The Su Tu Den field, or Black Lion, 145 km off the Vietnamese port of Vung Tau has started producing crude oil nine days ahead of schedule, said PetroVietnam president Pham Quang Du. It is expected to yield 200,000 tonnes of crude oil in the next two months and 1.5 million tonnes in 2004, said...

SHANGHAI (AFX-ASIA) – China Yangtze Power Co Ltd, the listing vehicle of the Three Gorges Dam project, has started offering the retail tranche of its 10 billion yuan IPO A-shares online to secondary market investors. (US$1=8.27 yuan). The retail tranche accounts for 55% of the entire 2.326 billion shares being offered through the IPO. Secondary...

LONDON (AFX) – Oil majors’ focus on return on capital employed is becoming the biggest barrier to investments in the sector, even overshadowing political risk factors that has deterred the flow of foreign capital into oil-rich countries in the Middle East and Russia, said Robert Arnott, senior research fellow at Oxford Institute for Energy Studies....

LONDON (AFX) – Three consortia led by oil giants BP PLC, ExxonMobil Corp and ChevronTexaco Corp are competing for major oil exploration projects in Kuwait, said Nader Sultan, deputy chairman and chief executive of state-run Kuwait Petroleum Corp. He told participants of the Oil & Money Conference in London that these groups have submitted development...

Woodside Petroleum Ltd., Australia’s largest listed oil and gas company, has successfully priced a US$250 million bond in the US bond market. The 10-year bond will be issued via Woodside Finance Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of Woodside Petroleum Ltd., at an interest rate of 5%. The bond will be guaranteed by Woodside Petroleum Ltd....

LONDON (AFX) – Brent crude futures are holding steady at earlier lows amid an easing of concerns surrounding Russia’s energy sector in the wake of the Yukos crisis, and talk of OPEC members seeking higher quotas, analysts said. December-dated Brent crude contracts have been trading at around US$27 a barrel this week, while in New...

LONDON (AFX) – At least 100 bln usd in investments are needed by the global oil sector to boost production and meet increasing demand over the next three decades, said Claude Mandil, executive director of the International Energy Agency. That will bring overall investment requirement of the sector to US$3 trillion until 2030, the majority...

China’s China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) has signed a contract with Husky Oil China Limited for the exploration Block 04/35 in the East China Sea. Husky Oil is a subsidiary of Canada’s Husky, controlled by Hongkong-based business tycoon Li Ka-shing. Located about 350 kilometers east of Shanghai, Block 04/35 covers a total area of...

(INFRALINE) — India is negotiating with Myanmar to acquire at least one more oil and gas block in the offshore areas of Myanmar, focusing on A3 block near the existing A1 block. “We are negotiating with Myamar to take some blocks,” said Indian Ambassdor to Myanmar R K Bhatia said. He confirmed that drilling of...

All signs point toward a continuation or even increase in strong refining margins over the next year, said US consultants ESAI. In the latest edition of its Stockwatch Quarterly Review, ESAI said a deepening gasoline deficit in the US, combined with tough new specification changes, will be the major drivers. “Distillation capacity will grow faster...

SINGAPORE (AFX-ASIA) – JP Morgan Asia-Pacific Equity Research has initiated coverage on Total Automation Ltd with an ‘overweight’ recommendation and a fair value of S$0.86 per share. (US$1=S$1.75). However, JP Morgan expects Total Automation’s 2003 earnings to grow by 5.4% year-on-year to S$7.8 million, due solely to the SARS outbreak earlier this year. For 2004,...

Singapore-listed China Aviation Oil Corporation Ltd (CAO) has tendered to buy four 29,000-tonne jet-fuel cargoes, bringing the forecast total for the fourth quarter to a record 580,000 metric tonnes. This figure represents an all-time high for quarterly Chinese jet-fuel imports, and exceeds the 543,000 metric tonnes logged in the July-September quarter. CAO managing director and...

