CHUNYIP WONG
European energy majors Shell (NYSE:SHEL), BP (BP) and TotalEnergies (TTE), as well as Japan’s Mitsui (OTCPK:MITSF) (OTCPK:MITSY), have agreed to buy a 10% stake each in Abu Dhabi National Oil Co.’s Ruwais liquefied natural gas plant, Bloomberg reported Friday.
The United Arab Emirates currently has just 5.8M tons of LNG export capacity, the smallest among Persian Gulf producers, but the 9.6M metric tons/year Ruwais plant would boost its capacity to the second largest in the Middle East behind only Qatar.
Adnoc decided to proceed with the Ruwais project and signed a $5.5B contract for its construction before securing investments from the four companies, according to the report; three of the companies – BP (BP), TotalEnergies (TTE) and Mitsui (OTCPK:MITSF) (OTCPK:MITSY) – also are partners in the UAE’s only existing LNG export plant.
Shell (SHEL) shares are little changed on Friday after saying it expects as much as $2B of impairments in Q2 earnings related to a delayed biofuels plant under construction in the Netherlands and its chemicals facility in Singapore.
Shell’s (SHEL) update has something for both bulls and bears, RBC Capital’s Biraj Borkhataria says.
On core operations, “liquefied natural gas volumes were as expected, while upstream production was stronger than previously guided, and oil trading surprised to the upside,” the analyst said, while on the flip side, Shell (SHEL) provided a weaker than expected outlook for its renewable and energy solutions unit, higher corporate costs and a neutral result from the chemicals division.