It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Friday, September 01, 2023
UN Experts Claim Saudi Aramco May Be Violating Human Rights With Oil Production
According to UN human rights experts, Saudi Aramco is threatening human rights by expanding its oil production due to “the adverse impacts on human rights caused by activities such as the exploitation of fossil fuels which contribute to climate change.”
The concern was expressed in a letter authored by a group of unnamed UN human rights experts and sent to the Saudi state energy giant.
Reuters noted in a report that the letter did not spell out in detail what the adverse impacts of oil production on human rights was, but the Financial Times said that Aramco was the world’s biggest corporate CO2 emitter.
The latter statement is contradicted by this rating of the world’s biggest emitters, which was compiled by the Carbon Disclosure Project. According to the CDP, the biggest emitter in the world is China Coal, which accounts for 14.3% of total global emissions.
In that rating, Saudi Aramco is second, with 4.5% of global emissions.
What’s more interesting in the FT report, however, is the fact that the UN experts had also contacted the banks that Aramco works with, including Citi and BNP Paribas, to warn them that their Saudi clients may be violating human rights laws.
There was a hint of a threat in the letter to the banks, as it said that if the lenders were aware of Aramco violating human rights and failed to act on this awareness, “it can be viewed as enabling the situation”, the FT reported.
“Businesses should avoid infringing on human rights by taking proactive steps to identify, prevent, mitigate and address adverse impacts with which they are involved, including impacts resulting from climate change,” the UN officials said.
Energy Intelligence’ OPEC correspondent Amena Bakr noted that the authors of the letter to Aramco and its banks had given no reason why they had only targeted the Saudi energy giant.
By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com
Eni Begins Oil And Gas Production Offshore Cote d’Ivoire
Italy’s energy major Eni said it started on Monday oil and gas production from an offshore field in Cote d’Ivoire in West Africa less than two years after the discovery.
Production at the Baleine field, currently the largest oil and gas discovery in Ivorian sedimentary basin, started via a refurbished and upgraded Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) unit capable of handling up to 15,000 barrels per day of oil and around 25 Mscf/d of associated gas. With a second and third phase of development, the field will see production rise to 150,000 bpd of oil and 200 Mscf/d of gas, the Italian company said.
The gas production from the Baleine field will be delivered onshore through a newly constructed pipeline, enabling Cote d’Ivoire to meet its domestic electricity market demands, facilitate energy access, and strengthen its role as a regional energy hub for neighboring countries, Eni noted.
Europe and Eni are also increasingly betting on Africa to import large volumes of pipeline gas and LNG to replace pipeline gas supply from Russia, which was Europe’s top gas supplier before the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Eni has been particularly active in securing more natural gas supply for Europe from Africa and has fast-tracked projects in Africa to meet Europe’s gas demand in the absence of Russian pipeline deliveries.
In April, Eni launched the construction works for the first natural gas liquefaction project in the Republic of the Congo, which is expected to supply LNG to Europe.
Early this year, Eni’s chief executive Claudio Descalzi told the Financial Times in an interview that Europe should look to Africa for a “south-north” energy axis that would deliver gas from Africa to the EU.
At the announcement of the 2022 results in February, Descalzi said, “During the year, we were able to finalize agreements and activities to fully replace Russian gas by 2025, leveraging our strong relationships with producing states and fast-track development approach to ramp-up volumes from Algeria, Egypt, Mozambique, Congo and Qatar.”
The U.S. Says Iraqi Kurdistan’s Oil And Gas Are Important Supply
The United States considers Kurdistan’s oil and gas industry an important source of supply, the newly appointed US Consul General to Erbil said on Monday.
Mark Stroh, who was recently appointed as the new US Consul General to the capital city in the Kurdistan region, met with Kurdistan’s Minister of Electricity, Kamal Mohammad Saleh, to discuss the energy and oil industries, according to a readout from the meeting reported by Shafaq News.
Last week, Stroh met with the Kurdistan Regional Government’s Prime Minister, Masrour Barzani. Stroh highlighted the U.S. commitment “to deepening cooperation and fostering strong bilateral ties with the Kurdistan Region,” the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) said in a statement.
