Saudi Arabia - joining the dots

A series of blog entries exploring Saudi Arabia's role in the oil markets with a brief look at the history of the royal family and politics that dictate and influence the Kingdom's oil policy

Tuesday, 12 March 2019

Fighting the Kraken

Cairn has announced a reserves downgrade on Kraken by 6.8mmboe (net) or 19% to reflect ongoing production issues. The field has been hit by a myriad of problems since start-up in 2017 and its failure to be farmed-down by operator EnQuest in 2018 highlights the technical concerns on the field. The field's output has been hit by poor FPSO uptime driven by system outages as well as higher water-cut than originally expected. There will be a planned...

Thursday, 7 February 2019

ExxonMobil scores big this week

ExxonMobil has made two significant announcements this week: the sanction of the USD10+ billion Golden Pass LNG project and further exploration success in Guyana. Golden Pass LNG On Tuesday, ExxonMobil and Qatar Petroleum sanctioned the Golden Pass LNG project in Texas. It will have a cost of USD10+ billion and deliver capacity of 16mtpa from 2024. Golden Pass was originally a LNG import facility but will be converted over the next five years. The...

Wednesday, 6 February 2019

Anadarko signs SPAs for Mozambique LNG

Anadarko has signed three gas Sale and Purchase Agreements (“SPAs”) with Tokyo Gas/Centrica (2.6mtpa), Shell (2mtpa) and CNOOC (1.5mtpa) for its Mozambique LNG Area 1 development. This total 6.1mtpa of the planned 12.88mtpa ahead of FID expected in mid-2019. The LNG development will challenge upcoming projects given its fortunate location in between the Asian and European markets and will compete with Australian, Middle Eastern and North American...

Friday, 1 February 2019

Cluff extends farm-out exclusivity in Southern North Sea to Major

Cluff Natural Resources press release Further to its announcement on 28 November 2018, Cluff Natural Resources Plc, the AIM quoted natural resources investing company with a high impact exploration and appraisal portfolio focused on the Southern North Sea gas basin, provides an update regarding its exclusivity agreement with a major oil and gas company for its Southern North Sea Gas licence P2252. As previously announced, the Company signed an...

Tuesday, 29 January 2019

UK North Sea gets shot in the arm with Glengorm

CNOOC, Total and Edison have made one of the biggest finds in the UK North Sea in recent years. The Glengorm discovery is estimated to contain recoverable resources of 250mmboe which is even bigger than Total’s recent success in the West of Shetlands at Glendronach which had 1tcf of gas (c.160mmboe). Glengorm sits on licence P2215 and in the vicinity of both the Culzean and Elgin & Franklin gas fields which could act as future hosts for Glengorm. Glengorm...

Thursday, 24 January 2019

Premier success at Zama

Premier and operator Talos have announced the successful appraisal of Zama-2 offshore Mexico. This is the second well on the Zama field, following the initial discovery at Zama-1 in 2017, and reaffirms the massive 600mmbbl oil discovery. The well penetrated 152m of net pay with a high net-to-gross of 73% (vs. Zama-1 of 63%). This suggests potential resource upside and could see resource estimates being upgraded as the appraisal campaign continues. Zama-2...

Monday, 21 January 2019

Genel grows in Kurdistan

Genel is acquiring interests in the Chevron operated Sarta and Qara Dagh blocks. Genel will acquire a 30% interest in Sarta and will pay 50% of the field development costs until a specific production target is reached; there will also be a production milestone contingent payment – total spend by Genel is estimated at USD60 million. Chevron will retain a 50% interest and the KRG holds the remaining 2% interest which is carried by the oil companies....