State-owned Taiwan Sugar Corp (Taisugar) recently sold its gasoline for discount for a three days as part of a strategy to expand market share. “We hope the effort É will help sales of our gasoline business grow to more than NT$4 billion (US$118.7 million) this year, from over NT$3 billion last year,” Chen Hsueh-min, Taisugar’s...

French investment bank SG says Saudi Arabia will not raise its crude production to 9.1 million barrels/day as announced last month. It said that June’s price declines can be explained by market sentiment that crude supply is ample, particularly in the Atlantic Basin. “This change in mood occurred after Saudi Arabia promised to push its...

Singapore Petroleum Company Limited (SPC) has agreed to purchase BP’s retail and LPG business in Singapore for US$70 million, the companies said in a joint announcement yesterday. BP’s retail business comprises 30 stations while its LPG business includes a 70% shareholding in BP Wearnes Gas Ltd. Subject to receiving the necessary approvals and consents as...

Finland’s W’rtsil’ said it has landed several “significant” long-term operation and maintenance (O&M) agreements in Indonesia. Last month, the company and PT Antam (Antam), an internationally-listed, diversified Indonesian mining and metals company, signed an eleven-year O&M agreement covering the operation and maintenance of a 152 MW power plant supplying the energy needs of the Pomalaa...

Oil prices are settling into a new floor range after profit taking in the second half of June forced US crude oil back to down around US$35/barrel. At the start of June, WTI futures closed at a record US$42.33/barrel, causing consternation and panic among oil consumer countries around the world. A series of deadly terrorist...

Japan’s second-largest electric utility, Kansai Electric Power Co of Osaka, said it found 3,659 cases of fabricated records at its 11 thermal power generation facilities between fiscal 2000 and 2003. The crime covered regular facility checkups and administrative matters at 10 of its thermal power plants and a generation site that provides electricity to Kansai...

Oil prices have been pushed up by a convergence of bullish factors over the weekend. As prices sank to around US$35/barrel last week, OPEC said it might postpone implementation of its earlier decision taken at its June 3 Beirut meeting to raise quotas on crude oil production and export by 0.5 million barrels daily from...

Saudi Aramco has signed an agreement to acquire a strategic shareholding in Japanese refiner Showa Shell Sekiyu KK to form a partnership with the company’s largest shareholder, Royal Dutch/Shell Group. The Shell group, the 50% shareholder of Showa Shell, agreed to transfer to Saudi Aramco, 37.54 million shares or 9.96% of the refiner’s equity, Shell...

UK-based Cairn Energy said it has placed up to 7,512,850 new ordinary shares of 10 pence each, representing approximately 5% of its current issued share capital. (US$1=55 pence). The placing, which was not underwritten, was made by Hoare Govett Limited and Canaccord Capital (Europe) Limited as joint brokers. Hoare Govett is acting as sole bookrunner...

The construction site for Sakhalin Energy’s Sakhalin II Phase 2 Project Concrete Gravity Base Structures (CGBS) was officially opened last week in Vostochny town. The two concrete gravity base structures for the new Lunskoye A and Piltun Astokh B platforms, each consist of a large concrete caisson base structure that will be placed on the...

Malaysian state oil company Petronas is preparing a major push into China’s downstream market with the establishment of a new subsidiary Petronas Marketing China Company Ltd (PMCCL). In a statement, Petronas said its PMCCL, based in the southern city of Shenzhen, would strategise and manage its retail and marketing expansion of its petroleum products in...

Australian upstream company Origin Energy Resources Ltd said it has reached agreement with Beach Petroleum Limited in relation to a farm-in arrangement for PEL 27 while another upstream company Santos said it has divested all its shareholding in Magellan Australia Petroleum. PEL 27 is an exploration area located in the onshore Otway Basin in the...