During Monday’s meeting with Kurdistan’s Minister of Electricity, the US Consul General discussed issues related with the energy and oil industry and expressed hopes that the federal government of Iraq and the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan would manage to work together and ratify the new hydrocarbon law.
The two officials also discussed the ongoing half of crude oil exports from Kurdistan via a pipeline through Turkey and the Turkish port of Ceyhan on the Mediterranean.
Turkey is in the process of brokering a deal between the central Iraqi government and the authorities of Kurdistan on sharing the revenues from crude oil production in the northern Iraqi region. The deal, according to Bloomberg, which cited unnamed Turkish officials, would help resume the operation of the pipeline that takes the crude from Kurdistan to the Turkish port of Ceyhan.
Kurdistan’s crude oil exports were halted on March 25 by the federal government of Iraq. The halt came after the International Chamber of Commerce ruled in favor of Iraq against Turkey in a dispute over crude flows from Kurdistan.
Iraq, OPEC’s second-largest producer after Saudi Arabia, is currently exporting oil only via its southern oil export terminals. Around 450,000 bpd of exports from the northern fields and from Kurdistan continue to be shut in due to the dispute.
Turkey Tries To Broker Revenue-Sharing Deal On Kurdish Oil
Turkey is in the process of brokering a deal between the central Iraqi government and the authorities of the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region on sharing the revenues from crude oil production in the northern Iraqi region.
The deal, according to Bloomberg, which cited unnamed Turkish officials, would help resume the operation of the pipeline that takes the crude from Kurdistan to the Turkish port of Ceyhan.
Kurdistan’s crude oil exports were halted on March 25 by the federal government of Iraq. The halt came after the International Chamber of Commerce ruled in favor of Iraq against Turkey in a dispute over crude flows from Kurdistan.
Iraq had argued that Turkey shouldn’t allow Kurdish oil exports via the Iraq-Turkey pipeline and the Turkish port of Ceyhan without approval from the federal government of Iraq. The ICC ruled that Turkey owned Iraq damages to the tune of $1.5 billion.
The suspension of oil flows out of northern Iraq and Kurdistan via Ceyhan forced companies to either curtail or suspend production because of limited capacity at storage tanks. At the time, this pushed oil prices higher for a while.
Iraq, OPEC’s second-largest producer after Saudi Arabia, is currently exporting oil only via its southern oil export terminals. Around 450,000 bpd of exports from the northern fields and from Kurdistan continue to be shut in due to a dispute over who should authorize the Kurdish exports.
Since then, attempts to reach a final agreement and restart the pipeline have not really stopped but they have also failed to produce any specific results. According to Turkey, the damages are an internal Iraqi matter that Baghdad and Erbil should settle. Baghdad, on the other hand, wants Turkey to collect the dues from Erbil. Erbil, finally, has laid a claim to all oil export revenues for crude produced in Kurdistan.
By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com
China’s Sinopec Chooses Aramco Gas Project Over Shell Singapore Refinery
China’s giant refiner Sinopec Corp. has said it will not acquireShell Plc’s (NYSE:SHEL) refinery or petrochemical plant in Singapore but will instead invest in Saudi Aramco’s Jafurah natural gas project alongside TotalEnergies (NYSE:TTE). Sinopec engages in the oil and gas and chemical operations in Mainland China, Singapore, and internationally. The company explores and develops oil fields, produces crude oil and natural gas, processes and purifies crude oil, and manufactures and sells petroleum products. Last year, Sinopec was among several Chinese companies that delisted from the NYSE.
Saudi Aramco is currently in a "listening phase" on proposals from refining giant Sinopec andTotal for a slice of a shale gas development project worth about $10 billion. Saudi Aramco has said it expects the giant gas field to produce about 2 billion cubic feet of gas per day by 2030, at a total cost of $24 billion.
Last year, Saudi Aramco announced that it was kicking offthe biggest shale gas development outside of the United States. Saudi Aramco said it plans to spend $110 billion over the next couple of years to develop the Jafurah gas field, which is estimated to hold 200 trillion cubic feet of gas. The state-owned company hopes to start natural gas production from Jafurah in 2024 and reach 2.2 Bcf/d of sales gas by 2036 with an associated 425 million cubic feet per day of ethane.
