Falklands Oil Megaproject Breaks Free After 15 Years

Falklands Oil Megaproject Breaks Free After 15 Years By Natalia Katona, 1 days ago After 15 years of delay, redesign, and skepticism, the Sea Lion oil project has finally crossed the line from ambition to execution. On December 10, partners Navitas Petroleum (Israel) and Rockhopper Exploration (UK) took a long-awaited final investment decision (FID) on what will become the largest deepwater oil development in the South Atlantic outside Brazil. Few projects of comparable scale have taken so long to move from discovery to sanction, and fewer still have done so under such persistent political, legal and financial headwinds. With FID now secured, Sea Lion formally enters the development phase, planned to last 35 years or longer, with first oil targeted for 2028. Discovered in 2010 by Rockhopper Exploration, Sea Lion was the Falkland Islands’ first commercial oil find, but its remote location and legal difficulties made it vulnerable to shifts in capital investment. Premier Oil’s $1 billion entry in 2012 was meant to accelerate development, yet the post-2014 oil price slump and the retreat of listed companies from capital-intensive frontier projects left Sea Lion effectively frozen until the end of the decade. That changed with the arrival of Israel’s Navitas Petroleum in 2020. Initially a minority investor, Navitas became the project’s operator and majority owner in 2021 after Harbour Energy exited, restructuring both ownership and financing. The shift replaced public-market caution with private capital willing to absorb long-cycle risk — a change that ultimately unlocked the project and led to the FID. Related: Top Exporters Boosted Natural Gas Supply in October Sea Lion contains approximately 315 million barrels of recoverable crude oil, producing a sweet, low-sulphur grade with 28–29° degrees API and just 0.2% sulphur. Development has been designed in phases to manage capital intensity and reservoir performance. The sanctioned Phase 1 targets 170 million barrels of oil, with peak production of 50,000 b/d and 11 wells planned, while first oil is expected in 2028. Phase 2 is planned to recover a further 144 million barrels, with 12 additional wells to be drilled roughly three years after first oil to extend the production plateau. The entire field will be developed around a single redeployed Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessel. Navitas’ role has been central to unlocking the project. By the time it entered, the project had become too capital-intensive and politically exposed for publicly listed companies constrained by balance-sheet discipline and shareholder scrutiny. Navitas Petroleum, by contrast, has built its strategy around long-cycle offshore developments, particularly FPSO-based projects, where bespoke financing, patience and tolerance for high geopolitical risk are essential. That approach was proven in Israel’s Leviathan gas field, where Navitas held a 7.5% stake through construction, saw first gas in 2019, and exited in 2021 via a sale to Mubadala Petroleum once the project had been de-risked. A similar pattern played out at the Shenandoah deepwater project in the Gulf of Mexico. There, Navitas acquired 49% and operatorship of a stalled development, restructured legacy debt and helped secure a $1 billion financing package in 2021 backed by Israeli banks and institutional investors. Shenandoah came onstream in early 2025 and is now generating cash flow, reinforcing Navitas’ ability to revive projects others could not advance. Sea Lion now follows Navitas’ established strategy. After the Israeli company joined the project, a funding agreement was put in place under which it covered 100% of Rockhopper’s project costs prior to sanction, effectively reviving an asset that had been financially frozen for years. Phase 1 is expected to cost around $1.8 billion to first oil and roughly $2.1 billion through completion once contingencies and financing costs are included. In contrast to Leviathan, however, Sea Lion represents a deeper commitment: with a 65% stake and operatorship, Navitas appears positioned not only to carry the project through de-risking, but to remain at the centre of the development well into its producing life. The project has been facing a series of impediments, and only time will show if the owners will be able to navigate through them. Firstly, the legal framework underpinning Sea Lion project’s exploration and production is one of its most notable peculiarities. Following the UK’s de facto military victory in the 1982 Falklands War over Argentina as well