UK gas stores have fallen to “concerningly low” levels amid freezing cold temperatures, the owner of British Gas has said. Centrica (LON:CNA) said the UK now has less than one week’s worth of demand for gas in store. On Thursday, stocks at UK gas storage sites were 26% lower than the same period last year, leaving them about half full, the energy giant said. Gas inventory levels have come under pressure from the cold weather conditions and the end of Russian gas pipeline supplies through Ukraine at the end of last month. Centrica boss Chris O’Shea said the levels are “concerningly low”. He said the clean energy transition would mean the UK needs to use more energy storage systems to help meet demand. “We are an outlier from the rest of Europe when it comes to the role of storage in our energy system and we are now seeing the implications of that. “Energy storage is what keeps the lights on and homes warm when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow, so investing in our storage capacity makes perfect economic sense. © Supplied by SSE ThermalFile photo of SSE Thermal’s Peterhead Power Station. “We need to think of storage as a very valuable insurance policy.” Centrica operates the country’s largest gas storage site, Rough, a facility under the North Sea off the east coast of England. Despite being full ahead of winter, current gas inventory at Rough is about 20% lower than at the same time last year, the company said. It comes as the UK recorded its coldest night of this winter so far on Thursday, with more freezing temperatures expected in the coming days. The Met Office has said Friday will see “the start of a change to our weather”, but this is expected to

ADNOC Gas PLC has awarded three contracts totaling $2.1 billion for the feedstock infrastructure of the Ruwais LNG project in the United Arab Emirates. The bulk of the awards at $1.24 billion, for an LNG pre-conditioning plant (LPP), went to a consortium between Engineering for the Petroleum and Process Industries (ENPPI) and Petroleum Projects and Technical Consultations Co., both Egyptian state-owned companies. State-owned China Petroleum Pipeline Engineering Co. bagged a $514 million contract for transmission pipelines. The remaining $335 million went to Petrofac Emirates LLC to develop compression facilities, ADNOC Gas said in a press release Thursday. The facilities outlined in the three contracts cover the conditioning and delivery of natural gas to the liquefaction plant in Al Ruwais Industrial City on the Persian Gulf coast. Expected to start operation 2028, Ruwais LNG is planned to have two trains with a combined capacity of 9.6 million metric tons per annum (MMtpa). It would more than double ADNOC Gas’ current LNG production capacity to over 15 MMtpa. On June 12, 2024, Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. (ADNOC), the biggest shareholder in integrated gas processing company ADNOC Gas, announced a positive final investment decision and the award of a $5.5 billion engineering, procurement and construction contract for Ruwais LNG. The contract went to a joint venture by Dutch firm Technip Energies NV, Japan’s JGC Holdings Corp. and the UAE’s NMDC Energy. In 2023 ADNOC awarded a contract for all-electric compression systems for Ruwais LNG to Baker Hughes Co. Ruwais LNG’s two trains will use the United States firm’s 75-megawatt BRUSH electric motor technology, Baker Hughes said in a press statement October 4, 2023. Ruwais LNG will be the first gas export facility in the Middle East and Africa to run on clean power, according to ADNOC.  On Wednesday, The Woodlands, Texas-based CB&I said

As interest and investment in nuclear energy increases around the world, will Scotland’s longstanding opposition to the technology see it miss out on an economic boost? Nuclear energy is having a moment as major tech firms and governments around the world look to invest in the promise of cheaper, smaller and more efficient facilities. The UK government is in the process of selecting the winners of its £20 billion small modular reactor (SMR) competition. Elsewhere, China and the United States are investing heavily in research and development, targeting advanced modular reactors (AMRs), microreactors, and the holy grail of nuclear energy: fusion. The UK government is also pressing ahead with a £20 billion investment in 4.2GW of conventional nuclear technology Sizewell C in Suffolk, led by French giant EDF (PAR:EDF). Amidst this flurry of investment, there are fears Scotland could miss out on the economic and industrial benefits from a nuclear renaissance in the UK. Others are sceptical, or outright derisory, of the ability of the nuclear sector to deliver on its promises and say its contribution to net zero targets will be virtually meaningless. A recent push to develop nuclear power in Australia has also been criticised as a way to delay the transition away from fossil fuels. But with billions set to be invested in nuclear facilities in the UK in the coming decades, what, if anything, will it mean for Scotland? UK nuclear SMR competition State-owned Great British Nuclear (GBN), which was established in 2023 to support the delivery of new nuclear power  in the UK, has started negotiations with four shortlisted companies seeking to deliver SMR designs that could be operational by the mid-2030s. GBN said any of the designs submitted by Rolls Royce SMR, Holtec, GE Hitachi and Westinghouse “would be fit to use in the

