The global quest by energy stakeholders to  reduce carbon emissions through limitation of finance to most oil and gas projects seems to not having vivid prominence presently in global energy business scene as global oil and gas contracts spike in second quarters of 2023, Global Data reported.  Africa’s vehement and discordant views and escalation of Russia – Ukraine war are perceived to be responsible and equally playing pivotal roles on full implementation and smooth effectiveness of Paris Climate Change pact for the global energy switch.

Africa countries humble request to chart own regional energy transition roadmap at the pace different from developed countries counterparts is a welcome development to major energy stakeholders in the region sighting the abundant of its Natural Gas reserves as a major source of cleaner energy and this should be adopted by global energy players as such. However the ongoing war in Ukraine by Russia has reignited the global quest for African gas, subsequently attracting fresh gas infrastructural projects in the region and invariably deviating global decarbonization projections and further creating paradigm shift in the global energy space.

In recent times Africa and the world at large has witnessed uptick in oil and gas projects particularly in the gas sector with great focus on FLNG  and FPSO investment in Africa. Nigerian  nation’s oil firm the NNPC Limited has recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with a Norwegian company, Golar LNG (GLNG), to build a Floating Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) plant in Nigeria and following this milestone agreement is the signing of a Heads of Terms (HoT) agreement for the construction of the nation’s first indigenous UTM Floating LNG 176 million cubic feet project. Huge investment in nation’s pipeline infrastructure is not left out. The completion of AKK gas pipeline project and the already sealed Nigeria – Morocco gas pipeline is major source of economic revenue to the region.

 Moreover in Africa Eni has also signed a contract with Wison Heavy Industry for the construction and installation of a Floating Liquefied Natural Gas (FLNG) unit with a capacity of 2.4 MTPA (million tons per annum). The FLNG will be deployed offshore the Republic of Congo. Saipem was awarded a new contract by Mellitah Oil & Gas B.V. Libyan Branch, a consortium formed by National Oil Corporation of Libya and Eni North Africa, for the development of the Bouri Gas Utilisation Project (BGUP), worth approximately 1 billion USD.

Saipem will undertake revamping of the platforms and of the facilities of the Bouri gas field, which lays in water depths between 145 m and 183 m, offshore the Libyan coast. The contract entails the engineering, procurement, construction, installation and commissioning (EPCIC)

All this laudable and huge economic gas infrastructural projects in Africa are just complimented projects to the Coral Sul Floating Liquefied Natural Gas (FLNG) plant from the Coral South reservoir offshore Mozambique. The Coral Sul FLNG which has a gas liquefaction capacity of 3.4 million tons per year (MTPA) has in the second half of 2022 achieved its first LNG cargo.

TWMA a drilling waste management specialist has won a contract worth up to $15 million to support a large-scale oil and gas project for bp in Egypt. The company will employ its award-winning RotoMill drill cuttings processing technology to process all drilling waste generated from bp’s WND & END exploration and development project in the Mediterranean Sea. The contract is a five years and work is expected to commence in October 2023.

In the North Sea numerous offshore projects have been signed and executed with the period under review. MODEC signing of a Sales and Purchase Agreement (SPA) with Equinor Brasil Energia Ltd, a subsidiary of Equinor ASA, to supply a Floating Production, Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessel to Campos Basin offshore Brazil to Neptune Energy award of a +$100 million contract to Tenaris to provide equipment and services to support drilling activities on the Norwegian Continental Shelf. SBM Offshore disclosure that it has completed the project financing of FPSO ONE GUYANA for a total of US$1.75 billion was also major contract reference in the same period.

Moreover on the operations of global rigs count, According to the data obtained from the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC February 2023 Monthly Oil Market Report, MOMR, indicated rise in the Nigeria’s oil production in the last one year, the country’s rigs count rose markedly from 6 to 13 between January 2022 and the same period in 2023, while Africa rigs count rose from 81 in February 2022 to 94 in 2023 same period under review new industry data obtained from Baker Hughes, has shown.  This indictor points to the fact that the world is still in dare need on fossil fuel from conventional hydrocarbons irrespective of quest from global energy mix from renewable.

Notable contracts during the quarter as mentioned by Global Data include Technip Energies and Consolidated Contractors Company (CCC) joint venture’s landmark $10bn EPCC contract from QatarEnergy to build two mega LNG trains and associated facilities in Qatar’s North Field South (NFS) project. Hyundai Engineering & Construction’s two lump-sum turn-key contracts worth approximately $5bn from Saudi Aramco and TotalEnergies, covering the detailed design, Engineering, Procurement, and Construction (EPC) for a Mixed Feed Cracker (MFC) and Utilities, Flares & Interconnecting facilities at the Amiral petrochemicals facility expansion in Jubail Industrial City, Saudi Arabia.

 Maire Tecnimont subsidiaries two lump-sum turnkey contracts worth around $2bn from Saudi Aramco and TotalEnergies for the EPC of Derivatives units and High-Density Polyethylene (HDPE) units at the Amiral petrochemicals facility expansion in Jubail Industrial City, Saudi Arabia. QatarEnergy has awarded $10 billion engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contract for the North Field South (NFS) project, which comprises two LNG mega trains with a combined capacity of 16 million tons per annum (MTPA). NFS, together with the North Field East (NFE) project,

According Glpbal Data,  Global oil and gas contracts activity witnessed an increase of 60% on the contract value front from $35.4bn in Q1 2023 to $56.72bn in Q2 2023, in addition to a 23% decrease in the number of contracts, from 1,625 in Q1 2023 to 1,256 in Q2 2023.  The Global Data further reported that in upstream sector 932 contracts were awarded during Q2 2023, followed by the downstream/petrochemical sector and midstream sector with 191 and 164 contracts, respectively, during the quarter.