Italy NEWS

A leading Italian engineering and construction giant has landed a sizeable offshore contract from Saudi Aramco for work on its Marjan oilfield, as a part of the Saudi state giant’s long-term agreement (LTA) with international contracting players.

European shares notched up their best week in two months on Friday as concerns over an energy supply crunch eased, bringing some calm to investors worried about a big rise in interest rates and a political crisis in Italy. The pan-European STOXX 600 index closed 0.3% up at its highest level since June 10, while for the week it jumped nearly 2.9%. While Russian gas flows to Europe resumed after a scheduled maintenance outage, market participants fretted as euro zone business activity unexpectedly shrank in July, due to a downturn in manufacturing and a near-stalling of service sector growth.

Italy has drawn up a series of measures to speed up the time it takes to authorise new renewable energy projects, including the creation of special areas to build them in, a draft law showed. Italy's complex approval process has slowed down the rollout of green energy schemes, threatening access to EU recovery funds and the achievement of climate targets.

Oil prices tumbled by more than 3% as this week started. Worries of weakening fuel demand due to lockdown in Europe swept the market. Brent decreased by 3.1%, to $36.78 a barrel. WTI slipped by 3.5%, to $34.55 a barrel. “The lockdown measures announced by the UK and Italy are just adding to the deteriorating European situation,” said CMC.

BHGE unveiled LUMEN digital methane detection platform, designed for monitoring the levels of methane for oil and gas operators. The platform deploys ground-based and drone-based sensor systems to monitor levels of methane. The oilfield services giant unveiled the platform on the first day of BHGE’s 20th annual meeting in Italy. LUMEN leverages machine learning and proprietary algorithms to provide methane concentration data.

Italy-based Saipem has reported no theft or loss of data during the cyber-attack on its servers last week. The service provider assured that the restoration activities are near completion for the infrastructures struck by the cyber-attack. Saipem also confirmed that the prosecution of the ordinary activity has faced no interference. Saipem had communicated a cyber-attack on its servers on December 10th.

Italian oil services giant, Saipem yesterday reported a major cyber-attack on its servers. The Milan-headquartered firm assured of taking “impact assessment measures”. Saipem is currently in the process of reporting the attack to the concerned authorities. A spokeswoman for the firm said, “We are collecting all the elements useful for assessing the impact on our infrastructures and the actions to be taken to restore normal activities.

Italian energy multinational, Eni yesterday reported a sixfold jump in profit for the third quarter. The adjusted net profit for the firm climbed to 1.39 billion euros from 0.23 billion euros in the previous year. Eni performed well above analysts’ consensus forecast of 1.02 billion. The Italian oil major thereby signalled the possibility of a share buyback next year.

Italy’s oil and gas contractor, Saipem released its third quarter earnings reporting significant losses. The firm is working at a pre-tax loss of £136 million, a loss of £50 million on the same period in 2017. This year, the firm went through a loss of £315m. CEO of Saipem commented “In what is still a complex context, the first nine months of 2018 Saipem revealed a good operational and managerial performance, in particular in Offshore Engineering & Construction and Drilling.”

Eni has been given a notice by The Health and Safety Executive because many “defective” valves were found on the UK arm of Eni operated platforms. According to HSE, 20 out of 33 safety critical isolation valves were “seized open” on the DA and DD platforms of the Douglas Complex of the company. HSE has also said that the Italian oil firm was aware about the “degraded situation” since 2014.

The liquefied natural gas (LNG)-powered truck will undergo test runs to understand its safety and economic feasibility, informed the state-run Korea Gas Corp. (KOGAS) on Friday. This truck has been developed in cooperation with KOGAS and Daewoo Tata Commercial Vehicle Company, nation’s second-largest truck manufacturer. This 400 horsepower LNG powered-truck will have an engine by Italy’s Fiat Powertrain Technologies and it will be built on Tata Daewoo frame.

Italy’s oil and gas major, Eni has discovered gas in the Egyptian Western Desert. The 17,000 ft well was drilled on the Faramid South in East Obayed concession whose capacity is 25 MMscfd. After drilling, numerous gas-bearing layers in Kathabta sandstones were encountered. Eni is making efforts to increase the gas production capacity of the company from the Western Desert basin.

Algerian state energy firm’s head informed that the country has signed an agreement with Spain and Italy’s Eni to provide gas. 9 bcm of gas per year will be supplied to Spain for a period of nine years and 3 bcm of gas per year will be supplied to Eni for an unspecified period of time. Talks between Sonatrach and Shell are in progress over the joint projects in Algeria.

Italian oil firm, Saipem in an announcement said that it has received more than £600 million worth of contract for projects across Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Mexico, Iraq, and Nigeria. Further, the company also declared contract awards from ExxonMobil and Petróleos Mexicanos for various projects and it will also be leading a JV with Chiyoda and Daewoo, a FEED contract awarded by Nigeria LNG Limited.

A new polymer plant has been constructed under SOCAR Polymer project in Sumgayit Chemical Industrial Park. This project strengthens the industrial potential of Azerbaijan, commented the Italian President while talking about the significance of the project during the inauguration of the same. Talking about the relations of Italy and Azerbaijan, he thanked SOCAR and Maire Tecnimont for the success of the project.

Italian oil firm, Eni yesterday announced the discovery of second light oil in the Egyptian Western Desert. The well has, until now, delivered 5,130 barrels of oil per day of light oil with low associated gas. Eni is now planning to drill other exploratory prospects located nearby which might lead to a new productive area for the oil major in Egypt.

Chief Executive of Italian oil major, Eni said yesterday that the company will announce the binding commitments to achieve carbon neutral state, by the end of 2018. Eni’s announcement to achieve carbon neutrality will be the first by an oil major. Some of the other big players have specified goals to reduce or at least keep carbon emissions flat, in the light of increasing pressure from investors and shareholders.

In a major stake acquisition deal, Eni has sold 100% of its interests in Croatia to the Croatian multinational, INA-INDUSTRIJA NAFTE, d.d. Eni Croatia b.v has an oil production of about 2,500 boed. INA and Eni are coming to an agreement for the supply of natural gas from Croatia to the Italian market. This deal marks the end of Eni’s upstream business in Croatia’s upstream segment.