New base 985 special 10 january 2017 energy news

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NewBase 10 January 2017 - Issue No. 985 Senior Editor Eng. Khaled Al Awadi

NewBase For discussion or further details on the news below you may contact us on +971504822502, Dubai, UAE

UAE’s first nuclear plant is 75 per cent complete News agencies

Construction work on the UAE’s first nuclear power plant is now more than 75 per cent complete, the state-run Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (ENEC) said on Saturday. Rising from the desert sands in the eastern part of Abu Dhabi emirate, the Barakah plant is set to come online by 2020.

The nuclear plant is expected to provide for a quarter of the UAE’s electricity needs — and save up to 12 million tonnes in carbon emissions every year. Construction began in 2012 by a consortium of builders led by the South Korean power giant Korean Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO).

Work on the four-reactor plant is divided into four units, all of which are being built simultaneously.

On Units 3 and 4, which have the most distant construction deadlines, work is more than 50 per cent done. The roof on Unit 3’s reactor vessel — which houses the reactor core — has recently been installed. Last July, the unit’s reactor vessel was installed.

In Unit 4, the turbine generator operating deck and reactor containment liner plates have been set in place. Officials of the ENEC say that Barakah plant’s construction is on schedule, with Units 3 and 4 ahead of schedule.

“The latest successful achievement of these milestones for Units 3 and 4 is a result of many months of hard work by all those involved,” said ENEC chief Mohammad Al Hammadi. “I am proud of our teams whose commitment and dedication is a key factor in the continued successful construction of the world’s largest nuclear new build construction site.”

The nuclear energy project will help create high-value job opportunities and help spark the “emergence of a new sophisticated industrial sector” to support the plant, Al Hammadi said. Once completed, officials expect the plant to deliver safe, clean, reliable and efficient nuclear energy to the UAE grid.




UAE:RAK Petroleum’s DNO makes discovery in Kurdish Peshkabir The national - LeAnne Graves

After a year of delays to drilling plans, Norwegian explorer DNO said on Monday it has discovered oil in the Peshkabir field in the Kurdistan region of Iraq.

The Oslo-listed company said that its second well, which was spud in October, flowed at 3,800 barrels of medium oil per day. DNO estimates that the drilling to completion of the well will cost about US$17.5 million.

Drilling was set to start in 2015 but the drop in crude oil prices as well as delayed payments from the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) delayed operations. Drilling started after the KRG began making regular payments.

DNO, in which RAK Petroleum has a 40 per cent stake, is on an aggressive drilling campaign. That includes starting five new wells to explore the Cretaceous formations, which are known to have large oil deposits, by the end of last year.

The Norwegian company, along with partners Genel Energy and the KRG, is looking at the possibility of early production of Peshkabir oil and transporting it to the company’s nearby facilities at Fish Khabur.

"We are very encouraged by what we have seen so far in this well," said Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani, the executive chairman of DNO and RAK Petroleum. "Certainly our subsurface and drilling teams have started the year on the right foot," he said.

DNO’s shares increased in value by 34 per cent last year.




Morocco: Chariot Oil & Gas announces approval of the farm-out agreement with Eni in Rabat Deep Offshore .. Source: Chariot Oil & Gas

AIM-listed Chariot Oil & Gas, the Atlantic margins focused oil and gas exploration company, reports that the farm-out signed between its wholly owned subsidiary, Chariot Oil & Gas Investments (Morocco) and a wholly owned subsidiary of Eni, which was detailed in the announcement of 30 March 2016, has now been approved for the Rabat Deep Offshore permits I-VI by the Moroccan authorities. As a result of this approval, operatorship of these permits has been transferred to Eni.

The licence ownership is now as follows: Eni (operator, 40% equity interest), Woodside (25% equity interest), Chariot (10% equity interest) and Office National des Hydrocarbures et des Mines ('ONHYM') (25% carried interest).

Eni has acquired operatorship and a 40% equity interest from Chariot in return for a capped carry on drilling the JP-1 prospect as well as a carry on other geological and administrative costs relating to Rabat Deep and a recovery of Chariot's investment to date.

The JP-1 prospect, which will be targeted by the RD-1 well, is a large, four-way dip closed structure of approx. 200 sq km areal extent, with Jurassic carbonate primary reservoir objectives and an independently audited gross mean prospective resource estimate of 768mmbbls.

