Total enters the petroleum product retail sector in Mexico

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Total has entered into an agreement with GASORED, a group of service station owners, to rebrand a network of around 250 service stations in and around Mexico City under the Total brand, asper Hydrocarbonprocessing.

Present in Mexico since 1982, Total is aiming to capitalize on the deregulation of the country’s fuel sales and supply market to significantly expand its activities there. “We are pleased with this commercial agreement with GASORED. Strengthening our presence in Mexico, Latin America’s second-largest market for petroleum products, is in line with our strategy of enlarging our network in growth regions,” said Momar Nguer, President of Marketing & Services at Total.

The first Total-branded stations will open by the end of the year, with deployment continuing in 2018 and 2019. The Total-branded outlets will offer consumers and business customers the company’s full lineup of fuels and lubricants, as well as a broad range of products and services.

As MRC informed before, The Linde Gases Division in Germany and Total Raffinerie Mitteldeutschland based in Leuna are extending their existing partnership by a further 15 years. Signed in Leuna in June 2017, the contract is worth approximately EUR 1 billion and is due to take effect on 1 January 2018. This new deal propels the two-decade partnership between both companies towards a long-term future.

Total S.A. is a French multinational oil and gas company and one of the six "Supermajor" oil companies in the world with business in Europe, the United States, the Middle East and Asia. The company's petrochemical products cover two main groups: base chemicals and the consumer polymers (polyethylene, polypropylene and polystyrene) that are derived from them.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Iraq plans to reopen a crude oil pipeline from the Kirkuk oilfields to Ceyhan in Turkey, the oil ministry said in a statement on Tuesday, a route partly still in use by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), reported Reuters.

Iraq largely stopped sending oil through the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline in 2014 after the region was overrun by Islamic State militants. Recaptured by US-backed Iraqi forces over the past 2 yr, there have been some intermittent flows.

il minister Jabar al-Luaibi has asked state-owned North Oil Co., the State Company for Oil Projects and the state pipeline company to quickly begin work to restore full operation of the pipeline, the ministry said.

North Oil Co.’s production has been completely allocated to supplying Mosul and other areas recaptured from Islamic State, and none has been exported for several months.

Iraq hopes to raise its exports through the pipeline to their previous level of between 250,000 bpd and 400,000 bpd, the statement said.

The move comes as the Iraqi government and the KRG remain at loggerheads over a Kurdish independence referendum held last month, which delivered an overwhelming “yes” vote to break away from Iraq.

The KRG operates a pipeline that connects to the twin Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline at Khabur on the border with Turkey.

Luaibi met the Turkish ambassador on Monday in Baghdad to press for increased cooperation between the countries, the oil ministry statement said.

Turkey has threatened to shut the KRG-operated pipeline at Baghdad’s request. Russia, whose companies are heavily involved in the KRG oil industry, said on Oct. 4 that shutting the pipeline would be in nobody’s interest.

We remind that, as MRC informed before, in March 2017, China Petroleum and Chemical Corp started operating a major crude oil pipeline that connects eastern Jiangsu province with refineries in south China. The pipeline, which spans 560 kilometers, runs at an annual capacity of 20 MMt, Sinopec said.
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MOSCOW (MRC) — Nearly two-thirds of US oil executives see crude oil prices remaining below USD60/bbl through 2018 and not hitting USD70/bbl until at least the next decade, according to a survey published on Wednesday by consultancy Deloitte Services LP, said Reuters.

The survey, based on a poll of 250 executives at companies that produce, transport and refine oil and natural gas, reflects a shift from last year when many respondents forecast commodity prices would rise and capital spending budgets grow. US oil prices fell slightly on Wednesday to USD50.79/bbl.

This year's more dour view, especially among shale industry managers, comes as executives are focusing on cost controls and returns and have largely stopped looking for a rise in commodity prices. This new paradigm is encouraging shale producers to base executive compensation on the best uses of capital, a strategy designed to keep costs low. "The bottom line is that companies should focus on cost discipline and operational efficiency," said Andrew Slaughter, head of Deloitte's Center for Energy Solutions.

"The new reality seems to have set in; waiting for a significant price recovery may be a long haul." Half of executives polled said they expect capital spending to drop next year, and nearly 60% said they expect a decline in the number of drilling rigs active across the United States.

