Amec Foster Wheeler Wins FEED Contract For Uranium Project, Spain
Amec Foster Wheeler announces today it has been awarded a Front End Engineering Design (FEED) contract by Berkeley Energia for its uranium processing plant at its Salamanca Project, in western Spain.
The scope of work by Amec Foster Wheeler will include engineering and procurement services to determine the capital cost of the front end crushing plant, as well as detailed engineering of the plant in preparation for the construction phase.
The contract will be executed by Amec Foster Wheeler's South African mining company MDM Engineering.
Amec Foster Wheeler previously carried out the Definitive Feasibility Study (DFS) phase for the project during which a smart design approach was adopted that will enable significantly reduced capital costs.
Dave Lawson, Amec Foster Wheeler's President for Mining, said:
"The award of this contract is testament to our strong performance during the DFS phase which has resulted in us identifying a number of design efficiencies for the Salamanca facility. We will leverage our extensive experience in delivering large scale uranium projects and apply our significant heap leach processing expertise to this next important phase of the project."
Skanska Builds Light Rail In Lund, Sweden, For About SEK 710M
Skanska has signed a contract with the municipality of Lund to build a new tramway between Lund Central Station and the European Spallation Source (ESS), northeast of downtown. The contract is worth about SEK 710M, which will be included in the Nordic order bookings for the first quarter of 2017.
The project includes 5.5 kilometers of double track and includes nine stops, a new bridge, traffic devices and installation of track, electrical, signal and telecom in the urban environment.
Construction work will begin March 1 and the tramway will be ready for test runs by year end 2018.
Skanska is one of the leading development and construction companies in the Nordics, with operations in building construction and civil engineering in Sweden, Norway and Finland, and developing residential- and commercial property projects in select home markets. The commercial development stream is also active in Denmark. Skanska offers services in public-private partnerships. Skanska had sales of about 67 billion SEK and more than 15,000 employees in its Nordic operations during 2016.
Aramco prepares major Marjan contract award
EPCI contract for state player’s giant offshore expansion project worth possible $3.5 billion and includes at least dozen platforms
Saudi Aramco is laying the groundwork for a huge engineering, procurement, construction and installation contract on its massive Marjan offshore expansion project, an order expected to be worth at least $3.5 billion.
Industry sources told Upstream that the Saudi Arabian state-owned giant has issued initial enquiries to its select group of long-term agreement (LTA) contractors, seeking responses on how best to push ahead with this flagship project.
“They (Aramco) have issued questionnaires to LTA players and have met each of them separately,” said one market player.
Other sources familiar with Aramco’s agenda said the operator held meetings with the LTA players this month about the Marjan project, which involves a mix of offshore as well as onshore facilities.
The workscope is significant and is understood to consist of an offshore central processing facility, more than a dozen offshore platforms including several tie-in facilities, in excess of 300 kilometres of subsea pipelines and several other marine hardware packages.
Marjan’s offshore facilities are expected to be designed to handle around 300,000 barrels per day of oil and will involve more than 100 development wells.
On the onshore front, a new gas compression plant and a new crude processing train at Tanajib is also envisaged.
Initial queries from Aramco are thought to focus on the offshore workscope.
“The project is still at an early stage and we will have to wait for clarity on the packages involved,” reckoned one market watcher.
The scale of the project will call for a large number of engineering man hours. “They are looking to move to the EPC stage and the (successful) contractor will be responsible for a lot of engineering work,” one source said.
The bidding exercise for Marjan could start later this year, although some sources cited the first quarter of 2018 as a more likely time for the tender effort to formally begin.
US-based contractors McDermott and Dynamic Industries, Italy’s Saipem, a partnership of India’s Larsen & Toubro (L&T) with Singapore’s Emas, and Abu Dhabi-based National Petroleum Construction Company (NPCC) are the LTA contractors that are qualified to compete for Aramco’s offshore projects.
However, one project tracker claimed that Aramco might also involve other contractors, outside the LTA group, because of the project’s sheer size.
In addition to the Marjan project, Aramco is also believed to be eyeing the expansion of its Berri offshore oilfield that could involve boosting its production capacity by more than 200,000 bpd, sources have suggested. The Saudi behemoth has invited companies to bid for several packages involving front-end engineering and design work on the Berri expansion project, which could cost about $6 billion, Reuters reported this month, quoting anonymous sources.
Aramco chief executive Amin Nasser said in January that the company is working on increasing its oil and gas production capacity to meet future demand growth.
Saudi oil officials have not, however, indicated any immediate plans to increase the kingdom’s overall capacity of 12.5 million bpd, the report added.
Energy crisis normalized with latest LNG shipment arrival
The local energy warning system has finally been downgraded following yesterday’s arrival to Greece of a 120,000-cubic meter LNG shipment from Algeria, one of many extraordinary orders required during this winter’s energy crisis.
The order’s arrival, shipped to Greece’s only LNG terminal on Revythoussa, an islet just off Athens, prompted authorities to lower the country’s energy warning system to Level 1 Alert, two months after it had been raised to Level 2 Alert.
No distressing energy-related developments are now seen for the near future. Though the energy warning system’s lowering to Level 1 Alert means that further emergency measures are now not required, authorities will need to keep monitoring the situation.
Lundin makes oil, gas discovery in Filicudi prospect in Barents Sea
Lundin Norway AS, a unit of Lundin Petroleum AB, Stockholm, has made an oil and gas discovery with main well 7219/12-1, which was drilled on the Filicudi prospect in the southern Barents Sea. Lundin is now drilling sidetrack well 7219/12-1A.
