Hongkong-lised Panva Gas Holdings Limited (Stock Code: 8132) said its net profit rose 77% to HK$133 million on a 37% jump in revenue for the nine months ended September 30. The group’s turnover was reported at HK$1.042 billion. (US$1=HK$7.87). Retail liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) sales amounted to approximately HK$238 million, representing a growth of 28%...

SEOUL (AFX-ASIA) – Russia, China and South Korea will decide today on whether to include North Korea in a US$11 billion project to pipe Siberian natural gas into the Korean peninsula, officials said. “The three countries will officially complete the feasibility study at a meeting in Moscow on November 14,” the commerce, industry and energy...

SYDNEY (AFX-ASIA) – US-based utility Duke Energy will formally begin the A$1.5 billion sale of its Australian assets tomorrow with investment bank JP Morgan to deliver a ‘sale flyer’ to potential buyers, the Australian Financial Review reported without specifying sources. (US$1=A$1.4). In preparation for a sale, Duke has employed international branding group Interbrand to develop...

BEIJING (AFX-ASIA) – China National Offshore Oil Corp (CNOOC), the parent company of CNOOC Ltd (HK 0883; NYSE CEO), has invested 300 million yuan in a bitumen plant with annual output of 300,000 tons in Luzhou in the southwestern Chinese province of Sichuan, the company said on its website. (US$1=8.27 yuan). The company said a...

BEIJING (AFX-ASIA) – CNOOC Ltd (HK 0883; NYSE CEO) is considering buying downstream assets from its parent China National Offshore Oil Corp (CNOOC) as its current asset structure is centered on upstream operations, which are highly sensitive to fluctuations in oil prices, the Guangzhou-based New Express reported. The newspaper quoted CNOOC Ltd chairman and chief...

LONDON (AFX) – Moody’s Investors Service said it has placed a negative outlook on the Ba1 senior implied and Ba2 issuer ratings of Yukos Oil Company as uncertainties continue to surround the future of Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his stake in the company. There is no rated debt outstanding, it said. Moody’s said it has also...

BEIJING (AFX-ASIA) – BP Plc (NYSE BP) will invest another US$1 billion in gas pipeline projects in China’s southern province of Guangdong in the next five years, BP Amoco executive vice president Byron Grote said. He made the comments while visiting the province as an advisor to the International Consultative Conference on the Future Economic...

(INFRALINE) — India will begin constructing storage facilities to hold 2.5 million tonnes of crude oil reserves by next April, said Petroleum Secretary B K Chaturvedi. “We have approached the Cabinet with a proposal to build strategic inventory of crude oil at Visakhapatnam and Mangalore in the first phase,” said Mr Chaturvedi. The facilities, to...

SHANGHAI (AFX-ASIA) – The institutional tranche of China Yangtze Power Co Ltd’s 9.8 billion yuan A-share offer was 84 times oversubscribed, the China Securities Journal reported. That follows news that the retail tranche was 68.7 times oversubscribed. Citing unnamed sources, the newspaper said that the institutional portion, which accounts for 45% of the offer of...

BANGKOK (AFX-ASIA) – Fitch Ratings said it has assigned PTT Plc senior unsecured long-term and short-term national ratings of “AA+ (tha)” and “F1+(tha)”, respectively. The outlook is stable. The ratings reflect PTT’s dominance of the gas and oil business in Thailand, its strategic importance and its function as a policy vehicle for Thailand’s energy security...

BEIJING (AFX-ASIA) – China’s National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) expects to raise its overseas crude oil output to 50 million tons by 2010, the Beijing Morning Post reported, citing a company source. The source said most of CNPC’s overseas crude oil will be derived from Sudan, Kazakhstan, Venezuela and Indonesia. The company’s total overseas crude oil...

(INFRALINE) — India’s IBP Oil has begun discussing with Tamil Nadu-based Nagarjuna Oil Corporation (NOC) to acquire the marketing right of the products from its proposed six million tonne refinery. Arun Jyoti, IBP’s managing director, said a decision is expected within two months. “We are in discussion with NOC which is coming up with a...