Larry Bottomley, CEO commented:

'We are pleased to have satisfied all conditions precedent and welcome Eni as the operator of the Rabat Deep acreage. We anticipate that further to completing the Environmental Impact Assessment, finalising well planning and securing a rig, drilling will now occur in early 2018.

'This agreement continues to demonstrate Chariot's ability to deliver on its strategy of securing third-party validation through partnering, and we are excited that we will now take one of our priority targets through to drilling.

Retaining a 10% equity interest in this well has the potential to create transformational value in the success case due to the large scale prospective resources, excellent contract commercial terms and robust economics. Success will also materially de-risk other targets we have identified within our neighbouring Mohammedia permits in which we hold a 75% interest.'




US oil industry coming back in 2017, cautiously Gulf Times

The US oil industry is feeling guarded optimism going into 2017 as it pivots from a brutal two-year slump prompted by crashing crude prices. As the new year kicks off, industry insiders describe a tentative recovery, with some low-cost drilling basins starting to pick up even while others remain depressed.

The downturn, among the worst since the 1973 Arab oil embargo, led to bankruptcies, layoffs of hundreds of thousands of workers and a significant pause on the American shale boom.

Energy producers have been cheered by the election of Republican Donald Trump, whose cabinet picks include oil industry allies like climate-change sceptic Scott Pruitt to head the Environmental Protection Agency and ExxonMobil chief executive Rex Tillerson as secretary of state.

“Operators are still being guarded with their money,” said Jason McFarland, president of the International Association of Drilling Contractors in Houston. “But certainly we’re seeing a loosening of the grip on investments as the price of oil rises.”

Even more important, sentiment got a boost from the November 30 agreement by the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to cut production to address a supply glut that had threatened to push oil prices back to multi-year lows.

After the Opec deal, “it is meaningfully different in sentiment,” said David Pursell, a managing director at the Houston energy investment bank Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. “Before November 30, this was like the Bataan Death March,” he said, referring to the grim outlook in the industry.

Now, “People are cautiously optimistic, which is light years from where we were eight weeks ago.” US oil prices, which tumbled to close to $25 a barrel a year ago, closed at $53.99 a barrel on Friday.

Part of the industry’s hesitancy is due to scepticism about whether Opec members and countries outside the group, such as Russia, will actually comply with the agreed production cuts.




And if the cuts are implemented, there remains the question of what will happen if the agreement is not renewed after its six-month duration.

Opec appears to be signalling that “high-cost producers should not take for granted that they will receive a free ride to higher production,” the International Energy Agency said in a report last month.

“These high-cost producers, who assume that the cuts at the very least guarantee a floor under prices, might think twice before taking the risk of sanctioning new investments.”

Other unknowns that will affect the market include the path of US consumption in the expected fast-growth Trump era; whether Indian demand will stay high; and how the ever-evolving Chinese economy will affect its thirst for petroleum.

Shale is another question mark.

The US is expected to see capital investment recover more quickly than other countries that have long-term oil investment cycles.

The rise of American shale production, made possible by technological leaps in drilling and resource recovery, lifted US production to multi-decade highs in 2015 of about 9.6mn barrels per day (bpd), a remarkable 80 % higher than in 2010.

But that momentum came to a screeching halt amid the industry downturn, and US production fell back to 8.6mn bpd in September 2016. Recent higher prices have seen that figure creep back up to 8.8mn bpd, according to data from the US Energy Information Administration.

How fast the industry can recover is uncertain.

“We don’t have much experience in terms of looking at projects like this in terms of their rapid recovery because we have never really been there before,” said Neil Atkinson, head of the oil market division at the IEA.

“The question is how quickly can it respond if people believe higher prices are here to stay,” he said about the prospects for increased production.”We don’t yet know.”

Early indications show a big jump in the rig count in the Permian Basin in West Texas compared with a year ago: the count currently stands at 267 rigs, up from 209 a year ago, according to figures from Baker Hughes.

Each new rig directly employs about 20 people and supports dozens of other workers in related services, IADC’s McFarland said.

But activity remains well below year-ago levels in the Eagle Ford Shale region, which crosses much of Texas, and in North Dakota, home to the Bakken Shale.

