WTI (Sep) $67.33 -$1.93, Brent (Oct) $69.67 -$2.03, Diff -$2.34 -10c
USNG (Sep) $3.08 -3c, UKNG (Sep) 83.6p -2.85p, TTF (Sep) €33.82 -€1.235

Oil price

Oil is down by around a dollar today adding to Friday’s fall and offsetting last week’s rise. The market, whilst anticipating the move from Opec+ has retreated and with uncertainty about the Russian sanctions and India still buying Russian crude so we wait. 

The Non farm payroll was worse than expected on Friday, at +73/- against the whisper of +110/-  and a downward revision of some 258/- from May and June might a rate cut be possible at the next Fed meeting. Finally the Baker Hughes rig count provided yet more gloom for the industry with the overall count of 540 being down 2 but oil was worse, down 5 to 410. This is a multi-year low and below the maintenance level  and showing annualised production declines, definitely not drill baby drill….

Europa Oil & Gas

Europa has announced that its associated company, Antler Global Limited (“Antler”), has entered into detailed commercial discussions and has signed a non-binding Heads of Terms with a major energy company to farm-out an interest in the EG-08 production sharing contract (“PSC”) in offshore Equatorial Guinea. Europa has a 42.9% equity interest in Antler which in turn holds an 80% working interest in the EG-08 PSC, with the remaining 20% held by GEPetrol (Guinea Equatorial de Petróleos), the national oil company of Equatorial Guinea, representing the State’s interest.

There is no guarantee that these commercial discussions will lead to a legally binding agreement(s) relating to the farm-out and any agreement(s) would be subject to approval from the Minister for Energy of Equatorial Guinea.

Europa will provide further updates on the progress of the commercial discussions in due course.

As announced on the 22 July 2024, the EG-08 block contains 2.116 TCF (Pmean), with the primary prospect being Barracuda which is estimated to be 798 BCF (Pmean).

William Holland, Chief Executive Officer of Europa, said:
“The signing of these heads of terms is a very positive step forward and comes after an extensive period of negotiations with what we believe is an excellent partner. Although there are no guarantees, I am confident that we will progress to signing a farm out agreement in the coming months and will then move to drilling the Barracuda well as soon as possible thereafter. I look forward to updating the market of our progress in due course.”

Congratulations to Will Holland and team for moving one tentative step to a farm-out of the highly prospective EG-08 block offshore Equatorial Guinea. There is a great deal of work to be done and it is still early doors as they say but this should be very encouraging for EOG shareholders.

Original article   l   KeyFacts Energy Industry Directory: Malcy's Blog