The weekly market report is provided by Gladius Commodities of Lagos, Nigeria.
MAURITANIA
ION Geophysical has completed the reprocessing and reimaging of approximately 19,100 km² of 3D seismic data offshore West Africa for its Mauritania 3D reprocessing program.
The program was undertaken via an exclusive agreement with Mauritania’s Ministry of Petroleum, Energy and Mines and comprises 11 vintage seismic surveys, providing a high-resolution data set spanning the Mauritanian offshore coastal basin.
ION said the basin is a key part of the frontier MSGBC basin in which several large-scale offshore gas fields have been discovered with an estimated 63 trillion cubic feet (tcf) in Mauritania thus far. The MSGBC basin has become one that matters in the global oil and gas landscape and with ION’s delivery of its Mauritania 3D reprocessing program, operators now have a lower cost, lower risk, sustainable solution for evaluating the offshore hydrocarbon potential of Mauritania.
NIGERIA
The Group Managing Director (GMD) of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Alhaji Mele Kyari, stated that transformation is currently being implemented at the NNPC to position it to take advantage of energy transition opportunities in the global environment. According to Kyari, the group would use its large gas resources to aid the transition process as it commences. He mentioned that natural resources from the extractive industries are only beneficial when extracted responsibly in a cost-effective manner, and revenues generated are promptly accounted to the government. The NNPC has employed strategies to address lack of transparency in the sector, including the publication of its monthly financial performance reports and audited financial statements, its responsiveness to audit recommendations, reporting information on upstream costs and revenues, and publishing the annual financial statements of NNPC and its subsidiaries.
The Federal Government has said that the $13 billion Trans Sahara Gas Pipeline (TSGP) will present a huge opportunity for Nigeria, Niger and Algeria to tap into the European markets and boost economic growth. The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, H.E. Chief Timipre Sylva stated that Nigeria and its African partners had intensified efforts to actualize the project – running from Nigeria through the Niger Republic to the Mediterranean Coast of Algeria, targeting gas supplies to Chad and Mali. Niger Republic Minister of Petroleum, H.E. Mahamadou Mahamane and Algerian Minister of Energy and Mines, H.E. Mohamed Arkab confirmed their commitment and readiness to continue with the TSGP project, agreeing that project success would have a positive impact on the socioeconomic growth of the nations involved and aid carbon neutrality in line with the global energy transition. H.E. Chief Sylva said Nigeria’s gas reserves may increase from 260 tcf to 600 trillion tcf to support this project.
GLOBAL
On June 24, oil prices stabilized, edging higher after the previous session’s weakness with traders focusing on a meeting of major U.S. oil refiners with the U.S. government to discuss methods to bring down fuel costs. The U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures traded down $1.92, or 1.8%, at $104.27 per barrel, while the Brent futures settled down $1.69, or 1.5%, at $110.05. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) weekly report experienced delays due to technical problems. However, analysts expected the EIA to report a crude stockpile drop of 569,000 barrels versus the 1.96-million-barrel rise reported during the week ending June 10.
The crude market weakened sharply following comments from U.S. Federal Reserve Chief Jerome Powell that although the central bank was not trying to engineer a recession to stop inflation, such a slowdown remained a possibility. Refiners cut capacity during the COVID-19 crisis shutdowns and have been slow to restart plants. However, these refiners say investing in reopening plants carries significant financial risks. Meanwhile, Russia’s war in Ukraine which has upended oil flows approaches its fifth month. A dozen European Union countries have now been affected by cuts to gas supply from Russia, this has resulted in Germany, the largest Eurozone economy, moving a step closer to rationing natural gas supply by activating the second stage of a three-part plan to ensure the security of supplies.
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