Five fascinating business facts – Part 9

2018 and Statoil
Statoil may start drilling in Mexico’s largely unexplored deep waters as soon as late 2018 in a move seen as a vote of confidence to the country’s efforts to overhaul its oil auctions. Mexico is getting attention from explorers after it nearly doubled the oil and gas blocks available and allowed companies to nominate areas of interest, said Helge Haldorsen, Statoil general director for Mexico. The Norwegian producer may then become one of the first foreign oil companies to drill in Mexico’s deep-water provinces after winning two blocks in the Gulf of Mexico in December.
1,5000 stations
British oil and gas giant, BP which turned its back on Nigeria some years ago, says it will develop as many as 1,500 Mexican gasoline stations by 2022, deepening its commitment to become a major new player in the country’s energy revival.
The London-based giant will invest “hundreds of millions” of dollars in local service stations, and plans to buy its fuel from state-owned Petroleos Mexicanos and other clients, Alvaro Granada, general director of BP Downstream Mexico, said Thursday in Mexico City. The move comes three months after BP’s winning bid for two deepwater exploration blocks offshore Mexico in a partnership with Statoil ASA and Total SA.
1.21m bbl/day
Commodities giant, Vitol Group BV, the trader that shipped the first cargo of US crude after export restrictions ended in late 2015, predicts the country’s oil exports from the US will grow “a lot more” because of rising production in Texas. US crude shipments briefly surged to a record 1.21m bbl/day in February, up from 32,000 in 2010, when most of the country’s production couldn’t be sold overseas because of a 40-year-old ban. In the meantime, US crude imports from Iraq rose 67% to 930kbbl/day last week, highest since January, according to according to preliminary EIA data. Saudi imports on the other hand are at 1.5m bbl/day, highest since August. Import from Kuwait increased 126% to 287kbbl/day while the level for Venezuela fell 29% to 466kbbl/day. Nigeria is hardly in the US oil import picture these days.
200,000bl/day
The operator of Ghana’s sole oil refinery said the planned capacity of a proposed second plant could be doubled as the West African nation targets exports to neighboring countries. Tema Oil Refinery will complete studies next year to build a 200kbbl/day plant in the port city, 30 kilometers (19 miles) east of the capital, Accra, Managing Director Isaac Osei said in an interview. Output at the existing 45kbbl/day plant has been slashed by an explosion at its crude distillation unit in January.
1.9m barrels
UK oil and gas production will continue to grow through 2018, putting it on course for the longest expansion in almost two decades, amid project startups and productivity gains, an industry lobby said. “Production has now been rising since 2015, bucking a 15-year trend of decline, and should continue to rise
over the next two years,” Oil & Gas U.K. said in a statement. Output in the UK Continental Shelf rose to 1.73m bbl/day of oil equivalent last year and will peak at between 1.8m and 1.9m barrels in 2018, the group said.