Australian upstream company ROC Oil Co Ltd has added to its already bulging war chest with an A$20 million share placement to fund exploration off the coast of West Africa, according to Australian news agency reports (US$1=A$1.29).   The oil and gas junior already has a substantial toehold in the region through its participation in...

The Vietnam government has decided to increase the import tax on gasoline by up to 15% despite the recent drop in world oil prices, Vietnam News reported.             The officials said the finance ministry decided to raise the taxes to offset the rising cost of domestic product subsidies.             At the same time, they pointed...

PTT Exploration and Production Public Company Limited’s (PTTEP) has announced the sale of its entire stake in PT Medco Energi Internasional Tbk, an Indonesian upstream company.   The stake was held indirectly through a 40% holding in News Links Energy Resources Limited or New Links.             The deal was executed by subsidiary PTTEP Offshore Investment...

Thailand’s state-owned PTT Exploration and Production Public Company Limited (PTTEP) said its board of directors has passed a resolution proposing to pay shareholders a dividend 9 baht per share. The resolution will be subject to approval at the annual general shareholders’ meeting. In a statement to the Stock Exchange of Thailand, PTTEP said the closing...

The boards of Thailand’s main state oil and gas companies, PTT Exploration and Production Public Company Limited (PTTEP), and PTT Public Company Limited (PTT), have approved their plans to increase their registered capital by a total of 799 million baht and to offer a 1.6 billion baht loan to their subsidiary Energy Complex. PPTT and...

Keppel FELS Ltd (Keppel FELS), a unit of Singapore’s Keppel Corporation Limited, has secured a contract from Diamond Offshore Services Company, a subsidiary of Diamond Offshore Drilling, Inc. (Diamond Offshore), to upgrade semisubmersible rig Ocean Endeavor for US$85 million. The deal was secured through another Keppel unit, Keppel Offshore & Marine Ltd (Keppel O&M).  ...

BP Singapore last week opened its MoW (Most of the World) Mega Data Centre at the SingTel Telecommunications Complex.   The centre is a world-class (i.e. tier 4) facility, one of three new major BP data centres globally and will provide BP’s businesses within the whole region with an improved quality of service and enhanced...

(EnergyAsia, Feb 3 2005) — Australian engineering firm, Clough Limited, has signed a US$131 million contract with BG Exploration and Production India Limited (BGEPIL) to develop the shallow water Panna oil field and the South Tapti gas field located north west of Mumbai city in the Arabian Sea off India’s west coast.   Earlier, the...

Woodside West Africa Pty Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Australian upstream company Woodside Petroleum Ltd., has won the rights to an offshore exploration block in Liberia. The area, known as Block 15, adjoins Blocks 16 and 17 which were won 100% by Repsol Exploracion SA in what was Liberia’s first offshore licensing round.            ...

Finland’s engineering firm W’rtsil’ has announced that it will extend its range of marine reduction gears and begin manufacturing these products in Khopoli, India. Production will start on the same site as W’rtsil”s existing factory. The value of the investment is approximately EUR 1 million. (Euro1=US$1.3). W’rtsil’ has designed and manufactured reduction gears since 1990...

(EnergyAsia, Feb 3 2005) — Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), India’s largest downstream company, is planning to bid for contracts to modernise two state refineries in Ecuador, new agency PTI reported.   Together with Engineers India Ltd, IOC is interested to upgrade the Esmeraldas and Shushufindi refineries owned by Ecuador’s national oil company Petroecuador.   Ecuador...

New Delhi is reportedly considering subsidising liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) sold to domestic households by private-controlled Reliance Industries Ltd and state-owned gas utility GAIL (India) Ltd.             The government has allowed Reliance, which operates India’s largest 33 million tonnes/year refinery at Jamnagar in Gujarat, and GAIL to retail LPG. An unnamed Petroleum Ministry official told...

Malaysian state energy company Petronas will supply about 145 million cubic feet per day of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to the Klorok power plant in East Java, under an agreement reached with Indonesian state-owned power firm PT PLN.             The US$147-million planned annual contract for delivery of gas from Petronas’s Kepodang gas field in the...

Thailand’s Energy Ministry wants Unocal to pay a higher royalty fee from the present 12.5% to 15% of petroleum revenue in return for extending the company’s petroleum production concessions for another 10 years, the Nation newspaper reported quoting an official source.             Unocal Thailand’s two concession periods are due to end in 2010 and 2012....

Vietnam’s Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has asked PetroVietnam to re-evaluate the feasibility of its troubled US$493-million Ca Mau fertiliser project and find ways to curb escalating costs, the Vietnam Investment Review reported. The Ca Mau fertiliser plant is part of a proposed US$1.1-billion gas-urea-power complex.             Mr Dung also asked the Ministry of...

Law firm Baker & McKenzie said the K-Power deal it was working on in South Korea recently was named by Project Finance International (PFI) as “Power Deal of the Year for 2004”.   The award relates to the US$600 million project development and financing of a 1,074 megawatt liquefied natural gas (LNG)-fired power plant in...

(EnergyAsia, Feb 3 2005) — The price of oil will stay high — mostly US$40 a barrel or higher for WTI — in the year ahead if the signals coming out from OPEC, China and the US are anything to go by. There could even be the occasional attempt to beat the record US$55.67/barrel set...

Australian upstream company Petsec Energy Ltd has reported significantly higher production, revenue and profit for the year ended December 31 2004. The has significant producing operations in the Gulf of Mexico, US.   The company said a much stronger second half helped lift full year net production from 4.5 billion cubic feet (bcfe) of gas...

The Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) issued the following statement at the end of its 134th extraordinary meeting in Vienna, Austria, on January 30. The meeting was chaired by its President, Sheikh Ahmad Fahad Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, Kuwait’s Minister of Energy, and its Alternate President, Edmund Daukoru, Nigerian Presidential Adviser on Petroleum & Energy....

Natural gas will be supplied directly to 200,000 domestic and industrial in Abu Dhabi by 2008 in the first phase of a 1-billion-dirham (US$272-million) gas distribution project undertaken by the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc) Distribution.            Adnoc Distribution has appointed a project management team and has signed a 7.5-million-dirham contract with Lootah-BC Gas,...

China’s private oil firms are planning to get listed in overseas stock exchanges this year, the China Daily reported.             China Chamber of Commerce for the Petroleum Industry deputy secretary Wang Degang gave details of the plan in an interview with the newspaper. The chamber is the first association representing China’s private oil firms.            ...

By Wes Eplen, Commander, US 5th Fleet Public Affairs US, Iraqi and coalition naval forces have been on station and on watch aboard the Al Basrah and Khawr Al Amaya Oil Terminals (ABOT and KAAOT) since the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom, protecting key Iraqi infrastructure nodes. US forces have been aboard these terminals since...

State oil and gas company Pertamina has decided to maintain the selling price of its fuels for transportation and industry, reversing its position just 24 hours after a surprising announcement that it was going to raise prices.   The prices of kerosene, automotive diesel, industrial diesel fuel, regular and premium gasolines will remain unchanged. Bunker...

Australian resources company BHP Billiton has released its production report for the quarter ended December 31 2004. The report includes metals, oil and gas.   The company said its quarterly production of natural gas reached a record 87.4 billion cubic feet following the commissioning of the North West Shelf fourth train in September 2004. Its...

Thai state upstream company PTTEP has reported “strong” financial performance for 2004 on the back of high oil prices and higher sales volumes. Last year, it sold 134,070 barrels/day of oil equivalent (BOED) compared with 107,299 BOED in 2003. The sale price averaged US$23.38 per BOE, compared with US$20.62 per BOE in 2003.             PTTEP...