New base energy news issue 837 dated 25 april 2016

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NewBase Energy News 25 April 2016 - Issue No. 837 Edited & Produced by: Khaled Al Awadi
NewBase For discussion or further details on the news below you may contact us on +971504822502, Dubai, UAE
Solar Impulse 2 lands in California after three-day flight
The National - Emmanuel Samoglou
Solar Impulse 2 landed on Sunday in Mountain View, California, successfully completing the ninth
leg of its journey round the world using only the power of the sun. The Masdar-sponsored aircraft,
piloted by Swiss adventurer Bertrand Piccard, left Oahu’s Kalaeloa airport in Hawaii on Thursday
evening and landed at Moffett Airfield at 10.45am UAE time.
“For the project, it’s the continuation of the round-the-world flight, it’s one of the three or four big
legs, and we have two behind us, two in front, and it means we’re moving,” said Mr Piccard after
touching down.
“It is more than an airplane, it is a concentration of clean technologies, a genuine flying laboratory,
and illustrates that solutions exist today to meet the major challenges facing our society,” he said.
He also congratulated the team, saying: “Back on the ground with #Si2! Thank you #Monaco
mission control centre, I couldn’t have done it without you”.

Before resuming its journey last week, Solar Impulse 2 had been grounded for nine months in
Hawaii after suffering damage to its batteries during the previous leg of its odyssey.
The 4,523-kilometre trans-Pacific leg of the journey took just over 62 hours, and was described as
the riskiest part of the plane’s global travels owing to the lack of emergency landing sites.
Among the highlights, on Friday, mid-flight and on the occasion of Earth Day, Mr Picard had a
chance to speak with UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon and 175 heads of state, directly from the
plane’s cockpit during a video conference with the United Nations in New York.
“I’m glad that you made it here,” said Google co-founder Sergey Brin, who greeted Piccard after
he emerged from the cockpit. “It was a beautiful landing and we were right there watching.”
“So happy you could do this flight @bertrandpiccard, it demonstrates that your #futureisclean
vision was right!”, tweeted Andre Borschberg, the co-pilot for the mission and co-founder of Solar
Impulse, who was also there for the landing.
“This flight was a huge step in the adventure and Bertrand Piccard accomplished it like a
professional pilot,” he said later.
Emirati Hasan Al Redaini is in
Mountain View and is working
with the Solar Impulse team as
the plane continues its journey.
Solar Impulse officials said the
flight broke several world
records, including distance,
speed, duration and altitude in
the electric aircraft category, and
altitude in the solar aircraft
category.
The plane now waits to begin the
10th leg of its journey, on which
either Piccard or Borschberg will
fly about 2,000km to a yet-to-be-named destination in the mid-US. It is then expected to head to
New York before crossing the Atlantic Ocean and arriving in Europe.
The mission began its journey in Abu Dhabi last March and is aiming to complete its solar-
powered circumnavigation of the Earth this summer.

PDO Enhanced Oil Recovery pares share of tertiary oil to 25 %
Oman Observer - Conrad Prabhu
Petroleum Development Oman (PDO) says the contribution of its Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR)
projects has been scaled down from around one-third of the company’s total crude production to
25 per cent — a revision it linked to the current downturn brought on by the slump in international
oil prices.
The majority government-owned oil and gas company, however, stressed that the revised target
will not impact its overall strategy to accelerate production to a sustainable plateau of 600,000
barrels per day (bpd) by 2019. PDO has invested several billions of dollars in an array of EOR
projects that have become increasingly pivotal to its long-term vision to sustain crude output.
But fiscal constraints, which include a $1.6 billion cut in its investment plan for 2016, have
necessitated a comprehensive review of its capex and opex budgets, it said.
Announcing the revised EOR targets in its ‘Sustainability Report 2015’, the company said:
“Despite the economic challenges, PDO remained committed to staying the course on all major
enhanced oil recovery (EOR) projects.
However, because of the resource-intensive nature of the recovery mechanism, there has been a
rigorous review of the commercial and technical viability of some EOR activities. This reappraisal
means EOR is now expected to account for more than 25 per cent of production by 2025, as
opposed to 33 per cent by 2023.”
PDO is currently implementing a number of commercial-scale EOR projects involving the use of
steam, chemicals, and miscible gas injection to produce liquids from essentially challenging
reservoirs — processes that are both technological and capital intensive. The company is also
exploring a slew of novel EOR technologies that it hopes to deploy in harnessing the hydrocarbon
potential of unconventional fields elsewhere around its Block 6 license.
A number of EOR schemes have already begun making increasingly sizable volumes to the
company’s crude output, while others schemes continue to make headway in their development.
Notable is the Marmul polymer project, which has delivered in excess of 10.3 million barrels of oil
since it was brought into operation nearly five years ago.