Both were hot growth areas prior to the downturn.

The Permian is appealing because it is low-cost and close to pipelines and other key infrastructure, said Jesse Thompson, a business economist with the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas based in Houston.

“You’re hearing about some hiring,” Thompson said. “We know the trend of the employment in the industry is turning, there are still some people getting laid off.

There are still companies in financial distress. “This is a transition period.”




US Coal production declines in 2016, with average coal prices below their 2015 level… Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Coal Data Browser

U.S. coal production in 2016 is expected to total 743 million short tons (MMst), 17% lower than in 2015, and the lowest level since 1978. Falling production in 2016 continues an eight-year decline from peak production in 2008.

Production in all major coal regions fell by at least 15%. Low natural gas prices, warmer-than-normal temperatures during the 2015-16 winter that reduced electricity demand, the retirements of some coal-fired generators, and lower international coal demand have contributed to declining U.S. coal production.

The United States has five major basins or regions that produce coal. Although weekly coal production in most basins increased slightly since mid-year, weekly production levels in all areas throughout 2016 have been significantly lower than over the previous five years.

The largest annual decline in coal production in 2016 was in the Powder River Basin, which declined by 70 MMst (17%) from 2015 levels. Declines in coal production relative to 2015 levels ranged from 16% to 26% in the Northern and Central Appalachian basins, the Rocky Mountain region, and the Illinois Basin.




Nearly all coal use in the United States is for electricity generation. In the past few years, coal's share of electricity generation has fallen as it has faced increasing competition from natural gas and renewable.

The average daily natural gas spot price at the Henry Hub, a key benchmark, fell from $2.63 per million British thermal units (MMBtu) in 2015 to $2.40/MMBtu in 2016, resulting in increased natural gas-fired electricity generation. In 2016, natural gas-fired electricity generation surpassed coal-fired generation for the first time, accounting for an estimated 34% of total electricity generation compared with coal’s 30% share. The most recent Short-Term Energy Outlook forecasts total 2016 power sector coal consumption at about 681 MMst, the lowest level since 1985.

U.S. coal exports declined in 2016. Approximately 26 MMst of coal is estimated to have been exported to Europe in 2016, down from 38 MMst in 2015. U.S. coal exports to Asia also declined in 2016, particularly to South Korea, where exports are estimated to have been about 3.5 MMst, a 43% decrease from the 2015 level. EIA estimates that the United States exported 57 MMst of coal in 2016, a 23% decline from the previous year.




On a year-to-date basis,average delivered cost of coal for power plants over the January through September period decreased from $2.27 per million Btu in 2015 to $2.17 per million Btu in 2016. However, trends in steam coal prices during the first six months of the year were very different from those in the latter six months.

High coal stockpile levels driven by increased use of natural gas and a warmer-than-normal winter reduced electricity demand, which resulted in a continued decrease in steam coal prices through the first half of the year, with the largest percentage declines in the prices of Central Appalachian Basin and Powder River Basin coal.

However, from July to December, lower coal supplies, warm temperatures that raised summer electricity demand, and increasing natural gas prices led to higher steam coal prices in all five producing areas. Powder River Basin and Central Appalachian Basin coal prices rose by approximately 20%, and prices of North Appalachian Basin, Rocky Mountain, and Illinois Basin coal increased by close to 10%. As a result, coal prices in all basins, with the exception of the Northern Appalachian basin, were higher at the end of 2016 than at the beginning of the year.




NewBase 10 January 2017 Khaled Al Awadi

NewBase For discussion or further details on the news below you may contact us on +971504822502 , Dubai , UAE

Oil recovers some previous losses, but doubts over supply cuts linger Reuters + Newbase

Oil markets edged higher on Tuesday on expectations that at least some planned production cuts would be implemented, making a slight recovery from big losses the previous day over doubts the agreed reductions would rebalance an oversupplied market.

Brent crude futures, the international benchmark for oil prices, were trading at $55.14 per barrel at 0426 GMT, up 20 cents from their last close. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil futures were trading at $52.12 per barrel, up 16 Cents.

Both of the contracts on Monday lost nearly 4 percent. Analysts said the small gains on Tuesday came from expectations that some of the cuts planned by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and producers such as Russia would materialize despite doubts over full implementation.