The wells are in production license 533 (PL533) about 40 km southwest of Johan Castberg and 30 km northwest of the Alta and Gohta discoveries on the Loppa High (OGJ Online, Sept. 30, 2016).
The main objective of the discovery well was to prove oil in Jurassic and Triassic sandstone reservoirs. The well encountered a 129-m gross hydrocarbon column of high-quality sandstone reservoir characteristics with 63 m of oil and 66 m gas in the Jurassic and Triassic targets. Extensive data acquisition and sampling has been carried out including coring, logging, and oil and gas sampled from the wireline tools.
The sidetrack well has reached total depth and has confirmed the reservoir and hydrocarbon column. The gross resource estimate for the Filicudi discovery is 35-100 million boe.
Filicudi is on trend with the Johan Castberg discovery, with resources of 500 million boe, in similar reservoir intervals. Multiple additional prospects have been identified on the Filicudi trend in PL533 with total gross unrisked prospective resource potential for the trend of as much as 700 million boe. The partnership is considering the drilling of as many as two additional prospects this year.
The Leiv Eiriksson semisubmersible drilling rig, which drilled the discovery, will next move to the Gohta discovery in PL492 to drill a second delineation well on this discovery (OGJ Online, July 21, 2014).
Lundin Norway is operator of both PL533 and PL492 and holds respective working interest of 35% and 40% in these licenses.
ADNOC awards CNPC 8% interest in Abu Dhabi onshore oil concession
CNPC contributed a sign up bonus of $1.77 billion to enter the concession. The onshore concession is operated by the Abu Dhabi Company for Onshore Petroleum Operations (ADCO). The agreement has a term of 40 years, backdated to1 January, 2015.
Dr Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, ADNOC Group CEO, said: “Our agreement with CNPC strengthens and deepens the strategic and economic relationship between the UAE and China. With our common vision for value add partnerships, we see tremendous opportunity in working together to optimize our energy resources, by achieving maximum economic value in support of ADNOC’s long-term growth objectives.”
He added: “This will be a mutually beneficial partnership that will enable us to maintain strong production levels, as, together, we maximize the returns from what is a very attractive, long-term and sustainable opportunity in our onshore oilfields.”
CNPC is China’s largest oil and gas producer and supplier, as well as one of the world’s major oilfield service providers. It is responsible for 52% of China’s crude oil and 71% of its natural gas production. CNPC also has oil and gas assets and interests in 37 countries in Africa, Central Asia-Russia, Americas, the Middle East and Asia-Pacific.
Landmark agreement
Wang Yilin, CNPC chairman, said: “This landmark agreement marks an important new phase in CNPC’s strategic relationship with ADNOC and we hope it will lead to further opportunities to participate in the UAE’s energy sector.”
He added: “As part of the agreement to enable the optimal, efficient and sustainable development of the concession, CNPC will play an active role in defining and developing technology applications in mature oilfields by planning to establish a tailor-made technology hub in ADCO.”
Major oil importer
China, the world’s second-largest energy consumer, was a major importer of crude oil in 2016 and often rivals the US as the top oil importer. Beijing-based consultancy SIA Energy estimates China’s 2016 crude imports to have risen by 860,000 barrels per day, or nearly 13%, boosted by storage needs, robust gasoline demand and fuel exports.
The UAE is China’s second-largest trading partner in the Middle East with trade between the two countries estimated to have increased to $60bn in 2016, up from $54.8bn in 2015. About 60% of China’s total trade passes through the UAE, from where it is re-exported to Africa and Europe.
CNPC joins BP of the UK (10%), Total of France (10%), Inpex Corporation of Japan (5%), and GS Energy of South Korea (3%) as participants in the onshore concession and shareholders of ADCO. ADNOC will continue to explore opportunities with potential partners for the remaining 4% stake of the 40% stake in the onshore concession, earmarked for foreign oil and gas companies.
Energy sector is at the heart of global economy, says Qatar minister
Speaking at the `Energy Policies and Economic Diversification’ symposium organized by Qatar Leadership Center and the Baker Institute at Rice University, Al Sada said that within the energy mix, fossil fuels are likely to form the major share of the world energy market in the foreseeable future, with a huge resource base, adequate to meet global requirements for decades to come.
“Fossil fuels are forecast to continue to meet about three-fourths of the world’s energy needs in 2040,” he said, adding that all projections widely acknowledge that oil would have the largest share of primary energy for the next few decades and natural gas demand would grow the fastest among them.
GCC role
As the biggest producers in the Middle East, the GCC countries together hold nearly one-third of the world’s oil and one-fifth of its natural gas reserves, Al Sada said, adding the region is energizing the global economy and plays a vital role in world energy security.
He said: “The energy market has been characterized by uneconomic prices which are damaging to both producers and consumers which hinder critical industry investments, needed for energy security few years down the line.”
He asked whether low oil prices are “a boon or a curse” for the world economy. “The unprecedented level of the investment drop over two consecutive years is jeopardizing security of supply which can manifest itself two to three years from now,” he said.
The minister added: “While it may appear to be positive, fitting a lower energy bill, the inevitable consequences have been lower world GDP, job losses and deflation.”
Qatar role
Speaking on the role played by Qatar in 2016 as president of both OPEC and the Gas Exporting Countries Forum, he said: “Qatar played a responsible role in addressing global energy needs and the associated market turbulence. Qatar embarked on a mission to find out the best ways and means to restore balance to the oil market and the much needed recovery of the world economy.”
The drop in oil prices and the world economic slowdown has opened up windows of opportunities for GCC countries. Al Sada said the situation gave a thrust to GCC economic diversification in the wake of these challenges and also helped in improving efficiency through cost reduction and mergers.