Friday, January 24, 2020

Greece launches privatisation of gas supplier DEPA Commercial - KATHIMERINI / REUTERS

24.JAN.2020 : 08:30

Greece launched on Thursday the sale of a majority stake in state-controlled gas utility DEPA’s wholesale and retail business, its privatisation agency said.

The Greek government is selling a 65 percent stake in DEPA Commercial as part of the terms of the country’s final EU/IMF bailout.

Hellenic Petroleum, Greece’s biggest oil refiner holds the remaining 35 percent stake in the gas utility.

According to the tender document published by the privatisation agency, the preferred investor will also have the option to acquire Hellenic’s stake in DEPA Commercial.

The agency set a March 6 deadline for the submission of non-binding bids.

Wednesday, January 22, 2020

Deepwater Leviathan gas project secures Israel’s energy needs - OFFSHORE

Jan 22nd, 2020
Jeremy Beckman


Leviathan is Israel’s third offshore natural gas field development and the most ambitious to date for operator Noble Energy.

Leviathan is Israel’s third offshore natural gas field development and the most ambitious to date for operator Noble Energy. Discovered in 2010 by Noble and partners Delek Drilling and Ratio Oil Exploration, Leviathan, as its name suggests, is a deepwater giant. The field contains an estimated 35 tcf in-place and 22 tcf recoverable. The first phase of Leviathan development consists of four subsea production wells tied back to a shallow water production platform where gas will be processed to meet pipeline specifications. Its initial 1.2 bcf/d throughput will more than double the production capacity connected to the Israeli grid, meeting Israel’s growing domestic demand while enabling exports to neighboring countries and global gas markets. And the topsides installation completed last September, was the first commercial test of Sleipnir, the world’s newest and largest semisubmersible heavy lift crane vessel.

The field is situated 129 km (80 mi) west of Haifa in the gas-prolific Levantine basin - other nearby discoveries include the Noble-operated Tamar; its Aphrodite field offshore southeast Cyprus; and Eni’s Zohr off northeast Egypt. Transocean’s semisub Sedco Express drilled the Leviathan-1 discovery well in November 2010 in 1,645 m (5,397 ft) of water in what was then the Rachel license, finding gas in a similar geological/depositional setting to Tamar in various sub-salt Miocene intervals.

Sunday, January 19, 2020

Libya: Tribesmen Say They Have Closed Shahara, el-Feel Oilfields - ASHARQ AL-AWSAT

Sunday, 19 January, 2020 - 15:00

A group representing southern Libyan tribesmen said on Sunday it had closed the southern El ShaRara and El Feel oilfields, virtually halting all of Libya’s oil output during a major international peace summit for Libya in Berlin.

The leader of the Fezzan Anger group, Bashir al-Sheikh said they had shut two fields, just two days after other fields in the east of the country were also shut.

El Sharara has production of abound 300,000 bpd and El Feel produces some 70,000 bpd.

A field engineer reached by telephone said a valve from the field had been closed.

The National Oil Corporation (NOC) has earlier warned that any shutdowns could have a lasting impact.

NOC Chairman Mustafa Sanalla said earlier on Friday: “The oil and gas sector is the lifeblood of the Libyan economy and the single source of income for the Libyan people ... They are not cards to be played to solve political matters.”