Production in the shale industry requires constant investment to keep up with well decline rates. Those polled said they expect to maintain or increase current production levels into 2018, though a drop in spending could prevent any sizable increase in US output, helping to resolve a global supply and demand imbalance.

That would fit well into a plan by the 14-member Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, which on Wednesday forecast higher demand for its oil in 2018 and a worldwide supply deficit. In a wary sign for oilfield service providers, including Halliburton Co and Baker Hughes, roughly half of those surveyed by Deloitte expect service costs to slip next year. Greater well efficiency and new technologies—long touted by industry executives as a cure-all for low prices—were seen as having less of an impact on costs.

The mood among executives was less pessimistic for natural gas prices, with those polled saying they expect prices to rise above USD3/MMBtu into next year. Natural gas futures rose 1.5% on Wednesday to USD2.93/MMBtu.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) — Honeywell UOP announced that its Callidus Technologies business began operation of China’s only facility capable of testing flare emissions for volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The test center in Luoyang, Henan Province, aids customers that are working to reduce emissions of VOCs in industrial flare systems and improve flare operation.

The Callidus Luoyang Combustion Research and Development Center is the largest test facility of its kind in Asia. Its design and testing methodology was developed by Callidus in conjunction with the US Environmental Protection Agency, resulting in a significant improvement over industrial design requirements.

Flare VOC emissions can be reduced by controlling combustion performance. The destruction and removal efficiency—or DRE—of flare gas is measured as a percentage of total hydrocarbons removed or destroyed by the flare. This is one of the key factors to measuring the performance of flare VOC emissions because it represents how well the flare performs.

The test facility confirms that the DRE of Callidus flare tips exceeds 99.5%, resulting in a 75% reduction in VOC emissions and exceeding standard industrial design requirements of 98% of DRE.

As China enacts stricter environmental regulations, Callidus’ capabilities in flare technology make it possible for its customers to comply with those regulations and better ensure sound environmental practices. Until this test center was commissioned, testing of this kind was not performed in China.

Honeywell UOP has an 80-yr history in China, beginning in 1937 when it helped build one of China’s first refineries in Yumen, Gansu Province. It was among the first American companies invited back to China during the 1970s to modernize the Chinese petroleum industry. More recently, Honeywell UOP hydroprocessing and Platforming technology has helped China develop cleaner-burning transportation fuels to combat air pollution.
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MOSCOW (MRC) — Oil can keep flowing through the contested Dakota Access Pipeline while the Army Corps of Engineers conducts a new environmental review of the duct through next April, a federal judge ruled on Wednesday, as per Reuters.

US District Judge James Boasberg ruled the court would not void a permit that has allowed Energy Transfer Partners LP's pipeline that runs from North Dakota to Illinois to transport crude oil for months. Oil was loaded into the pipeline in May and it has shipped crude since June 1. Later in June, Boasberg ordered the Army Corps to conduct further environmental reviews of the pipeline, saying it failed to adequately consider any harm of a potential oil spill to the fishing and hunting rights of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe.

That pushed the Standing Rock tribe in August to urge the court to immediately shut the line, saying its members were exposed to the very risks that the Army Corps was studying. The decision about the 1,170 mi Dakota Access pipeline was a boost for President Donald Trump's policy of making the United States "energy dominant" by maximizing the production of fossil fuels for domestic use and for shipping to allies.

The pipeline is opposed by environmentalists and the Standing Rock and Cheyenne River Sioux tribes. Standing Rock had sued the Army Corps in July 2016 over the pipeline, arguing the line could contaminate its water source, the Missouri River.

Boasberg wrote in the ruling that shutting the line would not cause major economic harm, as the company had claimed. But voiding the permit allowing the pipeline to ship oil would not be the "appropriate remedy" because there was a possibility the Army Corps will be able to justify its earlier decision not to complete a full environmental review, he wrote.

If the tribe is still not happy after the environmental review is completed, it will have an opportunity to address whether the Army Corps fulfilled its duties, Boasberg wrote.

Standing Rock Sioux Chairman Mike Faith said he was disappointed that the tribe's concerns had not been heard. "This pipeline represents a threat to the livelihoods and health of our Nation every day it is operational," Faith said.

MRC