"Coordinated output cuts will support the market rebalancing that will draw down global stock levels, leading us to revise up our Brent crude forecast for 2017 to $57 per barrel," BMI Research said.

Most analysts, though, said there was still downside risk for oil due to rising output elsewhere.

Crude plunged in the previous session on concerns that rising output in Iran and also Iraq - which has given full supply allocations of Basra crude to three refiners in Asia and Europe for February - were undermining efforts to curb a global fuel supply glut that has weighed on markets for over two years.

Supplies are also increasing in North America.

Oil price special

coverage




"The average Canadian rig count for December 2016 was 209, up 36 from the 173 counted in November 2016, and up 49 from the 160 counted in December 2015," said Matt Stanley, a fuel broker at Freight Services International in Dubai.

"A 30 percent increase in Canadian rigs in a year ... The bear in me is well and truly back," he said.

In the United States, energy companies last week added rigs for a tenth week in a row, extending the drilling recovery into an eighth month as crude prices remained at levels at which many U.S. drillers can operate profitably.

Adding one-off supplies, the U.S. Department of Energy on Monday announced a sale for crude from its Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), with bids for 8 million barrels of light, sweet oil due by Jan. 17.

"U.S. SPR sales add to bearish pressures on U.S. crude," Citi said following the release of the bids.

Oil Drillers Are Expanding Again After Losing Half-Million Jobs by David Wethe

The oil industry is expected to boost spending for the first time in three years after slashing almost half a million jobs globally during the downturn, according to industry consultant Graves & Co. More than three quarters of the 440,131 oil jobs eliminated around the world through the end of 2016 came from the oilfield service providers, drilling contractors and equipment makers, said John Graves, whose Houston firm assists in oil and gas deals with audits and due diligence. He has tracked announcements of layoffs from all parts of the oil industry since the downturn began in the middle of 2014. Roughly a third of the cuts came in the U.S., Graves estimates. Oil companies are starting to hire back workers as they add rigs to the shale patch in North America to take advantage of oil prices above $50 a barrel. After unprecedented spending cuts over the past two years, explorers are forecast to boost capital expenditures by 7 percent this year, David Anderson, an analyst at Barclays, wrote Monday in a note to investors.




The number of U.S. workers employed in the oil and gas extraction industry has increased slightly after hitting a five-year low in July, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. “Aggressive cost cutting this downturn has reversed much of the ‘boom town’ employee-related inflation,” Anderson said in the note. “Attrition of qualified labor into less cyclical industries with greater job security, more stable income and better work/life balance could create cost inflation and bottleneck in a sharp recovery.” After the world’s four largest service companies spent $3.12 billion in severance costs over the past two years, the industry is acutely aware of the heavy reliance on manpower in the oil patch, Art Soucy, president of products and technology for Baker Hughes, said last month at an investor meeting. The Graves estimate for job cuts is 25 percent more than a report he issued in May, when total headcount reductions topped 350,000 during the downturn. Explorers and producers, who hire the service companies to drill their wells, were responsible for 90,480, or 21 percent, of the layoffs, Graves said Monday. Companies in the refining sector accounted for just 3 percent of the workforce shrinkage. West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. crude benchmark, has nearly doubled since closing at a low in February last year. Explorers in the U.S. have already added more than 100 rigs since September.




NewBase Special Coverage

News Agencies News Release 10 Jan. 2017

Solar energy growing fast, but night time is still a problem By Reed Landberg

The idea that solar power may soon be everywhere isn’t nutty anymore. The price of solar panels has plunged more than 80% in the past five years and is expected to keep falling. Global output from photovoltaics, panels that convert light directly into electricity, has increased 40% every year for the past decade.

industry is drawing roughly $150bn in annual investment, accounting for almost half the funds committed to renewable energy. In some places where the price of power is high, solar already is able to compete with fossil fuels on cost.

But the idea, pushed by some environmental groups, that solar could soon meet the world’s energy needs seems far less likely. For one thing, those big increases come on top of a tiny base — in 2013, solar accounted for less than 2% of the world’s electricity supply. For another, there are still nights and cloudy days to deal with. Since we like our power always available, that means that cost versus coal isn’t the only hurdle — there’s figuring out how to feed a lot of intermittent power into a system meant for steady production.

