Australia NEWS

Santos is optimistic that by year-end it will be able to resume development drilling at its US$3.6 billion Barossa giant gas field development offshore its native Australia; and the project will still be on track for start-up in the first half of 2025 without the budget being massively derailed, said chief executive Kevin Gallagher.

Santos looks set in as little as one month to shut down its Darwin liquefied natural gas project in Australia’s Northern Territory as feed gas levels from its ageing Bayu-Undan field offshore Timor-Leste fall below the level required for commercial operations.

Woodside Energy chief executive Meg O’Neill has slammed extremists who are doing the damnedest to scupper under development and new gas projects in Australia, the region’s largest liquefied natural gas exporter.

Singapore-headquartered independent Jadestone Energy has discovered more issues with the still offline floating production, storage and offloading vessel on its Montara oilfield offshore Australia.

The National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority (NOPSEMA) has accepted Santos’ Offshore Project Proposal (OPP) for the Dorado development offshore Western Australia.

The country's biggest independent gas producer said it had reviewed the methodology it follows to calculate depreciation of its oil and gas properties, after taking into account the scale of its portfolio since acquiring BHP Group's petroleum assets. It now plans to depreciate oil and conventional gas assets based on proven reserves, instead of the prior method where proven and probable reserves were both considered.

An energy expert says he is "skeptical" of the Australian Energy Market Operator's (AEMO) target to build five major transmission projects within the next 10 years. Yesterday AEMO released its 30-year roadmap for the electricity grid's transition from fossil fuels to renewables, which it said would require more than $12 billion of investment in new transmission lines that should begin "as urgently as possible" to ensure supply was secure in the coming decade. Key points: AEMO's timeline for major transmission targets is flawed, according to an energy expert The Western Renewables Link in Victoria is being delayed due to community opposition VNI West powerlines are proposed in order to connect the Snowy Hydro with Victoria

Australia's new energy minister said on Wednesday the push for clean energy is more important than ever, even as G7 leaders water down climate protection commitments to shore up oil, gas and power supply due to the Ukraine conflict. "I'm not worried about a backsliding of ambition, because I think serious leaders around the world get it that actually the transformation is more important than before," Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen told reporters in Canberra. "If you're going to be reliant on gas, it's more important to be increasing your renewables," he said in a televised address.

Business, community and housing groups have urged energy ministers to agree on “a speedier move” away from natural gas as a solution to Australia’s power crisis, with federal and state politicians to meet for emergency talks.

Shell has completed the acquisition of Powershop Australia, an online electricity and gas retailer, it said on February 1. The deal was announced in November last year. The transaction has taken place through the 100% acquisition of Meridian Energy Australia Group (MEA), the parent company of Powershop, by a consortium of Shell and Infrastructure Capital Group (IGC),

MELBOURNE, Jan 20 (Reuters) - Australian gas producer Santos Ltd (STO.AX) booked record sales revenue for 2021, pumped up by soaring oil and gas prices, and expects to reap big gains following its $6.2 billion takeover of Oil Search amid a surging energy market. After approaching Oil Search with an offer in the middle of last year, seeking to put together a top-20 global company that could weather the transition to cleaner energy, oil and gas prices have strengthened and beefed up the value of the deal.

Infill drilling offshore Western Australia could generate 13,500 bpd of new production

Melbourne — Oil prices slipped on Thursday, trimming big gains from the previous two sessions, amid uncertainty over near-term demand as cases of the highly contagious Omicron variant of the coronavirus surge around the globe.

MELBOURNE, Jan 11 (Reuters) - Oil prices rose on Tuesday after two days of losses, with some risk appetite returning as the market awaited clues from the U.S. Federal Reserve chairman on potential rate rises and as some oil producers continued to struggle to beef up output. Brent crude futures gained 26 cents, or 0.3%, to $81.13 a barrel at 0156 GMT, after dropping 1% in the previous session. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures rose 30 cents, or 0.4%, to $78.53 a barrel, after falling 0.8% on Monday.

Austria-focused oil and gas producer, ADX Energy has protected itself against oil market jitters by locking in a hedged pricing position with supermajor BP for production from its Gaiselberg and Zistersdorf fields in the Vienna basin. The deal comes as the ASX-listed ADX waits for test results from its Anshof-3 discovery that it hopes will push even more volume through its newly struck hedge facility. The company said it had locked in a zero-collar hedging contract with BP with a pricing floor at US$73 per barrel, or “bbl” and a cap at US$82.60 per barrel. According to the company, oil price markets for Brent crude that remained above US$79/bbl enabled it to secure what it describes as an attractive price for its hedging contract.

Australia's Gladstone Port on the east coast finished 2021 by exporting a five-month low of 1.88 million mt of LNG in December, while volumes for the full year hit a record high of 23.28 million mt, data from the Gladstone Ports Corporation showed Dec. 7. The December volume was down 14% year on year, and 12% month on month. The fall comes comes after four consecutive months of increases, which culminated in an 11-month high of 2.14 million mt in November, the data showed.

MELBOURNE, Dec 31 (Reuters) - Oil prices slid on Friday but were set to post their biggest annual gains in 12 years, spurred by the global economic recovery from the COVID-19 slump and producer restraint, even as infections surged to record highs around the world.

Australia’s offshore safety regulator has ordered Shell to shut down its giant Prelude floating LNG vessel off Western Australia’s North West coast while damning the company’s ability to operate the facility after it descended into chaos in early December following a series of power failures.