The start-up of Phase 2 — which
added 19 polymer injectors to the
existing 27 — was brought on
stream, with increased production
expected this year, and Phase 3
set to complete its final concept
selection, the company said.
Likewise, the execution of the
alkaline-surfactant-polymer
flooding trial in Marmul, a
technology that can further
improve oil recovery, is
progressing well, the report said.
At Qarn Alam, the company has
employed thermal-gas-oil-gravity-
drainage (T-GOGD) technology to
produce crude from the Shuaiba
oil-bearing formation. Output from
the field totalled around 5.6 million
barrels of oil in 2015, resulting in a
steam-to-oil ratio of approximately
3:1.
Similarly, the Harweel 2AB
miscible gas injection (MGI)
project, launched in April 2014 at a
constrained rate of up to 1.7 million cubic metres / day, has been ramped up to a full capacity
injection rate of 5 million m3/day since January 2015. A clear response to the MGI process has
now been established in terms of incremental oil rates and target pressures, PDO said.

India's ONGC Has Massive Shale Exploration Plans
PT + ONGC + NewBase
Indian state owned energy major ONGC has plans to go in for substantial shale oil and gas
exploration program.
The company is looking to drill as many as 17 wells in both east and west coasts, news agency
Press Trust of India reported Sunday citing minutes of a recent meeting of the Expert Appraisal
Committee (EAC) of Ministry of Environment and Forests.
ONGC has sought the ministry's nod to prepare Terms of Reference for exploring the wells. This
would be first time the company would take up shale exploration at such a massive scale. Also, it
first time that it has taken up shale gas exploration in the Krishna-Godavari basin, Press Trust
reported.
According to the minutes, ONGC sought permission for drilling 11 exploratory wells for shale
oil/shale gas in Cambay basin at Mehsana, Ahmedabad and Bharuch districts of western Indian
state of Gujarat, one well in Cauvery basin at Nagapattinam in the southern state of Tamil Nadu
and five wells in KG Basin at East and West Godavari districts of Andhra Pradesh, a state situated
on India's east coast.
According to a report released in 2013 by US Energy Information Agency, India has 63 trillion
cubic feet of shale gas reserves.

US: Reliance Industries' US Shale Business Takes a Knock
Reliance Industries’ US shale gas business suffered in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2016 (Apr 2015-
Mar 2016) that ended on March 31 due to low oil and gas prices.
Reliance said in its annual results that WTI averaged 21 percent lower sequentially at $33.45/bbl
and Henry Hub Gas averaged 8 percent lower sequentially at $2.09/Mmbtu in the fourth quarter.
For the full year, WTI averaged lower by 44
percent on year at $45/bbl while HH Gas
was lower by 38 percent at $2.44/MMbtu.
The low price environment was effectively
managed through reduction in activity levels,
rationalization of capital expenditure and
lowering of costs, the company said, adding
that focus was on liquidating existing well
inventory to bring more wells online and
delivering wells at much lower well costs.
Consequently, capex for the quarter was
sequentially 31 percent lower at $113 million, and reflected a fall of 53 percent year-on-year.
During the fiscal, aggregate capex was at $781 million, lower by 32 percent on year. During the
year, 129 wells were drilled and 190 wells were put on production – lower by 10 percent compared
with the year before. Total producing well count stood at 1,055 in March 2016, compared with 865
wells in the same period last year.
Production grew by 3 percent to 205 Bcfe in fiscal 2016. Despite slightly higher volumes, overall
revenue was substantially lower and reflected the impact of 47 percent year-on-year fall in unit
realization in the year. Average gross production was at 1,252 Mcfe/d in fourth quarter, up 2
percent on year. Production dropped 7 percent sequentially to 50.6 Bcfe in the final quarter of the
fiscal.
Net sales volume (Reliance share) stood at 6 percent lower sequentially at 42.9 Bcfe in fourth
quarter. Lower volumes, coupled with sharply lower realization, resulted in overall revenues being
sequentially lower by 26 percent.
Year-end well costs were 24-25 percent below average 2014 cost levels.
Cash conservation
As business environment continues to remain challenging Reliance is focused on lowering activity
levels to conserve cash while retaining optionality and preparedness for ramp-up, when prices
improve.
“Challenged market outlook does curtail near-term growth, but long term outlook for the business
remains promising,” Reliance said.
Reliance has three shale JVs in US. Besides Eagle Ford JV with Pioneer, RIL has a 40 per cent
stake in Chevron’s Marcellus shale acreage and a 60 per cent interest in Carrizo Oil and Gas Inc’s
Marcellus shale acreage in Central and Northeast Pennsylvania.