as the 2013 referendum in which 99.8% of the Falkland Islands’ population voted to remain a British Overseas Territory, the islands are administered de facto and de jure under UK law, with sovereignty recognised in practice by most countries. At the same time, the United Nations does not recognise sovereignty claims by either the UK or Argentina, lists the Falklands as a non-self-governing territory and continues to call on the two nations to negotiate. That unresolved status creates enduring political risk but has not prevented the Falkland Islands Government from issuing licences, regulating petroleum activity, and levying fiscal terms. Under the local framework, Sea Lion is subject to a royalty rate of 9% and corporate income tax of 26%, in line with the Falklands Islands Upstream Summary. Ironically, the UK is strangling its domestic oil and gas industry with a 78% profit tax rate, but entertains such a lenient tax regime in its overseas territories. This way, politically, the project remains contentious. Buenos Aires has consistently opposed Sea Lion from the earliest exploration phase through to the FID announcement, describing the licences under which drilling and development are conducted as ‘unlawful’, branding the project ‘unilateral and illegitimate’, and citing the UN resolutions related to the sovereignty dispute. Argentina’s reaction to FID followed this well-established pattern. However, Buenos Aires has limited ability to intervene in the project from either a military or legal standpoint. Vessels en route to the Falklands do not need to pass through Argentine territorial waters, meaning Argentina's only recourse is to withhold logistical support, hoping that the difficulties of transporting necessary equipment and workforce from the UK to the Falklands via air or sea would make the project as financially unpleasant as it can be. The second major hurdle lay in a series of engineering and permitting bottlenecks that only began to clear this year. Located more than 220 kilometres offshore and entirely without supporting infrastructure, Sea Lion can only be developed via an FPSO – a solution that is both capital-intensive and constrained by limited vessel availability. However, early 2025 saw a long-anticipated breakthrough, when a front-end engineering design contract was awarded for a redeployed FPSO, marking a clear shift from conceptual work to execution planning. Environmental permitting, long a chronic obstacle, also moved forward. An Environmental Impact Assessment submitted in 2024 progressed through review, and in November 2025, the Falkland Islands’ Department of Mineral Resources concluded that the Environmental Impact Statement submitted by Navitas in July 2025 – the third version since the first proposal – satisfied local legislation and required only minor amendments. With engineering, permitting, and financing aligned, the case for an FID finally became robust. With regulatory sanction secured and an FID in place, attention is already turning to what Sea Lion could unlock next. The most obvious candidate is the Darwin deepwater gas-condensate discovery offshore the Falkland Islands, drilled by Borders & Southern Petroleum in 2021 in around 2,000 metres of water and estimated to contain 460 million barrels of recoverable liquids. Darwin has so far remained stranded by depth, cost and lack of infrastructure, but Sea Lion’s success could alter the economics of further developments in the basin. Argentina, meanwhile, has been testing its own offshore potential. Buenos Aires granted exploration permits to YPF, Equinor and TGS, and Equinor drilled the ultra-deepwater Argerich-1 pilot well, which was ultimately declared dry. For now, most upstream investment in Argentina continues to flow from the Vaca Muerta shale rather than frontier offshore plays. Sea Lion does not resolve the sovereignty dispute over the Falkland Islands, nor does it eliminate political risk in the South Atlantic. What it does demonstrate is that with the right capital structure, operator profile and timing, even projects long dismissed as commercially unviable can be brought to sanction. If the development performs as planned, Sea Lion may not only anchor Falklands offshore production for decades but also reshape investor perceptions of one of the industry’s last major frontier basins. By Natalia Katona for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com Trump’s Truth Social Merges With Nuclear Fusion Company in $6 Billion Deal Chinese Solar Firms Trim Losses as Beijing Tackles Overcapacity Global Oil Demand Surges Driven by Indian Market Rebound

