Singapore revokes Transocean Oils bunker fuel supply license

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Singapore's Maritime and Port Authority (MPA) said on Monday it had revoked Transocean Oil's bunker fuel supply license in the Port of Singapore, effective immediately, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

MPA said it had conducted checks on Transocean in March and April as part its efforts to ensure the integrity of bunkering operations at the port and found "falsifications of records and discrepancies in the stock movement logbooks on board the bunker tankers" operated by the company.

Transocean Oil, which was formed in 2003 and operates a fleet of thirteen bunkering barges, according to its website, was not immediately available to comment.

It sold a monthly average of around 200,000 t of bunker fuel in 2013.
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MOSCOW (MRC) — Nigeria supports an extension of a deal between OPEC, Russia and other non-members to cut oil supply until the end of 2018 "as long as the right terms are on the table" regarding its own participation, its oil minister said, said Reuters.

He said there is growing agreement among other members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to extend the deal. "There isn't any reason to change what is a winning formula," oil minister Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu told Reuters, adding "there is a consensus to extend. The issue will be the duration."

Nigeria itself, however, is exempt from the deal. OPEC, along with Russia and nine other producers agreed to cut oil output by about 1.8 MMbpd until March 2018 in an attempt to ease a global excess that weighed on prices.

The group will meet in Vienna later this month to discuss whether to extend that deal. Nigeria's output has rebounded since its exemption, granted last year after militant attacks that cut its output to close to 1 MMbpd, but Kachikwu said the recovery is ongoing.

"We'll be looking for a number that enables us to contribute ... it's in the range of 1.8 MMbpd to 1.9 MMbpd, preferably closer to 1.9," he said of the production cap. While there have not been any significant attacks on the nation's oil infrastructure since January, the peace is on shaky ground.

On Friday, the Niger Delta Avengers, the group that led the bulk of the 2016 attacks, said it had ended its ceasefire. Kachikwu described the 1.8 MMbpd–1.9 MMbpd figure as "the sort of number where we can tolerate the cuts, and yet be able to survive as a nation."

Nigeria's total output reached 2.03 MMbpd in October, but the ministry said only about 1.67 MMbpd of that total is crude oil. The remainder is condensates, an ultra-light oil that is exempt from its potential cap.

Kachikwu said the nation is producing around 300,000 bpd–350,000 bpd of condensates, and that OPEC is now tracking that figure.

"Historically, Nigeria hasn't been serious in terms of identifying its condensate volumes. But that's one of the things that we're getting more efficient at doing," Kachikwu said.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Taiwan’s Formosa Petrochemical Corp has offered a total of 3.3 MMbbl of jet fuel and diesel for 2018 term contracts, reported Reuters with reference to tender documents.

It is the first North Asian refiner to kick off term negotiations, which could set the precedent for other term contracts in the region, traders said.

The company has offered four cargoes of jet fuel of 300,000 bbl each for loading over Jan. 1, 2018 to Dec. 31, 2018, the documents showed.

It has also offered three cargoes of 300,000 bbl each of 10 parts per million (ppm) sulfur diesel for loading in the second, third and fourth quarters of next year.

Formosa offered four cargoes of 300,000 bbl each of 500 ppm sulfur gasoil for next year.

The tenders close on Nov. 9, with bids to remain valid until Nov. 24.

Formosa has also changed the pricing basis for the diesel cargoes, which will be priced off Platts’ 10 ppm sulfur diesel prices instead of the current 500 ppm sulfur prices, according to the documents.

The jet fuel volumes being offered are similar to those in 2017, but the diesel volumes for both 10 ppm and 500 ppm have been reduced.

Formosa finalized its 10 ppm sulfur diesel term contract for January-December 2017 with Winson Oil at a premium of 55 cents a barrel to Singapore quotes, about 20% lower than the 2016 term premium of 70 cents.

It also finalized its jet fuel and 500 ppm sulfur gasoil term contracts, also with Winson Oil, at parity to Singapore quotes.