NewBase 25 April 2016 Khaled Al Awadi
NewBase For discussion or further details on the news below you may contact us on +971504822502 , Dubai , UAE
Oil falls as traders cash in after three weeks of gains
Reuters + NewBase
Oil prices fell over 1 percent on Monday as traders took profits after three weeks of gains and as a
jump in the dollar late last week was priced into fuel markets.
Front-month Brent crude was trading at $44.61 per barrel at 0332 GMT, down 50 cents, or 1.1
percent, from their last settlement. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures were down 62
cents, or 1.4 percent, at $43.11 a barrel.
Analysts said the price drops were a result of cashing in after three weeks of rising prices. I
guess (there's been) some profit taking after a strong rally into the end of last week, said Virendra
Chauhan of Energy Aspects in Singapore.
Market data shows that the amount of open positions betting on rising WTI prices rose to levels
last seen in June 2015 last week, while bets taken out in expectation of falling prices fell close to
2016 lows.
Traders also said oil fell on a jump in the dollar on Friday against a basket of other leading
currencies on expectations that Japan will further extend its aggressive monetary easing through
negative interest rates.
A stronger dollar, in which oil is traded, makes fuel imports for countries using other currencies
more expensive, potentially hitting demand.
Oil price special
coverage

Fundamentals remain bearish and are set to deteriorate further, especially if prices move higher,
Morgan Stanley said on Monday.
The bank said that a recent rally was largely fueled by investment by hedge funds and that the
price gains resulting from these inflows were not supported by fundamentals as production by the
Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) was likely to increase while slowing
economic growth, including in emerging markets, could hit oil demand.
A macro unwind (of its positions) could cause severe selling given positioning and the nature of
the players in this rally, Morgan Stanley said.
Monday's oil price decline came despite another cut in the U.S. rig count that brings activity down
for a fifth straight week and to levels last seen in November 2009.
A total of 343 rigs were drilling for new oil last week. That compares to over 700 this time last
year, according to oil services company Baker Hughes on Friday, as energy firms have sharply
reduced oil and gas drilling since the collapse in crude markets that cut prices by as much as 70
percent to 13-year lows earlier this year.
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.
..
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Cheap oil slows appetite for LNG as shipping fuel
Reuters
Low oil prices are denting the take-up of liquefied natural gas as a cleaner source of energy to
power ships, and it will be a few more years yet before the fuel makes serious inroads into the
marine bunker market.
The global shipping sector is under pressure from governments to reduce harmful emissions from
vessels, including sulphur oxides (SOx), nitrogen oxides (NOx) and carbon dioxide (C02), by
using cleaner fuels such as liquefied natural gas (LNG) rather than traditional heavy fuel oil and
diesel sources.
The momentum has increased since December’s global climate deal in Paris, but industry officials
say it will take time for LNG to grow as a bunker fuel because the infrastructure needed requires
heavy investment at a time when companies are slashing budgets.
The low price of oil, which has tumbled as much as 70% since mid-2014 and fell to around $40 a
barrel on April 18 after a producers’ meeting in Qatar to freeze output ended with no agreement, is
also discouraging a shift away from traditional fuels.
“We are not in the world of fuel stress at the moment ... when oil was over $100 a barrel,” said
Paddy Rodgers, chief executive of oil tanker company Euronav. “Yes it is a fuel of the future, but
not yet.”
Norwegian LNG producer and industrial supplier Skangas told Reuters that shipowners have
delayed planned conversions to LNG from diesel for up to two years due to the fall in oil prices.
International shipping accounts for around 2.2% of global greenhouse gas emissions but the
International Maritime Organization, a UN agency, projects maritime emissions will swell by 50%
by 2050 due to growth in world trade, 90% of which is transported by ship.

