Exploration ///
Biden's move would block the sale of new mining and drilling rights across some 700 million acres of federal land. It could also block offshore oil and gas leasing, though details are still being developed.
“You can write a lot of executive orders, but an executive order doesn’t get you past go,” Interior Secretary David Bernhardt said on his last full day leading the Interior Department. “They still have to run through the gauntlet of the law.”
The discovery was achieved at the SEMZ-11X well located 10 kilometers west of Zarif field, the nearest producing field. The well was drilled to a total depth of 5,700 feet and encountered 65 feet of oil pay in the Cretaceous sandstones of the Bahariya and Abu Roash G formations.
“This year’s award of 61 new production licenses to as many as 30 companies shows that the petroleum industry still has significant expectations of making profitable discoveries on the Norwegian Shelf,” said Kalmar Ildstad, director of license management in the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate.
China National Offshore Oil Corp. has for years drilled in waters far from its borders, and within 200 miles of countries including Vietnam and the Philippines. The activity amounts to the oil giant acting like a “bully” for China’s military to intimidate its neighbors, U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said in a statement announcing the move, which restricts access to U.S. technologies without specific permission.
The CAN 100 block comprises an area of 15,000 km² and is the largest block in the North Argentinian Basin.
The announcement comes just weeks after the European Union pledged to expand the number of Turkish officials sanctioned over the country’s energy exploration in the disputed waters of the eastern Mediterranean Sea.
Amid low crude prices, fears about a backlash from the public and the prospect of regulatory uncertainty, just two oil companies placed bids on leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge’s coastal plain: Knik Arm Services LLC and Regenerate Alaska Inc.
The Bureau of Land Management was set to begin opening sealed bids for 10-year leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge’s coastal plain Wednesday afternoon, less than a day after a federal judge rejected environmental groups’ pleas to halt the auction.
The decision is a victory for the administration, which has been racing to issue oil leases in the refuge’s coastal plain before the Jan. 20 inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden.
Despite the claims of the sensationalist, fake-news media, the environment in America is getting better, not worse, writes Texas Railroad Commission Chairman Wayne Christian.
A Rosneft spokesman said that the deal was “a logical extension” of its cooperation with Trafigura and would give the trading house “long-term access to high quality hydrocarbons to be produced with a low-carbon footprint that can be shipped both to the west and east.”
The BLM New Mexico State Office will be offering 37 parcels covering 6,850.72 acres, while , the Texas General Land Office will offer 66 tracts covering 22,500.607 net mineral acres in 16 different counties in January.
This deal, plus more to be announced, target drilling 23 wells in nine regions in the Mediterranean and three regions in the Red Sea, with a minimum total investment seen at $1.4 billion.
The completion of the South Texas Gateway dock enables Buckeye to accommodate the berthing and loading of two vessels simultaneously, further facilitating the supply of North American crude oil to global markets.
World Oil editors discuss The North Face doubling down on its principled stand against well-paying American jobs, Russia wants to see OPEC+ production rise in February, and U.S. land regulators shrink Alaskan oil lease acreage.
The Nordic government beat back a lawsuit by environmental groups in the country’s Supreme Court, which ruled on Tuesday the authorities had acted lawfully by awarding exploration licenses in the Barents Sea to companies including Equinor ASA, Aker BP ASA and Lundin Petroleum AB.
On Dec. 14th, the groups filed requests with an Anchorage judge for a preliminary injunction to prevent the Interior Department’s planned Jan. 6 auction of oil and gas leases across the refuge’s 1.56-million-acre coastal plain.
The proposal under development is set to outline potential sales of long-plumbed territory in the Gulf of Mexico, as well as waters around Alaska and near Southern California, where exploratory oil drilling was last conducted decades ago. Atlantic waters near the coasts of Maryland and Delaware are also included in the proposed sale program.
Government-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. picked Occidental to explore for oil and natural gas at a block in the desert along the UAE’s border with Oman, ADNOC said Wednesday in a statement. The block is adjacent to an exploration area that ADNOC awarded to Occidental last year.