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Producción y mercados energéticos 12/02/19

Latest Energy News

12 February 2019

TOP STORY: Middle East and Africa added almost 1 GW of wind capacity in 2018 According to the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC), Africa and the Middle East installed together 962 MW of additional onshore wind power generation capacity in 2018, which is much more than the capacity added in 2017 (around 770 MW). The top three markets are namely Egypt (380 MW), Kenya (310 MW) and Morocco (120 MW). Most of the new capacity was built in Africa but wind projects are being pushed forward in the Middle East as well: in January 2019, the Saudi Arabian government awarded the 400 MW Dumat Al Jandal onshore wind project to a consortium including EDF Renewable (51%) and Masdar (49%) with a winning bid of US$21.3/MWh. South Africa is also a key country for future wind projects and although no new capacity was installed in the country over the previous year, state-run power utility Eskom signed PPAs from previous auction rounds. Besides, the government is likely to set up the fifth round of the Renewable Energy Independent Power Producers Programme (REIPPP) later in 2019. GWEC expects a further 6.5 GW capacity to be added in Africa and the Middle East by 2023, which would more than double the current installed capacity.

Policy & Regulatory Portugal eases restrictions on domestic wind project expansions The Portuguese government confirmed that there would be no wind auctions in 2019 and has unveiled a new measure which will enable wind project operators to add new turbines to up to 20% of the power grid connection capacity at existing wind parks without requiring regulatory permission. Read more Indian government offers 23 blocks under third oil and gas OALP auction The Indian Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas has offered 23 oil and gas blocks across 12 sedimentary basins for bidding in the third round of Open Acreage Licensing Policy (OALP). Out of these, 5 are coal bed methane blocks. The round is slated to last until 10 April 2019 and will run concurrently with OALP-II, where 14 blocks are also offered for bidding. Read more Energy Markets BP produces first gas from West Nile Delta second phase (Egypt) British oil and gas company BP has announced first gas production from the second stage of its West Nile Delta operations offshore Egypt. It involves the development of the Giza, Fayoum and Raven fields. Gas production will progressively ramp up from 400 mcf/d (11 mcm/d) to reach a plateau of 700 mcf/d (about 20 mcm/d). Read more Forecasts US power sector CO2 emissions predicted to remain flat until 2050 According to the United States Energy Information Administration (EIA), US power sector emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxides (NOx) are predicted to remain flat until 2050 assuming no legislation changes. Read more South Sudan expects to produce 350,000 bbl/d of crude oil by mid-2020 The South Sudanese government has outlined plans to return to producing more than 350,000 bbl/d of crude oil by the middle of 2020, up from the current level of 140,000 bbl/d. An intermediate objective has been set a 270,000 bbl/d for the end of 2019. More specifically, block 3 and 7 are expected to produce 180,000 bbl/d in 2019, while blocks 1, 2 and 4 will produce 70,000 bbl/d,… Read more Infrastructure & Investments Tanzania and Kenya plan to start power interconnector project in 2020 State-run power utility Tanzania Electric Supply Company (Tanesco) has confirmed plans to connect the Kenya-Tanzania power interconnection project to the Southern Africa Power Pool (SAPP) via a 400 kV transmission line. Meanwhile, the power line will also be linked to the Eastern African Power Pool (EAPP) countries (Ethiopia) via the Kenyan network and Zambia via Tanzania. Read more LNG Croatia makes FID on Krk FSRU project based on open season results State-held project company LNG Croatia has made a final investment decision (FID) on the construction of a floating storage regasification unit (FSRU) on the Island of Krk (Croatia) based on the results of the binding open season procedure. The binding process for booking the capacity of the LNG terminal is complete and resulted in a capacity booking of 0.52 bcm/year. Read more DEWA’s 700 MW Jebel Ali gas-fired expansion project is 98% complete (UAE) State-run utility Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) reports that the 700 MW M-Station gas-fired expansion project in Jebel Ali (United Arab Emirates) is 98% complete. After the completion of the turbine testing phase, DEWA will begin the pilot operation of the plant. The commissioning and commercial operation phases will follow later in 2019. Read more Yemen plans to resume crude oil and LNG exports in 2019-2020 The Yemeni government has outlined plans to approximately double the country’s domestic crude oil production to 110,000 bbl/d in 2019, with exports hiking to approximately 75,000 bbl/d. A new pipeline could be built to the Arabian Sea in order to ship exports from four producing blocks. Read more