(EnergyAsia, January 28 2010, Thursday) — The Vietnamese government has ordered the export of low-grade coal that is not wanted by domestic consumers. The Prime Minister has also asked state-owned coal producer Vietnam National Coal and Mineral Industries Group to establish an annual coal development plan and to import coal based on domestic demand. Vietnam’s...

(EnergyAsia, January 28  2010, Thursday) — Russia’s new Pacific terminal at Kozmino port near the city of Nakhodka has launched the country’s first export of Siberian crude oil to Asia. A tanker, owned by state-run oil firm Rosneft, delivered 100,000 tonnes of East Siberia-Pacific Ocean (ESPO) crude oil, marking an important step towards the diversification...

(EnergyAsia, January 28 2010, Thursday) — PNOC Renewables Corp (PNOC-RC), a subsidiary of state-owned Philippine National Oil Co, has begun talks with foreign and local investors to jointly develop 11 mini hydroelectric power plants in the country. PNOC-RC will focus on building hydropower projects in the southern central Visayas region, which is experiencing a critical...

(EnergyAsia, January 28 2010, Thursday) — Myanmar’s Ministry of Electric Power said it has approved the construction of another three hydropower plants in the western Rakhine state to meet energy demand in the region. Costing US$800 million, the projects at Saidin, Thahtay Chaung and Laymyomyit will have a combined capacity of 687 megawatts. Myanmar currently...

(EnergyAsia, January 28 2010, Thursday) — China’s crude refining throughput reached a record of more than 33.3 million metric tonnes (mt) in November on stronger demand and better margins following a rise in retail oil product prices. The November figure blew past the 27.6 million mt recorded in the same month in 2008, continuing an...

(EnergyAsia, January 27 2010, Wednesday) — Schat-Harding, the world’s leading supplier of lifeboat evacuation systems for the cruise, offshore and shipping industries, has boosted its China servicing network by upgrading its Shanghai service station into a state-of-the-art lifeboat servicing facility. Located in Shanghai’s Pudong district, Umoe Schat-Harding LSA Service (Shanghai) Co Ltd began operating as...

(EnergyAsia, January 27 2010, Wednesday) — Crude oil futures fell US$10 per barrel to $74 less than two weeks after surging to 15-month highs in early January on very cold winter weather in much of the northern hemisphere and escalating geopolitical tensions in key oil producing countries. As warmer weather returned, renewed worries about the...

(EnergyAsia, January 27 2010, Wedneday) — Meeting the world’s growing energy needs while reducing the impact on the environment will require the development of all viable sources of energy and new technology development, said Emil Jacobs, Vice President of Research and Development at ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Company. At the recent 2010 World Future Energy...

(EnergyAsia, January 27 2010, Wednesday) — Two German companies, KWS and BASF, said they will collaborate to develop high-yielding sugar beet to boost sugar and energy production. Limburgerhof-based BASF and Einbeck-based KSW SAAT AG said they have signed on for long-term plant biotechnology collaboration to develop higher yielding and sturdier sugar beet varieties. The new...

(EnergyAsia, January 27 2010, Wednesday) — A US money manager has predicted that New Zealand is set for an oil bonanza greater than Britain’s North Sea oil boom. William Buechler, lead portfolio manager of the Kiwi Pacific Fund, said the country’s oil sector has been operating under the radar screen of most international investors despite...

(EnergyAsia, January 27, Wednesday) — PetroChina Co, which is listed in the stock exchanges of Hong Kong and Shanghai, recently struck two deals to lease oil storage terminals from Texas, US-based NuStar Energy LP in an effort to develop a global petroleum trading network. PetroChina has agreed to lease 400,000 barrels of storage capacity in...

(EnergyAsia, January 26 2010, Tuesday) — Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) and Essar Oil are planning to expand their refining capacities over the next two years. State-owned IOC will increase the capacity of its Haldia refinery by 25% to 7.5 million tonnes by February and that of its Panipat refinery also by 25% to 15 million...