That could make the outlook for solar partly cloudy.




The Situation

Energy generated by solar grew by a third in 2015, more than for any other power source. The global agreement reached in Paris in December on fighting climate change didn’t include specific provisions on solar, but the pact was considered certain to spur significant new investments in renewable energy. In the US, Congress reached a budget deal that extended tax credits for wind and solar power for five years. The solar credit had been set to expire at the end of 2016.

Bloomberg New Energy Finance estimated that the extension will generate $38bn in new solar power investment. In addition, federal rules announced in August 2015 requiring states to reduce carbon emissions could encourage investments in renewables if they survive a court challenge.

Already, 43 of the 50 states have adopted renewable power goals; California’s target is 50% of power by 2020, up from about 20% now. Elsewhere, a number of nations, led by Germany and Spain and most recently the UK, have scaled back lucrative solar incentives as prices have fallen.

Worldwide, installations are highest in China, followed by Japan. In India, plans have been announced for $160bn in solar power projects. Some big businesses have made splashy announcements, including Apple’s plan to spend $850mn on solar power.

The Background

The US invented solar cells but never had the determination to commercialize them. AT&T’s Bell Labs in New Jersey made the first photovoltaic cell in 1953. For decades, solar only made economic sense in satellites.

Oil companies led by Exxon and Arco invested in solar panels — arrays of photovoltaic cells — following the oil crisis in 1973, then backed out when the price of crude crashed in the 1980s. Japan kept the industry alive through the 1990s, when Sharp, Kyocera and Sanyo were producing the majority of the world’s cells. In 2004, Germany introduced an expanded system of feed-in




tariffs, fixed-price contracts for renewable power that is supplied to the energy grid. Solar installations soared, and for several years Germany led the world in solar panel manufacturing.

The tariff model was copied in other countries and so many new solar panel makers sprouted up that a price war followed. That led to the crash in the price of panels – and the concentration of the industry in China, where companies led by Suntech Power built giant panel factories with loans from the government and cash from foreign investors — support that allowed them to survive a winnowing that shut many manufacturers elsewhere.

The Argument

Greenpeace says solar “could meet the world’s energy demands many times over.” The more cautious International Energy Agency says photovoltaics might generate 16% of the world’s electricity by 2050 — if policy encourages the technology.

Fossil fuel backers say photovoltaic power will never be a practical source because it can’t work when the sun doesn’t shine and because it’s too expensive. Solar power’s cost is now almost double the cost of the same energy from coal. But a longer view may be more favourable to solar, whose cost is falling as the price of coal goes up.

Utility officials and regulators make decisions on the basis of decades-long projections, and price is only part of the equation. There are technical considerations, like whether the grid can absorb variable flows of electricity from renewables.

The biggest question is ultimately political: What countries are willing to pay now for an energy source that may be cheaper and will undoubtedly be cleaner in the long run. The logic of the Paris agreement suggests the amount could be substantial. And if there’s a breakthrough in solar’s biggest weakness — an affordable way to store electricity for use at night — all those calculations could be upended.




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Khaled Malallah Al Awadi, Energy Consultant MS & BS Mechanical Engineering (HON), USA Emarat member since 1990 ASME member since 1995 Hawk Energy member 2010

Mobile: +97150-4822502 [email protected] [email protected]

Khaled Al Awadi is a UAE National with a total of 25 years of experience in the Oil & Gas sector. Currently working as Technical Affairs Specialist for Emirates General Petroleum Corp. “Emarat“ with external voluntary Energy consultation for the GCC area via Hawk Energy Service as a UAE operations base , Most of the experience were spent as the Gas Operations Manager in Emarat , responsible for Emarat Gas Pipeline Network Facility & gas compressor stations . Through the years, he has developed great experiences in the designing & constructing of gas pipelines, gas metering & regulating stations and in the engineering of supply routes. Many years were spent drafting, & compiling gas transportation, operation & maintenance

agreements along with many MOUs for the local authorities. He has become a reference for many of the Oil & Gas Conferences held in the UAE and Energy program broadcasted internationally, via GCC leading satellite Channels.

NewBase : For discussion or further details on the news above you may contact us on +971504822502 , Dubai , UAE

NewBase January 2017 K. Al Awadi

New base 985 special 10 january 2017 energy news

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