Beach Energy has taken a 20% interest in an exploration permit at the offshore Otway basin in Tasmanian waters

Beach Energy  has executed a binding sale and purchase agreement (“SPA”) for the purchase of a 20% interest in the T/49P offshore exploration permit in the  Otway Basin from 3D Oil.

In addition to this, Beach and 3D Oil have established a new joint venture by executing a joint operating agreement (“JOA”). Under the terms of the SPA, Beach will pay 3D Oil $3 million in cash with 3D Oil to remain as operator under the JOA. It is anticipated that the joint venture will commence a 755 sq km seismic acquisition program within the next twelve months, with timing subject to regulatory approvals. This work is the major commitment required to be undertaken in the initial exploration phase of the permit, with the Transaction subject to the usual government and regulatory approvals.

The T/49P permit, located approximately 20 km to the west of King Island, is 4,960 sq km in size with water depths of around 100 m. Adjacent to the permit are the Geographe and Thylacine gas fields, of which Thylacine is the largest field discovered in the Otway Basin to date.

The Transaction builds on Beach’s current position in the onshore Otway Basin, which services both South Australia and Victoria in terms of gas supply.

In relation to Beach’s onshore activity, the second well of a two well exploration program on the South Australian side of the onshore Otway Basin, Bungaloo-1, recently reached total depth. Initial observations from Bungaloo-1, and the first well in the program, Jolly-1, indicate good exploration potential for gas and liquids in both shallow conventional structural traps as well as deeper targets within these wells. Follow up analysis is being undertaken to confirm these initial observations, with a priority focus on the conventional potential within the permits operated by Beach.

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Carrizo Oil & Gas provides operational updates on Niobrara, Utica activities

Carrizo Oil & Gas reported an operational update, which includes initial test results from its Niobrara A bench wells. Testing flowed at an average peak 24-hr rate of 1,127 boed, including one well which tested at 1,633 boed.

Carrizo recently began production from its first multiple geological bench downspacing pilot in the Niobrara formation. The pilot consisted of eight wells in the company' s Bringelson Ranch area in Weld County. The pilot tested both B-A-B and B-B-B lateral orientations, spaced 300 ft apart, equating to 40 acre spacing. The wells were drilled with an average effective lateral of approximately 4,000 ft and completed with an average of 14 frac stages.

The average peak rate from the eight wells was 1,021 boed, 89% oil. This compares to the company’s current Area 1 type curve, which assumes an average IP rate of approximately 800 boed, 80% oil. The five B bench wells had a peak rate of 957 boed, 89% oil, while the three A bench wells had a peak rate of 1,127 boed, 88% oil. One of the A bench wells, the Bringelson Ranch 6-20, had a peak 24-hr flowrate of 1,633 boed, 87% oil, the strongest peak rate to date from the company' s Niobrara program. Carrizo operates the Bringelson Ranch wells with an approximate 29% working interest.

The company is currently drilling its second 40-acre B-A-B downspacing pilot in its Hemberger area in Weld County. Current plans call for the pilot to include three wells in the B bench and two wells in the A bench, with the laterals spaced approximately 300 ft apart. Carrizo operates the Hemberger wells with an approximate 26% working interest.

The spudder rig has arrived on the location of Carrizo' s second Utica shale well, the Brown 1H in Guernsey County, Ohio, and drilling is expected to begin shortly. The company currently plans to drill the top hole with the spudder rig and bring in a larger rig to drill the horizontal section in July. The company plans to drill the well with an effective lateral of 6,280 ft and complete it with 26 frac stages. Carrizo operates the Brown 1H well with a 50% working interest. Carrizo currently plans to keep both the spudder and larger rig active for the remainder of the year.

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Scotland may hold billions of barrels of shale oil, report says

Scotland may have billions of barrels of shale oil buried under the country’s most densely populated areas, geologists said June 30.

Scotland’s central belt, running between Glasgow and Edinburgh, may have 6 billion barrels of oil in place, according to a report by the British Geological Survey. While only a fraction of the resource will end up being viable, the deposits could supplement the UK’s 3 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, held mostly in North Sea fields off Scotland’s coast.

The oil and gas industry is central to the debate on Scotland’s independence before a referendum in September. The Scottish government says existing fields in the North Sea will underpin the economy of an independent nation, while opponents say declining production from offshore reserves leaves the country vulnerable.

“This report will give reassurance to investors who wish to explore for oil and gas onshore in Scotland,” said Ken Cronin, CEO of the UK Onshore Operators Group, an industry lobby. The resources “can help replace the UK’s growing dependency on imports and balance the decline of the North Sea.”

Bowland shale

Scotland’s shale gas potential is a fraction of northwest England, the report showed. Scotland’s central belt has shale gas in place of 80.3 Tcf, according to the middle estimate in the report. That compares with 1,300 Tcf in the Bowland shale in northwest England, according to research published by the British Geological Survey last year.

