Blog

The Ministry of Energy (MOTIE) of South Korea has released its Third Energy Plan, in which it confirms plans to raise the share of renewable energies in the power mix to 30-35% by 2040, from less than 5% in 2018. Most of the South Korean power generation currently relies on coal (44%), gas (26%) and nuclear (23%) (2018).

Under the Plan, South Korea will refrain from building new conventional thermal power plants and will gradually reduce the number of coal-fired power plants. Existing coal-fired power plants will be renovated to run on LNG, while the lifespans of aging nuclear power plants will not be extended. The plan neither plans construction of new nuclear power plants.

The Third Energy Plan also includes a 18.6% energy consumption reduction target between 2017 and 2040, compared to a business as usual scenario. South Korea will also promote the use of hydrogen for transport.

BP has agreed to sell mature oil assets in Egypt to Dragon Oil, a fully-owned subsidiary of the Emirates National Oil Company (ENOC) (United Arab Emirates). The transaction, whose amount is not disclosed, includes BP’s interests in Gulf of Suez oil concessions (including BP’s stake in the Gulf of Suez Petroleum Company (GUPCO)).

Azerbaijan’s national oil and gas company SOCAR plans to list part of its Turkish subsidiary, SOCAR Turkey Enerji, on the London, Hong-Kong and Istanbul stock exchanges in 2021; the share of the company to be offered to investors through the initial public offering (IPO) has not been specified so far. …

The constitutional court of Lebanon has ruled to halt part of the power sector reform plan that was approved by the Lebanese government in early April 2019.

Argentina’s nuclear power plant in the province of Cordoba (Argentina). The reactor, which was commissioned in 1984, was shut down in late 2015 for a three-year modernisation programme that included replacing the steam generators and retubing the reactor.

Eni has made a new light oil discovery in the Block 15/06, in Angola’s deep offshore. The group drilled a well on the Agidigbo exploration prospect, which would hold between 300 and 400 mbl of light.

Nigeria’s national oil and gas company Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) expects domestic gas demand in Nigeria to increase five-fold (+393%) within the next eight years. This surge in gas demand would mainly come from the power sector (additional demand of 5.7 bcf/d, i..e. nearly +59 bcm/year).

The second unit of the Novovoronezh-2 nuclear power plant (Novovoronezh II-2) in southwestern Russia has entered in a pilot operation phase (OPE), which will consist of four phases: reaching a power level of 50%, then 75%, mastering the nominal power (90-100% of the capacity) and testing equipment.