According to industry estimates, using LNG instead of bunker fuels would reduce NOx and SOx
emissions by 90-95% and CO2 emissions by 20%-25%.
The Port of Gibraltar, the biggest bunkering hub in the Mediterranean, said offering LNG as a fuel
was an option.
“There is of course the price differential and the upfront cost of infrastructure,” Bob Sanguinetti,
chief executive of the Gibraltar Port Authority, told Reuters. “If the move is towards LNG, we will
be watching and taking note of the market and what the demand is.”
Most LNG-fuelled ships are car or passenger ferries, tugs and platform supply vessels.
As of March, there were 77 LNG-fuelled ships in operation worldwide out of over 50,000 vessels
trading around the globe, according to ship and energy inspection firm DNV GL.
“The main challenge is that the price competitive advantage of LNG for fuel has been eroded in
the short term,” said Ryan Pereira, principal commercial manager of global gas and LNG at oil and
gas consultancy firm Gaffney, Cline Associates.
“This could particularly affect smaller operators, who are less able to justify using LNG on the
basis of its likely medium and long-term cost savings.”
Stricter environmental regulation is however coaxing larger players to plan for the longer term.
The world’s biggest LNG producer, Qatargas, and Royal Dutch Shell have agreed to develop LNG
as a marine fuel for use by No 1 container line Maersk.
Russia’s gas giant Gazprom and Belgium’s Fluxys have agreed to cooperate on the small-scale
LNG market in Europe.
Pereira said an estimated 15mn tonnes of LNG could be soaked up by the marine sector in the
next five to seven years and up to 30mn tonnes by 2030.
“When you consider current LNG trade is circa 250mn tonnes a year, about 10% of today’s trade
could come from the marine bunkering market.”

NewBase Special Coverage
News Agencies News Release 25 April 2016
Taking on Tesla: China's Jia Yueting aims to outmuscle Musk
REUTERS - JASON LEE
Tomorrow's cars will be all-electric, self-driving, connected to high-speed communications
networks ... and free. And probably Chinese.
That, at least, is the vision of Jia Yueting, a billionaire entrepreneur and one of a new breed of
Chinese who see their technology expertise re-engineering the automobile industry, and usurping
Tesla Motors, a U.S. pioneer in premium electric vehicle (EV) making.
Tesla's a great company and has taken the global car industry to the EV era, Jia said in an
interview at the Beijing headquarters of his Le Holdings Co, or LeEco. But we're not just building
a car. We consider the car a smart mobile device on four wheels, essentially no different to a
cellphone or tablet.
We hope to surpass Tesla and lead the industry leapfrogging to a new age, said Jia, wearing a
black T-shirt and jeans.
A wave of EV start-ups has emerged in China after the government opened up the auto industry
to deep-pocketed technology firms to drive a switch to cleaner electric as an eventual alternative
to gasoline cars. Sceptics wonder just how start-ups like LeEco will deliver on their grand visions.

As a sign of intent, 43-year-old Jia last week unveiled the LeSEE electric concept supercar, a rival
to Tesla's Model S. The smart, connected and self-driving car will be displayed at this week's
Beijing autoshow.
People questioned our idea, a small IT company building a car to compete with the BMWs and
Teslas of the world, and laughed at us. It wasn't easy, but here we are, Jia told Reuters.
MADE IN NEVADA
LeEco hopes to start producing a version of the LeSEE in a few years at a plant being built near
Las Vegas by U.S. strategic partner Faraday Future, in which Jia has invested. Those cars would
be sold in the United States and China. Further ahead, the plan is to produce electric cars in
China, too, probably through a partnership with BAIC Motor.
The web-connected electric cars will have a disruptive pricing model similar to phones and TV
sets LeEco markets in China, Jia says. His company, often called China's Netflix, will sell movies,
TV shows, music and other content and services to drivers of its cars. That's why he says one
day our cars will be free. Nearer-term, the disruption is more likely to be double the performance
at half the price.
Beyond LeEco, Chinese tech heavyweights including Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent and Xiaomi
[XTC.UL] have funded more than half a dozen EV start-ups, such as NextEV and CH-Auto. It's
widely expected China's bus, taxi and courier firms will be encouraged to go electric.
We define our car in a whole new way ... instead of copying Apple and Tesla, LeEco co-founder
and vice chairman Hank Liu told Reuters. Our products are not upgraded from those that already
exist. They are revolutionary ... products that never existed before.
FUNDING CLOUDS
While the entry barrier has been lowered as electric cars are, mechanically, relatively simpler to
produce, skeptics query how China's start-ups will fund and make tens of thousands of industry-
changing EVs - from design through to procuring the 10,000 or so parts and systems needed for
the finished product.
Daimler said Hubertus Troska, head of its Greater China business, was invited to LeEco last
month to get to know the company and its business model.
I told Mr. Troska we're going to redefine the car, Liu told Reuters. EVs for us are just another
screen. We see cars in the future as an extension of the Internet, another entry point for us to sell
web-based content and services.
Jia has also had to overcome questions on his funding. In the past three years, there was
speculation he had disappeared and had his passport confiscated because of his ties to a brother
of Ling Jihua, a high-ranking Communist Party official who was arrested last year and is under
investigation for graft.
Jia says he did not go missing, but was in a California hotel researching Tesla and recruiting a
team to develop EV technologies. It was a difficult time for me because we faced a lot of external
rumors and internal turmoil, he said, noting LeEco was then expanding beyond its streaming,

