(EnergyAsia, January 9 2012, Wednesday) — Beleaguered state-owned Coal India Limited (CIL), which accounts for over 80% of the country’s domestic coal output, will provide more ammunition for its critics as it is likely to miss its production target for the current financial year ending March 31. For the first three quarters of FY2012, it...
(EnergyAsia, January 9 2013, Wednesday) — Port Waratah Coal Services expects to soon submit its plans for the construction of a fourth terminal, estimated to cost at least A$5 billion, to handle coal exports from Newcastle port in Australia’s New South Wales state. (US$1=A$0.96). The company, which claims to operate the world’s largest coal export...
(EnergyAsia, January 8 2013, Tuesday) — State-owned Coal India Ltd (CIL) said it has signed fuel supply agreements (FSAs) with 35 of the country’s 114 major power companies. The company, which accounts for more than 90% of the country’s coal production and handles the bulk of its import, said it is confident of achieving its...
(EnergyAsia, January 8 2013, Tuesday) — China and India together account for around 76% of the 1.4 billion MW new coal-fired power capacity now being around the world, said Washington DC, US-based World Resources Institute in a recent paper. If fully constructed, the 1,199 new plants will more than offset the loss of older plants...
(EnergyAsia, January 7 2013, Monday) — The Philippines faces a steady worsening in its energy supply outlook through 2015, with coal and natural gas seen as particularly vulnerable in the face of rising demand to fuel the country’s fast-growing economy. The Department of Energy (DOE) is projecting rapid depletion of domestic sources of both fuels...
(EnergyAsia, January 7 2012, Monday) — State-owned Coal India Limited (CIL) has been hit with fresh charges that it could be making excessive profit from rising prices without an attendant increase and improvement in coal supplies. The company, which accounts for over 90% of India’s domestic coal production and much of its imports, has started...
(EnergyAsia, January 7 2013, Monday) — Unconventional gas is becoming increasingly popular across the Asia-Pacific region as demand for cleaner burning fuel grows among its leading economies. One of the new sources of natural gas is coal bed methane (CBM), also known as coal seam gas (CSG) as it is extracted from coal seams, which...
(EnergyAsia, January 4 2013, Friday) — The Mongolian government is still investigating Canadian coal miner SouthGobi Resources Ltd over “licensing issues” following last year’s botched attempt by its key shareholder to sell off its stake to China’s aluminum giant Chalco for US$920 million. The Hong Kong- and Toronto-listed company, controlled by a unit of Rio...
(EnergyAsia, January 4 2013, Friday) — With the right policies and equipment, open-pit coal miners are learning to rehabilitate and upgrade affected land at marginal additional costs, creating new useful space for communities even if the landscape is not returned to their previous state, said the International Energy Agency (IEA). Open-pit mines have long been...
(EnergyAsia, January 3 2013, Thursday) — China’s coal imports are set to surge this year on expectations of rising demand from a pair of government decisions that will stimulate demand for steel-making coal as well as remove the ceiling on domestic thermal coal prices. China is expected to step up the production of coke, a...
(EnergyAsia, January 3 2013, Thursday) — With its spot price down 29%, metallurgical coal is the worst performing bulk commodity for 2012, proclaimed Goldman Sachs in its last research report for the year. Spot demand remains weak and prices have failed to track the uplift in iron ore prices. But Goldman Sachs said current prices...
(EnergyAsia, January 2 2013, Wednesday) — Boosted by surging demand from China and India, coal will “come close” to surpassing oil as the world’s top energy source by 2017, said the International Energy Agency (IEA). In its annual Medium-Term Coal Market Report (MCMR), the Paris-based agency pinpointed China and India as the main source of...
(EnergyAsia, January 2 2013, Wednesday) — The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) has boosted its forecast for world oil demand growth for 2013 while keeping it unchanged for 2012. In its December short-term energy outlook, the agency expects world demand for 2012 to grow by 750,000 b/d to reach 89.04 million b/d, just slightly off...
(EnergyAsia, January 2 2013, Wednesday) — The Singapore government has teamed up with private companies to jointly launch financing firm Clifford Capital to invest in infrastructure projects around the world. Owned by sovereign wealth fund Temasek Holdings (40.5%), DBS Bank (9.9%), Standard Chartered Bank (9.9%), Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp (9.9%), Prudential Assurance Company Singapore (19.9%)...
(EnergyAsia, December 31 2012, Monday) — Having contributed to recent bullish sentiments that the US could soon become the world’s largest oil and gas producer, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) has published a commentary laced with doubts and questions that this scenario is far from certain. “Could the US become the leading global producer of...
(EnergyAsia, December 31 2012, Monday) — The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has kept its forecasts for global oil demand to grow to grow by just under 800,000 b/d for 2012 and 2013. With no major revision to its December oil report outlook, OPEC said it is holding its forecast for world demand to...
(EnergyAsia, 28 2012, Friday) — The Australian government is mulling over a call the International Energy Agency (IEA) that it should build up a national oil stockpile and reduce reliance on private companies to meet any demand for emergency oil supplies. The Paris-based agency has criticised Canberra for failing to meet the minimum 90-day supply...
(EnergyAsia, December 27 2012, Thursday) — China’s apparent oil demand surged 9.1% year-on-year in November to a record high to 42.96 million metric tons (mt), or an average 10.5 million b/d, said US energy media Platts. In an analysis of recent Chinese government data, Platts said the November demand surpassed the previous record high of...
(EnergyAsia, December 27 2012, Thursday) — Russia’s Transneft has started up the US$11 billion second branch of the East Siberia Pacific Ocean (ESPO-2) pipeline to double its 15-million tonne/year export of the ESPO blend crude oil to Asia and the US. Completed after six years, the 4,200-km pipeline, which ends at the Far Eastern port...
(EnergyAsia, December 26 2012, Wednesday) — Russia’s gas giant Gazprom said it is continuing talks with China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) to secure a long-term deal to supply natural gas to China. Early this month, Gazprom chairman Alexey Miller met Zhou Jiping, CNPC’s President, at the Russian company’s Moscow headquarters in an attempt to narrow...
(EnergyAsia, December 26 2012, Wednesday) — Private Indian refineries account for nearly half of this year’s global increase in crude oil processing capacity and are spearheading an oil products export boom, said the International Energy Agency (IEA). Having increased their capacity by nearly 50% over the past five years, Indian refiners are shipping their products...
(EnergyAsia, December 26 2012, Wednesday) — Following an unexpected surge in fourth-quarter consumption, the International Energy Agency (IEA) has raised its forecasts for world oil demand growth for 2012 and 2013. In its latest December monthly report, the Paris-based agency said world oil demand will grow by 800,000 b/d to 89.7 million b/d for 2012,...
(EnergyAsia, December 24 2012, Monday) — The Sri Lankan government is set to buy back the Trincomalee oil storage tank farm in northeastern China Bay now being leased to the Indian Oil Corporation (IOC). The leases was signed in 2002 by the United National Party (UNP) government when Colombo was fighting a civil war against...
(EnergyAsia, December 21 2012, Friday) — With the acquisition of Canadian natural company Progress Energy, Malaysia’s state energy firm Petronas has raised the value of its proposed investment in an export-oriented liquefied natural gas (LNG) project which includes a terminal at Prince Rupert Port to between C$9 and C$11 billion as well as nearly tripled...
(EnergyAsia, December 20 2012, Thursday) — Buoyed by improved fuel sales and higher refinery output this year, Australia’s largest downstream company, Caltex, said it expects a return to profitability to reverse a loss of A$714 million from last year. (US$1=A$0.95). The company said it expects to achieve after-tax profit in the range of A$45 million...