(EnergyAsia, May 20, Tuesday) — ASL Marine Holdings Ltd, a Singapore-based integrated marine and shipyard company said its net profit for the first nine months of FY2008 starting July 1 2007 surged 54.3% to S$42.1 million. (US$1=S$1.36). Revenue was up by 21.9% to $285.1 million on the back of higher revenue contributions from the group’s...
(EnergyAsia, May 20, Tuesday) — Well-organised gangs of thieves are stealing tonnes of gasoline from Vietnamese fuel suppliers. The depots in Cat Lai in Ho Chi Minh City and Nha Be have been the repeated targets of thieves with the help of delivery truck drivers. The gangs then sell the stolen fuels to service stations,...
(EnergyAsia, May 20, Tuesday) — Japan is set to pay US$300/tonne for imported coking coal from Australia, up three times from last year. The soaring prices, which will add billions of dollars to Australia’s export earnings, come amid supply problems and rising demand around the Asia Pacific region. Flooding in Australia’s Queensland has cut coking...
(EnergyAsia, May 20, Tuesday) — Coal-seam gas (or coalbed methane) production in the states of Queensland and New South Wales could sharply boost Australia’s exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) in the coming years. Coal-seam gas could also feed some 70% of new power stations in Australia by 2017. In Queensland, about 13% of electricity...
(EnergyAsia, May 20, Tuesday) — Japan’s Chiyoda Corporation said it has been awarded the front-end engineering design (FEED) and execution planning contract for Qatar’s Barzan onshore gas plant. The contract was awarded by the Qatar Petroleum while RasGas Company Limited will oversee the FEED work. The project will help meet Qatar’s own natural gas demand...
(EnergyAsia, May 20, Tuesday) — World oil demand is expected to rise to 86.8 million b/d this year from last year’s 85.8 million b/d, said the International Energy Agency (IEA) in its latest monthly forecast. Last month, the Paris-based agency had predicted world demand to rise to 87.2 million b/d. It said: “Slower economic growth,...
(EnergyAsia, May 20, Tuesday) — This comment was first published in www.RenewablesReport.Blogspot.com. Something happened to all of us the last few decades. We all have been adopting the American way of life, including the Chinese, Indians, Russians and the Arabs of the oil-rich parts of the Middle East. Whether people care to admit it or...
(EnergyAsia, May 16, Friday) — Thailand’s leading oil company, PTT, last week raised pump prices by 0.50 baht per litre. Its two main gasoline grades now cost 37.09 baht and 35.99 per litre, while its two diesel fuels are priced at 33.24 and 33.94 per litre. (US$1=32 baht). Chaivat Churitti, PTT’s senior executive vice president,...
(EnergyAsia, May 16, Friday) — Singapore’s Tuas Power is stuyding plans to build a S$2 billion coal-fired power plant, the first such project in the southeast Asian city state (US$1=S$1.36). Tuas Power was recently acquired by China’s Huaneng in a S$4.2 billion deal. Its new parent company is an owner and experienced operator of coal-fired...
(EnergyAsia, May 16, Friday) — The recent sharp rise in oil prices is due mostly to supply-demand fundamentals, rising industry costs, geopolitical crises and the decline in the value of the US dollar, said a leading energy consultant. However, speculative investors are playing an increasingly larger and aggressive role in the market as energy and...
(EnergyAsia, May 16, Friday) — Worried about rising energy prices and lack of preparedness to a global oil crisis, the European Union (EU) Commission has launched a public consultation exercise on oil stockpiles among its 27 member nations. Crude oil prices have stayed well above US$120 per barrel for most of April and May on...
(EnergyAsia, May 16, Friday) — South Korean oil giant SK Energy is expected to start up a new 60,000 b/d residue fluid catalytic cracking (RFCC) unit at its Ulsan refinery in June. The unit will help SK increase its production of higher value fuels including gasoline and diesel from cracking cheaper heavy high-sulphur fuel oil,...
