(EnergyAsia, May 8, Tuesday) — Alstom said it has just completed the acquisition of Qingdao Sizhou, a market leader in China for boiler auxiliaries with a strong focus on bottom ash handling systems and the related service business, a critical element of the coal-fired power generation process. Founded in 1998, Sizhou holds a leading...
(EnergyAsia, May 8, Tuesday) — The Asia Development Bank (ADB) said it helping to finance the construction and operation of wind energy facilities of the Tata Power Company Limited, India’s largest private power company. The company expects to produce about 100 megawatts of wind-generated power in India. “This project is an important part of...
(EnergyAsia, May 8, Tuesday) — In its recent latest 25-year outlook on the world oil market, US consultant ESAI said its base case projection for world oil demand to grow by only 1.4% a year over 25 years. The three most likely developments that could knock demand off of this base case path are an...
(EnergyAsia, May 8, Tuesday) — “Nuclear Alberta” may not sound as threatening to world peace as nuclear power wannabes Iran or North Korea, but it’s enough to set off concerns of safety and environmental hazards among residents in Canada’s oil-rich province. Energy Alberta Corporation, a recently incorporated Alberta company with offices in Calgary, has dropped...
(EnergyAsia, May 8, Tuesday) — Greenpeace has begun a campaign against energy-wasting products, with a call for an immediate ban on the incandescent light bulb. The environmental lobby group wants an efficiency campaign to stop what it calls the “huge energy wastage” caused by a wide variety of inefficient electrical products, the first of...
(EnergyAsia, May 8, Tuesday) — Environmental groups have criticised the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for recommending large-scale expansion of biofuels and agroforestry including using genetically modified crops, even though monoculture expansion is a driving force behind the destruction of rainforests and other carbon sinks and reservoirs, thus accelerating climate change. These plantations are...
(EnergyAsia, May 8, Tuesday) — Celebrating its fifth anniversary on May 1, Singapore’s Keppel Offshore & Marine Limited said it has grown its revenue 300% since its inception in 2002. Over the last five years, the company said its revenue has risen from S$1.9 billion in 2002 to S$5.7 billion in 2006. Attributable profit of...
(EnergyAsia, May 8, Tuesady) — Singapore-listed Rotary Engineering Limited said it has secured a S$30 million engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract from Australian renewable energy firm Natural Fuel Pte Ltd for its S$130 million biodiesel plant on Jurong Island. (US$1=S$1.5). Rotary is a leading provider of engineering, procurement, construction and maintenance services supporting the...
(EnergyAsia, May 8, Tuesday) — The Australian government is considering legislation to allow the state to store carbon dioxide emissions from power stations in giant underground reservoirs. The laws under study will allow the state and Federal governments to override the rights of private landowners who may object to carbon storage on their properties....
(EnergyAsia, May 8, Tuesday) — Greenpeace has called on delegates attending the 42nd International Tropical Timber Organization’s (ITTO) committee meeting in downtown Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, to help stop rainforest destruction. Dutch activist Erik Birkhoff said, “Greenpeace wants the ITTO to do more to stop forest destruction in the world’s tropical forests.” ...
(EnergyAsia, May 7, Monday) — The Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) said it has signed a loan agreement on buyer’s credit, totalling up to 7.3 billion yen with Vietnam Electricity (EVN). (US$1=120 yen). The loan was co-financed with agent bank Mizuho Corporate Bank and Société Géneralé’s Tokyo Branch. The loan will be used...
(EnergyAsia, Monday, May 7) — The Public Accounts Committee of the Pakistani National Assembly has told the Petroleum Ministry to investigate several oil companies for allegedly siphoning off state funds by submitting false transport expenses and under-stating annual profits. (US$1 = 61 Pakistan rupees). The committee said millions of rupees in state refunds were...
(EnergyAsia, May 7, Monday) — More needs to be done to train and equip engineers with the knowledge to reduce carbon emissions and other environmental impacts, according to an expert from The Australian National University. At a seminar last week, Departmental Visitor Michael Smith from the Fenner School of Society and Environment argued that...