As MRC informed before, Taiwan's Formosa Petrochemical Corp. had planned maintenance at its 540 Mbpd Mailiao refinery in March, September and November 2017. Formosa is one of the largest oil products exporters in Asia, so any major supply cuts from the refiner would likely support margins. The refiner is planning to shut a 180 Mbpd crude distillation unit (CDU) and two residue desulfurizer units (RDS) with a capacity of 80 Mbpd each at some stage during the maintenance periods. It is also planning to close a delayed coker unit and a vacuum distillation unit during the maintenance

Formosa Petrochemical is involved primarily in the business of refining crude oil, selling refined petroleum products and producing and selling olefins (including ethylene, propylene, butadiene and BTX) from its naphtha cracking operations. Formosa Petrochemical is also the largest olefins producer in Taiwan and its olefins products are mostly sold to companies within the Formosa Group. Among the company's chemical products are paraxylene (PX), phenyl ethylene, acetone and pure terephthalic acid (PTA). The company's plastic products include acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) resins, polystyrene (PS), polypropylene (PP) and panlite (PC).
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MOSCOW (MRC) — Chevron Corporation announced a seven-year partnership with Microsoft Corp. establishing the company as Chevron’s primary cloud provider, accelerating the application of advanced technologies including analytics and the Internet of Things (IoT) to drive performance and improve efficiencies, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The Microsoft strategic partnership is part of Chevron’s overall digitization initiative, a multi-year effort to streamline information technology (IT) operations around a digital core connecting the company’s engineers and operations through nimble analytics and increased automation.

Adoption of Microsoft’s Azure platform will allow Chevron’s IT workforce to evolve from supporting infrastructure to one that enables more advanced technologies, as well as optimize exploration, reservoir management, production operations, midstream logistics and marketing operations.

The strategic partnership also extends to broader technical collaboration that will allow the two companies to focus on joint innovation from a technology and business process perspective. This will include identifying areas to influence Microsoft’s roadmap of future products and where Microsoft solutions can help solve Chevron’s business challenges.
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MOSCOW (MRC) — Canadian Natural Resources Ltd has increased its volume commitment on TransCanada Corp’s Keystone XL pipeline by about 46% to 175,000 bpd, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The bigger commitment from one of Canada’s largest oil and gas producers will be a boon to TransCanada, at a time when Canadian pipeline companies are trying to push through new projects in the face of fierce environmental opposition and concerns about slowing oil sands growth.

TransCanada’s open season to gauge interest from producers wanting to ship on the 830,000-bpd pipeline ended last week. The company has not released the results or said what volumes it would need to push ahead with the project. Canada’s two other biggest energy producers Suncor Energy and Cenovus Energy have said they are committed shippers on Keystone XL, without disclosing contracted volumes.

Canadian Natural is growing its oil sands operations after completing an expansion at its Horizon project in northern Alberta, which will add 80,000 bpd of production. Keystone XL would transport crude from Alberta to the US Midwest but has been delayed for eight years by regulatory hurdles. US President Donald Trump this year granted a presidential permit for the pipeline, reversing a rejection by the Obama administration.

Oil prices have been in a deep slump since 2014, prompting Canadian producers to scale back plans for growth and fueling speculation that TransCanada could struggle to get enough shippers to support Keystone XL. TransCanada Chief Executive Officer Russ Girling said in May that lower oil prices and alternative export routes were complicating shipper negotiations.

Bloomberg, citing sources, reported on Thursday that TransCanada had asked the Alberta government to buy capacity on the pipeline. TransCanada spokesman Terry Cunha declined to comment on the Bloomberg report, adding that it “will spend the fourth quarter reviewing the commercial support of the project."

Alberta government spokesman Mike McKinnon did not comment on the Bloomberg report but said the government supported all pipeline projects and had not ruled out any options. "We make decisions on a project-by-project basis, weighing all economic considerations," McKinnon added.

Last month TransCanada scrapped its proposed 1.1 MMbpd Energy East pipeline from Alberta to Canada’s east coast amid mounting regulatory hurdles. The Alberta government receives royalties in the form of barrels of bitumen from some producers and had been signed up to ship 100,000 bpd on Energy East.
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