Exploiting the UK’s shale resources has been opposed by environmental campaigners and property owners concerned drilling techniques, including hydraulic fracturing, risk polluting water supplies. Britain’s greater population density will likely make production more difficult than in the U.S, where a shale boom has reversed declining oil and gas output.

The UK government is offering tax breaks to shale drillers to spur development of the resource as North Sea reserves dwindle. The Bowland basin in northern England may supply local natural gas demand for half a century at extraction rates of 10% similar to U.S. fields, according to a report last year.

“Only the broad shoulders of the UK can attract investment in new energy sources and maintain the UK’s position as one of the world’s great energy hubs,” said UK Energy Minister Michael Fallon.

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Oil supply expected to grow faster than demand, says consultancy

The IEA, on June 17, released its Medium-Term Oil Market Report. Rystad Energy, an independent oil and gas consulting group, has compared the revised IEA demand outlook with its own supply estimates derived from its global upstream database, UCube. The estimates are based on Rystad’s bottom-up analysis of 30,000 fields and 2,500 oil companies in 150 countries.

Analysis shows that oil markets have gradually been tightening over the last two years, while the outlook indicates a possible inflection point in early 2015 and an increasing downward pressure on oil prices for the coming two to three years.

The recent geopolitical outages of oil production from the Middle East and North Africa have, until now, been perfectly balanced by the increased supply of unconventional tight oil from the U.S. This predicted easing of the oil markets is partly driven by an assumption of gradual return over the next two years of oil from Libya, Iran, Iraq and Sudan, while U.S. drillers are continuing their activities with unchanged intensity and increased efficiency.

Rystad Energy now forecasts North American tight liquids production to pass 10 million bbl before 2020, making the region a net exporter of seaborne crude and petroleum products within three years.

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Exxon, BP Evacuate Iraq workers amid limited oil drilling impact

Exxon Mobil and BP began removing employees in Iraq as militants continued a push toward Baghdad and a battle raged for control of the nation’s largest oil refinery.

The evacuations come amid government and company assertions that Iraq’s output of almost 3 MMbpd should remain unaffected by escalating sectarian tensions. Exxon has removed some workers from the West Qurna oil field as operations continue, according to a person familiar with the company’s Iraq operations. BP has removed non-essential workers, CEO Bob Dudley said.

While violence is sweeping northern Iraq, the conflict so far spared Iraq’s crude production in the south and the Kirkuk oilfield in the north is being defended by Kurds.

“The only infrastructure that is currently producing and supplying international markets is in the south and will remain untouched,” said Kyle Stelma, managing director of Dunia Frontier Consultants, which researches Iraq for clients.

Fighters from ISIL battled government forces for control of the Baiji refinery in northern Iraq today, a day after clashes in Baquba, 55 km northeast of the capital. A military spokesman said elite Iraqi forces were defending the Baiji refinery, but the comments contradicted local police who said militants had captured the facility.

A fuel tank at the refinery caught fire after shelling by militants, according to the Salahuddin provincial police command. The refinery halted operations because its storage tanks were full, according to Iraq’s Oil Ministry.

The market impact of the clashing continued to be muted, with Brent crude little changed at $114.23 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange New York.

Companies such as Chevron, Total and Marathon Oil, which are drilling in the Kurdistan region, are continuing to operate. Marathon hasn’t evacuated employees, spokeswoman Lee Warren said. Chevron’s operations continue “as normal,” spokesman Kurt Glaubitz said. Oryx Petroleum reported successful testing and a ramp up in drilling activity in Kurdistan.

The rapid battlefield success of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL, a Sunni Muslim al-Qaeda breakaway group also embroiled in battles in neighboring Syria, threatens to re-ignite a sectarian civil war in Iraq. It also risks escalating into a wider conflict that draws in the United States and Iran in defense of PM Nouri al-Maliki’s Shiite-led government three years after the withdrawal of United States forces. Iraq is the largest oil producer in OPEC after Saudi Arabia.

BP CEO Bob Dudley said the violence, which he called “terrible” and said would have “far-reaching, wide-ranging implications” for the region, isn’t likely to spread all the way to the country’s southern oil fields.

“The implications for oil production at the moment appear limited,” he told reporters yesterday in Moscow. “We are of course very vigilant.”

Anti-terrorism forces killed a Saudi fighter identified as Abu Yamama al-Dossary during the “failed attack” on the Baiji refinery. A fuel tank at the plant caught fire during the clashes. The refinery has halted operations since June 15, the police said. Baiji has about 40% of Iraq’s refining capacity, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

“Iraq will have to increase the import of oil products to make up for the loss of Baiji’s production,” Robin Mills, the head of consulting at Manaar Energy Consulting and Project Management, said “Baiji mainly supplies the north, but also Baghdad.”