(EnergyAsia, May 7, Monday) — Scientists at an Australian university said they have made a breakthrough in solar cell technology that would make it more affordable and efficient. The University of New South Wales said the advance could see the price of an installed solar system for an average house fall from around A$20,000...
(EnergyAsia, May 7, Monday) — US upstream company Occidental Petroleum Corporation recently announced two separate transactions with BP. It bought over BP’s West Texas pipeline system in the US, and will acquire for cash Occidental’s oil and gas interests in Pakistan currently operated by the UK major. In the first transaction, Oxy will acquire BP’s...
(EnergyAsia, May 7, Monday) — The clean energy agenda must move beyond the close of the Kyoto Protocol in 2012 to manage the threat of climate change, a seminar audience heard today in Kyoto, Japan. “Given Asia’s phenomenal growth, its energy and development agenda has become a matter of global attention,” ADB Vice-President Ursula...
(EnergyAsia, May 7, Monday) — US electronics giant Texas Instruments said it has developed an ultra-low-voltage chip that could use solar energy to re-charge mobile phones, toys and other portable electronic devices. According to TI, the circuitry embedded in its TPS61200 chip can operate at over 90% efficiency on less than 0.3 volts, which...
(EnergyAsia, May 7, Monday) — Two Singapore companies, Van Der Horst Biodiesel Pte Ltd (VDHB) and GKE International, recently signed two agreements to collaborate on promoting ‘biofuel sustainability’. Under the ‘Shares and Option’ agreement, GKE will issue 120 million new shares to Kwan Chee Seng with an option to purchase an additional 120 million...
(EnergyAsia, May 7, Monday) — Thanks largely to the worldwide boom in offshore oil and gas exploration and production, Singapore’s marine sector will soon be a S$10 billion-a-year business. The sector is expected to put on another “double-digit” percentage gain this year following on 2006’s 39% surge which took revenue to S$9.8 billion, said...
(EnergyAsia, May 7, Monday) — Finland’s W’rtsil’ Corporation said it is growing its sales of ship propulsion systems to Vietnam. The latest contract, awarded by Vietnam Shipbuilding Industry Corporation (Vinashin), is for propulsion systems to be installed in five chemical tankers. The tankers will be built for Iason Hellenic Shipping Co Ltd, Greece, at...
(EnergyAsia, May 4, Friday) — Life for an estimated 100,000 people in poverty-stricken rural India has been improved dramatically by several hours of reliable solar-powered lighting every night, made available by a UN-led pilot project to facilitate household financing for solar home systems. The $1.5 million pilot, managed by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP),...
(EnergyAsia, May 4, Friday) — NYSE-listed Evergreen Energy Inc, a leading provider of cost-effective pre-combustion cleaner coal solutions for electric and industrial power generation, said subsidiary Evergreen Energy Asia-Pacific (EEAP) has formed its first significant international business corporation. Japan’s Sumitomo Corporation has agreed to be a strategic partner and will leverage its substantial energy...
(EnergyAsia, May 4, Friday) — Around 3,500 delegates are now in Japan’s Kyoto International Conference Center attending the Asia Development Bank’s (ADB’s) 40th Annual Meeting of the Board of Governors. The meeting brings together senior officials from across Asia and the Pacific to discuss ways to effectively address poverty and ensure sustainable economic growth...
(EnergyAsia, May 4, Friday) — Fire killed two workers and forced the shutdown of an ExxonMobil oil refinery on Jurong Island in Singapore yesterday. The 115,000 b/d plant on Pulau Ayer Chawan will stay idled until it is deemed to resume operations, said the company. Its other crude distillation unit on Jurong Island, an...
(EnergyAsia, May 4, Friday) — At last month’s meeting between G8 and EU ministers in Berlin to discuss energy efficiency measures, environmental lobby group Greenpeace used a mechanised road roller to crush 10,000 “energy-wasting” light bulbs at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany. Greenpeace said: “Energy wasting incandescent lightbulbs are so dangerously inefficient it’s better...