A deep freeze in the USA is taking a toll in the energy industry. Some of the biggest oil refineries in Texas were forced to shut down as an Arctic freeze upended energy markets and led to widespread power blackouts across the country. The deep freeze prompted the state’s electric power suppliers to impose rotating blackouts, leaving nearly 3 million homes and businesses without power. U.S. President Joe Biden has already unlocked federal assistance to Texas, which is one of the biggest gas producing countries and which produces roughly 4.6 million barrels of oil per day.

SNAM has been awarded by SEAL Awards among the world’s 50 most sustainable companies. The company has been included in CDP’s “A” list of companies most committed to the fight against climate change and committed to sustainable practices globally. Snam plans to become carbon free by 2040. Seal Awards has announced the winners of the 2020 Seal Business Sustanability Awards on Thursday Feb. 18. According to Matt Harney, SEAL Awards’ Founder “Over the past five years, corporations have increased their investment in sustainable business practices, thereby raising the bar for ESG excellence. Our mission at SEAL is to rigorously assess and then celebrate extraordinary sustainability leadership.

The five supermajors Exxonmobil, BP, Shell, Chevron and Total recorded a combined loss of $76 billion in 2020. The downturn in the Covid-19 pandemic and the acceleration of the energy transition have created a new reality for the world’s oil and gas industry, whose production will reach the lowest peak earlier than expected. Most of this loss can be attributed to asset write-downs and write-offs: the majors have revalued their strategy to focus on energy transition and become less dependent on oil. Their combined production of oil and gas declined by almost 5%, or 0.9 million barrels of oil equivalent per day, in 2020 compared to the previous year.

The SGC (Southern Gas Corridor) has started delivering gas from the Caspian Sea to Italy beginning of 2021 through the TransAdriatic Pipeline. This despite some crucial nail-biting moments like the struggle with the local authorities, with the result that the price premium for Italian consumers has been eroded, long one of Western Europe’s least competitive markets. The SGC was initially expected to carry 30bn cubic m/year form the Caspian region to Central Europe. However, it now carries 16bn cubic m/year out of Azerbaijan, 10bn cubic m/year of which to Italy.

The Danish company has announced plans for the construction of a 15-megawatt offshore wind turbine. The project should start in 2024 and the turbine should be able to generate roughly 80 gigawatt hours per year. This would be enough to power approximately 20,000 European households, saving over 38,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide in the process. Vestas is the latest company to push forward with the development of a sizeable offshore wind turbine.

It is likely that Sub-Saharan Africa will approve an additional 74 million tons per year of LNG export capacity by 2030 if market conditions allow. Such capacity would be in addition to the 60 million tons/year of export capacity that the region is expected to achieve by 2025. In this way the liquefied gas would become a sort of ‘enabler’ of post-Covid economic recovery able to support also the African energy transition. Unfortunately, despite its abundant reserves, Sub-Saharan Africa remains a limited gas producer and has not yet fully benefited from its gas resources. The region currently has 33.8 million tons/year of LNG export capacity concentrated in four countries: Angola, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea and Nigeria.

Equinor and partners have announced a new oil&gas discovery near the giant Troll field in the North Sea. The oil company Equinor said that the reservoir is expected to contain between 44 million and 69 million barrels of oil equivalent. The size of the discovery was “well above” expectations, junior partner DNO said without elaborating. Operator Equinor has a 40 per cent stake in the license while Petoro, DNO and Wellesley Petroleum each hold 20 per cent stakes.

The Court of Milan has accepted as evidence, emails involving former Nigerian Attorney General of the Federation, Adoke Bello, and JPMorganChase bank officials in the Malabu oil deal. The court prosecutors acquired the evidence from the UK authorities where it emerged that the former AGF under former President Goodluck Jonathan sent instructions of transfer of $1.1billion paid by Eni and Shell from the email address of Mr. Aliyu Abubakar, known as “Mr. Corruption”. The Milan court denied Adoke’s claim that the email was not his. Adoke had last week issued a statement, accusing the Italian prosecutor of fabricating evidence against him. The trial is about to come to an end and a court judgment is expected by middle of March 2021.

Energy technology company Baker Hughes last week unveiled the development of an onshore composite flexible pipe that lowers the cost of ownership, reduces corrosion risks and lowers manufacturing emissions relative to traditional pipes. The next generation non – metallic products including flexible pipes for multiple sectors will be built in Houston. The pipeline is the result of the company’s strategic investment for growth in innovative non-metallic materials. According to Baker Hughes, “the flexible, lightweight reinforced thermoplastic pipe offers an economic and environmentally superior alternative to resource-intensive onshore steel pipes, for optimizing the core structure of flowline and oil and gas pipeline networks. A key feature of the pipe is its proven spoolable design, making it easier, faster and more cost-effective to transport and install versus steel pipe – reducing installed costs by more than 20%. Installation also requires fewer onsite support facilities and heavy vehicles, de-risking operations.”

The Regional Councillor for Environment and Energy, Gianni Rosa, has scheduled a meeting to be held on February 1 at 10 am in relation to “the recent and frequent episodes of flame rising of the torch of the Oil Center “Tempa Rossa”. In addition to Total Italia, representatives of Umnig, Ispra, the Fire Department of Basilicata, as well as ARPAB and the mayor of Corleto Perticara, Mario Montano were invited to the meeting. In sharing “the deepest concern and the strong apprehension expressed by the citizens”, Rosa invited the bodies responsible for monitoring and control “to a careful verification of events” and “to implement all necessary actions in order to put an end to this situation”.