In an oil and gas report sent to Rigzone late Thursday by the Macquarie team, Macquarie strategists outlined that they “see potential for a meaningful U.S. crude build” in the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) next weekly petroleum status report. That EIA report is scheduled to be released on January 15 and will include data for the week ending January 10. “Looking ahead to next week’s release, we yet again see potential for a meaningful U.S. crude build (+4.3 million barrels), with runs moderately lower (-0.3 million barrels per day), nominal implied supply bouncing back (+0.4 million barrels per day) despite potential freeze impacts, net imports slightly higher (+0.1 million barrels per day), and a larger increase in SPR [Strategic Petroleum Reserve] inventory (+0.9 million barrels) on the week,” the Macquarie strategists said in the oil and gas report. “We note potential for volatility in these figures given the incomplete nature of this week’s data. Among products, our preliminary expectations yet again point to a large build in gasoline (+5.5 million barrels) with distillate (+0.5 million barrels) and jet stocks (+1.7 million barrels) also higher,” they added. The Macquarie strategists noted in the report that, this week, the EIA “again reported draws in commercial crude (-1.0 million barrels) and at Cushing (-2.5 million barrels) with large product builds (gasoline +6.3 million barrels, distillate +6.1 million barrels, jet +0.4 million barrels)”. “Again this week, the crude balance realized much tighter than our expectations, while in aggregate, product builds exceeded even our lofty expectations,” the strategists said in the report. “With respect to this week’s crude stats, as we previously noted, year-end/timing effects may have added noise to the balance,” they added. “Within the crude balance, runs yet again exceeded our expectation (+0.3 million barrels per day), with net imports slightly higher

Phillips 66 is closely monitoring the fires in Southern California, a company spokesperson told Rigzone late Thursday. “There are currently no disruptions to operations, and Phillips 66 is actively taking steps to minimize any potential disruptions,” the spokesperson added. “The safety and well-being of our employees remain our top priority, and we are actively taking steps to ensure their safety,” the spokesperson continued. Phillips 66 has a refinery that “consists of two facilities linked by pipeline located five miles apart in Carson and Wilmington, California, approximately 15 miles southeast of Los Angeles”, the company’s site shows. Total throughput at the asset is 165,000 barrels per day, according to the site.   In a release posted on its website in October last year, Phillips 66 announced plans to cease operations at its Los Angeles-area refinery in the fourth quarter of 2025. Approximately 600 employees and 300 contractors currently operate the Los Angeles-area refinery, the company noted in the release. “We understand this decision has an impact on our employees, contractors, and the broader community,” Mark Lashier, chairman and CEO of Phillips 66, said in the release. “We will work to help and support them through this transition,” he added. “With the long-term sustainability of our Los Angeles Refinery uncertain and affected by market dynamics, we are working with leading land development firms to evaluate the future use of our unique and strategically located properties near the Port of Los Angeles,” he continued. “Phillips 66 remains committed to serving California and will continue to take the necessary steps to meet our commercial and customer demands,” Lashier went on to state. In a media advisory sent to Rigzone late Thursday by the AccuWeather team, the company said “fires continue to rage across Southern California”. It added that it has updated and increased its

The European Commission has appointed a coordinator to ensure the completion of a project to decouple the power grids of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania from Russia as the deadline looms, citing “urgent needs”. “These 3 countries remain the last EU countries synchronized with networks of non-EU countries, in this case Russia (including Kaliningrad) and Belarus”, the Commission said in an online statement. “Their synchronization with the EU networks is one of the most urgent priorities for EU energy infrastructure, and has already received political, technical and financial support for the past 12 years. “With the target date for completing the synchronization in February 2025 and additional measures to be implemented in the years to come, the Commission is keen to ensure the closest possible coordination between the respective EU countries and the Transmission System Operators”. Catharina Sikow-Magny, the coordinator, previously served as the Commission’s director for the green transition and energy system integration. In November 2024, the transmission system operators of the three Baltic states announced they had jointly agreed to pull out of the BRELL agreement of February 2001, which links them to a grid in which the electricity frequency is controlled by Russia, on February 7, 2025. Synchronizations tests will then follow, according to statements by Estonia’s Elering AS, Latvia’s Augstsprieguma tīkls AS and Lithuania’s Litgrid AB. On August 3, 2023, the governments of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania agreed to quicken the decoupling project and their integration with continental Europe nearly a year earlier than previously agreed, in a move prompted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Under a joint declaration by their prime ministers “the deadline for synchronization is brought forward from the end of 2025, as initially established by political declarations in 2018 and 2019, to February 2025”, the European Commission said in a press release then. The August 2023