Wednesday, 12 August 2026

A fishing cooperative is challenging TotalEnergies in court over a proposed oil and gas drilling programme covering 30,000 square kilometres of ocean west of South Africa, according to Climate Home News. The Aukotowa Fisheries Cooperative is supported in the case by two nonprofits, The Green Connection and Natural Justice.

Hearings before the Western Cape High Court closed in late March, and a judgment is expected later this year, Climate Home News reported.

The wider licensing effort behind the block is Operation Phakisa, a state programme under which the seabed off a coastline of nearly 3,000 kilometres has been surveyed for oil and gas prospects. Mapping now covers more than 95% of that ocean area, according to Climate Home News.

Thirty exploration wells are targeted over a decade under the plan, Climate Home News reported. Officials put potential output at an average of 370,000 barrels of oil and gas per day across 20 years, and have designated Saldanha Bay as a key logistics hub.

Offshore acreage now dominates the industry's exploration results: more than 85% of new oil and gas discoveries in 2024 were made at sea, according to Climate Home News.

Aker BP and Equinor drilled a dry exploration well at the Svarteknippa prospect in the North Sea and have permanently plugged and abandoned it, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

The well, designated 15/6-17, was the first exploration well drilled in production license 979, which was awarded through APA (awards in pre-defined areas), Offshore Engineer OEDigital reported.

Offshore Engineer OEDigital placed the prospect 15 kilometers west of the Solveig field and 220 kilometers west of Stavanger.

Drilling reached a vertical depth of 3704 meters below sea level, with water depth at the site of 102 meters, according to the same report.

The Scarabeo 8 drilling rig carried out the work.

The Who Dat East Joint Venture, operated by LLOG, has sanctioned development of the Who Dat East field, Offshore Engineer OEDigital reported.

The field sits in lease MC 509-1 in a water depth of approximately 1,300 metres, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

First production is expected in the second half of 2028, Offshore Engineer OEDigital reported, at an initial gross rate of approximately 6,500 bopd of liquids and 50 MMscf/d of gas.

The initial development is expected to generate an internal rate of return in excess of 20%, according to the same report.

Wells serving 28 homes in the Mount Eyre Manor neighborhood have tested positive for toxic fuel components including benzene and xylenes since the contamination crisis began, Inside Climate News reported. The United States neighborhood sits near a pipeline leak that has left residents living in fear, according to the outlet.

One week after PHMSA issued its first notice to Energy Transfer over the spill, the company and its executive chairman gave a combined USD 25 million to Trump-aligned MAGA Inc., Inside Climate News reported.

That contribution landed against a backdrop of thinning federal oversight. Enforcement on the nation's interstate oil and gas pipelines fell to a record low last year as staffing fell at PHMSA, according to Inside Climate News.

The deregulatory direction was set at the top. President Trump signed an "Unleashing American Energy" executive order on the first day of his second term to roll back regulation of the industry, the outlet reported.

Benzene and xylenes are components of refined fuels. Their presence in drinking-water wells is the measurable trace of the spill that residents of the affected homes are still contending with.

Petrovietnam Gas, the state-controlled gas company, has approached potential suppliers about a tender to buy liquefied natural gas (LNG) on a five-year contract, per a document Reuters said it reviewed. Should it proceed, Vietnam would land its second term deal, following an agreement with Shell plc earlier this year.

The approach went out in June and is labelled a "market sounding exercise" in the document. Volumes span 250,000 to 450,000 metric tons destined for the Thi Vai Terminal, and the earliest delivery window opens in January 2027.

Shell won the earlier award in January 2026, the first term contract PV GAS has signed. That five-year deal covers roughly 400,000 tons a year, with cargoes arriving between 2027 and 2031.

PV GAS operates Thi Vai at a throughput ceiling of 1 million tons a year, with expansion work under way to lift that to 3 million tons a year. Two power plants totalling 1.5 GW draw fuel from the terminal.

Both of Vietnam's LNG import terminals sit in the south of the country, and both have so far taken cargoes on spot terms. Cutting coal dependence and reducing carbon emissions are among the drivers behind the build-out, according to the reporting.

The range put to suppliers in June, 250,000 to 450,000 tons in total, falls below the roughly 400,000 tons a year Shell committed to under the January 2026 award.

Twelve companies submitted 69 bids covering 330,000 acres, roughly 0.4% of the more than 81 million acres the Trump administration offered to oil and gas drillers in the Gulf of America, according to a pre-sale document reported by Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

The acreage is part of an effort to raise domestic energy production through regular offshore lease sales, Offshore Engineer OEDigital reported. The Interior Department put up 15,100 unleased blocks sitting between 3 and 231 miles offshore on the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf.

