SOCAR-KBR joint venture awarded FEED contract for Azerbaijan’s big gas field
The joint venture of Azerbaijan’s state oil company SOCAR and US KBR Engineering Company - SOCAR-KBR Limited Liability Company (SKLLC) has been awarded a Front-End Engineering Design (FEED) contract for the topsides of the Absheron Early Production Project, KBR said in a message Nov. 22.
The platform will be located at SOCAR's Oil Rocks facility and will deliver gas and condensate into the SOCAR network.
The contract value has not been disclosed.
Earlier, SOCAR and Total signed a framework agreement in late 2016 on the main contractual and commercial principles regulating the program for the first phase of development of the Absheron field.
At the first stage, the field development includes drilling one well at a depth of 450 meters. The extraction will amount to 1.5 billion cubic meters of gas a year, which will fully flow to the domestic market of Azerbaijan, as well as significant amounts of condensate.
According to SOCAR’s geologists, Absheron’s reserves are estimated at 350 billion cubic meters of gas and 45 million tons of condensate.
The Absheron project will be operated by the Joint Operating Company Absheron Petroleum (50 percent SOCAR, 50 percent Total).
KSB Wins Contract at Power Plants
The Egyptian Electricity Holding Company (EEHC) awarded a contract for pumps at two new power plants to KSB, Amwal Al Ghad reports.
The approximate value of the contract is EGP 652 million, according to the newspaper.
The plants are being built in Cairo and El Walidiyah in Asyut. They are expected to begin production in 2019 and 2020, respectively, according to Amwal Al Ghad.
KSB is a German company that specializes in the production of pumps and valves.
Siemens, another German company, is currently constructing three other power plants. These plants are expected to come online by May 2018 and produce 14,400 megawatts (MW) of electricity, Daily News Egypt previously reported.
Iraq Considering Natural Gas Pipeline to Kuwait
Iraq is considering building a natural gas pipeline to Kuwait and an associated petrochemical plant, Reuters reports.
The Iraqi government has hired Toyo Engineering, a Japanese firm, for the project, the news agency reports.
While Toyo has been retained to build the pipeline, a final determination on the project has not been made.
The company is currently in talks with the Iraqi government about the project, the Chief Financial Officer, Kensuke Waki, told Reuters.
If the project moves forward, Toyo does not anticipate any gas deliveries through the pipeline until at least 2020, according to Reuters.
Kuwait has offered to guarantee 80% of the project’s costs, sources told Reuters. Natural gas deliveries could be used to pay off Iraq’s reparation payments to Kuwait.
Despite mutual interest in the project, differences have emerged between Iraq and Kuwait over the pricing of the natural gas and the location of the petrochemicals plant, according to the news agency.
The natural gas could come from either West Qurna 2 or Rumaila.
Serbia, China to sign Belgrade heat pipe construction deal on Nov 27 - PM Brnabic
Serbia's prime minister Ana Brnabic has said she will sign a contract for the construction of a 28 km-long heat pipeline in the country with the Chinese government next week.
A contract for the construction of the Preljina-Pozega section of a motorway which will connect Belgrade to the border with Montenegro will also be signed during a meeting with Chinese prime minister Li Keqiang during the China-Central and Eastern European Summit summit in Budapest on November 27, Brnabic said in a statement on Monday.
Serbia's energy minister Aleksandar Antic said earlier this month that the government is holding talks with the Power Construction Corporation of China (Powerchina) on the technical details of the project for the construction of the heat pipeline.
In June, the Belgrade city government announced it has signed a memorandum of understanding with Powerchina to build a heat pipeline that will connect Termoelektrane Nikola Tesla (TENT) power plant and Novi Beograd thermal power plant - a project with an estimated cost of 200 million euro ($234.8 million). Once completed, the project will allow the Serbian capital to cut the cost of providing heating energy by 43 million euro a year, i.e. the investment will be repaid in five or six years, Belgrade mayor Sinisa Mali said back then.
China's CMEC to build 3rd unit at Serbia's Kostolac B power plant
Serbia's government has said China Machinery Engineering Corporation (CMEC) will be in charge of the construction of a third unit in Kostolac B coal-fired power plant.
The 350 MW third unit of Kostolac B will produce 2.5 billion kWh of electricity annually, increasing the total output capacity of EPS by 5%, the government said in a statement on Monday.
Total investment in Serbia's energy sector currently stands at about 3 billion euro, energy minister Aleksandar Antic said during the official ceremony for the launch of the construction project, according to a government press release.
A total of $613 million (522 million euro) will be invested in the construction of the new unit as part of the second phase of a project for the overhaul of Kostolac B at a total cost of $715.6 million, the government said.
The second phase of the project is expected to be completed by 2020 and 85% of the financing was provided through a loan with a seven-year grace period extended by Export-Import Bank of China (EXIM Bank). The loan will be repaid in 20 years.
Serbia has already completed the first phase of the overhaul project, having invested $300 million in the upgrade of units 1 and 2 at Kostolac B, part of coal mining and energy complex TE-KO Kostolac, Antic said earlier this month.
TE-KO Kostolac operates two power plants, the 310 MW Kostolac A, and the 700 MW Kostolac B.
Bulgaria, Macedonia sign agreement on gas link feasibility study
Bulgarian state-owned gas transmission system operator Bulgartransgaz and Macedonian energy company MER Skopje signed an agreement on Thursday to conduct a feasibility study on the construction of a gas interconnector, the energy ministry in Sofia said.
"The development of the Greece-Bulgaria gas link and Turkey-Bulgaria pipeline, as well as the construction of the Balkan gas hub project, will be taken into consideration when exploring routes for construction of a new gas interconnection between Bulgaria and Macedonia," the ministry said in a statement following the signing ceremony in Strumica, Macedonia.
Last month, Bulgartransgaz said it is inviting bids in a 1.8 million euro ($2.11 million) tender for drafting a detailed feasibility study on the proposed Balkan gas hub project.
Currently, Bulgaria supplies Russian gas to Macedonia through the Dupnitsa-Skopje pipeline.
The agreement is a follow-up to a memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed on August 1 by the two countries.
Bulgaria's Electricity System Operator (ESO) and its Macedonian peer MEPSO also signed an agreement on Thursday on launching joint auctions for the allocation of transmission capacities between the electricity operators of both countries.
Conducting joint auctions will lead to an increase of the volume of traded electricity in the region and the liquidity of the energy exchanges, the ministry said.
In December 2014, the Bulgarian government proposed to the European Commission to build an EU-funded regional gas hub near the Black Sea port of Varna to dispatch gas deliveries to the rest of Europe - to Greece, Romania, Hungary, Croatia, Slovenia and, via those countries, to EU member states in central and western Europe, as well as to non-EU Serbia, Macedonia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Gas can be fed into the hub from Russia, from Bulgaria's potential gas deposits in the Black Sea or, via interconnectors with Greece and Turkey, from the Caspian region or the Eastern Mediterranean, or from the Greek and Turkish LNG terminals, the government said at the time. The gas hub could also be supplied via an interconnector with Romania, which is estimated to have significant deposits in the Black Sea shelf