circle opposite Herzliya, promoting their demand that a planned gas rig be relocated further from Israel's Mediterranean coast.A slogan on their shirts read: "Don't poison us."Israeli…
Royal Dutch Shell to Resume Deepwater Exploration off Egypt
Royal Dutch Shell said it will resume deep-water exploration for oil and gas off Egypt's Mediterranean coast, Executive Vice President Sami Iskander told a news conference on Tuesday. Egypt is looking to production from recently discovered fields to halt energy imports by 2019. A petroleum ministry official said last month that new production at Shell's West Nile Delta field 9B is expected to reach 350-400 million cubic feet per day by 2019. Separately, production from the first 3 wells in the field is set to begin in the 2018-2019 fiscal year.
Israel Accepting Bids for 24 Offshore Blocks
Israel on Tuesday said it was accepting bids for the rights to drill in 24 offshore exploration blocks as the country looks to bolster its oil and gas sector. Large natural gas deposits have already been found off Israel's Mediterranean coast, and Israel expects the new tender will attract a host of foreign operators, leading to further discoveries. Israel's Energy Ministry also released results from a study conducted by Paris-based consultant Beicip-Franlab that estimated there are still 2,137 bcm of natural gas and 6.6 billion barrels of oil to be discovered in Israeli waters.
Israel Approves Development of Large Offshore Leviathan Natgas Field
Israel's government on Thursday approved the development of the controversial Leviathan natural gas field that will give Israel a second source of gas supply while potentially turning it into a gas exporter. Leviathan, one of the largest offshore discoveries of the past decade, was found off Israel's Mediterranean coast in 2010. It has an estimated 622 cubic meters of natural gas (BCM) of reserves and is expected to become operational in 2019. Texas-based Noble Energy, which holds a 40 percent stake in Leviathan…
France's CGT Will Block Elengy's LNG Terminals
France's hardline CGT union said on Monday that workers at Elengy, which operates three liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals in France, will go on strike from midnight until May 26 midnight included. The union said that from Tuesday morning, its members will block two out of three Elengy terminals at Montoir-de-Bretagne on the Atlantic coast and at Fos Tonkin on the Mediterranean coast, where no trucks or vessels will be allowed to load or unload. The CGT said its members at Elengy will be joining oil sector workers…
Israel to Use Seaborne Missiles to Guard Gas Fields
Israel's military said on Wednesday it had developed a version of its Iron Dome missile interceptor system that can be fired from the deck of a cruising navy ship to protect its offshore gas platforms. The augmented defense system passed a live test two weeks ago when it shot down several short-range ballistic missiles from a moving boat, said Colonel Ariel Shir, the navy's head of operational systems. Israel has boosted its naval defences over the past decade after the discovery of sizeable natural gas deposits off its Mediterranean coast.
Egypt to Launch New Oil Exploration Round Next Week
Egypt plans to launch a new oil exploration round next week, offering 11 blocks in the Western desert and the Gulf of Suez, Petroleum Minister Tarek al-Molla said on Tuesday. He said that Egypt also plans to launch two gas exploration rounds this year. Egypt, which used to be a net energy exporter, has become a net importer in recent years as consumption has increased while production has fallen. The government has been on a drive to lure back foreign investors to its energy sector in an effort to address a squeeze on public finances.
Israeli finds Another Large Offshore Gas Field
An Israeli exploration group reported on Sunday it has discovered another large natural gas field off Israel's Mediterranean coast. The group, led by Isramco Negev and Modiin Energy, said that a resource report showed there could be an estimated total of 8.9 trillion cubic feet of natural gas at the Daniel east and west fields. Large natural gas deposits have been discovered in nearby waters in recent years. (Reporting by Ari Rabinovitch; Editing by Tova Cohen)
Israeli Firms, Leviathan in Natural Gas Talks
The partners in Israel's offshore Leviathan natural gas site said on Thursday they were in talks to supply gas to a number of Israeli companies. In a statement to the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, units of Delek Group said the firms were private electricity producers and industrial companies but did not offer further details. Last month, after years of political infighting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signed a deal giving long-awaited approval for the development of Leviathan off Israel's Mediterranean coast.