Brasilian Senate Approves Bill To Reduce Bolsonaro's Sentence

Brazilian Senate Approves Bill to Reduce Bolsonaro’s Prison Sentence Brazil Brazil’s Senate approved a bill this week that could significantly reduce prison sentences for those convicted in the Jan. 8, 2023, insurrection, a move that would directly benefit former President Jair Bolsonaro, who has been sentenced to decades in prison for attempting a coup, the Associated Press reported. The Senate passed the legislation with 48 votes in favor and 25 against after fast-tracking the bill through the Constitution and Justice Committee. The lower house had already approved the bill, which will now go to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva for his signature. The new bill will allow sentence reductions of up to two-thirds for crimes committed “in a crowd,” benefiting defendants convicted of storming public buildings during the 2023 riots, provided they did not finance or lead the actions. It would also impact Bolsonaro’s prison term – he was sentenced last month to more than 27 years for attempting a coup following his election loss to Lula in October 2022. While there is no consensus on how much time the conservative leader will face if the bill takes effect, his allies in Congress suggested that the period could be cut to two years. Bolsonaro’s lawyers have already appealed to the Supreme Court, claiming the sentence was excessive and that the penalties should not be added because they stemmed from a single episode. Following the Senate’s vote, officials in Lula’s administration said the president will veto the measure, stressing that “those convicted of attacking democracy must pay for their crimes” and calling the bill a “sign of disrespect for the Supreme Court’s decision and a serious setback to legislation that protects democracy.” Observers noted that if the president vetoes the bill, Congress can attempt to override him with a simple majority in a joint session, according to MercoPress. The bill is also expected to face a Supreme Court challenge. On Sunday, tens of thousands of people took to the streets of Brazil to protest against the bill. Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, the former president’s eldest son, praised the proposal as the only path toward “national pacification,” adding there should be no debate about amnesty but about “annulling the farce that the entire process was.” He is expected to challenge Lula in the 2026 presidential election as the Liberal Party’s candidate.

Venezuela Rebukes Trump's Complete Blockade

Venezuela Rebukes Trump’s ‘Complete Blockade’ and Terrorist Designation Venezuela Venezuela denounced the United States’ decision to impose what President Donald Trump called a “total and complete blockade” of oil tankers as a violation of international law, a move that analysts called a major escalation with significant economic and humanitarian consequences for a country overwhelmingly dependent on oil exports, the Washington Post reported. On Tuesday, Trump announced the blockade on Truth Social, saying all sanctioned oil tankers entering or leaving Venezuela would be barred. He also declared the administration of President Nicolás Maduro a foreign terrorist organization (FTO) and accused officials of using oil revenues to finance “drug terrorism.” In response, the Venezuelan government described Trump’s remarks as “grotesque” and a set of “warmongering threats,” vowing to raise the issue at the United Nations. The announcement follows a series of US actions targeting Venezuela in recent months: Since September, the US military has carried out airstrikes on small boats it says were involved in drug trafficking, killing at least 95 people. The United States has also increased its naval presence in the Caribbean and Pacific Ocean, including the deployment of the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft-carrier strike group. Tensions escalated last week when US forces seized a previously sanctioned oil tanker after it left Venezuelan waters. On Tuesday, Venezuela’s Foreign Ministry sent a letter to the United Nations Security Council, calling the recent seizure of a Venezuelan oil tanker an “act of state piracy.” Venezuela has accused Washington of seeking to seize control of the country’s natural resources. Meanwhile, Washington’s move would make Venezuela the first country ever to receive the FTO designation. Jeremy Paner, a former Treasury Department sanctions investigator, told the Post that this designation would extend US law extraterritorially, exposing any individual or company providing “any sort of assistance at all” to potential enforcement action. Meanwhile, legal analysts worried that the naval blockade could be deemed as an act of war, while also questioning how the wide-ranging blockade on sanctioned oil tankers would be enforced, the BBC added. They explained that roughly 80 percent of Venezuela’s oil is sold on the black market and that blocking sanctioned vessels could have a “massive impact” on government revenue. Because the country’s economy heavily relies on oil exports, the blockade could potentially lead to economic contraction, higher inflation, and currency devaluation. Others warned that cutting off oil revenue could sharply reduce food imports and trigger a severe humanitarian crisis. Venezuela holds the world’s largest proven oil reserves, but years of sanctions, mismanagement, and infrastructure decay have sharply reduced output, leaving China and US-licensed exports by Chevron as its main remaining customers. Share this story

