(EnergyAsia, December 20) — Shenhua Energy, China’s largest coal producer, is considering raising the price of the commodity next year, Xinhuanet reported. The company claims the contractual price of its output is about US$ 2.5/tonne lower than that supplied by other coal producers in the country. Shenhua is also said to be preparing...
(EnergyAsia, December 20) — Hans Energy, a Chinese oil and gas storage service company, plans to build an oil and petrochemicals storage depot in Shanghai next year, The Hong Kong Standard reported. The project will be sited in the Shanghai Chemical Industry Park. Hans, which has turned its focus to the midstream oil business...
(EnergyAsia, December 20) — A Chinese government official said Beijing may introduce a windfall tax on Chinese oil majors Sinopec and PetroChina if crude prices remain high, Xinhuanet reported. Vice-Minister of Finance Lou Jiwei told the newswire: “The country’s big energy companies, such as Sinopec and PetroChina, are making windfall profits from oil resources...
(EnergyAsia, December 20) — The Sri Lankan government owes Lanka IOC (LIOC), a unit of Indian Oil Corp, unpaid subsidies amounting to US$71 million, according to Lanka Business. LIOC recently said its second quarter earnings for 2005 plunged 69% to Rs175.1 million over the corresponding period in 2004. “We are now living off...
(EnergyAsia, December 20) — China’s largest city, Chongqing, will be the site of a large joint solar energy project between Chinese and US interests. The Chongqing Municipal Construction Investment Company, the Chongqing Public Communication Group Company and the Chongqing Duanshi Group Company recently signed an agreement with ECD Company of the US to set...
(EnergyAsia, December 20) — Rising world demand for liquefied natural gas (LNG) is leading to shortfalls and rising prices. More utilities including those in Taiwan, the world’s fifth-biggest buyer of LNG, are switching to LNG, according to China Post. Taiwan’s only gas importer, Chinese Petroleum Corp (CPC), is seeking one million metric tons of...
(EnergyAsia, December 19) — Kuwait has set aside US$44 billion to upgrade its oil industry and boost crude output to four million barrels per day (b/d) over the next 15 years, said energy ministry undersecretary Issa al-Oun. He said the big-ticket projects include a large refinery, petrochemical plants and upstream projects to develop some...
(EnergyAsia, December 19) — The United Nations Climate Change Conference ended its Montreal gathering agreeing to adopt more than 40 decisions that will strengthen global efforts to fight climate change. In his speech at the Montreal gathering, conference President, Canadian Environment Minister Stéphane Dion, said: “Key decisions have been made in several areas....
(EnergyAsia, December 19) — UK environmentalist George Monbiot has described attempts to grow crops for fuels as futile and destructive to the environment. Writing in the UK’s The Guardian newspaper recently, he said the biofuels industry is “no solution to the energy crisis” as it is resource-intensive and competes against food agriculture for scarce...
(EnergyAsia, December 19) — Singapore’s Keppel FELS said it is on track to complete the construction of a 80,000-ton floating production unit for Brazilian upstream company Petrobras. Keppel FELS is leading a 75/25 consortium that includes subsidiary Keppel FELS Brasil and Technip to build the US$775 million P-52 FPU rig. The project involves...
(EnergyAsia, December 19) — State Chinese upstream company CNOOC Limited said its parent, China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC), has signed production sharing contracts (PSC) with two New York-listed upstream companies Newfield Exploration Company and Devon Energy Corporation. The contract with Newfield is for block 17/08 in the Pearl River Mouth Basin of the...
(EnergyAsia, December 19) — Alexander Forbes, one of the world’s largest independent providers of financial and risk services has strengthened its management team with the appointment of several top executives in its Asia Pacific offices. This expansion of the management team is in line with Alexander Forbes’s strategic plan to grow its presence in the...