This is the third of 30 auctions mandated by the tax cut and spending law that U.S. President Donald Trump signed in 2025, according to the same report.

Interest has thinned across that sequence. The first auction, held in December under the 2025 law, drew USD 279.4 million in high bids. The second, in March, produced nearly USD 47 million in high bids for 25 blocks spanning about 141,000 acres.

The Marine Minerals Administration will run the sale. The Trump administration created the body to unify the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement.

Offshore output supplies about 15% of U.S. production, Offshore Engineer OEDigital reported, and has trailed onshore shale fields in recent years because offshore projects carry longer timelines and higher upfront costs. That cost profile frames the gap between the acreage on offer and the acreage bid: drillers committed to a fraction of one percent of the blocks made available, while shale wells reach production far faster.

Nigeria has signed an executive order offering tax incentives designed to draw as much as $50 billion in oil and gas investment, according to Semafor Net Zero, as the country works to revive international interest in offshore projects.

The order copies a framework of tax rebates already approved for Shell, which plans to invest at least $10 billion into offshore projects, Semafor Net Zero reported.

President Bola Tinubu said the measure offers "clear and predictable terms" for new investments.

The incentive package addresses a retreat that has reshaped where majors put capital in the country. Global oil companies have pulled back from their onshore Nigerian assets because of pipeline vandalism, according to Semafor Net Zero. Offshore acreage sits beyond the reach of that damage, which is where the rebate framework is pointed.

The target is set against a continent-wide spending pool that is smaller than the figure Nigeria alone is chasing. The African Energy Chamber, a South Africa-based advocacy group, estimates African oil and gas investments could reach $41 billion this year, Semafor Net Zero reported. Nigeria's $50 billion ambition therefore exceeds the Chamber's estimate for the whole of Africa over a single year, making the timeline over which the capital would arrive the central question for any operator weighing a bid.

Shell's committed figure gives the scheme a reference point rather than a forecast: at a minimum $10 billion, the company's planned offshore outlay represents a fifth of the headline national target.

Nigerian President Bola Tinubu has approved an offshore reform intended to unlock up to USD 50 billion in deep offshore investment and revive stalled offshore projects, according to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).

NAN reported that the measure ends project-by-project negotiations and puts a rules-based investment framework in their place.

The framework is designed to draw long-term capital into Nigeria's offshore oil and gas sector, per the same report. The approval also targets offshore projects that had stalled.

Saudi Arabia told OPEC it pumped 8.2 million barrels per day of crude in July, up from 7.1 million barrels per day the previous month, according to World Oil.

The reported production figure sits roughly 780,000 bpd above the volume the kingdom said it supplied to the market. World Oil described that gap as consistent with assessments that Saudi Arabia is adding to inventories while its export routes remain impeded.

The International Energy Agency estimated in a report that Saudi domestic crude stockpiles had reached their highest level since at least 2016 by early August, World Oil said.

Across the seven OPEC members that report production directly to the group's secretariat, output rose by 1.88 MMbpd. Iraq and Saudi Arabia accounted for the majority of that increase, according to World Oil.

The U.S. Department of the Interior's third Gulf of America/Mexico oil and gas lease sale drew USD 82.7 million in high bids from 16 companies competing for offshore acreage, World Oil reported.

Bidders filed 69 bids on 59 blocks at Big Beautiful Gulf Lease Sale 3 (BBG3), held Wednesday in New Orleans, with total bids reaching USD 99.5 million, according to World Oil.

The acreage on offer was far larger than the acreage bid on. World Oil reported the sale covered roughly 15,100 unleased blocks spanning 80.4 million acres in the Western, Central and portions of the Eastern Gulf planning areas.

BBG3 is the third of 30 Gulf of America lease sales required under the 2025 reconciliation law, World Oil reported. That schedule locks in a recurring auction calendar rather than leaving sale timing to agency discretion.

MMA will review the bids before awarding leases and expects to publish a final statistical summary within 90 days, according to World Oil. High bids are not leases until that review closes, so the USD 82.7 million figure is a provisional read on demand.

The basin remains weighted toward liquids. Citing the American Petroleum Institute, World Oil reported the Gulf of America accounts for about 14% of total U.S. crude oil production and 2% of natural gas production. That split explains why offshore bidding tracks crude economics more closely than gas fundamentals, and why a single auction result carries more signal for oil supply than for gas.

The gap between the 80.4 million acres offered and the 59 blocks that attracted bids is the sharpest number in the result. Under the reconciliation-law schedule, companies face 30 required sales, which reduces the pressure to bid aggressively at any one of them.