(EnergyAsia, May 25 2012, Friday) — East Asia’s developing countries including China will see a further slowdown in economic growth this year to follow on last year’s 8.2% expansion after a near 10% rise in 2010, said the World Bank. With the Eurozone in meltdown mode and the global slowdown expected to continue, developing East (more…)

(EnergyAsia, May 24 2012, Thursday) — Thai upstream company PTTEP has raised its all-cash offer to fully acquire UK’s Cover Energy for a total of £1.221.4 billion at 240 pence a share, trumping rival Royal Dutch Shell’s offer of 220 pence. (US$1=£0.64). Shell might yet be drawn into a bidding war after having earlier matched (more…)

(EnergyAsia, May 24 2012, Thursday) — Italy-based RINA Group said it has secured a contract to manage a new floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU) project that will deliver liquefied natural gas (LNG) to consumers in Indonesia’s South Sumatra province from 2014. RINA will be involved in selecting the unit’s concept, front-end engineering design as (more…)

(EnergyAsia, May 23 2012, Wednesday) — Asia Pacific countries have reached a crossroad where they must strike a balance between rising prosperity and focusing on cleaner, sustainable and more equitable growth, said the UN Development Programme (UNDP). The region’s response to these issues and its success or failure at dealing with the new challenges will (more…)

(EnergyAsia, May 23 2012, Wednesday) — US-based GreatPoint Energy and China Wanxiang Holdings said they have officially concluded a partnership agreement and joint investment in a large project in the western Chinese region of Xinjiang to convert coal into natural gas for consumption in the eastern provinces. GreatPoint Energy, which sold an unstated “large” equity (more…)

(EnergyAsia, May 22 2012, Tuesday) — Finland’s Neste Oil said it is using fish waste fat from Southeast Asian farms to produce its ‘NExBTL’ brand of renewable diesel fuel at its controversial biofuel refinery in Singapore. The company, which started out using palm oil and crop waste, said the fat comes from the processed waste (more…)

(EnergyAsia, May 22 2012, Tuesday) — ABB, the Switzerland-based power and automation technology group, said it is working engineers in India to develop, design and manufacture a 1,200 kilovolt ( kV ) circuit breaker, the highest AC voltage level in the world. The innovative circuit breaker will be deployed at a national test station being (more…)

(EnergyAsia, May 22 2012, Tuesday) — Angloa’s economy will rebound to grow by 8% this year after expanding by 4% last year while its rate of inflation is declining, said the International Monetary Fund (IMF). “The pace of economic activity is expected to pick up in 2012, as oil production rebounds. Growth is projected to (more…)

(EnergyAsia, May 21 2012, Monday) — Japanese trading house Itochu Corp and Thai state-owned PTT Global Chemical Public Company have agreed to invest in petrochemical projects in Malaysia’s southern state of Johor. In a statement, Malaysian state energy company Petronas said it has signed Heads of Agreement (HOAs) with the two companies to form separate (more…)

(EnergyAsia, May 21 2012, Monday) — Apart from growing at a projected slower rate of 7% this and next year, the Indian economy will face rising risks from its slow reform efforts, high oil prices, volatile inflation and the global economic crisis, said the business community and the International Monetary Fund. In its report on (more…)

(EnergyAsia, May 18 2012, Friday) — The oil and gas industry is taking a cautious attitude towards mergers and acquisitions despite higher oil prices, improving access to capital, increasing economic optimism and a generally more favourable deal environment, said consultant Ernst & Young. In its sixth Global Capital Confidence Barometer survey, Ernst & Young said (more…)

(EnergyAsia, May 18 2012, Friday) — Battered by Europe’s economic crisis and US threats to release strategic stockpiles, crude oil prices have fallen to their lowest levels in more than six months, with US WTI slipping below US$100 a barrel and North Sea Brent hovering just above US$110 this week. Trading in the US$90s since (more…)

(EnergyAsia, May 18 2012, Friday) — Australia’s largest downstream oil company has just declared that it is still too early for the ailing refining industry to die. After over a year of making funeral arrangements for its two unprofitable ageing refineries, Caltex Australia Limited surprised shareholders last week with CEO Jerry Segal announcing that it (more…)

