Blog

Shell will team up with the Dutch pension fund manager PGGM to submit a bid offer for the acquisition of the Dutch electricity and gas provider Eneco, which entered a privatisation process in December 2018. Currently owned by 44 municipalities and estimated at around €3bn, the company will be brought to the market via a controlled auction, subject to shareholder approval. PGGM and Shell intend to further assess the potential opportunity of the procedure and believe Eneco has a potential for further growth. Eneco is one of the largest producers and suppliers of electricity, natural gas, and heat in the Netherlands and currently serves more than 2.4 million business and residential customers. In 2017, it delivered nearly 70 TWh of energy in Europe (21 TWh of electricity, 45 TWh of gas and 2.8 TWh of heat). It also owns 3.1 GW of power generation capacity in Europe, of which 2 GW of renewable capacity (1.7 GW of wind and 212 MW of solar in 2017), 522 MW of thermal capacity and 507 MW of CHP capacity; power capacity in the Netherlands stood at 2.3 GW in 2017. It generated 10 TWh in 2017, including 8.7 TWh in the Netherlands. The group is also involved in several renewable energy projects.

The European Commission is willing to settle a long-running trade dispute over imports of Argentine biodiesel into Europe and is likely to accept undertakings from producers that they would sell the product at a minimum price.

Several Eastern Mediterranean governments – Cyprus, Greece, Israel, Italy, Jordan and Palestine – have agreed to establish the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum, a regional gas market that would optimise the resource development of its members, rationalise the cost of the transportation infrastructure, offer competitive trade prices and improve mutual trade relations.

The National Energy Regulator of South Africa (NERSA), which is in charge of setting power prices and tariffs for the country’s state-run power utility Eskom, will start a series of nation-wide public hearings on the future electricity tariffs. This follows Eskom’s request for a 45% electricity price hike spread over the next three years (15%/year increase)..

The Iraqi government expects to raise production from the southern Majnoon oilfield near Basrah from the current 240,000 bbl/d to 290,000 bbl/d by the end of 2019 and then to 450,000 bbl/d by the end of 2021. In 2019, US$7bn will be invested for the development of five oil fields in the Basra region, of which 10% (US$700m) for the Majnoon field. Besides,….

Greek infrastructure company Gastrade has extended the timeline for the completion of its proposed Alexandroupolis LNG floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU) in northern Greece by 6 months.

Hitachi’s UK-based subsidiary Horizon Nuclear Power is still struggling to find investors for its plans to develop the £16bn (about €18bn) Wylfa Newydd nuclear power plant project in Anglesey in North Wales (United Kingdom). The company has denied rumors over the suspension of the project and related loss of JPY200-300bn (US$1.85-2.77bn) for the fiscal year ending in March 2019.