Wednesday, 26 August 2026

Australian inflation fell 0.3 percentage points in July to 3.5%, a decline IEEFA attributes largely to a smaller contribution from housing, but the specialist research group warns the relief will not carry into August as fuel excise relief ends.

Transport fuel worked against that easing even in July, adding 0.2 percentage points to the Consumer Price Index (CPI), according to IEEFA.

The excise arithmetic explains why. IEEFA reports the fuel excise cut ran at 26.3 cents per litre from April to June, was trimmed to 16 cents per litre in July, and was removed in August. Since the start of August, retail petrol has run about 21 cents per litre above average July prices and diesel about 34 cents per litre higher, IEEFA said.

International product markets are compounding the excise step-up. In the week of 19 August, IEEFA found diesel prices 82% above pre-crisis levels and petrol 53% higher, against a 29% rise in crude oil measured in Australian dollars. The gap between refined products and crude places the pressure on the fuels Australian road freight and passenger vehicles actually buy, rather than on the barrel itself.

The Reserve Bank of Australia estimated that oil accounts for 2-2.5% of domestic production and distribution costs, IEEFA noted, giving a channel through which pump prices feed into the broader basket beyond the direct transport component.

Exposure to that channel has widened over time. IEEFA found Australia's diesel intensity rose 33% between 2000 and 2024, while global diesel intensity fell 31% on average over the same period. A domestic economy using more diesel per unit of activity absorbs a given diesel price move more heavily than the global average.

The combination IEEFA describes leaves the August print facing three additive pressures at once: the full excise restored, refined product cracks running well ahead of crude, and a freight and logistics base that has grown more diesel-dependent for a quarter of a century.

BP has finished a planned maintenance program on the Central Azeri platform in Azerbaijan's Azeri-Chirag-Deepwater Gunashli (ACG) field ahead of schedule, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

The turnaround started on August 19 and had been set to run 11 days, Offshore Engineer OEDigital reported.

BP said all planned work was completed safely and that output was being ramped back toward its pre-maintenance level.

Central Azeri contributed about 88,000 barrels per day of the roughly 323,000 b/d that ACG averaged in the first half of 2026, per Offshore Engineer OEDigital. That makes the platform slightly more than a quarter of the field's reported first-half output, so the duration of any shutdown there carries directly into consortium-level volumes.

Part of the scope served the Central Azeri Gas Expansion project, which is designed to raise gas reinjection capacity on the platform, according to the same report. Reinjection supports pressure in producing reservoirs, tying the maintenance window to recovery from wells already drilled rather than to new drilling.

Ownership of ACG is split among seven parties: SOCAR holds 35.3%, BP 30.37%, MOL 9.57%, INPEX 9.31%, ExxonMobil 6.79%, TPAO 5.73% and ONGC Videsh 2.92%, Offshore Engineer OEDigital reported. BP is the largest holder after the state company, and the shortened outage feeds through to each partner's entitlement barrels in proportion to those stakes.

Three fields in the Norwegian Sea, Alve Nord, Idun Nord and Ørn, are now producing for Aker BP, adding around 120 MMboe of recoverable resources a year earlier than the original plan set out, World Oil reported.

Work on the trio ran as three distinct subsea projects grouped under the Skarv Satellite Project umbrella. Each field has one subsea template plus two wells, all routed back to the Skarv FPSO already in place.

"Through a single integrated project, we have brought three new fields on stream, one year ahead of the original schedule," said Aker BP CEO Karl Johnny Hersvik.

Operatorship sits with Aker BP across all three, where its stakes span 23.8% to 58.1%. Equinor, Harbour Energy, ORLEN Upstream Norway and JAPEX Norge hold licence interests alongside it, according to World Oil.

OneSubsea, Subsea7, Aker Solutions and Halliburton carried out the work under Aker BP's alliance model, and Saipem joined for drilling. Norwegian suppliers accounted for roughly 60% of deliveries into the project.

Estimated CO2 intensity across the three developments comes to approximately 4.5 kg per boe, World Oil reported.

Eco (Atlantic) Oil & Gas and Navitas Petroleum estimate that Block 1 CBK offshore South Africa holds more than 3.6 billion barrels of unrisked prospective oil resources, according to World Oil.

The same assessment puts prospective natural gas resources on the block at approximately 4.5 Tcf, World Oil reported.

Block 1 CBK sits in South Africa's Orange basin, an area drawing increased exploration interest after a series of discoveries elsewhere in the basin, according to World Oil.

The numbers rest on existing seismic data. Further interpretation is planned as the two partners continue evaluating the acreage and potential development options, World Oil reported.

The resource update follows Navitas Petroleum's May 2026 agreement to farm into Block 1 CBK, part of a wider strategic relationship with Eco (Atlantic) Oil & Gas covering several Atlantic Margin exploration opportunities, according to World Oil.

Technip Energies has won a detailed engineering contract from Larsen & Toubro Energy Hydrocarbon for a major ADNOC Offshore project in the United Arab Emirates, according to World Oil.

World Oil reports the contract is classified by Technip Energies as "significant," a category the company defines as representing between EUR 50 million and EUR 250 million in revenue.

The scope runs across engineering, procurement, construction, installation and commissioning of new offshore facilities, according to World Oil. The same work package also takes in modifications and upgrades to existing infrastructure.

The award was booked in the third quarter of 2026 and sits within Technip Energies' Technology, Products & Services segment, per World Oil. Larsen & Toubro Energy Hydrocarbon is the awarding counterparty rather than the offshore operator itself.