louisiana-offshore-oil-port « WordPress.com Tag Feed

Mozambique Could Drive the Need for 35 More LNG Carriers

Mike Poverello — Wed, 01 May 2013 11:24:24 +0000

Image credit: Nakilat

With soaring energy costs, Japan appears to have a pretty uniform goal, to invest as much as possible in other sources of energy and energy supply chains around the world. Many others like Qatar and Saudi Arabia are following suit and hedging themselves for what is turning out to be a reversal of their business model. Even the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port, which connects the world’s largest oil tankers with over half of the United States’ refining capacity is readjusting its business model for the changing flow of energy. With the eventual opening of the Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) flood gates from the US however, coupled with Free Trade Agreements to places such as Japan, American energy firms and tax payers stand to cash in on the huge price gap that exists between the price of gas in the U.S. versus that which exists overseas.

At the moment, there’s a fairly good balance between supply and demand when it comes to the supply of ships and the demand for LNG product to be carried. Qatar, for example, uses 54 LNG carriers to transport their 77 million metric tons per year of LNG. Qatar also has a 70% stake in the Golden Pass LNG terminal in Texas. Additional exports from the US Gulf Coast will directly equal increased demand for more LNG carriers.

While regulators in the US trudge through the LNG export approval process, energy firms like Anadarko charge ahead with an ambitious LNG agenda offshore Mozambique in a field which was recently found to have at least 65 trillion cubic feet of recoverable reserves. Places like Mozambique, and offshore Israel, have the potential to really change the LNG marketplace given the sheer size of their fields and their proximity to the Asian and European markets respectively.

In Mozambique, two 5 million metric tons per annum (mtpa) LNG trains are currently under construction to support the huge conventional gas finds located 25 miles offshore. Their partners on the project include Mozambiquan state oil company, Empresa Nacional de Hidrocarbonetos, E.P., India’s state-owned Bharat PetroResources Ltd, Indian private equity firm Videocon Hydrocarbon Holdings, Ltd, Thailand’s PTT Exploration & Production, and Mitsui & Co. Considering the partners involved, their target market will predominantly be India and Japan. First LNG production is planned for 2018 and their plans are to eventually ramp up production to 50 million mtpa, or 2/3rds of the current production of Qatar.

What does that mean for LNG shipping? A lot more ships. To handle 50 million mtpa, upwards of 35 LNG carriers may be needed for transportation if you compare the ratio between Qatar’s fleet size and their total LNG exports. Source: gcaptain.com

Natural gas industry experiencing ‘paradigm shift’ (fuelfix.com)

Factbox: Gulf of Mexico oil, gas operations affected by Isaac.

greatriversofhope — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 09:30:35 +0000

(Reuters) – Isaac, now a tropical depression, continued to threaten the lower Mississippi vall

Port Fourchon plays a critical role

mb50 — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 15:41:41 +0000

Chett Chiasson Contributor Ask anyone on the bayou if they know about Port Fourchon, and you’l

NWF Tracking Reports of Three Separate Incidents in Gulf

Joy — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 20:30:03 +0000

from Wildlife Promise Here at the National Wildlife Federation, we’ve been tracking (at times confli

Hurricane Ida to impact natural gas and oil prices

hornriver — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 05:34:03 +0000

UPDATE: Monday November 9th, 2009 – Hurricane Ida reduced to tropical storm as it approaches U.S. coast

This year the hurricane season has been practically non-existent and a non-event for natural gas prices. But just when the end of the hurricane season is in sight (hurricane season officially ends November 30th) Hurricane Ida’s forecast power has caused Louisiana’s Governor Bobby Jindal to declare a state of emergency on Sunday.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Ida’s winds are approaching 170 km/h and is moving northwest at close to 19 km/h. Ida could pick up speed (and strengthen into a category 2 or higher) as it continues to move across the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico. It is expected to reach the southern U.S. Gulf coast Tuesday morning.

An overactive 2005 hurricane season saw hurricanes Katrina and Rita shut in more than 711 Bcf of natural gas in the Gulf of Mexico which was approximately 19.5% of the Gulf’s production that year. Today, Chevron Corp and Anadarko Petroleum Corp workers were being evacuated from platforms in the Gulf of Mexico, and some oil production and natural gas shut ins were reported. No details were available at the time of this post but it will certainly be enough to fuel some of the speculation with traders and buoy oil and natural gas prices in Monday’s trading day.

According to Reuters on Sunday (9:16pm EST):

The Louisiana Offshore Oil Port (LOOP) said it was suspending offloading tankers in advance of the storm. [nN08202278]

BP Plc, one of the Gulf’s largest producers, said it had shut undisclosed amounts of production as a precaution and was evacuating some personnel. [nN08207106]

Marathon Oil Corp said it had shut in Ewing Bank platform, which produces 11,700 barrels of oil per day and 10.5 million cubic feet of gas. [nN08196994]

Chevron Corp, another big producer, said it had shut some production while evacuating personnel.

Exxon Mobil Corp said it was preparing to evacuate personnel, take other measures as necessary. [nN08202278]

Anadarko Petroleum Corp said it was evacuating personnel but had not shut production.

The U.S. Coast Guard said it was preparing for storm conditions and alerting mariners that the Port of Mobile, Alabama, could face gale force winds within 32 hours.