Chile Elects Most Conservative President In Three Decades

Chile Elects Most Conservative President in Three Decades Chile Chile elected far-right José Antonio Kast as president Sunday, following an electoral campaign dominated by themes of security, immigration, and crime, in a victory marking the country’s sharpest rightward shift since the end of Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s military dictatorship in 1990, the BBC reported. With almost all ballots counted, Kast, the leader of the Republican Party, won more than 58 percent of the vote in a runoff vote in which his opponent, Communist Party candidate Jeannette Jara, received just over 41 percent, NPR noted. Kast, considered a right-wing hardliner throughout his decades-long political career, was often seen as too extreme. He won over voters, analysts said, who have become increasingly worried about crime and immigration. While Chile is one of the safest countries in Latin America, violent crime has increased in recent years as organized crime groups have taken root, exploiting the country’s porous northern desert borders with coca-producing neighbors Peru and Bolivia. Kast has proposed building a border wall on Chile’s borders, deploying the military to crime-ridden areas, and mass deportations of illegal migrants in the country, many of whom are from Venezuela, according to France 24. The president-elect has also firmly opposed abortion in all cases and spoken against environmental protection policies. He proposed massive spending cuts and pledged a free-market approach to economics to shrink the state and deregulate certain industries, a stance likely to be welcomed by investors. However, his more radical ideas will likely face pushback from Congress. While right-wing parties gained seats in both legislative chambers in the general election in November, most of those gains came from more traditional parties. As a result, the Senate is evenly split between left- and right-wing parties, while the swing vote in the lower chamber rests with the populist People’s Party. The election, the first presidential election in the country since voting became mandatory, was also Kast’s third attempt at the presidency – the last time he lost to leftist President Gabriel Boric in 2021. He will be inaugurated on March 11. His victory is part of a recent regional trend in which voters are tilting right, for example, in Ecuador, El Salvador, Argentina, and Bolivia. Share this story

Brasil's Lower House Passes Bill To Lower Bolsonaro's Prison Sentence.

Brazil’s Lower House Passes Bill to Shorten Bolsonaro’s Coup Sentence Brazil Brazil’s lower house of Congress approved a bill Wednesday that could potentially reduce the prison sentence of former conservative President Jair Bolsonaro, who was recently sentenced to 27 years in jail for attempting a coup after losing the 2022 presidential elections, Reuters reported. The bill, passed in a 291-148 vote, would cut the sentence for individuals convicted of coup-related offenses. Lawmaker Paulinho da Força, who sponsored the bill, estimated the move would reduce Bolsonaro’s term by at least two years in prison. The proposed legislation would also shorten sentences for Bolsonaro’s allies convicted for coup-related charges, as well as for supporters prosecuted for storming the presidential palace, Supreme Court, and Congress in the capital, Brasilia, during the January 2023 riots. The vote was marked by a series of disruptions and scuffles among lawmakers, with one leftist legislator denouncing it as a “coup offensive,” the BBC added. Earlier drafts of the bill had proposed granting amnesty to those involved in the post-election protests, but da Força said he rejected such provisions. The bill will still need to be approved by the upper house, the Senate, and could be struck down by the Supreme Court. It comes three months after Bolsonaro was sentenced for plotting a coup after losing the election to his leftist rival, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. The Supreme Court found he had proposed a coup to military leaders and that he knew of a plot to assassinate Lula. Bolsonaro and his supporters have rejected the investigation as a “witch hunt.” Observers said Wednesday’s vote marks the latest effort by Bolsonaro’s allies in Congress to exonerate him, a topic that remains divisive in Brazil: In September, lawmakers loyal to Bolsonaro backed away from a bill that would have granted him amnesty following nationwide protests.

