(EnergyAsia, July 14 2014, Monday) — Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapaksa officially started up two of the country’s most modern fuel storage facilities in the emerging trade hub of Hambantota city last month. Mattala International Airport’s US$40 million terminal stores up to three million litres of jet fuel to serve the growing air traffic through...
(EnergyAsia, July 14 2014, Monday) — Iraq’s plans to store and trade crude oil in South Korea to serve its Asian customers have been thrown into doubt by the growing geopolitical crisis in the Middle East. Iraq had planned to store about four million barrels of its crude oil in Yeosu terminal according to oil...
(EnergyAsia, July 11 2014, Friday) — Singapore’s Keppel Shipyard Ltd said it has secured a US$735 million contract from Golar Hilli Corp, a subsidiary of Golar LNG Ltd, to convert an existing Moss liquefied natural gas (LNG) carrier, the Hilli, into a floating liquefaction vessel (FLNGV) by the first quarter of 2017. Keppel Shipyard, a...
(EnergyAsia, July 11 2014, Friday) — Mongolian Mining Corporation said its wholly‐owned subsidiary, Mongolian Coal Corporation Limited (MCCL), and Risun Mining Co Ltd, a subsidiary company of the Risun Group, have agreed to establish a joint venture company to transport, sell and distribute coal in China. With registered capital of RMB10 million and investments totalling...
(EnergyAsia, July 10 2014, Thursday) — European major Shell could finally be held accountable for “massive compensation” for its role in devastating oil pollution in the Niger Delta following a landmark UK court ruling last month, said Amnesty International. In a judgment delivered by Justice Sir Robert Akenhead, the London Technological and Construction Court found...
(EnergyAsia, July 10 2014, Thursday) — With a nervous eye on its growing exposure to the Middle East, China’s envoy to the region arrived in Baghdad this week to make a high-profile declaration of support for the Iraqi government fighting to hold the country together against the twin break-up threats posed by the Islamic State...
(EnergyAsia, July 9 2014, Wednesday) — Oil prices have fallen an average five percent since peaking in late June in response to the recent upsurge in violence in Iraq and Syria. At the end of the New York trading day on June 8, North Sea Brent was trading below US$109, down from a peak of...
(EnergyAsia, July 9 2014, Wednesday) — North America’s energy boom notwithstanding, the US will remain engaged in the Middle East while China will grow increasingly dependent on the region for its oil and gas supplies, said consultant Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited (DTTL). In its 2014 Oil and Gas Reality Check report, Deloitte said the US’s...
(EnergyAsia, July 8 2014, Tuesday) — Saudi Aramco said its subsidiary, Aramco Overseas Company BV (AOC), will become the new majority owner of South Korea’s S-OIL Corporation when it completes its proposed buy-out of the Hanjin Energy Company’s entire 28.4% stake for nearly 1.983 trillion won. (US$1=1,010 won). The Saudi state-owned firm will raise its...
(EnergyAsia, July 8 2014, Tuesday) — Mongolia’s economy will experience slower growth over the next three years as it struggles to adjust to persistently high inflation and balance of payment problems that began since the start of the decade, said the World Bank. Real GDP % 2011 2012 2013 2014f 2015f ...
(EnergyAsia, July 7 2014, Monday) — Three months after agreeing to form a joint venture firm, a group of Mongolian companies and China’s Shenhua Energy are still working out the details for cross-border rail links to serve the coal trade between the two countries. In April, China’s leading coal miner formed a joint venture with...
(EnergyAsia, July 4 2014, Friday) — Singapore’s oil trading and refining industry has begun a steady decline as it confronts limits to growth imposed by land scarcity, rising business cost and safety concerns over congestion of the nation’s heavily used sea channels to handle oil, gas and other merchandise shipments. After more than 50 years...
(EnergyAsia, July 3 2014, Thursday) — US-based Afton Chemical Corporation has started construction of a new chemical additives manufacturing facility on Singapore’s Jurong Island. The plant is expected to start up in January 2016 to add to the Richmond, Virginia company’s global supply network of additives to meet growing demand in the Asia-Pacific and Middle...