Aramco later announced that instead of chilling that gas and exporting it as LNG, it will instead use it to make much cleaner fuel: Blue hydrogen. The company said that its immediate plan was to produce enough natural gas for domestic use to stop burning oil in its power plants and convert the remainder into hydrogen. Blue hydrogen is made from natural gas either by Steam Methane Reforming (SMR) or Auto Thermal Reforming (ATR) with the CO2 generated captured and then stored. As the greenhouse gasses are captured, this mitigates the environmental impacts on the planet.
By Alex Kimani for Oilpirce.com
First-Ever Gulf Coast Wind Auction Could Be A Boon For U.S. Green Hydrogen
In a groundbreaking move, the Biden administration is set to hold its first-ever offshore wind auction in the Gulf of Mexico this Tuesday. Unlike previous offshore wind auctions concentrated in the Northeast, this one aims to fuel a green hydrogen supply chain for the Gulf Coast's extensive industrial sector.
According to Cheryl Stahl, principal project manager at DNV, the Gulf Coast offers a unique opportunity for innovation.
"When we get to the Gulf, (offshore wind) will start becoming much more disconnected from the grid," she said. "The Gulf gets to be sort of a breeding ground for innovative solutions."
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) will auction three areas off the coasts of Louisiana and Texas. John Filostrat, a BOEM spokesperson, emphasized that the Gulf "is uniquely positioned to transition to a renewable energy future, including the development and implementation of the production and use of green hydrogen."
Big players like Shell, Invenergy, and TotalEnergies are among the qualified bidders.
These companies have previously highlighted the Gulf's potential for green hydrogen production, leveraging its existing port and pipeline infrastructure.
However, the Gulf auction faces challenges. Unlike the Northeast, states like Texas and Louisiana lack legal mandates for clean energy. They also have slower average wind speeds, higher hurricane risks, and lower retail power prices.
Alon Carmel, a partner at PA Consulting, noted that "it's harder to justify an investment decision" in the Gulf, but tax credits for hydrogen could make the venture more appealing.
Lacy McManus of Greater New Orleans Inc sees the existing petroleum industry as a potential market for green hydrogen.
"They want to start replacing these gray hydrogen feedstocks and fuel sources with green," McManus said. "Wind provides that at the scale and capacity that we need in the industrial sector."
The Gulf Coast offshore wind auction is a bold step toward a green hydrogen future, despite the region's challenges. It's a move that could redefine the Gulf as not just an oil and gas hub, but also a center for renewable energy innovation.
The Prefect of the Municipality of Bucharest has ordered checks on all 380 fuel and liquefied gas LNG stations in Bucharest, after two explosions on Saturday at an LNG station in Crevedia resulted in two deaths and dozens of injuries. The second explosion occurred during the intervention of firemen leaving two people dead and another 41 hospitalized. Some 27 firefighters were admitted to the Floreasca Emergency Hospital, several in critical condition, while another eight patients were transported to specialist hospitals in Germany and Austria.
Initial investigations have determined transshipment from one tanker to another as the cause of the explosions while other tankers had technical problems. According to the National Agency for Environmental Protection, ANPM, the former LNG station at Crevedia should have been decommissioned in 2020 since its environmental license expired and it was not renewed.
“We will assess the damage and provide support from the government’s reserve fund. I want to be very clear: all those directly or morally responsible for this tragedy will pay, regardless of who they are and what positions they hold. The law must be applied to the letter,” Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu wrote on his Facebook page on Sunday.
This year has witnessed several major accidents occur at oil and gas facilities. Earlier in the year, China's Panjin Haoye Chemical Co Ltd’s entire oil refinery and petrochemical complex was shut down after a huge explosion killed five people and left eight missing. According to Chinese state television, the explosion occurred when the plant was undergoing maintenance work at an alkylation facility. Xu Peng estimated that the Haoye facility was processing at 62.5% of its crude refining capacity of 130,000 barrels per day (bpd).
Back in June, two oil tankers collided in the Irkutsk region in Russia thanks to a captain operating under the influence of alcohol, causing oil spillage into a local river. According to Irkutsk governor Igor Kobzev, one tanker carrying 138 metric tons of gasoline sustained significant damage. The governor estimates that as many as 60 to 90 tons of fuel spilled into the Lena River, the world's 11th longest.