(EnergyAsia, May 16, Friday) — A major coal consumer, South Korea’s steel producer Posco, has accepted a 200% year-on-year price increase for its purchases of coking coal, also called metallurgical coal. Posco will now pay about US$305 per tonne for its coking coal from suppliers in Australia, setting a new benchmark. The market for coking...
(EnergyAsia, May 16, Friday) — India’s ONGC Videsh Ltd and Venezuela’s state oil firm PDVSA have agreed to jointly explore and produce oil and gas in the Orinoco region of the South American country. ONGC will take a 40% stake while PDVSA will be the majority 60% partner in the US$400 million joint venture, the...
(EnergyAsia, May 16, Friday) — US major ExxonMobil said it investing more than $100 million to complete development and testing of an improved natural gas treating technology which could make carbon capture and storage more affordable and significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The company plans to build a commercial demonstration plant near LaBarge, Wyoming, where...
(EnergyAsia, May 15, Thursday) — Rapid development of advanced biofuels is the key to reducing reliance on oil and global food prices, and ongoing advances in industrial biotechnology are helping achieve that goal, said a biotechnology association. Brent Erickson, executive vice president of the Biotechnology Industry Organization’s Industrial & Environmental Section, said: “A newly released...
(EnergyAsia, May 15, Thursday) — UK-headquartered Foster Wheeler Energy Limited said it has been awarded an engineering and materials supply contract by South Korea’s Samsung Engineering Co Ltd to build two gas turbine exhaust waste heat recovery units for an ethane separation plant at the Map Ta Phut Industrial Complex in Thailand. The plant is...
(EnergyAsia, May 15, Thursday) — Asia’s leading agribusiness group, Wilmar International, said that biodiesel accounted for less than five percent of its first quarter revenue of US$7.14 billion. The Singapore-listed company derived the bulk of its revenue from producing crude palm oil, laurics, oilseeds, grains, consumer products, and operating its plantations and palm oil mills....
(EnergyAsia, May 15, Thursday) — Malaysia’s economy is too dependent on the production and export of oil, natural gas, palm oil, rubber and a few other commodities, experts have warned. Oil and gas sales accounted for 46.8% of state revenues in 2007, up from 25% in 2004, experts said during a forum to review of...
(EnergyAsia, May 15, Thursday) — South Korea’s solar power technology sector could be lagging the US and Japan by some 10 years, a new study found. While Japan and the US plan to have commercial-scale solar energy projects in place by 2010 and 2015, respectively, South Korea will not be able to achieve this before...
(EnergyAsia, May 15, Thursday) — NYSE-listed Gushan Environmental Energy Limited, China’s largest producer of biodiesel, said its first quarter net income rose by 54.7% to US$15.854 million compared with the same period last year. Its total revenues increased by 45% to US$47.469 million while gross profit was up by 49.2% to US$19.835 million. Gushan said...
(EnergyAsia, May 15, Thursday) — Law firm Herbert Smith said it advised Huaneng Power International, the listed unit of China’s largest power producer, on the HK$26 billion acquisition of SinoSing Power from Huaneng Group including cash and debts. (US$1=HK$7.78). SinoSing Power is the holding company of Tuas Power in Singapore. Tuas Power is the...
(EnergyAsia, May 15, Thursday) — The China WindPower Group Limited said it has signed up two new partners, Shanghai Shenhua Holdings Co Ltd and Shanxi Zhangze Electric Power Co Ltd, with the intention to build wind energy plants in China. With Shanghai Shenhua Holdings Co Ltd, it plans to form Sino-foreign joint ventures to develop...
(EnergyAsia, May 15, Thursday) — Indonesia’s government plans to draw down its oil stockpile by 50%, selling some 14 million barrels to pay for its growing oil subsidy burdens amid soaring oil prices. The sale will be made throughout the year and bring in US$665 million if the crude price stays at around $120 a...
(EnergyAsia, May 14, Wednesday) — While the vast majority of logistics jobs involve moving packages and containerised cargo from point A to point B, occasionally a job comes along that is so difficult, so large in scale and complexity that only a specialised team of experts could attempt it. It is the growing number of...