Fire at Equinor asset shuts down production

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Equinor was reportedly forced to halt natural gas production and some offshore personnel were evacuated from the Asgard B semi-submersible platform after fire broke out late Sunday evening, said Upstreamonline.

The blaze was extinguished after production was shut down at the platform, and nobody was injured, according to Norwegian daily E24 reports.

The Norwegian major reportedly notified the Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre of Southern Norway about the fire on the semisub which is located 200 kilometres off the coast of Trondelag and 50 kilometres south of Equinor’s giant Heidrun oil and gasfield in the Norwegian Sea.

Output on the field was suspended as a result of the incident, with the earliest date for a restart put at 15 November, according to reports.

Equinor has not yet responded to Upstream’s requests for comment. Asgard has a nameplate capacity just shy of 20 million cubic metres per day, gas grid operator Gassco data showed.

The forced closure of the gasfield output also led to a drop in daily gas supplies to the UK and Europe. On 14 November, supplies to Europe were running at 304MMcmd, compared with 316 MMcmd on 13 November, data showed.

We remind, Equinor is inspecting damage at a reformer at its 226,000 barrel per day (bpd) Mongstad refinery after a fire on Sunday and it is too soon to say when the unit will be operational. The fire at the oil refinery on Norway's west coast was extinguished early on Sunday, with the main part of the refinery still in operation. "It was in a reformer," an Equinor spokesman told Reuters by email, adding that there was no estimate yet on when the unit could be restarted.

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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Saudi Aramco and Indonesia’s state-owned Pertamina have signed a deal to jointly work on projects involving the hydrogen and ammonia value chains, said the company.

Aramco in a statement on Monday said the companies signed a “memorandum of understanding (MoU) outlining future cooperation across the key pathway of the energy transition” on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Bali, Indonesia.

The agreement “involves a pre-feasibility study that aims to assess the possibility of cooperation related to the development of a clean ammonia and hydrogen value chain”, the company noted.

“The study will explore investment viability and jointly develop commercialisation options including, but not limited to, business organisation and commercial structures for clean ammonia and hydrogen in Indonesia,” Aramco said.

It added that the study is “expected to be conducted over the next two years, and depending on outcomes may be developed further".

“It includes potential carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) at Pertamina group's existing facilities and other agreed potential locations,” the statement claimed.

We remind, Pertamina Power Indonesia, Keppel Infrastructure and Chevron New Energies have agreed to develop green hydrogen and green ammonia in Sumatera, Indonesia. The signing of the JSA took place at the Business 20 (B20) Investment Forum held in conjunction with the B20 Summit in Bali.

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MOSCOW (MRC) -- India will prioritize a phased transition to cleaner fuels and slashing household consumption to achieve net zero emissions by 2070, according to a national report released Monday at the United Nations COP27 climate summit in Egypt, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The report for the first time sketches out how the world's second-biggest consumer of coal will meet its decarbonization pledge made in 2021 as par of international efforts to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial temperatures.

"This is an important milestone," said India's environment minister Bhupender Yadav at a COP27 event marking the report's launch. "Once again India has demonstrated that it walks the talk on climate change." Prime Minister Narendra Modi did not attend this year's climate talks in the Red Sea resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh.

Under the landmark Paris Agreement of 2015, all countries are required to submit a strategy document to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change showing how they'll help combat global warming. These plans are known as a Long-Term Low Emissions and Development Strategies(LT-LEDS).

Despite a 2020 deadline for the plans, just 56 countries have so far submitted one. India is the last of the world's five largest economies to do so. India's LT-LEDS zeroes in on six key areas to reduce net emissions, including electricity, urbanization, transport, forests, finance, and industry.

The country, for example, proposes increasing the use of biofuels - particularly ethanol blending in petrol - boosting the number of electric vehicles on the road, alongside expanded public transport networks, and using more green hydrogen fuel.

