Petronas Entering Cameroon

Malaysian national oil company, Petroliam Nasional (Petronas) and Noble Energy have been granted a production sharing contract offshore Douala in Cameroon. Societe Nationale des Hydrocarbures (SNH), the national petroleum company of Cameroon has confirmed that the deal was to develop the Gulk of Guinea with exploration rights worth US$119 millions.

The deal is seen as an extension to Noble-Petronas current involvement in Cameroon's YoYo gas project.

The exploration right is reported to contain oil reserves of between 40 million and 70 million bbl with SNH holding 25% interest in production right. Both Petronas and Noble Energy are given a 25-year exploitation license renewable for ten additional years.

$9 Billion Refinery Investment Needed

As the economy is collapsing it is getting harder and harder for oil and gas projects to seek external funds to invest in their projects. PetroSA who is planning for a $9 billion refinery project is currently in the same situation as the state-owned oil and gas company starting negotiations with potential investors.

PetroSA is trying to get external fund for its new capacity 400,000 barrels a day refinery in Coega, answering South African Petroleum Retailers' Association call for security of oil supply via partnership between the government and the private sector. The country is currently facing poor sustainable oil supply due to low buffer in the country resulting from poor stock planning.

PetroSA vice-president of new ventures: midstream, Joern Falbe, said on Friday that PetroSA had "from the beginning" indicated that it was looking for a partner in the $9bn project. 

Sonagas Partnering with Eon Ruhrgas

Sonagas, Equatorial Guinea's state gas company is in negotiations to partner with Eon Ruhrgas, the German utility for a second LNG export facility in Equatorial Guinea project creating a West African gas hub. It is likely that a consortium will be set-up comprising of Sonagas, Eon, Union Fenosa of Spain and Portugal's Galp Energia.

Taking advantage of West Africa as a potential route to Europe and amidst instability dependence on Russia gas, the project is expected to get a strong push factor. It is likely that the source gas will be  from gas currently flared as waste by ExxonMobil at the Zafiro deepwater oilfield. 

The consortium is however exposed to a major risk as Equatorial Guinea is one of Africa's most volatile country due to local uprising.

Huge offshore oil discoveries have boosted Equatorial Guinea's oil production from almost nothing a decade ago to about 380,000 b/d, ranking it behind only Nigeria and Angola among sub-Saharan African producers.

Petronas Looking for Concession Extension in Mozambique

A Malaysian state oil company, PETROLIAM Nasional Bhd or widely known as Petronas has asked for an extension to its exploration licence in the Zambezi River delta in Mozambique in a request to the National Petroleum Institute.

The claim for the extension is to allow Petronas to do further investigations after an initial study of exploration activities. It was rumoured that evidents of extraction opportunities have been found in the area.

New Gas Fields Found in Mozambique

Two new natural gas fields were found in the southern Inhambane province of Mozambique. The gas field discovery is foreseen for domestic demand for natural gas as suggested by Mineral Resources Minister Esperanca Bias of Mozambique including for electricity generartion, fertiliser factory and fuel for vehicles.

Under Mozambican law, any consortium that has discovered gas reserves has six months to assess its findings and present a report to the government. In this case, the player will be South Africa's Sasol , Malaysia's Petronas and the Mozambican government. Sasol, the world's biggest maker of diesel from coal, owns 50 percent of the project, Petronas owns 35 percent, while the government of Mozambique holds 15 percent through national oil company Empresa Nacional De Hidrocarbonetos De Mozambique (ENH). 

Sudan Finalizing Agreement with Malaysia's Petronas

Sudan is in the midst of finalizing an agreement with Malaysia's Petronas for a 175,000 barrels per day capacity Port Sudan refinery with the Sudan oil ministry.

Sudan's Energy and Mining Ministry signed an agreement with the Malaysian state oil and gas company, Petronas in August 2005 to build 100,000 barrels per day refinery in a 50/50 joint venture. The refinery will be designed to use Sudan's high acid crude which Petronas already has a 40% stake from the total Sudan production of around 500,000 barrels per day of crude oil

Algeria to Start Ammonia Plant

Fertiberia, a Spanish fertilizer producer is in the midst of selecting a contractor to build an ammonia plant in Algeria with a capacity to produce 1.2m tonnes/year of ammonia with due completion in 2011. Fertiberia has already entered Algeria market with collaboration with Fertial, an Algerian ammonia producer with 650,000 tonnes per annum of ammonia at Annaba and Arzew. The facility will utilised Sonatrach gas as a supply feedstock to the plant.

Nigeria Planning MTO Project Using UOP Technology

Nigeria will be home to 1.3 mil tonne per year capacity olefins complex using MTO technology by UOP in Lagos. The project is the first MTO technology that would be constructed at commercial-scale including olefins cracking process technologies by EuroChem.

The project would produce 10000 tonnes per day of methanol capacity from natural gas due for completion in 2012 and the MTO technology is expected to be more cost effective than traditional olefins production from crude oil-derived feedstocks.

Upon completion, the MTO plant would give a competitive edge against other petrochemical producers using normal technology such as steam cracker and dehydrogenation.