WASHINGTON (AFX) – The US Army may replace Halliburton as the agent for future gasoline imports into Iraq following accusations of overcharging, two senior Democratic lawmakers said. The Army Corps of Engineers was considering switching the business to the Pentagon’s Defence Energy Support Center, said two Democrats in the House of Representatives, Henry Waxman and...

The US Department of Energy has projected that world oil demand will rise by about 1 million barrels per day in 2003 and in 2004, slightly less than the projected growth in non-OPEC oil production of 1.3 million barrels per day in 2004. It said that about a third of the growth in world oil...

Talisman Vietnam Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of Canadian upstream company Talisman Energy Inc., has made a gas discovery in Block 46-Cai Nuoc offshore Vietnam. The well was tested and flowed at a rate of 34 mmcf/d of natural gas. The Hoa Mai-1X exploration well successfully tested the Hoa Mai prospect in Vietnam Block 46-Cai...

BEIJING (AFX-ASIA) – Burlington Resources Inc (NYSE BR) will invest between US$500 million and US$800 million to cooperate with a PetroChina Co Ltd (HK 0857; NYSE PTR) unit in natural gas exploration in the southwestern Chinese province of Sichuan, the International Finance News reported, citing a Burlington official. The newspaper quoted the official as saying...

JAKARTA (AFX-ASIA) – The government will sell a 30% stake or 1.29 billion shares of PT Perusahaan Gas Negara (PGN) via an initial public offering next month, the company said. PGN said in a published prospectus that the IPO comprises 475.30 million shares from the divestment of the government’s stake and the issue of 820.98...

LONDON (AFX) – Oil supermajors ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch/Shell Group expect gas to become the preferred fuel in the future, overtaking politics-ridden oil. As global demand for energy expands, gas is increasingly playing a “more significant and strategic” role in meeting that demand, said Malcolm Brinded, managing director of the Royal Dutch/Shell Group. The gas...

(INFRALINE) — Three state companies : Indian Oil Corporation, Hindustan Petroleum and Bharat Petroleum : will meet on November 14 to discuss marketing Reliance Industries’ oil products through their combined 19,000 retail outlets from next March. This comes in the wake of Reliance seeking a two-year extension of its marketing agreements with the state-owned oil...

(INFRALINE) — As the political crisis in Sri Lanka deepens, Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) is not clear whether it will be able to sell its gasoline and diesel in the prevailing conditions in the country. Earlier, President Chandrika Kumaratunga had declared a state of emergency after sacking three ministers. IOC retails gasoline and diesel through...

NEW YORK (AFX) – US oil majors are wary of the controversy surrounding Russian oil group Yukos, whose former boss has been charged with fraud in what some observers say is a politically-motivated case, but it is not deterring them from Russian investments, analysts said. Although the Yukos affair and the arrest of its former...

KUALA LUMPUR (AFX-ASIA) – Petronas Gas Bhd was lower after it turned in weaker first half to September 2003 results, dealers said. “Some retail investors are selling the share following the weaker first half results,” a local brokerage dealer said, adding that the sell orders are insignificant. Petronas Gas said that its half year to...

PTT, Thailand’s country’s largest oil and gas conglomerate, said it will sell debentures worth some 15 billion baht to institutional and retail investors this month. According to a Business Day report, the proceeds will be used to pay for business expansion and debt refinancing. Fitch Rating (Thailand) has given PTT’s long-term debentures at an investment...

(INFRALINE) — ONGC Videsh Ltd (OVL), the overseas investment arm of India’s Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), has told the government that its biggest project, the Sakhalin oil and gas project in Russia, will overrun budget by $800 million. Of this, $400 million would be lent to the Russian oil company Rosneft, a project...

BEIJING (AFX-ASIA) – BP PLC (NYSE BP) has set up a 50-50 liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) joint venture with Hong Kong-listed Sinopec Zhenhai Refining & Chemical Co Ltd (HK 1128), Sinopec Zhenhai said on its website. Sinopec Zhenhai said the joint venture has registered capital of 10 million yuan, and will be mainly engaged in...