semiconductor manufacturers to become South Korea’s latest export champions. Thanks to high oil prices, the refiners exported a record 5.14 trillion worth of oil products last month, up nearly 155% from a year ago. Even more noteworthy was that oil products were Korea’s top export earner, beating out traditional sectors like ship building, petrochemicals and...

gasoline by RM0.08 and RM0.22 a litre from August 23 in an attempt to placate angry consumers reeling under the weight of rising living costs. Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said RON97 gasoline now costs RM2.55 a litre (down RM0.15 sen) while the price of RON92 fell by RM0.22 to RM2.40 a litre. Diesel now...

Economist of Canada’s equity firm ARC Financial Corporation Peter Tertzakian, examines the future of oil and offer insights into what it will take to rebalance the world’s energy needs. The author provides a unique analysis of shifts in energy trends, describing how past critical junctures or ‘break points’ developed, evolved, and shaped nations, changed consumer...

storage and logistics responsibility in Ho Chi Minh City. The Vietnam Oil Corporation (PV Oil), formed from the merger between PetroVietnam Trading Corporation (Petechim) and the Oil Trading and Processing One Member Company Ltd (PDC), will also be involved in trading, providing equipment and services to the oil and gas industry. With more than 30...

(EnergyAsia, August 27, Wednesday) — Canada’s Alberta province is already preparing to spend heavily on health care and environmental improvements as it is on course to chalk up another large budget surplus. Some analysts think this year’s provincial surplus could hit a new high exceeding C$11.6 billion as oil has stayed above US$110 a barrel....

(EnergyAsia, August 27, Wednesday) — Indonesia’s crude oil reserves could be depleted by 2018 if the country does not find new large fields reserves, said state oil and gas regulator BPMIGAS.   The agency has pegged the country’s annual oilfield depletion rate at more than 10% per year. Indonesia has failed to replenish its declining...

(EnergyAsia, August 27, Wednesday) — Iran said it plans to raise its oil exports to China and India as the two energy-hungry nations continue to defy US pressure to isolate the Islamic regime over its nuclear programme. Out of its current total 2.5 million of crude exports, Iran ships 450,000 b/d to China and 380,000...

(EnergyAsia, August 27, Wednesday) — South Korea is expanding its oil storage facilities at the ports of Yeosu and Ulsan as part of a long-held plan to become a major regional oil trading hub rivalling Singapore.   The government has announced that the storage capacity at the two ports in South Korea’s southern coast will...

(EnergyAsia, August 27, Wednesday) — Dubai, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf nations could be confronted with a natural gas supply crisis in the next decade. The region could be short of as much as seven billion cubic feet per year in the next 10 years. Cheap natural gas has become an important feedstock for the...

(EnergyAsia, August 27, Wednesday) — Australia’s Origin Energy has advised its shareholders to reject BG Group’s conditional takeover offer, claiming it undervalues Origin’s existing business and outstanding prospects. Chairman Kevin McCann said: “Origin is a strongly performing Australian integrated energy company with an impressive track record of growth. Origin has developed the leading position in...

(EnergyAsia, August 27, Wednesday) — Emerson Process Management said it has received a contract from China’s Huaneng Group to apply its Plantweb® digital plant architecture at a new ultra-supercritical, coal-fired power plant being built in Haimen in Guangdong province. The new plant will employ digital bus technologies, an approach that has been proven to result...

(EnergyAsia, August 27, Wednesday) — The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) wants Canada’s hydrocarbon-rich Alberta province to save more of its royalty monies. The OECD said the province should set up an oil fund similar scheme to what Norway has done.  The Norwegian agency reinvests oil royalties, enabling it to generate an income...

revenues for Canada’s Alberta province by 28% in June, to C$9.2 billion, compared with the same month last year. (US$1 = C$1.05). For the first half, Alberta’s exports rose by 31% to C$53 billion. The contribution from Alberta enabled Canada’s June exports to rise 12.3% in exports to C$43.1 billion, helping to offset a weak...

coupled with lower gas drilling activity could well dampen the mid-term economic outlook of Canada’s hydrocarbon-rich province of Alberta. While often seen as an oil economy, Alberta is actually more dependent on revenues from natural gas. Last year, the provincial government’s revenues from gas royalties was C$6 billion, compared with C$1.4-billion from conventional oil and...

provinces of Alberta and British Columbia could help the world cope with tightening oil and gas supplies, said the International Energy Agency (IEA). IEA chief economist Fatih Birol wants Canada to continue expanding oil sands production in Alberta and to start drilling for oil and gas off the coast of British Columbia. But he also...

to quickly become a major energy supply, thanks to recent finds of large natural gas deposits. The province has large untapped oil and gas reserves that could play a critical role in meeting the energy need of North America. EnCana, a major Canadian energy firm, is most bullish about prospects in British Columbia which already...

costs as new government rules could require them to spend up to US$13 per barrel to bury carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions released during the extraction process. It now costs oil sands producers around US$60 per barrel for normal extraction work.   Oil majors like Shell and Exxon will try to pass on the higher costs...

obtained record revenues last month from companies bidding to buy the rights to explore for oil and gas in their provinces. British Columbia generated just over C$520 million in its second biggest sales ever while Saskatchewan made over C$240 million, also its second-largest ever sale in the monthly land auction. (US$1 = C$1.05). For the...

Corp or Sinopec said first-half profit fell 77% to 8.26 billion yuan. (US$1=6.8 yuan). The government refused to let the company and other oil retailers raise fuel prices, forcing them to absorb the higher feedstock cost. Asia’s biggest oil refiner said sales rose 31% to 722.4 billion yuan. It said the refining business incurred “significant...

selling or delay supplying fuels to parts of the country if they are not reimbursed for selling oil products to domestic consumers at below market prices. Fearing a backlash from the public, the government has refused to let Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL) and Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) raise retail...

up to $9 billion on a new joint venture oil refinery in Nansha in China’s southern Guangdong province, said KPC’s CEO Saad al-Shuwaib. In an interview with a Chinese newspaper, he said the proposed 300,000-b/d plant will cost nearly twice as much as initial estimates of $5 billion. The partners had received preliminary government approval...

production in non-OPEC countries could reach their maximum by 2010, said the International Energy Agency. Fatih Birol, the IEA’s chief economist, who has been stepping up his warnings about the world’s tightening oil supplies, said key regions such as the North Sea and the Gulf of Mexico are experiencing rapid production declines. Output from the...