BP bags order from Austria’s OMV

BP PLC has scored a 10-year order from Austria’s state-backed OMV AG for up to one million metric tons per annum (MMtpa) of liquefied natural gas (LNG) with delivery starting 2026.

OMV indicated the supply is meant for Austria and other European countries. OMV owns gas and oil production stakes in the Norwegian side of the Barents Sea, the North Sea and the Norwegian Sea. These include the Aasta Hansteen, Edvard Grieg, Gudrun and Gullfaks fields.

The Nordic nation had been Europe’s number two source of natural gas next to Russia before Russia invaded Ukraine February 2022. Amid trade sanctions against the Putin regime over the war, Norway overtook Russia as the European Union’s top natural gas exporter last year. Norway accounted for 24.4 percent of the region’s imports 2022, compared to 15.3 percent from Russia, according to a bulletin update May 3 by the EU statistics agency Eurostat.

OMV, majority-owned by a consortium between government-held investors Österreichische Beteiligungs AG of Austria and Mubadala Investment Co. of the Emirates, has won gas transport allotments of about 40 terawatt hours (tWh) a year between October 2023 and September 2026 and around 20 tWh per annum between October 2026 and September 2028. “The border transfer points for the natural gas are Oberkappel via Germany and Arnoldstein via Italy. These capacities, in combination with alternative non-Russian gas sources of OMV, secure the supply obligations to its contract customers in the mid-term”, it said in a media statement July 5.

LNG from the deal announced Friday will be regasified at the Rotterdam Gate Terminal, where OMV holds regasification rights, or other terminals in the continent.

The British giant had an LNG portfolio of 19 MMtpa last year and has set a target to raise that to 25 MMtpa 2025 and 30 MMtpa 2030, according to its annual report released March 10.

The EU imported 4.59 trillion cubic feet (130 billion cubic meters) of LNG last year, up 60 percent, according to a report by the International Energy Agency (IEA) December 9.

The EU has advanced projects for 4.59 trillion cubic feet in new LNG import capacity, according to the IEA’s gas market report for the 2023 first quarter released February 15. “Of the 130 bcm [4.59 trillion cubic feet], about 20 bcm [706 cubic feet] of new regasification capacity was completed by the end of 2022 and another 50 bcm [1,766 cubic feet] was under development at the start of 2023, with Germany (23 bcm), Italy (10 bcm) and Belgium (8 bcm) accounting for the highest share of under-construction capacity”, it said.