Israel Eyes More Offshore Gas Exploration
Israeli Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz said he expects offshore natural gas exploration to accelerate in the next few months, with investment from some of the world's largest oil and gas companies. Steinitz said he recently met officials from ENI and 20-30 other energy firms, such as Shell, Hess , Exxon Mobile and EOG, in a bid to entice them to invest in Israeli fields off its Mediterranean coast. Under a framework agreement approved in August by lawmakers, a group led by Houston-based…
Egypt Plans New Mediterranean Gas Exploration
Egypt is preparing to launch a new bidding round for gas exploration off the Mediterranean coast in the first half of 2016, Khaled Abdel Badie, the head of the state gas company EGAS told Reuters on Tuesday. His comments came after Egypt announced it had awarded four new licences to explore for oil and gas off its Mediterranean coast, weeks after Eni's giant Zohr gas find piqued fresh international interest in the area. (Reporting by Abdel Rahman Adel)
Total Suspends Restart of La Mede Refinery
French oil major Total had to suspend the restart of its La Mede refinery near Marseille late on Friday because of striking workers from the CGT union, a company spokesman said. "Striking workers who are not necessary to monitoring have left the plant this (Friday) evening," the spokesman told Reuters. Total had begun procedures to restart the refinery on the Mediterranean coast, which management had shut down last week after the hardline CGT union called a strike against plans to stop crude oil refining.
Netanyahu: Nothing Will Stop Israel's Natural Gas Development
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to further develop offshore natural gas fields after the country's anti-trust regulator said he would step down to protest against the lack of competition in the gas sector. Netanyahu is under pressure to strike a balance between moving ahead with plans to develop the large Leviathan gas field while creating competition, since Leviathan is owned by the same firms as the nearby Tamar site that started production in 2013. The fields are off Israel's Mediterranean coast.
Israeli Regulator Delays Monopoly Decision on Natural Gas Fields
Israel's competition regulator has delayed a decision on whether to declare the country's natural gas fields a monopoly for two months to allow time for an agreed solution to be reached. Noble Energy and Israel's Delek Group own 85 percent of the large Leviathan gas site off the Mediterranean coast, and also control the nearby Tamar well -- a situation anti-trust Commissioner David Gilo in December said created a monopoly. The Anti-Trust Authority said on Tuesday it had given a deadline of April 23 for the sides to reach a deal before charging the companies with restraint of trade.
Israel to Launch $4b Wave of Privatizations in 2015
Israel will begin selling major stakes in a number of state-owned companies in November or December despite any political uncertainty created by elections next month, the country's privatization chief said. A decade after its last privatization program, the government aims to sell all or part of eight companies and two ports by 2017, raising around 15 billion shekels ($3.9 billion) in a plan announced in October. Of the 87 companies that remain in government hands, the 10 set to be sold generated nearly 90 percent of revenue…
Israeli Desert Spill Could Span Years
Ecologists said on Wednesday it could take years to clean up a massive oil spill that flooded an Israeli nature reserve with up to five million litres of crude and threatened to spread to the Red Sea shore and neighboring Jordan. A breached pipeline started spewing oil into Evrona desert reserve -- famed for its rare deer and douma palms -- a week ago, causing what experts called the worst spill in Israel's 66-year history. Clean-up teams have started sucking up the slick and have dug pools and erected barriers to stop it spreading further.
10,000 km Kayak Journey Ends in Istanbul
Two French students arrived yesterday (9th October) in Istanbul, finishing a 14 month epic 10,000km journey by sea kayak, having set off from Gibraltar in July 2013. Sponsored by leading marine lubricant supplier Total Lubmarine, the pair conducted important research into toxic algae and noise pollution in the Mediterranean. The journey, part of the Mare Nostrum Project, saw Louis Wilmotte and Douglas Couet paddle the whole length of Europe’s Mediterranean coast in a sea kayak carrying out scientific, educational and cultural assignments.