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Keystone win easier with Canada carbon limits, Trudeau says

Justin Trudeau says he would bolster Canada’s case for approval of the Keystone XL pipeline by introducing financial incentives to curb greenhouse-gas emissions in the oil and gas industry.

Canada should establish a price for carbon emissions to show it’s addressing climate change and to give President Barack Obama political “cover” to approve TransCanada Corp.’s $5.4 billion project, Trudeau, leader of Canada’s Liberal Party said yesterday, June 25, in an interview in Fort McMurray, Alberta. He said he was “agnostic” about how the price should be set.

“The way to promote Keystone XL is not to be shouting, ‘You need to approve this.’ It’s to actually get our own house in order and demonstrate we’re serious about the responsibilities that come with carbon emissions,” said Trudeau. “That’s why it’s become politically untenable to approve something that should have been approved years ago.”

Trudeau’s call to action contrasts with Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s position that he won’t regulate oil and gas emissions without similar U.S. measures because it would put Canadian producers at a competitive disadvantage. Harper and his ministers have continued to press for Keystone in speeches and meetings with U.S. officials.

The State Department said in April it would again delay a decision on Calgary-based TransCanada’s conduit in order to give parties more time to comment. That further stalled a project first proposed in 2008 and originally intended to come online in 2012. Obama has said he won’t approve the pipeline if it significantly adds to carbon emissions linked to global warming.

Crude Discount

Canada has the world’s third-largest crude reserves, much of it in the oil sands near Fort McMurray. The area’s heavy crude has traded at an average of $18.70 per barrel below the U.S. benchmark over the last five years due in part to transportation bottlenecks. The discount costs Canada’s economy as much as C$50 million a day, according to the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. Keystone XL would carry 830,000 bopd from the oil sands to Gulf Coast refineries.

Natural Resources Minister Greg Rickford said he’ll continue working with U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz to “enhance cooperation on energy and the economy.” Canada won’t “take actions unilaterally that would put Canadian jobs and the economy at a disadvantage,” Rickford said in an emailed statement today, June 26, in response to Trudeau’s comments.

Rickford, Finance Minister Joe Oliver and Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird all traveled to New York this month, arguing in media interviews and at an energy conference that Obama has unfairly entangled the $5.4 billion pipeline with U.S. politics.

‘Worse Relationship’

“It’s not moving forward,” Trudeau said of the pipeline. “We’ve never had a worse relationship with the United States, because perhaps our entire continental relationship has been reduced to not just one industry or one company but one single project.”

Trudeau, son of former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, cited moves by Obama this month to cut emissions from U.S. power plants, that country’s largest source of greenhouse gases.

Harper said June 9 that the U.S. moves don’t go as far as Canada’s regulations in the power-generation sector. He said Canada would deal with climate change in a way that protects Canadian jobs, not destroys them.

Trudeau, 42, said his Liberals would spell out in an election platform how they would go about putting a price on carbon. Former Liberal leader Stephane Dion lost the 2008 election after proposing a carbon tax that was vilified by the Conservatives.

Leading Polls

The Liberals have held a consistent lead in public opinion polls since Trudeau became leader in April last year. While the next general election is scheduled for October, 2015, there are partial elections scheduled June 30 to fill four vacancies, including the district containing Fort McMurray.

“The Liberal Party is somewhat agnostic,” Trudeau said. “We recognize the fact that the discussion around carbon pricing has been incredibly polarized politically.”

Harper’s Conservative-Party government has been regulating greenhouse-gas emissions on an industry-by-industry basis. The main opposition New Democratic Party has proposed a cap-and-trade system, which Conservative lawmakers have labeled a “tax on everything.”

At the provincial level, Alberta requires companies that emit more than 100,000 metric tons of greenhouse gases a year to cut emissions per barrel by 12% percent or pay a penalty of C$15 per ton. The proceeds of the levy are paid into a fund that invests in technologies that cut carbon output.

Carbon Tax

British Columbia established a carbon tax in 2008, which is imposed on fossil-fuel consumers and designed to encourage use of alternative fuels.

Whatever form the carbon price takes, businesses need clarity, Trudeau said. Companies “want to know where the benchmarks will be, what the expectations will be, for the next 10 years, for the next 25 years.”

“That kind of clarity will allow industry to make a business model, invest in capital upgrades they need to justify to their shareholders,” he said. “That kind of clarity is exactly what this government hasn’t given.”

While Trudeau has joined Harper in supporting Keystone XL, he reiterated his intention to kill another proposed pipeline: Enbridge Inc.’s Northern Gateway, which was approved by Harper’s cabinet earlier this month.

Trudeau said the project, which would cross the mountains of British Columbia and bring oil sands crude to the Pacific Coast for export by tanker, never had local support and was “doomed” from the beginning.

“There are a lot of tools at a prime minister’s and a government’s disposal,” Trudeau said when asked how he’d stop Northern Gateway. “We’ll use the most appropriate one that has the lowest impact and cost for Canadians.”

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