S03 ORME 2 2020 News A_Layout 1 20/02/2020 15:07 Page 8
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NEPTUNE ENERGY HAS signed an operated exploration licence with the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC) for Egypt’s North West El Amal offshore concession. Neptune will acquire 100 sq km of 3D seismic data and drill one exploration well in the first phase, with two further wells planned in the phase two. The Gulf of Suez provides many The North West El Amal promising prospects. offshore concession covers 365 sq km and is located in the central part of the Gulf of Suez, approximately 42 km south of Ras Gharib and 105 km north of Hurghada. The signing ceremony was held at the Egypt Petroleum Show (EGYPS) in the presence of Tarek El-Molla, Minister of Petroleum. Gamal Kassem, Neptune Energy’s Egypt managing director said, “The Gulf of Suez provides many promising prospects and we look forward to working closely with EGPC to grow Neptune’s business in Egypt.”
THE PRODUCTION CUTS of 600,000 bpd proposed by an OPEC+ committee are far from enough to balance the market following the coronavirus outbreak in China, according to a Rystad Energy analysis. The first and second quarters of 2020 will see global oil The second quarter may see a sizeable production surpluses, says surplus of 700,000 bpd. Rystad. The first quarter will see producers left with a stock build of 700,000 bpd. According to the previous estimate, it was for a balanced first quarter with a 100,000 bpd surplus. The second quarter threatens to build oil stocks by 1.3mn bpd unless production is reduced further. That means that even if the OPEC+ output cuts are implemented in the second quarter, there will still be a sizeable surplus of 700,000 bpd. Bjørnar Tonhaugen, Rystad Energy’s senior vice-president and head of oil markets, said, “The economic shut-down in China will cause the largest negative oil demand shock since 2008. Even though the chaos unfolding in Libya has wiped out most of its oil production, and even if OPEC’s output cuts are fully applied, they will not be enough to fill the demand gap now exacerbated by the coronavirus.”
Commercialising oil spill technology AUSTRALIA’S FLINDERS UNIVERSITY and Singapore-based Clean Earth Technologies (CET) have collaborated to build and develop a manufacturing facility in South Australia that will produce commercial quantities of the absorbent polysulfide. CET executives visited the South Australian capital Adelaide to formalise the agreement, which assigns a suite of patents to the Singapore-based company ahead of production for global markets. The patents cover numerous areas, including a class of novel polymers used for environmental remediation, and mercury- and cyanide-free method of precious metal extraction and recovery. The sponge-like polymer was developed by an international team headed by Flinders University associate professor Justin Chalker and can be made of waste cooking oil from fast food outlets and sulphur – a by-product of the petroleum industry. The product is hydrophobic – meaning that it separates from water and binds well to oil. The polymer absorbs oil much like a sponge, forming a gel that can be scooped out of the water. The recovered oil can be squeezed from the polymer-like water from a sponge and the oil can also be reused. When still in its early stage of development, associate professor Chalker described the product as a new class of oil sorbent that is low-cost, scalable and enables the efficient removal and recovery of oil from water. The agreement includes a research collaboration that will provide ongoing funding for the Chalker Research Lab, including scholarships and salaries for researchers and royalties as they continue to find new ways to use the breakthrough product. CET chairman and co-founder Paul Hanna said that the partnership was an important step forward in the company’s search for an answer to some of the world’s most pressing environmental waste problems. “Technology like this, which uses waste to solve waste problems, has huge advantages for the industry at the big end of town. It can save the lives of thousands of small, artisanal miners around the world who use poisonous chemicals, like mercury, to survive and the communities around them,” Hanna stressed.
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oilreview.me
Issue 2 2020
Image Credit: kittikorn14/Adobe Stock
‘OPEC cuts not enough to balance the market following coronavirus outbreak’
Neptune Energy and EGPC sign agreement for Gulf of Suez
