Friday, 17 July 2026

Petrobras has completed its acquisition of a 75% operated stake in exploration Block 3 offshore São Tomé and Príncipe, according to Offshore Magazine.

The remaining interests are held by Oranto with 15% and the National Petroleum Agency of São Tomé and Príncipe with 10%, Offshore Magazine reported.

Petrobras first announced in mid-April that it had signed an agreement to acquire an interest and assume operatorship of Block 3 from Oranto Petroleum Ltd, according to Offshore Magazine.

The block sits in the São Tomé and Príncipe Exclusive Economic Zone in the Gulf of Guinea. The production sharing contract reportedly runs for a 28-year term, according to Offshore Magazine.

Petrobras did not disclose a timeline for future exploration activities on Block 3, nor did it provide details on planned seismic, drilling, or subsurface evaluation work.

The IEA predicts global oil demand of 103.5 million barrels per day in 2026, down 1 percent from the prior year, according to its monthly oil report cited by Inside Climate News.

The agency projects a rebound the following year, with demand growing to 105.5 million barrels per day in 2027, an increase of 2 percent from 2026.

Inside Climate News reported that shipments in the Strait of Hormuz dropped almost to zero in February under a military blockade and have been slow to resume as the conflict continues.

The IEA said renewed exchanges of fire in the Gulf highlight the risks of not reaching a lasting peace agreement, which it called a must for normalization in oil markets.

Samantha Gross of Brookings said the events of the past few months in Iran are likely to hasten a secular decrease in oil demand, according to Inside Climate News.

Vedanta Oil & Gas has reaffirmed a production target of 500,000 boed, according to World Oil. The company, formerly known as Cairn Oil & Gas, is pressing for expanded oil and gas exploration in India.

India imports nearly 90% of its oil and gas requirements despite an estimated 300 billion boe of hydrocarbon resource potential, according to Vedanta. Vedanta Chairman Anil Agarwal said energy independence is a strategic economic imperative for India.

The company operates one of India's largest private upstream portfolios, according to World Oil. It holds interests in 44 onshore and offshore blocks covering nearly 47,000 sq km across Rajasthan, Gujarat, Assam and Andhra Pradesh.

Offshore oil and gas operators now run drones across a wide range of jobs, from flare-stack inspections and structural surveys to pipeline monitoring, environmental programs and post-storm damage checks, according to Offshore Magazine.

DaCoda Bartels, chief operating officer of FlyGuys, told Offshore Magazine that offshore drone activity has climbed sharply while policy has lagged behind that growth.

The economics explain the uptake. Drones are the cheapest tool available for checking flare stacks, risers and structural members, and for surveying pipelines, said Gabe Arrington, a nonresident fellow at the Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University.

Detection is where those same aircraft turn into a security gap. Brett Velicovich, co-founder and president of Powerus, told Offshore Magazine that small drones skimming low over the water can stay hard to spot until they are close, unless detection systems are tuned for maritime conditions.

Reported drone sightings near offshore oil and gas facilities in the North Sea and other regions have pushed operators and regulators to pay closer attention, Offshore Magazine reported.

South Africa's Department of Mineral Resources and Energy proposed that reserves cover 60 days of demand, about two-thirds of it as crude and the rest as oil products, in a draft policy document published July 9 for public consultation, according to Rigzone.

That volume would come to about 36 million barrels, based on US Energy Information Administration estimates that put South African demand at 600,000 barrels per day, Rigzone reported. Under the plan, licensed wholesalers and importers would be required to hold 21 days of inventory.

The country's stocks have run low. An official estimate in March put crude reserves at 8 million barrels, and the DMRE said South Africa now needs 10 million barrels to replenish stock that has been sold or rotated.

The government estimates the economy is exposed to 1 billion rand (USD 61 million) in losses for every day that fuel is unavailable, according to Rigzone.