Qatar Terminal Limited and Exxon Mobil Corporation’s Zeebrugge LNG Trading Company Limited have signed a long-term terminal capacity subscription agreement with Fluxys LNG. Qatar Terminal is an affiliate of Qatar Petroleum while Fluxys is a member of Paris-based energy group Suez. The agreement was signed by Abdullah Bin Hamad Al-Attiyah, Qatar’s second deputy premier and...

Baihaki Hakim, former president of state oil and gas firm Pertamina, has defended his decision to buy two oil tankers on the grounds that they helped reduce its dependence on chartering vessels at a high cost. “Owning the tankers would make Pertamina independent. It would not be dictated to and controlled by the tanker cartel,”...

Indonesia raised the retail prices of fuels for industries and bunker shipping from July 1. In a press release, state oil company Pertamina said the old prices of domestic premium gasoline were Rp 1,810 per liter, kerosene Rp1,800, diesel Rp.1,650, motor diesel fuel Rp1,650 and motor fuel oil Rp1,560. The new prices: premium Rp 2,100...

Bill Gammell, chief executive of UK’s Cairn Energy, has won the Ernst & Young entrepreneur of 2004 in recognition of the Edinburgh-based company’s success as a pioneer of oil and gas exploration in India. The former Scotland rugby internationalist received the prize at a ceremony in Glasgow last month, capping a period in which Cairn’s...

JAKARTA (AFX-ASIA) – Indonesia’s PT Medco Energi Internasional said it will acquire all outstanding shares in Australia’s Novus Petroleum Ltd under Australian takeover regulations to assume 100% ownership. It said the move will complete its takeover of Novus which holds interests in oil and gas fields in Australia, Indonesia, the US and the Middle East...

JAKARTA (AFX-ASIA) – Standard & Poor’s Rating Services said it has placed its “B-” rating for Paiton Energy Funding BV’s US$180 million bond issue on credit watch, with negative implications, taking into account the company’s plan to build a new US$580 million power plant. The bond issue, due in 2014, is guaranteed by Indonesia’s PT...

Hongkong-based Fortune Oil said it and its subsidiaries have established joint venture contracts for gas reticulation in the Qufu district of Shandong province and in Luquan in Hebei province. Fortune Oil will acquire a controlling stake in its LPG city distribution company and gradually convert users from piped LPG to piped natural gas. Fortune Oil...

Reliance Petroleum’s recent announcement that it had uncovered 4 to 5 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of natural gas off the Orissa coast will change India’s energy map, said the PTI agency. This new find together with Reliance’s 14 tcf gas reserve found in Andhra waters two years ago, will force promoters of future oil and...

The Thai government is caught in a bind over its plans to encourage the use of ethanol-filled gasoline. There are calls to reduce the ethanol content from 10% to 5% to soothe widespread fears that a high proportion of ethanol could cause engine damage. But in doing so, the cost advantage of mixing ethanol in...

Han Joon-Ho, the newly-appointed chairman and CEO of Korea Electric Power Corp. (Kepco), recently called on Philippines President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to discuss the company’s investment plans in the country. Kepco, the largest Korean firm investor in the Philippines, operates the US$700 million, 1,200 megawatt Ilijan natural gas power plant in Batangas, recently cited as one...

MDS (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, a unit of Royal/Dutch Shell, has scored a first with the export of its gas-to-liquid diesel fuel into Germany which has one of the world’s toughest environmental standards. Managing director Idris Jala said the diesel, which was first introduced in Thailand two years ago, would make its debut at next month’s...

BEIJING (AFX-ASIA) – The International Finance Corporation, the private investment arm of the World Bank, said it has agreed to provide up to US$30 million in financing to China Green Energy Ltd to develop and operate sustainable power projects. In a statement, the IFC said it will finance the projects through a US$20 million senior...

Singapore’s port maintained smooth operations despite the start of new security measures under the International Ship and Port Facility Security (ISPS) Code from July 1, said the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA). It attributed the smooth operations to Singapore’s early implementation of the measures, thereby ensuring that port facilities and Singapore-flagged vessels complied...