Tens Of Thousands Of Women In Brasil Protest Against Gender Violence

Tens of Thousands of Women Protest in Brazil Against Gender-Based Violence Brazil Tens of thousands of women took to the streets across Brazil on Sunday to protest against gender-based violence as a record number of female victims and several recent high-profile cases have shocked the country, the Associated Press reported. Women of all ages rallied in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, and other cities, demanding an end to feminicide, rape, and misogyny, asking men to join them in their struggle. Some men also took part in the demonstration. Demonstrators in Rio de Janeiro set up dozens of black crosses and carried stickers reading messages such as “machismo kills.” In São Paulo, protesters chanted “Stop killing us” and held signs reading “Enough of femicide,” Al Jazeera added. Among the recent cases that ignited the demonstrations was the murder of an administrative worker in a school in Rio de Janeiro, killed on Nov. 28 by a male colleague. The victim’s sister, who was demonstrating in Copacabana, told the AP that the murderer did not accept having female bosses. Another incident took place on Nov. 28, where a 31-year-old woman was run over by her ex-boyfriend and trapped beneath the car, which dragged her along the concrete for about half a mile, resulting in the woman losing both her legs. Brazil passed a law criminalizing feminicide in 2015, describing the crime as the death of a woman in the domestic sphere or as a result of contempt for women. Last year, 1,492 women were victims of femicide, the highest number since the law was introduced, according to a report by the Brazilian Forum on Public Safety, a think tank. The report also found that more than one in three women in Brazil experienced sexual or gender-based violence over the course of a year. Share this story

