James Cockayne

1 week ago | mees.com | James Cockayne

18 Apr 2025 Issue: 68 / 16 By: James Cockayne China imported 12.15mn b/d of crude oil in March, the highest monthly figure since August 2023, and a sharp rebound from an average of just 10.4mn b/d for January and February (MEES, 21 March). Refinery runs of 14.89mn b/d were the highest in a year and the fourth highest on record, with Q1 average runs of 14.82mn b/d second only to the all-time high of 14.95mn b/d hit in Q3 last year.

1 week ago | mees.com | James Cockayne |Nada A. Ahmed

Eni CEO Claudio Descalzi last week pledged that his company will invest “more than €8bn [$9.1bn]” in each of its three key North Africa areas of operations over the next four years. A pledge that means that the region, which provided 35% of the Italian firm’s global output for 2024 (598,000 boe/d of 1.71mn boe/d), is likely to strengthen its position further.

1 week ago | mees.com | James Cockayne

Mauritania has joined the ranks of the world’s LNG exporters with operator BP on 17 April announcing the completion of loading of the first export cargo from the 2.45mn t/y Tortue project on the Mauritania/Senegal maritime border. As of MEES press time the destination for the 174,000m3 (78,000 ton) cargo remained unclear with BP’s British Sponsor LNG carrier remaining in the vicinity of the project’s 2.7mn t/y capacity Gimi FLNG.

3 weeks ago | mees.com | James Cockayne

Shell in its 2024 annual report released last week reveals that it has quit what had been Mauritania’s last two active exploration blocks, C-2 and C-10. This follows last year’s drilling flop at the PannaCotta-1 wildcat on block C-10 – where QatarEnergy partnered the London-based major (MEES, 17 November). Back when Shell entered in 2018, offshore Mauritania was an exploration hotspot: ExxonMobil and Total had entered the previous year (MEES, 27 July).

4 weeks ago | mees.com | James Cockayne

28 Mar 2025 Issue: 68 / 13 By: James Cockayne France's Qair International and Norway’s Scatec on 24 March signed 25-year power purchase agreements with Tunisian state utility STEG for almost 400MW of solar PV capacity that was initially awarded at the end of December (see table & MEES, 3 January).