India’s state-owned refiners led by Indian Oil Corp (IOC) stand to lose US$2.9 billion in revenue this financial year after the government almost halved cooking fuel subsidies, analysts told the Gulf Times. “A 25% drop in profit is plausible at current crude oil prices,” said Dhimant Shah, a fund manager at ASK Raymond James in...
About 2,800 retail stations, or 26% of the total in Korea, have been idled by a nationwide strike by workers at downstream oil company LG Caltex. The stations are owned and supplied by Korea’s second-largest oil refinery in Korea, and have been affected by labour action since July 19. Analysts fear that even if workers...
Vietnam’s Tax Policy Department has proposed imposing a 25% tax on gasoline imports to raise revenues, reported Vietnam News. The department is hoping the new tax will help the Ministry of Finance recover some of its reduced revenue from the country’s import of diesel and kerosene. The report did not say how much the ministry...
Australia’s Motor Trades Association (MTA) said the fuel link-ups between refineries and Australia’s two biggest grocers is forcing hundreds of service stations out of business and putting pressure on unaligned BP and Mobil. According to the Herald Sun, MTA director Michael Delaney said he believed the Coles Myer-Shell and Woolworths-Caltex alliances will not be good...
China’s oil demand is expected to continue growing strongly in the second half of the year despite the government’s moves to cool down the economy, analysts say. Full-year demand for gasoline, diesel and kerosene will grow by more than 10% to over 146 million tons, analysts with the China National Petroleum Corp and brokerages told...
Qatar Shell has predicted that its world-scale gas-to-liquid (GTL) project in Ras Laffan City will create a total of 16,000 jobs from the construction to the operations phase. In addition, the company said it will develop local expertise and support the Qatar Foundation, which aims to create a regional hub in the Middle East for...
Vietnam’s profit share from the Vietnam- Russia joint venture, Vietsovpetro, will be channelled to the national coffers, the Ministry of Finance has decided. In the past, Vietsovpetro was allowed to re-invest its profits, according to Vietnam News. The report said Mrs Le Thi Bang Tam, the Deputy Minister of Finance, recently signed the new regulations...
Australian upstream company Santos Limited has expanded its global oil and gas search with the recent announcement of its first North African exploration venture. The company is investing A$70 million in a joint eight-well exploration venture over three years in the Gulf of Suez, Egypt, with major US petroleum group, Devon Energy Corporation. (US$1=A$1.4). Santos...
New Zealand’s Austral Pacific Energy Ltd said it has finalised the commercial negotiations with Genesis Energy for the funding of the Cardiff-2 well which was initially announced on April 29 as a memorandum of understanding. Genesis Energy will acquire a 40% equity interest in respect of the deep petroleum rights in Petroleum Exploration Permit 38738...
UK-based Cairn Energy said it has received approval from the Indian government to extend the northern boundary of an oil and gas block off the coast of northern state of Rajasthan. The boundary extension of Block RJ-ON-90/1 came after Cairn had announced a potentially significant oil discovery in April 2004. The extension is effective for...
LG Engineering & Construction Corp said it has clinched a 287.2 billion won ($250 million) order to expand a liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant near Seoul, The Korea Herald reported. The construction arm of LG Group, the country’s second largest conglomerate, will team up with two other heavyweights – Hyundai Engineering & Construction Co. and...
US independent ConocoPhillips (NYSE:COP) and Sound Energy Solutions (SES), a wholly owned subsidiary of Japan’s Mitsubishi Corporation, have signed a non-binding Memorandum of Understanding to work jointly on the continuing development of the proposed SES liquefied natural gas import terminal. The terminal is to be located in the Port of Long Beach, California. The terminal...
InterOil Corporation (IOL:TSX-V), a Canadian company with operations in Papua New Guinea said it has received the final drawdown from its US$85 million debt financing facility relating to its recently constructed refinery in Papua New Guinea. The debt facility was provided by the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), an agency of the US government. Under...
Deeply rooted supply and demand trends, regulatory constraints and structural inflexibilities are driving the US toward a crisis in natural gas similar to the crude oil crisis of the 1970s, according to a study recently released by Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA) and sponsored by Accenture. The study, “Charting a Path: Options for a Challenged...
Japan’s Toshiba Corporation has announced it has developed a prototype of a highly compact direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) that can be integrated into devices as small as digital audio players and wireless headsets for mobile phone. The company said the new cell measures in at a compact 22 x 56 x 4.5mm (maximum of...
Malaysian state oil company Petronas is likely to name its president and CEO Mohd Hassan Merican to the chairmanship, said Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. The post became vacant following the death of Azizan Zainul Abidin on July 14. “I am thinking of making Hassan Merican the chairman … so he can be...
Thailand’s Energy Ministry appears to be caught in a dilemma over the use of low-sulphur fuel oil for power generation. It wants local oil refineries to produce bunker and fuel oil of sulphur content of 0.5% in weight or less, but the plants are equipped to produce oil of 2% sulphur or more, according to...
Petrofac Resources, the investment arm of the Petrofac Group, has acquired Amerada Hess (Malaysia Ð PM 304) Ltd, the Amerada Hess subsidiary that operates and owns a 40.5% interest in the Cendor field in Block PM304 off the coast of Peninsular Malaysia. The acquisition will effectively make Petrofac the new operator of the field, which...
Construction of Oryx GTL, Qatar’s first gas-to-liquid (GTL) project, at Ras Laffan is about 38% completed and on schedule to be operational by December 2005, reported the Gulf Times. Oryx GTL’s 33,000 b/d plant is jointly owned by Qatar Petroleum and South Africa’s Sasol. As the largest and most technically advanced GTL facility in the...
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has established a trust fund to strengthen assistance to its developing member countries in fighting money laundering and the financing of terrorism. The Cooperation Fund for Regional Trade and Financial Security Initiative has been set up through initial contributions by the governments of Australia, Japan, and the US. The fund,...
Indonesia’s House of Representatives has asked the government to reduce fuel subsidy allocation in the state budget for 2005 to between Rp18 and Rp19 trillion from Rp21 trillion as provided for in an earlier estimate. According to the House Budget Working Committee Coordinator Poltak Sitorus, the House expects the volume of fuel sales to be...
The market set itself up to rally on the US petroleum statistics last week by having bearishly forecast across-the-board stockbuilds yet again, said French investment bank SG in a report last week. As a result, oil prices were sent soaring when DOE and API figures showed commercial crude oil stocks drawing down by 150% to...
Hubei Tianfa Co, a leading independent oil products wholesale and retail company in China, has been licensed to import oil products into the country as the government prepares the market for greater competition. By year-end, foreign companies will be allowed to import oil products as part of China’s agreement to enter the World Trade Organisation....
PTT Plc, Thailand’s largest oil company, is likely to raise its stake in subsidiary PTT Exploration and Production Plc (PTTEP) to 66.6% from 65% now, said the Business Day. PTTEP’s president Maroot Mrigadat revealed that PTT has indicated it wants to buy more PTTEP shares from the open market. He said that if PTT buys...
Small oil companies of the Philippines have criticised the timing of the government’s move to raise the excise tax rate on oil product imports. While accepting the higher tax as “logical”, the Independent Philippine Petroleum Companies Association (Ippca) said the increase will hurt the industry as they are not allowed to freely pass costs onto...