(EnergyAsia, January 23, Friday) — Afton Chemical Corporation said it has opened two new research and development facilities in the Asia Pacific region to improve response time to customers and develop more products for their specific needs. The company will open a new facility in Shanghai, China in early 2009, and a new and expanded...
(EnergyAsia, January 23, Friday) — Refining and marketing company Caltex Australia said it earned A$185 million last year, about A$50 million higher than its guidance released last December. (US$1=A$1.5). The company attributed the surprisingly strong result to improved refining margins and a stronger Australian dollar from a month ago. In the December guidance, the company...
(EnergyAsia, January 23, Friday) — Energy research firm Energy Security Analysis Inc (ESAI) is predicting that Chinese oil demand will fall substantially weighed down by the world’s weak economic conditions. The Wakefield, Massachusetts consultancy’s recently released China Watch suggests that Chinese GDP growth will slow due to a slowdown in manufacturing and exports, and the...
liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminal to later in the first quarter of 2009. The decision to delay the start-up of the three-million-tonnes-per-year terminal was prompted by unfavourable weather conditions. A pipeline from the terminal to a power plant could not be completed in time because of the many typhoons last year, officials said. The...
manufacturer of photovoltaic (PV) modules, said it has supplied 5MW of solar panels for a 10MW solar electricity system to power Masdar City, the world’s first carbon neutral city being built in Abu Dhabi in the UAE. The panels will form part of the largest solar plant in the Middle East and is being built...
contract from its Indian licensee Bharat Heavy Electricals (BHEL) for the supply of components for two steam turbine-generators. The customer is the state-owned energy utility National Thermal Power Corporation Ltd. (NTPC). The coal-fired power plant Barh II is situated 75 km southwest of Patna in the state of Bihar. It comprises two units, each with...
new fields in the northern part of the country from next decade. Kuwait Oil, a Kuwait Petroleum subsidiary, said it expects to produce around 50,000 b/d of heavy crude from a new field by 2015. Production will rise to 400,000 b/d five years later. The country’s six natural gas fields could hold much more than...
forecast for world oil demand this year to 85.3 million b/d, down by one million b/d from its previous estimate. World oil demand will slump as world GDP is expected to grow by only 1.2%, down from an earlier forecast of 2.4%. The agency said world oil demand is now projected to slump by 0.6%...
Exporting Countries (OPEC) pumped an average 30.74 million barrels per day (b/d) of crude oil in December, according to a Platts survey of OPEC and oil industry officials just released. This is a decline of 640,000 b/d from the November level of 31.38 million b/d. The total includes Indonesia, which left the oil producer group...
production capacity to 77 million tonnes per year by 2011, up from currently 38 million tonnes per year. RasGas, one of the country’s two LNG players, is set to hike annual capacity to 37 million tonnes from 21 million tonnes. Qatargas, the other player, is investing in a new processing plant and a storage facility...
player ahead of Exxon Mobil, Russian gas giant Gazprom is reeling from the devastating impact of the global financial crisis and the sharp decline in oil and gas prices. The state-run company’s debts are pegged at almost US$50 billion and climbing. Almost unthinkable a few months ago, the company has begun talks to seek help...
(EnergyAsia, January 21, Wednesday) — The Philippine subsidiaries of majors Shell and Chevron have been forced to close their fuel depots in General Santos city after the local government turned down their appeals to let them continue to operate in the popular Bula district. Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corp and Chevron Philippines Inc were unable to...
(EnergyAsia, January 21, Wednesday) — China is planning to invest a total of 150-billion yuan through to 2015 to improve the railway infrastructure in coal-rich Shanxi province. The government expects to build 2,000 km of new rail tracks in northern Shanxi, with construction of three rail lines to start up as early as the first...
(EnergyAsia, January 21, Wednesday) — Ezra Holdings Limited, a Singapore-based support and marine services provider in the offshore oil and gas sector, has reported a 260% rise in net attributable profit (PATMI) to US$9.3 million for the quarter end November 2008 over the same period the previous year. The increase was made even after excluding...
(EnergyAsia, January 21, Wednesday) — Engineering firm Mott MacDonald said it has been appointed by the UAE’s Gulf Petrochem FZC to provide consultancy services for engineering, procurement and construction management (EPCM) services for an oil storage terminal project in Fujairah in the east coast of the UAE. When it starts up by end-2010, the US$100...
(EnergyAsia, January 21, Wednesday) — Hoku Materials Inc, a wholly owned subsidiary of Nasdaq-listed Hoku Scientific Inc which manufactures and sells polysilicon for the solar market, and Jiangxi Jinko Solar Company Ltd, a manufacturer of silicon ingots, wafers and related products in China, said they have agreed to amend the polysilicon supply agreement in effect...
(EnergyAsia, January 21, Wednesday) — Mitsubishi Corp and Canada’s Kitimat LNG Inc said they have signed a heads of agreement under which the Japanese trading house will acquire terminal capacity and a 30% equity stake in the proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminal in western Canada. Under the agreement, Mitsubishi Corp will commit to...
(EnergyAsia, January 21, Wednesday) — SunPower Corporation has agreed to build a 505-kilowatt solar power installation for Horizon Power, a government-owned company providing power to remote and regional communities and resource operations in Western Australia. The ground-mounted installation will be located on two sites in Marble Bar and Nullagine, in the east Pilbara region of...
(EnergyAsia, January 21, Wednesday) — Australia’s Origin Energy said it has started up its 640MW gas-fired Uranquinty power station, boosting electricity supply to New South Wales state last week. The peaking power station in the state’s south-west started up in time to help New South Wales meet extreme summer temperatures and record demand conditions. Last...
(EnergyAsia, January 21, Wednesday) — The Masdar Institute of Science and Technology has become the founding public member of the US-based Massachusetts Institute of Technology Energy Initiative (MITEI). MITEI said the collaboration will support ongoing research and development of alternative and renewable energy technologies and solutions, and will pursue new opportunities to help meet the...
sets of contracts to add more than 16.8 million barrels of crude oil to the nation’s strategic petroleum reserve (SPR). In the first set, winners Shell Trading and Vitol will deliver a total of 10.683 million barrels of crude oil at a cost of $553 million to the SPR from February to April 2009. The...
PetroChina, has begun use of its new 100,000-ton crude oil terminal at the Qingzhou Port in China’s southeastern Guanxi provice. The terminal was developed to serve PetroChina’s 10-million-ton-per-year oil refinery, which will process imported crude oil when it starts up later this year. The terminal is supported by two 100,000-tonne crude berths and two oil...
refinery early this month, barely two weeks after the start up of the 580,000-b/d plant. The cause of the accident was not known. Reliance Petroleum Limited (RPL) said the refinery at Jamnagar in the western state of Gujarat continued to operate and was not shut down. The plant, in which US major Chevron has a...
tonne-per-year oil refinery at Panipat in the northern state of Haryana this year. The refinery will be expanded by 25% to 15 million tonnes per year. The expansion follows IOC’s statement of intent to start producing high-quality fuels that meet Europe’s Euro-IV standard after April 2010. The company is also preparing to commission a...
Indonesia is pressing China to pay more for its liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports from the Tangguh field in Papua province. Under an earlier 25-year deal, China had signed on to pay US$2.40 per million British thermal units (mBtu). When oil prices rose sharply last year, the Indonesian government demanded that all its contracts...