(EnergyAsia, January 26 2010, Tuesday) — South Korea’s Daewoo Engineering and Construction Co Ltd has been awarded a $17 million contract to build a fuel storage tank for an oil refinery in Oman. The contract is for an additional fuel tank to serve the 85,000 b/d Mina Al Fahal refinery in the capital of Muscat....

(EnergyAsia, January 26 2010, Tuesday) — China and Venezuela are deepening economic ties with the signing of a set of agreements that include a joint $12 billion development fund in which the Chinese government will deposit $8 billion in exchange for guarantees to the South American nation’s oil supply. Venezuela is seeking to diversify its...

(EnergyAsia, January 26 2010, Tuesday) — ABB, a leading power and automation technology group, said it has won an order worth $17 million for the electrification of a gas-based thermal power plant to be built near the Akshabulak oilfield in southern Kazakhstan.The order was booked in the fourth quarter of 2009. Owned by Crystal Management...

(EnergyAsia, January 26 2010, Tuesday) — China’s CNOOC Group and the Fujian provincial government have jointly begun building energy infrastructure to serve the country’s southern coastal area. The projects include a 10-million tonne crude stockpile, a 2.6-million-tonne liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal, some pipe network projects and a 23-billion-yuan industrial park on a 228-sq km...

(EnergyAsia, January 26 2010, Tuesday) — The Indian government will consider raising the strategic oil storage capacity at its Visakhapatnam site in the eastern state of Andhra Pradesh by a third to 1.33 million tonnes. Indian Strategic Petroleum Reserves Ltd (ISPRL), a subsidiary of state-owned Oil Industry Development Board (OIDB), said it would submit an...

(EnergyAsia, January 26 2010, Tuesday) – Five hundred delegates from 120 member states of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) met in Abu Dhabi, UAE last week to decide on the agency’s work programme, projects and programme for 2010. IRENA said it will aim to establish itself as the global base for renewable energy knowledge....

(EnergyAsia, January 25 2010, Monday) — Pakistani authorities have uncovered further details about a plot to blow up one of the country’s largest oil storage terminals last September 15.   Detained suspect, Maulvi Saeed Anwer, who was arrested with other men, said he was a member of an armed group selected to destroy the Karachi...

(EnergyAsia, January 25 2010, Monday) — Threatened with further trade sanctions by the West over its nuclear energy programme, a defiant Iran said foreign companies are ready to invest as much as $20 billion in its oil and gas sector and that it has contracted a German firm to help it build 100 gas compressors...

(EnergyAsia, January 25 2010, Monday) — Summary by Darrell Delamaide for OilPrice.com.   New measures by Chinese authorities to curb bank lending reversed a rally in energy prices early last week, bringing West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures down more than 4% in the second half of the week to below $75 a barrel by...

(EnergyAsia, January 25 2010, Monday) — Intertanko, the association representing international tanker owners, is demanding action from governments, international agencies and its members to act against the growing menace of piracy off the West African coast. Intertanko expressed “deep concern” with the continuing violent piracy activity in the Gulf of Guinea, particularly off Nigeria and...

(EnergyAsia, January 25 2010, Monday) — Platts, a world leading energy information provider, said it has begun publishing the first daily price points for liquefied natural gas (LNG) imported to India and exported from Australia and the Middle East, the world’ largest LNG producing region. Platts said these new price points follow on the success...

(EnergyAsia, January 25 2010, Monday) — Chemoil, a Singapore Exchange-listed independent physical supplier of marine fuel, said it will start up deliveries in the US Gulf Coast port of New Orleans from February 1. Chemoil, a global fuel supplier, said it will offer both industrial fuel oil 380 and marine gasoil from New Orleans port....

(EnergyAsia, January 25 2010, Monday) — Abu Dhabi-based IPIC said it has increased its shareholding in Austria’s oil major OMV to 20% from 19.6%. IPIC now owns 60,050,273 OMV shares. With group sales of 25.54 billion rueo and a workforce of 41,282 employees in 2008, OMV Aktiengesellschaft is one of Austria’s largest listed industrial companies....