(EnergyAsia, December 3, Thursday) — India should prepare for worsening power blackouts in the coming years as it is facing a growing shortage of coal supply, said the Power Ministry. Officials recently spoke of their fears to the Coal Ministry, predicting that India could face a“severe” coal supply crunch by 2012. The Power Ministry is...
(EnergyAsia, December 3, Thursday) — Singapore’s Keppel Offshore & Marine Ltd said it has secured two marine contracts worth a total of about $165 million through subsidiaries Keppel Shipyard Limited and Keppel Verolme BV. (US$1=S$1.38). The first project, secured by Keppel Shipyard from repeat customer Petrobras Netherlands BV (PNBV), is for the pre-conversion of P-58,...
(EnergyAsia, December 3, Thursday) — India’s ethanol companies are shifting to produce industrial alcohol where the absence of pricing regulation makes it a more profitable alternative. A skewed pricing policy makes biofuel from ethanol cheaper than feedstock, but producers are optimistic that the government will raise the price cap for ethanol eventually. Sugar millers have...
(EnergyAsia, December 3, Thursday) — Industry Funds Management, Australia’s umbrella management group for 36 superannuation or pension funds, has launched a A$1 billion Clean Energy Fund to support renewable energy projects. (US$1=A$1.08). The new fund would also take a large stake in Australian firm Pacific Hydro, which specialises in hydroelectric and wind farm projects, and...
(EnergyAsia, December 3, Thursday) — American Superconductor Corporation, a Nasdaq-listed global power technologies company, said that it has received a follow-on order for 30 sets of electrical control systems from South Korea’s Hyundai Heavy Industries Co Ltd (HHI) for its 1.65 megawatt (MW) wind turbines now in production in South Korea. AMSC also has received...
(EnergyAsia, December 3, Thursday) – US engineering giant GE said it has teamed up with Chinese companies to promote and develop clean energy projects and applications including clean coal in China. The announcements were made during GE’s recent ‘Clean Technology Week in China’ activities, which included agreements to explore future ‘cleaner coal’ gasification and high-speed...
(EnergyAsia, December 2, Wednesday) — Pulau Ubin, a 10-sq km island to the northeast of Singapore, will be the test-site for a smart power grid running on renewable energy sources and clean energy technologies, said the Energy Market Authority (EMA). Clean energy companies have been invited to submit their proposals for the smart grid plan...
(EnergyAsia, December 2, Wednesday) — China’s apparent petroleum demand in October jumped 10.2% from a year ago as the world’s second largest oil consumer ramped up crude processing rates, said energy media Platts. The data is in line with a batch of positive economic data released by the government for the month. Chinese oil demand...
(EnergyAsia, December 2, Wednesday) — Friends of the Earth International (FOEI), Greenpeace and other environmental groups are continuing their international campaign to stop the massive destruction of Indonesia’s fragile life-supporting rainforests. The destruction has led to an irreversible loss of biodiversity. Of growing concern is that both large companies and small farmers, with the knowledge...
(EnergyAsia, December 2, Wednesday) — The European Union (EU) has proposed that the shipping and airline industries reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 20% over the next decade by as part of an environmental accord to combat global warming. Under the proposal submitted to the UN, ships should cut greenhouse gases by one-fifth in 2020...
(EnergyAsia, December 2, Wednesday) — Despite the economic effects of the global financial crisis, carbon dioxide emissions from human activities rose 2% last year to reach an all-time high of 1.3 tonnes of carbon per capita per year, according to a paper published today in Nature Geoscience. The paper, authored by scientists from the internationally...
(EnergyAsia, December 2, Wednesday) — Singapore’s petrochemical producers will look to Qatar for long-term feedstock supplies once Qatar Petroleum (QP) completes its acquisition of substantial stakes in two Shell Chemicals joint ventures on Jurong Island by year-end. The deal, to be executed by subsidiary Qatar Petroleum International (QPI), will represent QP’s first downstream investments abroad....
