(EnergyAsia, December 22, Tuesday) — The Indian government sees underground coal gasification as a potential long-term solution to meet the country’s fast growing energy demand while satisfying increasingly stringent environmental requirements. Sriprakash Jaiswal, the Minister of State for Coal, said the high cost of coal gasification and the inadequate technology remain major concerns, but he...
(EnergyAsia, December 22, Tuesday) — Swiss commodities trader Glencore International could soon be a listed company in Singapore if its US$233.28 million cash offer for the founding Chandran family’s 50.81% stake in Chemoil Energy is accepted. When its US35.52 cents per share offer is cleared, Glencore subsidiary, Singfuel Investment, will have to follow through with...
(EnergyAsia, December 22, Tuesday) — “China is the centre today of the new LNG compass,” said Qatar’s Deputy Premier and Minister of Energy and Industry Abdullah bin Hamad al-Attiyah. He made these comments when Qatar, the world’s largest LNG exporter, recently signed massive new deals to supply PetroChina and China National Offshore Oil Corp (CNPC)....
(EnergyAsia, December 22, Tuesday) — India’s Essar Oil Ltd is hoping to complete talks with Shell for the purchase of three of the Anglo Dutch major’s oil refineries in Europe within weeks. Privately held Essar said the two sides were making progress in talks over the two refineries in Hamburg and Heide in Germany, and...
(EnergyAsia, December 22, Tuesday) — CNOOC Limited, China’s largest offshore oil exploration company, is hoping to double crude oil and natural gas production in the western part of the South China Sea in the next six years. CNOOC is aiming to increase its output from that prospective area to 20 million cubic meters by 2015...
(EnergyAsia, December 21, Monday) — Singapore sovereign wealth fund Temasek Holdings has sold off its fledgling upstream oil and gas company Orchard Energy Pte Ltd to RH Petrogas Limited, a Singapore-listed exploration and production company. Temasek Holdings, which admitted losing tens of billions of dollars in ill-advised investments in Wall Street banks in 2007 and...
(EnergyAsia, December 21, Monday) — BDP Project Logistics, a leading privately held project logistics and transportation management services company, has established a new Singapore-based subsidiary, BDP Oil and Gas Logistics Pte Ltd Incorporated to target the growing opportunities in the global oil and gas supply chain. BDP Project Logistics and its parent company, BDP International...
(EnergyAsia, December 21, Monday) — Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc) is expected to deliver its first cargo of crude oil to the Kagoshima storage terminal in Japan today under a special bilateral agreement on strategic oil stockpiling between the two governments. As part of an oil security agreement, Abu Dhabi, as a member of...
(EnergyAsia, December 21, Monday) — Indian Oil Corp (IOC) has started work on its long delayed refinery in Paradip in northeastern India while expanding the capacity of a 120,000-b/d refinery in West Bengal state. The state-owned downstream company has begun constructing the 15-million-tonne-per-year (t/y) refinery, targeting completion in 2012. Approved 10 years ago, the Rs300...
(EnergyAsia, December 21, Monday) — Coal prices at China’s benchmark Qinhuangdao port have risen to a one-year high on the back of temporary supply bottlenecks caused by snowstorms in the country’s northern region and speculation that mine accidents will prompt closures. The price of coal with an energy value of 5,500 kilocalories increased to between...
(EnergyAsia, December 21, Monday) — Exxon Mobil Corp has made a substantial and hugely significant decision in moving to acquire America’s largest natural gas producer, XTO Energy Inc, for a total of US$41 billion including XTO’s US$10 billion worth of debt. The agreement, subject to XTO stockholder approval and regulatory clearance, will enhance ExxonMobil’s position...
(EnergyAsia, December 21, Monday) — CNPC (Hong Kong) Ltd said its 97.26%-owned natural gas subsidiary Xinjiang Xinjie Co will sell oil storage and pipelines to its parent, PetroChina Co Ltd, for a total of 584.8 million yuan. (US$1=6.83 yuan). CNPC said Xinjiang Xinjie will sell its refined oil product storage tanks for 83.9 million yuan,...