(EnergyAsia, December 19) — MayBan Securities has rated the share of Malaysia’s YTL Power International a ‘buy’. MayBan said there were no surprises in YTL’s quarterly and year-on-year results. Balance sheet remained strong with net debt ratio of 1.4 times (FY05: 1.6 times), supported by YTL Power’s cash war chest of RM4.8 billion. No...
(EnergyAsia, December 19) — China United Coalbed Methane Co (CUCBM) has signed a production sharing contract (PSC) with Canada’s Verona Development Corp for a coal bed methane (CBM) block in Shanxi province, Xinhua reported. The deal covers the Shiloubei block which has an estimated 150 billion cubic metres of CBM resources. Verona will bear...
(EnergyAsia, December 19) — China’s Shenhua Group has launched a coal-to-oil project in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region with production expected to start in 2007, Xinhuanet reported. The coal liquefaction project will contribute to China’s energy supply, and help reduce costly energy imports from abroad. The project will comprise two production lines, with...
(EnergyAsia, December 19) — Wuhan city, the capital of China’s Hubei province, has launched its first batch of converted compressed natural gas (CNG) public buses, Xinhuanet reported. Over the next two years, the city plans to convert another 1,500 buses and 6,000 taxies to use CNG. The move is expected to sharply reduce...
(EnergyAsia, December 16) — Governments led by those from the developed world need to set aside their political differences to slow down global warming and reduce its devastating impact on society. Sir David King, chief scientific adviser to the UK government, made this call at EnergyAsia‘s third Climate Change Forum at the Singapore Management...
(EnergyAsia, December 16) — Engineering firm Foster Wheeler Ltd said its subsidiary, Foster Wheeler E&C Malaysia Sdn Bhd, and its partner, OGP Technical Services Sdn Bhd, have been awarded a contract by Malaysia LNG Dua Sdn Bhd, a Petronas subsidiary, to execute a front-end engineering design (FEED) and engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract. The...
(EnergyAsia, December 16) — As consumers and motorists around the world reeled from this year’s sharp rise in the price of oil, they might have taken some comfort in the relatively slow rate of China’s oil demand growth. Ironically, when everyone was citing (or blaming) China as a key factor for the Oil Shock of...
(EnergyAsia, December 15) — Business has started a dialogue about its future role in building a climate protection regime along the lines of the Kyoto Protocol and beyond. A side-event of the European Business Council for Sustainable Energy (e5) and Germanwatch at the recent climate summit in Montréal showed that there is a strong will...
(EnergyAsia, December 16) — Singapore, Southeast Asia’s most urbanised country, could be the site of the region’s first biodiesel plants. Three companies involved in the international agricultural trade have announced plans to build two plants on the petrochemical hub of Jurong Island worth at least S$84 million. (US$1=S$1.7). A joint venture between Singapore’s Wilmar...
(EnergyAsia, December 16) — India’s state upstream company ONGC Videsh Limited (OVL) is looking to store Sakhalin-I crude oil in South Korea, Indian news media reported. ONGC’s 20% stake in Sakhalin-I in the Russian Far East gives the company access to 250,000 b/d of crude output from next year. Under a possible deal...
(EnergyAsia, December 16) — As a pure exploration and production (E&P) company, China National Offshore Oil Corp (CNOOC), is the most exposed of the three to the oil price on the world market. Its share price under-performed PetroChina’s this year, mainly as the result of its failed US$18.5 billion bid for US independent Unocal. The...
(EnergyAsia, December 15) — Petrochina International has awarded French engineering firm Technip and licensor Innovene a contract for two lines of polypropylene for Petrochina Dushanzi Petrochemical Company’s new complex in China’s Xinjiang Province. The US$50 million contract covers the basic and front-end engineering, the procurement of key equipment and material and the technical assistance...
(EnergyAsia, December 16) — UK engineering firm Rolls-Royce said the Ningxia Hanas Thermal Power Company in Yinchuan in China has selected a Trent 60 DLE (Dry Low Emissions) gas turbine to power one of its combined cycle generating plants. The unit, which will be packaged by Turbomach of Switzerland, will provide 52MW of electrical power....