BEIJING (AFX-ASIA) – China’s Three Gorges Project is expected to put a total of six generating units into operation this year due to power shortages in eastern and central China, and Guangdong province, generating a total of 7.6 billion kWh electricity , the China Youth Daily reported, citing industry sources. The newspaper quoted the sources...

BEIJING (AFX-ASIA) – The arrest of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, chief executive of Yukos Oil Co, the second largest oil company in Russia, will not affect the construction of the pipeline linking Russia’s Angarsk and China’s northeastern city of Daqing, the Beijing Business Today said, citing sources from the company. The newspaper quoted a company spokesperson as...

GE Oil & Gas, a unit of GE Power Systems, has been awarded a US$90 million contract of US$90 million to supply gas turbine-driven compressors for Indonesia’s Tangguh LNG project. The equipment will be used in the first compressor train for the new LNG facility, which will be constructed in Bintuni Bay Regency, Indonesia’s Papua...

Despite rising domestic oil demand, the US is importing less crude and oil products from Asia. Traders say US oil imports from Asia will continue to decline in the coming year as the world’s largest market will be supplied by sources closer to home. Expensive Asian crudes are unable to compete with suppliers from Canada,...

WASHINGTON (AFX) – The US Army has doubled the maximum size of massive contracts to rebuild Iraq’s war-shattered oil industry to US$2 billion. The contracts, expected to have been awarded about now, would be decided in 30 to 60 days to give bidders a chance to revise their proposals, the US Army Corps of Engineers...

KUALA LUMPUR (AFX-ASIA) – Tenaga Nasional Bhd expects electricity demand for 2004 to grow higher than the 7.5% recorded in 2003, chairman Awang Adek Hussin said. “Since our economic growth rate next year is projected to be higher at around 5.5 to 6%then our electricity sales will also be higher than 7.5 (achieved this year),”...

Australian upstream company Santos Limited said its total sales revenue rose 2.2% to A$$1.102 billion for the first nine months of the financial year ended September 30. Its revenue was A$1.078 billion for the same period last year. (US$1=A$1.43). Total sales volumes in the third quarter of 2003 were steady at 15.3 million barrels of...

Ivanhoe Energy said its wholly-owned subsidiary, Sunwing Energy, has initiated an exploration and development program on the company-operated 900,000-acre Zitong Block in China’s gas-rich Sichuan Basin. Based upon previous drilling data and seismic surveys conducted by the Chinese, Sunwing’s evaluations have indicated a potential gross natural gas resource of over five trillion cubic feet (tcf)...

SYDNEY (AFX-ASIA) – Coles Myer Ltd said it plans to extend its discount fuel venture with Shell to New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory and Tasmania from Dec 1, representing the second stage of a planned national rollout. In a statement, Coles Myer said a national rollout is expected to be completed by the...

SHANGHAI (AFX-ASIA) – China Yangtze Power Co Ltd, the listing vehicle of the massive Three Gorges Dam project, plans to raise 9.826 billion yuan in what is likely to be China’s largest domestic IPO this year. (US$18.27 yuan). Yangtze Power will sell a total of 2.326 billion shares at 4.30 yuan each, reflecting a PE...

SHANGHAI (AFX-ASIA) – China Yangtze Power Co Ltd, the listing vehicle of the Three Gorges Dam project, plans to raise no more than 20 billion yuan from the equity markets, including 10 billion yuan to be raised from its planned November IPO, the Shenzhen-based Securities Times reported. (US$1=8.27 yuan). General manager Li Yong’an told institutional...

The ghost of the 1997 financial crisis apparently exorcised, Thailand’s economy is once again hot on the radar screens for investors. The Thai stock market has risen sharply since Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra took office in a landslide elections victory almost three years ago. Under Mr Thaksin’s expansionary policies, the economy is expected to grow...

Australian upstream company Origin Energy Resources Limited said it has begun production testing at the Jingemia Field off Western Australia state. It produced 1,700 barrels of oil within days of start-up on November 1. Origin Energy, the operator of exploration permit 413 and Jingemia 1, said that production testing has been approved through to February...