Production NEWS

The production of 50.788 million barrels of crude oil valued at N1.474tn was stalled between January and October last year due to community interferences and other challenges forcing oil terminals to shut down production 222 times within the period, OKECHUKWU NNODIM reports Nigeria’s crude oil earnings were depleted by about N1.474tn between January and October 2021 due to various concerns at terminals that prevented the production of 50.788 million barrels of oil during the 10-month period. It was gathered that community interferences, industrial actions by oil workers, COVID-19 outbreak at some terminals, pipeline vandalism, among others, curtailed oil production in various terminals, leading to huge financial losses for Nigeria.

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.

Libya’s state oil company, National Oil Corporation (NOC), said in a statement on Friday, the maintenance work for the main crude transmission line at Al-Waha Oil Company was completed and that the oil output is back to around one million barrels per day (bpd). Contributed to reducing the losses resulting from the halt in production, which was estimated to reach about one million barrels, and the production of the Waha Company was raised by 200 thousand barrels per day.

The company said a vessel that arrived in Guyana late last year is expected to start production in upcoming months with a target of up to 220,000 barrels of oil a day. Officials said another vessel will start production in 2024.

NEW DELHI: Alka Mittal has become the first woman to head India’s largest exploration and production company, ONGC, and second woman in the country to helm an oil company after Nishi Vasudeva, who had created history in March 2014 after taking over the reins of oil refiner-fuel retailer Hindustan Petroleum. The department of personnel and training on Monday evening appointed Mittal to the post, 72 hours after it fell vacant when Subhash Kumar, who too held the charge since February 2021 in addition to his regular job as director (finance), retired on December 31.

The U.S. oil industry is facing a sharp increase in production costs, the Dallas Fed energy survey’s latest edition has revealed. The survey found that while activity in the oil patch continued to recover during the fourth quarter and production rose faster, costs also rose, for the third quarter in a row, and they rose sharply. According to the Dallas Fed index, the reading for oil production in the period rose to 19.1 from 10.7 in the third quarter, but the cost input reading also rose, to 69.8 from 60.8 in the third quarter. The fourth-quarter reading is a record high.

Nigeria’s oil industry has continued to bleed owing to incessant shutdowns due to ageing upstream infrastructure, vandalism and community-related issues, with the country losing over 4.82 million barrels to the challenges, industry data obtained by THISDAY has revealed. Although a marked reduction from the 6.3 million barrels lost in the preceding month, the country’s production losses recorded in October came mainly from Forcados, Bonny, Odudu, Brass, Yoho, Urha, Ajapa and Aje in the Niger Delta. But a review showed that the situation will most likely continue unmitigated, at least in the short term, as Shell a few days ago announced a halt in crude shipments from the same Forcados, a situation that may negatively impact the country’s revenue stream and worsen existing shortages in the international market.

Energy companies Engie and Equinor have announced the H2BE project which aims to develop production of low-carbon hydrogen from natural gas in Belgium. The Belgian federal government released its Hydrogen Strategy in late October and the H2BE project will help Belgium deliver on the strategy. The project aims at producing hydrogen from natural gas using autothermal reforming (ATR) technology combined with carbon capture and storage (CCS).

MOSCOW, December 17. /TASS/. The OPEC+ agreement, which regulates oil production on the global market, will work for the next 20 years, Vice-President of Russian oil major Lukoil Leonid Fedun told reporters. "The OPEC+ deal will be needed in all scenarios of the oil market development. I think that it will be effective at least in the next 20 years," he said. In his opinion, OPEC+ will continue to increase oil production in February at a given rate, which is by 400,000 barrels per day.

Aiteo Eastern Exploration and Production Company says it has halted oil spillage from the wellhead in Nembe Local Government Area of Bayelsa State. The wellhead blew up on November 5 in the Santa Barbara South field in Nembe, polluting water, gas and oil in the area. The Governor of Bayelsa State, Douye Diri, had expressed displeasure on the high volume of crude oil being spilt continuously to many more communities and its effect on the economic life of residents but the oil company said it was working to address the problem.

The latest monthly Reuters survey has shown that the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) continued to raise its oil production in November under the OPEC+ deal, but the cartel continued to pump less crude than its share of the monthly increase, just as Nigeria witnessed an increased production. Nigeria’s production had been challenged until last month when Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria (SPDC) lifted force majeure on crude exports from Bonny Light terminal following repairs to a leaking pipeline. Operational issues have hampered Nigeria’s crude production throughout the second half of this year, with disruption at several other terminals including Qua Iboe, Forcados, Erha and Brass River.

The US-led proposal to release strategic oil reserves in a bid to lower oil prices, which was backed by South Korea, China, Japan, India, and the United Kingdom, was met with opposition from major oil producers such as Saudi Arabia and Russia, suggesting a move to phase down oil production. Concerns about a probable oil price increase are mounting as global oil prices continue to rise despite plans to release strategic oil reserves and major oil producers launch a counterattack. According to the Wall Street Journal, Saudi Arabia and Russia, the world's two largest oil producers, are considering a shift in oil policy by reducing production in reaction to the US-led proposal to release strategic oil reserves in an effort to lower oil prices. OPEC, led by Saudi Arabia, and OPEC+, made up of OPEC members and non-oil producing countries, were also mentioned in the publication.

Gas prices are breaking the bank in the U.S. and next door in Canada, with the country putting gas restrictions in place and prompting panicked stockpiling. The questions many have are: Why are gas prices so high, what would help them come down and when will that happen?

Crude oil and natural gas production in the Eagle Ford shale play, situated in southeast Texas, dropped by almost 35% and 20%, respectively, in May 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to GlobalData. The data and analytics company notes that, despite a recent sustained upswing in WTI crude oil prices, with prices hovering over US$70 per barrel, production of both crude oil and natural gas is failing to show signs of a major increase. In order to reverse the production trend, it is estimated that an additional US$1.5 billion of investment is required to increase production by 10% by the end of next year.

America’s right-leaning oil industry has little political will to help President Joe Biden lower energy prices by raising production. But there’s another reason why Texas wildcatters are refusing to help: the status quo is just so profitable.

(Reuters) - International Business Machines Corp and Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services said on Monday they would work together to extend the reach of a set of tools that oil companies use to manage disparate types of data. Amazon in 2018 worked with Royal Dutch Shell to create a technology to turn data from more than a century of oil production, largely from paper records, into a standardized format for multinational oil companies to improve efficiency across their operations.

Russia’s oil and gas discoveries fell to the lowest in five years in the first half of 2021, after last year’s crisis resulted in steep cuts in capital expenditures for exploration, data and analytics company GlobalData said on Wednesday. In the first half this year, Russian companies found oil and gas at six very small fields, adding just 36 million barrels to reserves, which is equivalent to fewer than four days of Russian daily oil production, according to GlobalData estimates.

The head of Vitol Group, the world’s biggest independent oil trader, said global demand has recovered to 2019 pre-pandemic levels and is poised to go even higher early next year. Chief Executive Officer Russell Hardy said demand for oil will exceed 2019 levels during the first quarter of 2022. He spoke online at the Reuters Commodities Trading Conference on Tuesday.