We remind, India’s Petronet LNG plans to set up a greenfield petrochemical complex consisting of a 750,000 tonnes/year propane dehydrogenation unit (PDH), a 500,000 tonnes/year polypropylene line (PP) and other facilities for the import, storage and transfer of ethane and propane at Dahej, in western Gujarat state, said the company.
The project is estimated to cost around Indian Rupees (Rs) 142bn (USD1.74bn).
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- A number of Kuwait's Mina Abdullah refinery production units temporarily stopped as a result of a power outage without affecting production and export schedules, as per Hydrocarbobprocessing.

Power resumption efforts and restoring operations efforts were in progress, Kuwait National Petroleum Company (KNPC) added.

We remind, Kuwait Integrated Petroleum Industries Co (KIPIC) said the first phase of Al-Zour refinery has started commercial operations, according to state news agency (KUNA). The commercial launch comes after the project started last month to produce and sell primary quantities of fuel oil and supply it to local power stations.

Technip Energies, through its wholly-owned subsidiary in the UK (Technip E&C Limited), has been awarded a significant contract for Project Engineering and Management Services (PEMS) by Kuwait Integrated Petroleum Industries Company (KIPIC) for various projects in southern Kuwait. The contract is for six years duration and covers Project Engineering and Management Services for various potential projects in the Al-Zour complex, including the Al-Zour Refinery, Petrochemical Complex, LNG Import Facilities and other facilities belonging to KIPIC.

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MOSCOW (MRC) -- ExxonMobil and Pertamina, the state-owned energy company for Indonesia, have signed a Heads of Agreement at the G20 Summit in Bali to further progress their previously announced regional carbon capture and storage hub for domestic and international CO2, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The Heads of Agreement builds upon a joint study and memorandum of understanding that was signed at COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland to assess carbon capture and storage technologies, low-carbon hydrogen and geologic data. The agreement defines next steps for the project including concept-select, pre-Front End Engineering Design, and a subsurface work program.

The agreement was signed by Pertamina President Director and Chief Executive Officer Nicke Widyawati and Irtiza Sayyed, vice president, ExxonMobil Low Carbon Solutions and president of ExxonMobil Indonesia. The signing was witnessed by U.S. Ambassador for Republic Indonesia, H.E. Sung Y. Kim and Indonesia’s Coordinating Minister for Maritime and Investment Affairs H.E. Luhut B. Pandjaitan, and Jack Williams, senior vice president, Exxon Mobil Corporation.

“This agreement supports Indonesia’s net-zero ambition and its goal to become a carbon capture and storage leader in the region,” said Dan Ammann, president, ExxonMobil Low Carbon Solutions. “By providing a large-scale storage solution for hard-to-decarbonize sectors, our companies will support Indonesia’s growing economy through low-carbon investments, creating job opportunities and adding revenues for the country.”

The Indonesian government is working to develop supportive CCS regulations and initiating discussions with other governments in the region. “This milestone is a solid foundation for Indonesia to systematically work toward our net-zero target by 2060 or sooner,” said H.E. Luhut B. Pandjaitan. “Indonesia is growing, and it is imperative for us to address our carbon footprints for our future generations.”

ExxonMobil Low Carbon Solutions is working to bring lower-emission technologies to market, making them accessible to hard-to-decarbonize industries, including its recent agreement with a leading global manufacturer of nitrogen and hydrogen products in Louisiana, United States. It is focusing its carbon capture and storage efforts on point-source emissions, the process of capturing CO2 from industrial activity that would otherwise be released into the atmosphere. Once captured, the CO2 is injected into deep, underground geologic formations for safe, secure and permanent storage.

We remind, ExxonMobil Corp agreed to sell its Billings, Montana, refinery and related pipeline properties to Par Pacific Holdings Inc for USD310 MM. The sale ends a years-long effort by the U.S. oil giant to further reduce its refining footprint and concentrate production on plants along the U.S. Gulf Coast and in the Midwest. It also has been selling oil producing properties to boost returns.

Exxon Mobil Corporation is an American company, one of the largest oil companies in the world, one of the largest corporations in the world in terms of market capitalization. The company's headquarters is located in Irving, a suburb of Dallas, Texas.
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