(EnergyAsia, May 18 2012, Friday) — German engineering giant Siemens said it has started work on a building a 220,000-sq m plant in Saudi Arabia’s Dammam city to manufacture gas turbines and compressors for the kingdom’s fast-growing energy markets. Siemens and local partner E.A.Juffali & Brothers expect the facility to also create job opportunities for (more…)

(EnergyAsia, May 17 2012, Thursday) — Supported by the UN and several developed countries, 20 small island developing nations have declared their intention to reduce dependence on fossil fuels, develop the use of renewable energy and develop the economy at the same time. The Barbados Declaration, named after the venue of last week’s conference organised (more…)

(EnergyAsia, May 17 2012, Thursday) — Thai state-owned energy company PTT has reshuffled the CEOs of four subsidiaries. It has appointed Tevin Vongvanich, PTT’s former CFO, as CEO of upstream company PTTEP, replacing Anon Sirisaengtaksin, who became CEO of PTT Global Chemical (PTTGC). PTTGC’s chief Veerasak Kositpaisal took over at Thaioil Plc whose CEO Surong (more…)

(EnergyAsia, May 17 2012, Thursday) — Drawing on its natural gas reserves of 392 trillion cubic feet (tcf) sufficient to support 184 years of production, Australia could be ready to challenge Qatar’s position as the world’s leading liquefied natural gas (LNG) exporter later this decade, said Energy and Resources Minister Martin Ferguson. Citing GeoScience Australia’s (more…)

(EnergyAsia, May 16 2012, Wednesday) —Cheniere Energy Inc, which is building a liquefied natural gas (LNG) export and trading business in the US, said it has secured a combined US$468 million in new investments from Singapore sovereign wealth fund Temasek Holdings and private equity firm RRJ Capital. Separately, the three companies have begun discussions to (more…)

(EnergyAsia, May 16 2012, Wednesday) — InterOil Corp is actively lobbying the Papua New Guinea government after it had been informed that the Department of Petroleum and Energy (DPE) plans to cancel its US$6 billlion liquefied natural gas (LNG) project. Energy Minister William Duma has denied the contract has been cancelled. Interoil has been in (more…)

(EnergyAsia, May 16 2012, Wednesday) — US major Chevron Corp said it has secured a 20-year agreement to sell liquefied natural gas (LNG) to a Japanese power company from its US$29 billion joint-venture Wheatstone project on the coast of Western Australia. Tohuku Electric Power Co will buy up to one million tonnes of LNG a (more…)

(EnergyAsia, May 16 2012, Wednesday) — Australia’s Origin Energy Ltd said it has agreed to sell some of its vast coal seam gas reserves in Queensland state to a Santos-led consortium developing the nearby rival Gladstone project to export liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Asia. Origin Energy is developing its gas reserves for an export-oriented (more…)

(EnergyAsia, May 16 2012, Wednesday) — Royal Dutch Shell said it is leading a consortium comprising subsidiary Shell Canada Ltd, Korea Gas Corporation (Kogas), Mitsubishi Corporation, and PetroChina Company Limited to develop a giant liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminal in western Canada. The 12-million-tonne/year project to be sited near Kitimat, a town on the (more…)

(EnergyAsia, May 15 2012, Tuesday) — Global financing for carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology, a tool for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, was kept unchanged at US$23.5 billion in 2011, said US-based Worldwatch Institute. According to a new report by the Washington DC-based environmental and resources study group, there are 75 large-scale, fully (more…)

(EnergyAsia, May 15 2012, Tuesday) — Asia’s refining industry is “set to flourish” in over the next four years as a result of rising demand for refined petroleum products in fast growing countries such as China and India, according to a new report by business intelligence provider GlobalData. According to, “Refining Industry in Asia Pacific (more…)

(EnergyAsia, May 15 2012, Tuesday) — Rising substitution by natural gas will help reduce US coal use for power generation by 14% in 2012, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA). In its latest short-term forecast, the statistical agency of the US Department of Energy said it expects the power sector’s coal consumption to fall (more…)