The buildup would be the first since the 1970s, when the government last expanded emergency stocks under United Nations sanctions, a period that led to construction of the 45 million-barrel Saldanha Bay storage hub, Rigzone reported. Since then the government has wound down its strategic holdings. In 2015 it sold 10 million barrels when prices were at an eight-year low, a deal later found to be unlawful.

The proposal follows similar moves elsewhere on the continent. Morocco announced plans in June to invest USD 641 million to develop fuel-storage facilities, according to Rigzone.

Eni North Ganal has awarded OneSubsea a contract to deliver a steel tube umbilical system for the Kutei North Hub development offshore East Kalimantan in Indonesia, Offshore Engineer OEDigital reported.

The scope covers engineering, procurement and manufacture of 94.6 km of umbilical rated for water depths reaching 2,200 meters, according to the same report.

Total system weight will run to about 6,700 tonnes, with a design pressure of 10,000 psi.

One element of the order is a single continuous 30-km umbilical length of about 2,100 tonnes, which calls for specialised large-scale carousel capacity to build and store, per Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

Eni North Ganal sits under Searah, a joint venture pairing Eni and Petronas. OneSubsea itself is a joint venture backed by SLB, Aker Solutions and Subsea7.

Mads Hjelmeland, chief executive officer of SLB OneSubsea, tied the award to the company's manufacturing capacity for demanding deepwater work.

Nigeria pumped more crude last month than in any month for six years, its top oil regulator said, after the government tightened protection on pipeline infrastructure, according to Semafor Net Zero.

At 1.56 million barrels per day, the country's flows sit above the OPEC+ ceiling set for Africa's biggest producer, Semafor reported.

Counting condensates, June volumes hit 1.7 million, the fourth month running that average output has climbed, according to Semafor.

The higher barrels feed directly into state revenue, since crude sales bring in more than 90% of Nigeria's foreign exchange, Semafor reported. The government set its USD 50 billion budget this year against an output benchmark of 1.8 million barrels a day.

Theft along the pipeline network has cut into both volumes and receipts. A Senate committee last year put the country's oil theft losses at USD 300 billion, according to Semafor.

Building three industrial zones under a master plan for the Maheshkhali and Matarbari coast in Bangladesh could uproot more than 770,000 residents, according to Mongabay. The Maheshkhali-Matarbari Integrated Development Initiative (MIDI) needs roughly 37,000 hectares to host the zones, among them an energy hub carrying 13 GW of new liquefied natural gas (LNG) and coal capacity, a deep-sea port with container and multipurpose terminals, and a special economic zone.

The program began in February 2024 and draws on backing from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), Mongabay reported.

The first construction phase has already forced people off the land. An ActionAid study published in September 2020 found that the opening stage of the Matarbari coal power plant and deep seaport displaced around 20,000 people after 1,141 hectares were taken over, land that had served salt production, fish farming, and shrimp cultivation, Mongabay reported. The study counted roughly 90,000 people in Matarbari affected once the coal power plant, coal jetty, and deep seaport were combined.

Pledged support to residents fell short. "The authorities promised better jobs through training," said SM Abu Haider, chairman of Matarbari Union, citing sewing courses for women and vocational and computer training for men, adding that the promise "was not fulfilled".

Mongabay reported a separate maritime disaster among people leaving by sea. On April 14, 2026, a small vessel carrying about 250 people, including Bangladeshi nationals and Rohingya refugees, capsized in the Andaman Sea on a route to Malaysia, and rescuers recovered only nine.

Eni has awarded SLB's OneSubsea joint venture an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract covering Phase 3 of the Baleine deepwater development offshore Côte d'Ivoire, according to World Oil.

The subsea production system to be delivered under the deal will serve 13 wells, World Oil reported.

Subsea trees, umbilicals, manifolds, multiphase flowmeters and control systems fall within the EPC scope, which also runs through commissioning and life-of-field support, according to World Oil.

Mads Hjelmeland, chief executive officer of SLB OneSubsea, said Baleine Phase 3 "brings together scale and execution certainty."

World Oil described Baleine as the largest hydrocarbon discovery ever made in Côte d'Ivoire.