(EnergyAsia, May 23 2011, Monday) — China’s slowing economy faces a new threat crisis from spreading power supply shortages in its central regions caused by a shortage in coal supply and drought-induced drop in hydropower capacity. Hubei province is the latest to join neighbouring provinces in rationing power supply as China faces its worst power...
(EnergyAsia, May 20 2011, Friday) — Malaysia’s terminal operator Dialog and Netherland’s Vopak are expected to soon begin construction of their proposed terminal project in the Malaysian state of Johor north of Singapore. Located in the Pengerang region, the new terminal will have the capacity to hold five million cubic metres of oil, with the...
(EnergyAsia, May 20 2011, Friday) — Malaysian state oil and gas company Petronas has set aside RM50 billion to 55 billion a year over the next five years in capital expenditure to replace aging oil and gas-producing assets, said company president and CEO Shamsul Azhar Abbas. (US$1=RM3). The planned capital spending for the coming years...
(EnergyAsia, May 20 2011, Friday) — World oil supply could well fall behind demand growth in the long term, said Royal Dutch Shell chief executive Peter Voser. While Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) members have the ability to make up for loss of Libya’s 1.6 million b/d production, they have not done so. Adding...
(EnergyAsia, May 20 2011, Friday) — The US, Japan and South Korea have taken different positions with regard to their strategic oil reserves in response to recent events threatening their energy supply. Japan was forced to tap into its stockpile to overcome the loss of its nuclear power capacity following the March 11 earthquake and...
(EnergyAsia, May 20 2011, Friday) — Australia’s Gloucester Coal said it will acquire Donaldson Coal from Hong Kong-based commodities trader Noble Group for A$360 million, boosting its production base and giving it access to new port capacity in the country’s largest coal export terminal. (US$1=A$0.95). Gloucester, which is 65.4%-owned by Noble, said it planned to...
(EnergyAsia, May 19 2011, Thursday) — Singapore’s marine and infrastructure company Sembcorp Industries has posted S$159.9 million in net profit for the first quarter, slightly higher from S$158.8 million for the same period last year, while revenue was down about 16.7% to S$2 billion. (US$1=S$1.25). The company said its utilities division reported a 4% rise...
(EnergyAsia, May 19 2011, Wednesday) — Rotary Engineering Limited, a Singapore-listed provider of engineering, procurement, construction and maintenance (EPCM) services to the oil, gas and petrochemical industries, has posted a 62% drop in net profit to S$5.3 million for the first quarter of 2011. Its revenue was down 27% to S$130.5 million. (US$1=S$1.25). Rotary said...
(EnergyAsia, May 19 2011, Thursday) — US major Chevron Corporation said its Australian subsidiary has agreed to supply Japan’s JX Nippon Oil and Energy Corporation 300,000 tons of liquefied natural gas (LNG) a year for 15 years from the offshore Gorgon project. Chevron is the operator of the Gorgon project in northwestern Australia, with an...
(EnergyAsia, May 19 2011, Thursday) — Australian energy planners said the country needs to heed the warnings of the International Energy Agency and put in place a strategy to deal with the peaking in global oil supplies. The Paris-based agency has drastically cut its forecast 2030 crude oil production to 96 million b/d from 120...
(EnergyAsia, May 19 2011, Thursday) — Australia faces growing risks from its increasing trade dependence on China, according to a recent research from investment bank RBS. Australia’s exports to China account for around 4.6% of its gross domestic product, making its trade exposure to China the largest among any western country. China is credited for...
(EnergyAsia, May 18 2011, Wednesday) — The following is an edited version of a paper delivered by Robert F. Cekuta, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Economic, Energy and Business Affairs in the US State Department at an energy security conference in Washington, DC on May 4. If Asia continues its current growth trajectory, its oil...
(EnergyAsia, May 18 2011, Wednesday) — Russian crude oil production edged lower by 0.2% month-on-month to 10.2 million b/d in March, with Lukoil and Gazprom Neft registering lower output while others kept theirs flat, according to the Energy Ministry. The figure helped Prime Minister Vladimir Putin fulfil his pledge that Russia would keep oil output...