Argentina's Melt Down Offers A Global Warning

Argentina’s meltdown offers a global warning By Alexander Clark, 21 hours ago Argentina’s economic unraveling is not just a local tragedy, it is a live stress test of what happens when chronic fiscal excess, political fragmentation, and social exhaustion collide. I see in Argentina’s turmoil a warning for other democracies that are flirting with similar pressures, from unsustainable debt and inflation to populist backlashes against traditional parties. The country’s latest crisis, and the radical response it has produced, shows how quickly a middle-income democracy can slide from gradual decline into systemic shock. The choices Argentina is making now, and the pain its citizens are absorbing, offer a stark preview of what can await any society that postpones hard decisions until markets and voters both lose patience. Argentina’s long slide into crisis Argentina did not wake up one morning in meltdown; it arrived there after decades of stop‑start reforms, repeated debt blowups, and a political culture that treated inflation as a lesser evil than fiscal restraint. I read the current turmoil as the culmination of a long pattern in which governments financed expansive social promises and subsidies with money creation and borrowing, only to see inflation and currency collapse wipe out those gains. That cycle eroded trust in institutions and in the national currency itself, leaving households and firms constantly braced for the next shock. Reporting on Argentina’s recent history describes how successive administrations leaned on capital controls, price freezes, and multiple exchange rates to mask underlying imbalances rather than resolve them, a strategy that eventually drove inflation into triple digits and pushed poverty sharply higher. Analysts trace the latest crisis to a combination of chronic fiscal deficits, heavy reliance on central bank financing, and a loss of access to affordable external credit, all of which fed a downward spiral in the peso and forced the government into repeated negotiations with the International Monetary Fund over its sovereign debt and financing program. By the time voters turned to a radical outsider promising shock therapy, Argentina had already burned through much of the policy space that more gradual reform would have required. Milei’s shock therapy and its domestic fallout The election of Javier Milei, a libertarian economist who campaigned on chainsaw‑style cuts to the state, reflects how deeply Argentine voters had come to distrust the existing political class. I see his rise as a symptom of institutional fatigue: when mainstream parties fail to stabilize living standards, electorates become more willing to gamble on leaders who promise to rip up the old playbook. Milei’s program of rapid fiscal consolidation, deregulation, and a drastic reduction of subsidies is designed to break the inflationary dynamic, but it also concentrates economic pain in a short window, testing social cohesion. Accounts of Milei’s early months in office describe sweeping reductions in public spending, including cuts to energy and transport subsidies, sharp devaluations of the official exchange rate, and efforts to dismantle long‑standing price controls and labor regulations. These measures have been paired with an aggressive rhetorical campaign against what he calls the “caste” of entrenched political and union elites, a framing that has energized his base while alarming opponents who fear democratic norms could be weakened. As inflation initially surged in response to the devaluation and subsidy removal before showing signs of easing, Argentines faced rising utility bills, falling real wages, and a spike in social tension, with unions and social movements organizing large protests against the government’s austerity drive. The social cost of delayed adjustment What stands out to me in Argentina’s current ordeal is not only the severity of the adjustment, but how much of it reflects choices deferred rather than choices newly invented. When governments postpone structural reforms, the eventual correction tends to be harsher, because the economy has accumulated more distortions and the public has fewer buffers left. Argentina’s high poverty rate, fragile labor market, and frayed public services meant that when the latest round of cuts arrived, they landed on a society already stretched thin. Reports from the ground describe how inflation had already eroded real incomes for years, pushing a significant share of the population into informal work and leaving many families dependent on state transfers and subsidized services. As those supports are reduced or restructured, households face a double squeeze of higher prices and weaker safety nets, with food insecurity and social unrest becoming more visible in major cities. Economists who have tracked Argentina’s repeated crises note that earlier, more measured reforms to pensions, subsidies, and tax policy could have spread the burden over time, whereas today’s compressed shock is forcing abrupt changes in everything from public sector employment to energy pricing. The lesson is not that adjustment can be avoided, but that delaying it often shifts the cost onto those least able to absorb it. Why Argentina’s turmoil matters beyond its borders Argentina’s predicament resonates far beyond the Southern Cone because many other democracies are drifting toward similar fault lines, even if their starting conditions differ. I see three common threads: rising public debt, persistent inflation or its risk, and a widening gap between what voters expect from the state and what tax bases can sustainably fund. When those pressures build, the temptation to rely on financial repression, creative accounting, or central bank balance sheets grows, and with it the risk of a sudden loss of confidence that forces a rapid and painful correction. International institutions have warned that several emerging and advanced economies are carrying debt loads that leave them vulnerable to shifts in global interest rates and investor sentiment, particularly where fiscal deficits remain large and growth is weak. Analysts point to Argentina as a cautionary case of how repeated restructurings and reliance on official lenders can narrow policy options, especially when domestic politics make tax increases or spending cuts difficult to sustain. The country’s experience with capital controls, exchange‑rate gaps, and inflationary financing offers a concrete example of how efforts to shield citizens from short‑term pain can, over time, deepen the eventual crisis and undermine trust in both the currency and the broader economic model. What other democracies can learn For policymakers watching from abroad, Argentina’s meltdown is less an outlier than an extreme version of trends that are visible in milder form elsewhere. I draw two main lessons. First, credible medium‑term fiscal plans matter, not as technocratic ornaments but as anchors for public expectations and market confidence. Second, institutions that can resist short‑term political pressure, from independent central banks to professional civil services, are essential to prevent gradual slippage into crisis. Where those anchors weaken, the space opens for more radical figures to promise quick fixes that often require even more painful trade‑offs. Comparative research on fiscal crises shows that countries which move early to stabilize debt, broaden their tax base, and target subsidies more precisely tend to avoid the kind of runaway inflation and currency collapse that Argentina has endured. Analysts who track sovereign risk argue that transparent budgeting, realistic growth assumptions, and clear communication about the distribution of adjustment costs can reduce the likelihood of sudden stops in capital flows and the political backlash that follows. Argentina’s current turmoil, with its mix of harsh austerity, social protest, and institutional strain, illustrates what can happen when those safeguards erode and hard choices are forced into a compressed and volatile period, offering a stark reference point for any democracy tempted to treat fiscal and monetary discipline as problems that can always be solved later. More From TheDailyOverview Tennessee loses $2.6B megafactory and faces major layoffs Retired But Want To Work? Try These 18 Jobs for Seniors That Pay Weekly What to do with your pennies after the U.S. stops minting them Home Depot CEO warns of a troubling customer trend in stores 19