(EnergyAsia, December 2, Wednesday) — Suzlon Energy Limited, an India-based wind turbine maker, said its subsidiary, Suzlon Energy Australia Pty Ltd, has secured a repeat order for 20 turbines with a combined capacity of 42MW from Infigen Energy, a leading specialist renewable energy business in Australia. Suzlon will deliver and install 20 units of its...
(EnergyAsia, December 1, Tuesday) — Firms at the Sitapura industrial estate in Jaipur city in India are demanding that three oil depots in the 360-acre park relocate after a massive fire at one of the depots claimed lives and caused millions of dollars worth of property damage. At least 12 people died in the fire...
(EnergyAsia, December 1, Tuesday) — The risks posed by India’s oil refineries in populated areas have been underscored by the destruction caused by a massive blaze at the Indian Oil Corporation’s (IOC’s) fuel depot in Jaipur in October. Acknowledging that areas around oil depots are vulnerable to accidents, the Mumbai fire brigade has cited the...
(EnergyAsia, December 1, Tuesday) — The Indian government has decided that all oil depots should be moved to at least 35 kilometres away from populated areas after a massive fire at an oil depot in Jaipur claimed lives and damaged nearby facilities. Petroleum Minister Murli Deora said that oil companies have been asked to give...
(EnergyAsia, December 1, Tuesday) — The Dubai Mercantile Exchange (DME) said it handled a record average daily volume of 2,624 contracts of its Oman crude oil futures last month. This represented a 58% increase over last year’s daily volumes of 2,012 contracts, and exceeded the previous record of 2,421 contracts achieved in June 2009. That...
(EnergyAsia, December 1, Tuesday) — The Solar Energy Research Institute of Singapore (SERIS) has unveiled state-of-the-art laboratories and facilities dedicated to advancing innovation and discoveries in the industry. Supported by a S$130 million budget over the next five years, SERIS will conduct use-inspired research and development (R&D), collaborate with the international solar industry, and act...
(EnergyAsia, December 1, Tuesday) — China Solar Power (Holdings) Ltd (CSP), a manufacturer of thin film amorphous silicon photovoltaic modules, said it has acquired ThinSilicon Inc, a leading developer of thin film manufacturing process technology based in Mountain View, California, US. Founded three years ago, ThinSilicon has developed a proprietary device and process technology that...
(EnergyAsia, November 30, Monday) — Singapore’s Sembcorp Marine said it has awarded the turnkey construction contract for Phase I of its new Tuas shipyard project to Zhen Hua (S) Engineering Pte Ltd for a total value of S$443.25 million. (US$1=S$1.38). The contract is part of the estimated S$750 million cost to develop the 73.3-hectare first...
(EnergyAsia, November 30, Monday) — Energy media group Platts said it has long acknowledged traders’ growing concern with US benchmark WTI’s volatility and apparent disconnect from the market, but declined comment on Saudi Aramco’s decision to start using the sour crude index published by publishing rival Argus Media from next January. “It’s not Platts’ practice...
(EnergyAsia, November 30, Monday) — “If the 20th century was the ‘Century of Oil’, the 21st century will be the ‘Century of Energy Innovation’,” proclaimed Daniel Yergin, energy guru and the Pulitzer-Prize winning author of “The Prize”, an 800-page history of the global oil industry from the 1850s through 1990. In delivering his message of...
(EnergyAsia, November 30, Monday) — The decline in freight rates is encouraging companies to charter tankers to store more oil products at sea, said Simpson Spence and Young, the world’s second-largest shipbroker. In a research report, the broker reported that in October, traders had chartered 112 tankers with a combined 13.1 million deadweight tonnes to...
(EnergyAsia, November 30, Monday) — The International Energy Agency (IEA) has denied allegations that it has overstated its estimates of world oil reserves to avoid creating panic in the global oil and financial markets. In its latest annual outlook, the IEA has affirmed its prediction that oil production would rise to 105 million b/d by...
(EnergyAsia, November 30, Monday) — In a direct challenge to better established rival CME, InternationalExchange Inc (ICE) has launched two swap contracts based on a new oil pricing index developed by Argus Media. The two exchanges are in a race, worth billions of dollars, to capture the market for pricing oil. The race intensified last...