South Africa is Africa’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, releasing an estimated 470-million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year, with coal providing the bulk of its electricity.
Geological mapping at the country’s first CCS site, where it plans to inject vast quantities of carbon dioxide deep underground, has started.
The project will link a pipeline transporting compressed carbon dioxidefrom major emitting sources, such as Secunda, directly to the identified injection site that is overlain with an “impermeable rock cap”. CGS plans to test the feasibility of injecting between 10.000 to 50.000 metric tons of carbon dioxide a year to a depth of at least 1 km. South Africa has about 150 Gt of potential storage capacity, mainly in offshore basins on the east and west coast.

Nord Stream 2 was completed last month despite years of opposition from countries including the United States, which warned that it would boost Moscow’s influence in Europe. Natural gas prices in Europe have increased more than 130% since September and are more than eight times higher than on the same month last year. According to Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak, “early completion of the certification” for Nord Stream 2 would help “cool off the current situation.” The pipeline, which runs from Russia under the Baltic Sea and into Germany, is awaiting clearance from German authorities. EU energy chief Kadri Simson said in a statement that “This price shock is an unexpected crisis at a critical juncture. The immediate priority should be to mitigate social impacts and protect vulnerable households.”

Ship’s anchor may have caused massive oil spill off the coast of Southern California. The spill originated from a pipeline running from the Port of Long Beach to an offshore oil platform known as Elly. In the days that followed, the spill has left crude along stretches of sand in Newport Beach, Laguna Beach and Huntington Beach, killing fish and birds. “The ecological and economic damage from this oil spill has the potential to reverberate for generations,” state Sen. Dave Min said in a statement. “The legislation after the Santa Barbara damage was meant to prevent this,” he said. “It really speaks to the need to get rid of these oil rigs.”. Anchored cargo ships continually move because of shifting winds and tides and an improperly set anchor weighing 10 tons (9 metric tons) or more can drag “whatever the anchor gets fouled on,” said Steven Browne, a professor of marine transportation at California State University Maritime Academy.

Chinese oil&gas giant CNOOC Limited has a huge discovery on the Kenli 10-2 oilfield in Bohai Bay (China). According to CNOOC, the main oil-bearing formation of Kenli 10-2 oilfield is in the lower member of Neogene Minghuazhen Formation and the oil properties are conventional heavy oil. The discovery well Kenli 10-2-4 was drilled and completed at a depth of nearly 5,000 feet. The appraisal well was tested to produce approximately 569 barrels of oil per day. “The successful discovery of the Kenli 10-2 oil field marked the breakthrough in the discovery of lithological oilfield with reserve of 100 million tons in the shallow depression zone of the Bohai oilfields, demonstrated the broad prospects for exploration of lithological structures in the Bohai, and has great significance as a guide for exploration in similar basins,” General Manager of Exploration Department of CNOOC Xu Changgui said.

Energy group Saipem has signed an agreement with Saudi Aramco to examine setting up a company to do engineering, procurement and construction work in Saudi Arabia. The project is part of the Saudi Aramco’s industrial investment program (Namaat Aramco) for the economic growth and diversification in the country. The Program includes 22 memoranda of understanding in sectors such as energy and the chemicals supply chain with a series of companies including: Solvay (development of advanced non-metallic materials and the localization of the complex value chain), DHL Supply Chain Company (to assess the feasibility of setting up an industrial supply and logistics center serving the Kingdom and the Middle East), Veolia (to ascertain the commercial viability of creating a worldclass integrated waste management company, along with a strategic entity in the Kingdom), Air Liquide, Halliburton and the Public Investment Fund, Baker Hughes and the Public Investment Fund, Lind and Schlumberger and the Public Investment Fund – 3 separate, non-binding MOUs to evaluate CCS opportunities and potential partnerships. In a statement on Tuesday Saipem said any new company, set up with local partners, would work in energy and infrastructure with the aim of creating an “EPC national champion”.

Australia plans to spend approximately $3.7 billion on offshore gas exploration over the next six years. according to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), this should be enough to develop 2.5GW of renewables capacity and generate about 5,000 new jobs. The IEEFA report, which was released couple of days ago, shows how “the Australian government has given the green light to oil and gas giants” to spend vast sums of money on “risky offshore exploration activities despite industry-low success rates and the global energy transition”. Milad Mousavian of IEEFA, said the Australian government has ignored warnings by the International Energy Agency that no new oil and gas projects should go-ahead in order to reach net zero by 2050. Australia surpassed Qatar as the largest LNG exporter in the world in 2019, exporting 77.5 million tonnes with around 70% supplied by offshore gas.

Royal Dutch Shell has sold its oil and gas business in the country’s largest oilfield Permian Basin to Texas based company ConocoPhillips for $9.5 billion. It’s about a major move for Shell, which produces more than 175,000 barrels of oil per day in the above mentioned area, as it faces pressure to reduce its oil and gas production and produce more clean energy in response to concerns from investors and the public about climate change. This deal makes ConocoPhillips a top Permian producer alongside Chevron, Exxon Mobil and Pioneer Natural Resources, which bought DoublePoint Energy for $6.4 billion earlier this year.

ExxonMobil has announced a discovery at Pinktail in the Stabroek Block offshore Guyana, as it develops a major new oil and gas find. The oil&gas company operates the 6.6-million-acre Stabroek Block as part of a consortium that includes Hess Corp. and China’s CNOOC Ltd. It has made at least 20 discoveries there. According to Exxon, the discovery would add to the previous recoverable resource estimate of more than 9 billion barrels of oil and gas, without specifying the size of reserves in its latest discovery. Exxon expects to submit a development plan for its fourth Guyana project, Yellowtail, later this year.

Los Angeles County supervisors on Wednesday voted to ban drilling in unincorporated areas and to end oil&gas drilling. There are currently 1,046 active wells, 637 idle wells, and 2,731 abandoned wells in unincorporated areas of the nation’s most populous county. The Board also voted to create a program to ensure that wells are properly closed and cleaned up, and to expand the county’s task force focused on a just transition for fossil fuel workers and communities. Among the sites is the Inglewood Oil Field, one of the largest U.S. urban oil fields. Inglewood Oil Field is adjacent to several communities, including Baldwin Hills, Ladera Heights and View Park, where residents have worried about the field’s impact on their health and the local environment for at least a decade. Residents have complained of foul odors from the wells and say they have seen oil bubbling through sidewalk cracks in their neighbourhoods.

Fitch Agency’s natural resources and raw materials expert Dmitry Marinchenko in Sputnik said that this is due to scarce reserves in underground gas storage facilities following the cold winter of last year and the hot summer. European deposits now count for 10-15 billion cubic meters of gas less than they would need to cope with the winter season at best. This is compounded, according to indirect signals, by Gazprom’s reluctance to significantly increase gas traffic in storage or to increase sales on the spot market on the eve of the commissioning of Nord Stream 2,” added Marinchenko.
Last year prices were at their lowest and are now at their highest. It is wrong to expect them to remain at the current record levels. Prices have already reached record levels and further growth cannot be excluded, but this level is unlikely to be stable in terms of demand. Moreover, these high prices could have a negative impact on the recovery of the global economy.