Natural Gas Daily: July 24th, 2020

Equinor's Ebit Plunges 89% in Q2

Earnings before interest and tax (Ebit) at Norway's state oil company Equinor tumbled 89% year on year in the second quarter, as revenues were hurt by lower prices and government-mandated cuts to production that began in June.

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• Equinor's production averaged 2.122mn barrels of oil equivalent/day in the three months, up 1% yr/yr, as growth at the Johan Sverdrup oilfield in the North Sea and other new projects was mostly offset by declines elsewhere.

Cameron LNG Train 3 Approved for Service

The US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (Ferc) approved Cameron LNG’s request to begin commercial service of Train 3 at its 14.95mn mt/yr liquefaction and export terminal in Louisiana.

• The 5mn mt/yr train, the third at the facility, produced its first commissioning LNG in May. The first train entered service in August 2019, while the second train began commercial operations in March this year.

BP, China's Foran Energy Sign Gas Deal

BP on July 21 signed a gas supply agreement with China’s Foran Energy. The UK major will supply 300,000 metric tons/year of pipeline gas regasified from LNG for two years from January 1, 2021 in Guangdong.

• The LNG will be received and regasified at the LNG receiving terminal of Guangdong Dapeng LNG Company (GDLNG), where BP holds regasification capacity. This deal is similar to the one BP signed with ENN earlier this month.

Japan Gets First Yamal Cargo via Northern Sea Route

Russian Novatek said it has shipped the first LNG cargo from the Yamal LNG project to Japan eastbound via the Northern Sea Route.

• Yamal LNG project has three trains with a nameplate capacity of 16.5mn metric tons/year, although its actual output has exceeded this.
  

UK Centrica Sees 1H Losses Fall

UK utility Centrica reported a statutory loss of £135 ($169)mn for its first-half trading, up from 2019's £446mn loss. As it announced the sale of its North American business, it also said its other planned disposals – nuclear and its majority stake in producer Spirit Energy – would remain on hold until financial and commodity markets had improved.

• Energy Marketing & Trading reported an operating profit up 259% to £115mn, with strong performance in proprietary and LNG trading.

Golar, Norsk Hydro Sign Brazilian LNG MoU

Golar Power, a joint venture between Bermuda-registered Golar LNG and US-based Stonepeak Infrastructure Partners, said on July 23 it had signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Norsk Hydro to build northern Brazil's first LNG import terminal.

• In November last year Golar Power reached a deal with Norway's Hoegh LNG and Stolt-Nielsen on jointly developing the country's small-scale LNG market. And earlier this year it signed a protocol on constructing an import terminal at the Brazilian port of Suape.