(EnergyAsia, May 18 2011, Wednesday) — Oil prices will have to stay up and high for governments in the Middle East to pay for generous welfare programmes to keep their people from revolting. The Saudi Arabian government will need to sell its crude oil at a minimum US$88 a barrel this year and US$110 in...
(EnergyAsia, May 18 2011, Wednesday) — The Singapore government will likely issue a tender before year-end for the construction of very large floating structures (VLFS) with the capacity to store 300,000 cubic metres of oil at sea. South Korean and Japanese engineering contractors are among those waiting to bid on the contract for the project...
(EnergyAsia, May 16 2011, Monday) — Halcyon Group, a Singapore-based energy and resources company, expects to be listed on the Catalist board of the Singapore Exchange through a reverse takeover of building materials supplier NH Ceramics worth S$133.78 million. (US$1=S$1.25). Halcyon Energy Corporation, which provides offshore and marine engineering services, will issue shares to NH...
(EnergyAsia, May 16 2011, Monday) — Saudi Arabia is looking to increase the number of working oil rigs to fulfil its promise to raise long-term oil production capacity to 12.5 million b/d. After a meeting with oil service companies in late March, state-run oil giant Saudi Aramco has begun laying out plans to increase the...
(EnergyAsia, May 16 2011, Monday) — It now costs more for motorists to fill up in Shanghai than any city in the US. The retail prices of gasoline in Shanghai city recently surged past 8.44 yuan per litre, exceeding the 7.9-to-8.3 yuan per litre price range in parts of the US. (US$1=6.5 yuan). Chinese fuel...
(EnergyAsia, May 16 2011, Monday) — Two of China’s three state-owned majors said higher crude prices and production boosted their first-quarter financial performances. CNOOC Ltd, China’s main offshore oil and gas producer, said increased production and sales raised its January-March quarter revenue by 59% to 48.5 billion yuan from year-ago levels. (US$1=6.5 yuan). The Beijing-based...
(EnergyAsia, May 16 2011, Monday) — Buoyed by growing bilateral ties between the two countries, Indian companies are investing heavily in Indonesia’s coal industry. In January, the two governments pledged to double bilateral trade to US$25 billion by 2015 as they began talks on boosting trade and investments. Coal India, the country’s biggest miner, could...
(EnergyAsia, May 13 2011, Friday) — Australia’s QR National said it will invest A$185 million to expand its Goonyella coal rail network to support a major expansion of the Hay Point coal terminal near Mackay town in Queensland state. The project includes an electricity feeder station as well as track duplication. QR National said the...
(EnergyAsia, May 13 2011, Friday) — China’s National Energy Administration (NEA) has sharply raised its forecast for the country’s electricity demand growth for 2011 to 12% from 9%. With the economy expected to grow by 9% for the year, the NEA said Chinese electricity consumption will rise to 4.69 trillion kilowatt hours. In its previous...
(EnergyAsia, May 13 2011, Friday) — Even China’s growth machine is feeling the sting of rising energy prices. The world’s second-largest economy said its April electricity output fell by 4.3% from March as surging coal prices led to a cutback in power production. Still, April’s power output of 366.4 billion kilowatt-hours was up 12% from...
(EnergyAsia, May 13 2011, Friday) — The global energy boom will continue after a brief slowdown as a result of the March 11 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster in Japan, said analysts. Any decision by China, India, South Korea and Russia to abandon or even delay down their programme to develop nuclear power for energy...
(EnergyAsia, May 13 2011, Friday) — Indian companies are investing heavily in Indonesia’s coal industry Coal India, the country’s biggest miner, could invest as much as US$3 billion to develop a coking coal mine, steel plant and a seaport on Kalimantan Island, said Indonesian officials. Privately-owned GMR Energy, which acquired the PT Barasentosa Lestari (PTBSL)...