(EnergyAsia, July 3 2014, Thursday) — Philippines-based Jetti Petroleum Inc expects to start up its new fuel storage facility in Bataan province on Luzon Island in October. Construction of the one-billion-peso terminal to store gasoline, diesel, fuel oil and ethanol in Mariveles municipality to serve the province’s growing fuel demand is more than half completed....
(EnergyAsia, July 2 2014, Wednesday) — With the worsening conflicts in Iraq and Syria casting uncertainty over Middle East oil supplies, the International Energy Agency (IEA) has retained its latest forecast for 2014’s global oil demand to 92.76 million b/d. This implies a rise of about 1.45% over last year’s consumption of 91.43 million b/d...
(EnergyAsia, July 1 2014, Tuesday) — Puma Energy, one of the world’s largest independent midstream and downstream companies, has acquired InterOil Corp’s oil refining and fuels marketing businesses in Papua New Guinea for US$525.6 million, the two companies have announced. With the takeover of InterOil’s 28,000 b/d refinery in Port Moresby, a network of 52...
(EnergyAsia, July 1 2014, Tuesday) — Buoyed by an improved reading of the world economy, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) has returned to issuing bullish forecasts for global oil demand growth with its June report predicting record consumption over the next two years. The world will consume 91.79 million this year and 93.12 million b/d...
(EnergyAsia, June 30 2014, Monday) — Two months after its start-up, Southeast Asia’s newest oil storage terminal built partly on reclaimed land on the eastern coast of Malaysia’s Johor state was officially launched last Thursday by Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak. In April, Pengerang Independent Terminals Sdn Bhd (PITSB) started up the RM5-billion project’s first...
(EnergyAsia, June 30 2014, Monday) — The International Energy Agency (IEA) has served notice that it may lower its medium-term forecast for Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) production amid the worsening geopolitical situation in the Middle East, with Iraq effectively plunged into civil war. The agency and other analysts have long pinned their hopes...
(EnergyAsia, June 27 2014, Friday) —- With the impending closure of one of its two refineries, Australia’s largest downstream oil company expects its first-half after-tax profit to fall to between A$150 million and $170 million compared with A$195 million for the same period last year. (US$1=A$1.05). Caltex said it is winding down production at its...
(EnergyAsia, June 26 2014, Thursday) — Chinese state-owned companies are plodding away in talks with their counterparts in Kuwait and Ecuador to jointly develop two major oil refinery projects. Sinopec and Kuwait Petroleum Co (KPC) expect to start up an integrated oil refinery-petrochemical complex in China’s southern Guangdong province by 2017 while China National Petroleum...
(EnergyAsia, June 25 2014, Wednesday) — Fresh from signing a world-record gas-supply deal with China, Russia’s Gazprom is expanding ties with India through new agreements to increase the supply of liquefied natural gas (LNG) and to jointly develop upstream projects. The Russian firm’s Singapore-based subsidiary, Gazprom Marketing & Trading, will raise the annual supply of...
(EnergyAsia, June 24 2014, Tuesday) — Will rising oil prices crimp global demand growth, stimulate supply and hurt global economic growth? As Brent surged to a nine-month-high of more than US$115 a barrel in response to the latest outbreak of conflicts in the Middle East, the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) may have to...
(EnergyAsia, June 23 2014, Monday) — Royal Dutch Shell’s sharply reduced 4.5% stake holding in Australian upstream firm Woodside following last week’s sale of 156.54 million shares will give both companies a freer hand to decide on their respective investment strategies. The sale will ease more than a decade of tensions between the two companies...
(EnergyAsia, June 20 2014, Friday) — US-based FTS International (FTSI) said it has signed a 15-year joint venture agreement with state-owned Sinopec Group to supply its oilfield services and hydraulic stimulation expertise to China, initially focusing on shale-rich Sichuan province. The China-incorporated SinoFTS Petroleum Services Ltd, 55% owned by Sinopec and 45% by FTSI, will...