(EnergyAsia, April 2, Thursday) — India’s Tamil Nadu state is investing in energy efficiency in the state’s water services and street lighting in 29 of its 45 city authorities, said the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership (REEEP). Power bills typically represent 40-60% of the total costs of running urban water plants.In response to this,...
(EnergyAsia, April 2, Thursday) — French engineering firm AREVA said its transmission and distribution (T&D) division has launched eight factories on three sites in India last week.The sites are located in Vadodara city in Gujarat state, and in Hosur and Padappai in Tamil Naidu state. Driven by the Indian market’s growing demand for electrical equipment...
(EnergyAsia, April 2, Thursday) — GE Drivetrain Technologies, a unit of GE Transportation, and Nasdaq-listed A-Power Energy Generation Systems Ltd, said they have signed agreements for the GE unit to supply A-Power with 2.7 megawatt wind turbine gearboxes and to establish a joint venture partnership for a wind turbine gearbox manufacturing plant in China. The...
(EnergyAsia, April 2, Thursday) — Developing Asia should rebalance growth to endure the global crisis and boost its resilience to large external shocks in the long run, said the Asian Development Bank (ADB).In its Asian Development Outlook (ADO 2009) report, the ADB said that the ongoing global financial and economic crises have underlined the risks...
(EnergyAsia, April 2, Thursday) — Developing Asia’s economic growth will slow in 2009 to its most sluggish pace since the 1997/1998 Asian financial crisis, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) said in a new major report.Its flagship annual economic publication, Asian Development Outlook 2009 (ADO 2009), has forecast economic growth in developing Asia to slide to...
(EnergyAsia, April 1, Wednesday) — Taiwan’s state-run oil firm CPC is considering building a new refinery in the city port of Kaohsiung in the southern part of the island. The proposed 200,000 b/d refinery would be sited near the company’s existing 220,000 b/d plant which is due to be shut down by 2015 amid growing...
(EnergyAsia, April 1, Wednesday) — The city of Manila will not force a relocation of the Pandacan oil depot. The city council recently voted 20 to 11 in favour of allowing the depot to continue operating despite concerns that it could become a target for terrorist due to its location in a densely populated residential...
(EnergyAsia, April 1, Wednesday) — Citing unfavourable market conditions, Indian downstream company Essar Oil said it will delay work on expanding its refinery in Gujarat state in north-western India. The company had planned to debottleneck and expand the capacity at the 12.5-million-tonne per year refinery in Vadinar to 16 million tonnes by end-2010. A second...
(EnergyAsia, April 1, Wednesday) — China National Offshore Oil Corp (CNOOC) has started up its newly completed 240,000 b/d refinery in Huizhou in Guangdong province. The company is planning to raise throughput at the plant to 80% of capacity by next month. Officials said they expect China’s domestic fuels demand to slump on account of...
(EnergyAsia, April 1, Wednesday) — PetroChina said its affiliate, Xinjiang Oilfield Corporation, is boosting its crude oil storage capacity in the country’s western region by 60%. By 2010, the company expects to add 450,000 cubic metres of capacity to its Wangjiagou oil storage facility in the Xinjiang region, boosting capacity to 1.2 million cubic metres...
(EnergyAsia, April 1, Wednesday) — NYSE-listed McDermott International Inc said its subsidiary, J. Ray McDermott SA, has been awarded the Karan offshore platforms and subsea pipelines project by Saudi Aramco. The project involves work inside Saudi Arabia and outside the kingdom. Once complete, the facility will have a production capacity of 1,800 million cubic feet...
(EnergyAsia, April 1, Wednesday) — A total of 29 countries representing over 60% of global biofuels production have established the Global Renewable Fuels Alliance (www.globalrfa.org). The alliance of industry associations from Canada, the US, and 27 European countries will promote and support biofuels friendly policies internationally so that all countries can harness the significant economic,...