mobile and TV businesses. (If) any of those ventures failed, we could have gone belly up,' he
said.
To help fund LeEco's EV push, Jia's sister sold her stake in the company and lent the money to
him interest-free. He also sold part of his own stake.
He said Ling Wancheng, the disgraced official's brother, is a mere financial investor in LeEco; he
never met Ling Jihua; and his passport was never confiscated.
LONG ROAD
Growing up in a rural Shanxi town in northern China, Jia worked briefly as a computer technician
at a tax office before setting out on his own, selling computer accessories, and running
restaurants and private schools. Acting on a tip from a relative, he began selling batteries to power
cellphone tower antennas - just as China Telecom pushed into the rural hinterlands.
In 2003, he drove his used Toyota to Beijing, with 200,000 yuan (around $31,000 at current rates)
in cash, seeking to grow his Sinotel Technologies business by adding simple mobile video
streaming. He took the company public in Singapore in 2007. With Liu, he registered what is now
LeEco - a group now employing 11,000 people in China, India and the United States. Its listed
business had 2014 revenue of 6.8 billion yuan ($1.05 billion).
Colleagues and friends say Jia is a shrewd businessman, generous in picking up the tab for
meals and never stops working. Forbes values him at $4.8 billion.
To vault from LeEco's IT background to the auto industry, Jia has built ties with California-based
Atieva and Faraday Future, and has a partnership with Aston Martin and a cooperative
relationship with BAIC.
Ding Lei, LeEco's auto chief and a former top official at General Motors' China venture with SAIC
Motor, says part of LeEco's advantage in tomorrow's auto industry is that it carries no baggage
from today's. Traditional automakers are too wedded to combustion engine technology to quickly
jump to electric technology, he reckons.
Look, this disruption can't come from traditional OEMs (automakers). But a company like us, we
can go directly to pure electric cars.

C R E D I T : R E Z A / C O N T R I B U T O R

NewBase For discussion or further details on the news below you may contact us on +971504822502, Dubai, UAE
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For additional free subscription emails please contact Hawk Energy
Khaled Malallah Al Awadi,
Energy Consultant
MS BS Mechanical Engineering (HON), USA
Emarat member since 1990
ASME member since 1995
Hawk Energy member 2010
Mobile: +97150-4822502
khdmohd@hawkenergy.net
khdmohd@hotmail.com
Khaled Al Awadi is a UAE National with a total of 25 years of experience in
the Oil Gas sector. Currently working as Technical Affairs Specialist for
Emirates General Petroleum Corp. “Emarat“ with external voluntary Energy
consultation for the GCC area via Hawk Energy Service as a UAE
operations base , Most of the experience were spent as the Gas Operations
Manager in Emarat , responsible for Emarat Gas Pipeline Network Facility
gas compressor stations . Through the years, he has developed great
experiences in the designing constructing of gas pipelines, gas metering regulating stations
and in the engineering of supply routes. Many years were spent drafting, compiling gas
transportation, operation maintenance agreements along with many MOUs for the local
authorities. He has become a reference for many of the Oil Gas Conferences held in the UAE
and Energy program broadcasted internationally, via GCC leading satellite Channels.
NewBase : For discussion or further details on the news above you may contact us on +971504822502 , Dubai , UAE
NewBase 25 April 2016 K. Al Awadi

New base energy news issue 837 dated 25 april 2016

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