(EnergyAsia, December 18, Friday) — Indonesia’s coal output is forecast to rise by as much as 12% in 2010 on strong demand from China and India as well as domestic consumers, said Bob Kamandanu, chairman of the Indonesian Coal Producers Association (ICPA). The association is projecting Indonesian coal output to rise to between 270 million...
(EnergyAsia, December 18, Friday) — The Indian government is taking seriously claims by intelligence agencies that the country’s oil refineries, fuel depots and other vital installations are on the target list of Pakistan-based terrorist groups. The Home Affairs Ministry has immediately tightened security at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre in Trombay, and the areas around...
(EnergyAsia, December 18, Friday) — Origin Energy New Zealand, on behalf of the Kupe joint venture, has begun producing gas and liquid at its Kupe facilities, and piping it to a gas processing plant at Hawera. Over its production life, Kupe is expected to provide approximately 254 petajoules of natural gas, 1.1 million tonnes of...
(EnergyAsia, December 18, Friday) — Indian authorities believe the October 29 fire that destroyed Indian Oil Corporation’s (IOC) oil depot in Jaipur city, killing more than a dozen people, may have been the work of saboteurs. Police are working on the theory that insiders set it on fire in an attempt to cover up the...
(EnergyAsia, December 18, Friday) — PTT, Thailand’s largest energy firm, is looking to conclude an investment in a coal mine in Kalimantan, Indonesia by early next year. PTT will aim to acquire the stake through its wholly owned overseas investment arm, PTT International, together with Indonesian partners. Chitrapongse Kwangsukstith, chairman of PTT International, said he...
(EnergyAsia, December 18, Friday) — Tianjin city on China’s eastern coast is planning to establish a 20-million-tonne oil storage facility by 2023. Under a blueprint for industrial development launched by the Tianjin Municipal Commission of Development and Reform, the terminal will store both crude oil and products for the state and for commercial purposes. The...
(EnergyAsia, December 18, Friday) — The Sri Lankan government has accepted a US$891 million loan from China’s Export Import bank to fund the construction of a coal power plant. The loan will have a maturity of 20 years and bear a 2% interest rate with a five-year grace period. It will be used to finance...
(EnergyAsia, December 18, Friday) — Australia has closed its largest export deal worth US$90 billion through Chevron’s 20-year-term contract to supply 4.1 million tonnes of liquefied natural gas (LNG) a year to Japan’s Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco). Chevron Australia Pty Ltd, a subsidiary of the US major, will supply the LNG from its offshore...
(EnergyAsia, December 17, Thursday) — US transaction management company Multi Service Corp said it has secured a long-term bunker fuel and services procurement agreement with Singapore’s Defence Science and Technology Agency (DSTA). The agreement allows bunker suppliers on Multi Service’s bunker network to provide competitive tenders on marine fuel and chandlering services for the DSTA...
(EnergyAsia, December 17, Thursday) — Vico, a joint venture between UK major BP and Italy’s ENI, has signed a production sharing contract (PSC) with the Indonesian government to explore and develop coalbed methane (CBM) resources on the Sanga-Sanga block in East Kalimantan in Indonesia. According to BP, the PSC, which covers an area of around...
(EnergyAsia, December 17, Thursday) — The Singapore government has offered to reduce the country’s carbon emissions growth by 16% from ‘business as usual’ levels by 2020 if there is a global and legal binding pact to tackle climate change. The ‘business as usual’ scenario equates to projected carbon emission levels without any mitigating measures including...
(EnergyAsia, December 17, Thursday) — India’s produced 184.4 million tonnes of coal in the April-to-September period of this year, up by 9.9% from the same period last year, the government said. It attributed the increase in the first half of the current financial year to higher production from state-run coal miner Coal India Limited (CIL)....
(EnergyAsia, December 17, Thursday) — State-run miner Coal India Limited (CIL) has proposed that the government unload an additional 5% stake in the firm by granting the shares to employees and as compensation to landowners whose property have been taken over for mining operations. The government, which has stated it plans to divest a 10%...