(EnergyAsia, March 31, Tuesday) — The Asia Pacific region is facing its worst crisis from a coincidence of threats brought on by food and fuel price volatility, climate threats and the breakdown in the world financial system, said a UN agency. In its annual survey of the region, the UN Economic and Social Commission for...
asset write-downs and weakening demand caused its net profit to fall 47.34% last year to 29.77 billion yuan. (US$1=6.85 yuan). Revenue for the world’s second-largest refiner after Exxon Mobil rose 21% to 1.42 trillion yuan. Reporting on its first profit decline in seven years, Sinopec, short for China Petroleum and Chemical Corp, said in a...
exporter, Qatar. Last June, China National Offshore Oil Company (CNOOC), which operates the country’s only LNG import terminal, has signed to import two million tonnes of LNG per year under a 25-year deal. CNOOC has established an office in Doha to deepen ties with Qatar and other Middle East suppliers. CNOOC reckons that it will...
the exchange’s benchmark. Aramco is believed to link its crude against US West Texas Intermediate and Platts’ quotes. In 2007, the DME launched an Oman futures contract as it sought to establish a new pricing benchmark for oil exports from the Middle East to markets in Asia. Should Aramco move towards incorporating DME pricing into...
(EnergyAsia, March 30, Monday) — World oil demand is expected to fall by 1.5% or 1.2 million b/d to 84.4 million b/d this year on account of a possible shrinkage in the world GDP, said the International Energy Agency (IEA).The Paris-based energy watchdog for consuming countries said its latest forecast is based on a reassessment...
(EnergyAsia, March 30, Monday) — Another consultant has warned that sustained weakness in oil prices could set the stage for sharply reduced supplies and a future price shock in the future.Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA), known previously for its sanguine outlook on the oil markets, has joined the bandwagon of worriers with its new report,...
(EnergyAsia, March 30, Monday) — OPEC has sharply lowered its forecast for 2009 world oil demand growth to minus one million b/d compared with the previous forecast for a contraction of 400,000 b/d. It has also reduced its estimate for 2008’s oil demand growth by 100,000 b/d to minus 300,000 b/d.The oil-exporting cartel said the latest...
(EnergyAsia, March 30, Monday) — Oil prices could shoot up sharply again between next year and 2013 as oil consumption by developing countries resumes growing on the back of an economic recovery, said a study by MGI and McKinsey’s Global Energy and Materials Practice. In the short-term, the study predicts world energy demand growth to stagnate...
(Energy, March 30, Monday) — Sinopec Group said it has started up operations at its new 950,000-cubic metre crude oil storage terminal in Shanghai.The start-up of the new terminal coincides with the completion of the second phase of the 600,000-cubic metre Baishawan storage base....
(EnergyAsia, March 27, Friday) — Indonesian government officials have expressed concern that some of its key customers could reduce their imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) amid the global economic crisis. The economies of Japan, South Korea and Taiwan have been battered in the wake of the global economic crisis. Lower LNG export revenues would...
(EnergyAsia, March 27, Friday) — China is looking to develop offshore oil storage facilities after having filled up all four of its newly completed strategic petroleum reserves (SPR) terminals. Industry officials said the government raced to fill up the terminals’ 100-million-barrel capacity in recent months to take advantage of low oil prices. They said China...
(EnergyAsia, March 27, Friday) — Tony Tan, the former head of exploration and production at Singapore Petroleum Co, has been appointed CEO of Orchard Energy. The new subsidiary of Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund Temasek Holdings was established last year to undertake offshore oil and gas exploration. Earlier, Temasek’s chairman S. Dhanabalan told EnergyAsia that Orchard...
(EnergyAsia, March 27, Friday) — World natural gas demand is expected to remain weak through 2009 and possibly into 2010 on account of the global financial crisis, said ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson. Despite the current weakness, long-term energy demand was expected to increase 35% by 2030 from today’s levels, he said. Analysts said that huge...