(EnergyAsia, April 21 2011, Thursday) — The upstream oil and gas industry will face a major shortage of petrotechnical professionals (PTP) with the impending global loss of 5,000 experienced workers by 2014, according to France-based Schlumberger Business Consulting (SBC). In its 2010 Oil & Gas Human Resources Benchmark Report, the company said the “big crew (more…)

(EnergyAsia, April 21 2011, Thursday) — The small and mid-scale liquefied natural gas (LNG) market has grown considerably in recent years, with a number of new terminals starting up in 2010, and will gain even more popularity and importance in the near future, according to UK-based industry advisors, ActOn LNG consulting. Tony Acton, principal of (more…)

(EnergyAsia, April 20 2011, Wednesday) — Swiss-based engineering giant Foster Wheeler AG said it has been awarded a contract by Bahrain National Gas Company (BSC) or BANAGAS to undertake a feasibility study to revamp and expand its liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) facilities in Bahrain. The contract, won by a subsidiary of Foster Wheeler’s Global Engineering (more…)

(EnergyAsia, April 20 2011, Wednesday) — Germany’s Siemens Energy said it has received a follow-up order from the emirate of Abu Dhabi to build a 1,600 megawatt (MW) turnkey combined cycle power plant approximately 260 km west of the capital city. The company said it will build the Shuweihat S3 plant together with its Korean (more…)

(EnergyAsia, April 19 2011, Tuesday) — Australia’s Origin Energy Limited said it has completed the syndication of an A$2.15 billion and US$350 million bank debt facility with a term of between three and five years. (US$1=A$0.97). Origin initially executed an underwritten A$2 billion facility last December, using A$1.1 billion to partly finance the acquisition of (more…)

(EnergyAsia, April 19 2011, Tuesday) — Law firm Herbert Smith said it advised China’s CNOOC Limited on its recent acquisitions of UK Tullow’s hydrocarbon acreage in Uganda for US$1.467 billion. Herbert Smith said a joint energy team from its Hong Kong, London and Paris offices advised the Chinese firm on its all-cash purchase of Tullow’s one (more…)

(EnergyAsia, April 18 2011, Monday) — Clough AMEC, an equal joint-venture (JV) engineering firm between Australia’s Clough Ltd and the UK’s AMEC Plc, said it has won a A$25 million cost-reimbursable contract to construct and provide services for rejuvenating Oil Search Ltd’s Kumul marine terminal. (US$1=A$0.97). Located 40 km off the southern coast of Papua (more…)

(EnergyAsia, April 18 2011, Monday) — CNOOC Limited said its board has appointed Wang Yilin as its chairman and non-executive director of the company, replacing Fu Chengyu in both positions effective last Friday (April 15). From November 2005 to April 14 2011, Mr Wang served as a director of PetroChina Company Limited, a company listed (more…)

(EnergyAsia, April 18 2011, Monday) — China Huaneng Group (CHG) has completed its previously announced acquisition of a 50% interest in US-based InterGen from India’s GMR Infrastructure Limited, said the Burlington, Massachusetts global power generation firm. Intergen’s other shareholder is Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan of Canada which has been a 50% owner since 2005. ) (more…)

(EnergyAsia, April 15 2011, Friday) — Mongolian Mining Corp is expected to commission the first module of its new five-million-tonne-a-year plant to handle and process coal this quarter. The second phase of the plant will be operational later in the year while the third phase will likely start up at the end of 2012, lifting (more…)

(EnergyAsia, April 14 2011, Thursday) — A migration from conventional ethylene-based monoethylene glycol (MEG) production to coal-based production could potentially lead to a big shake-up of the global MEG market, with China spearheading the way, said US-based intelligent grid software and clean energy solutions provider Nexant Inc. The coal-to-MEG production process represents a major breakthrough (more…)

(EnergyAsia, April 13 2011, Wednesday) — Alberta, Canada-based China Coal Corporation said it expects to receive by mid-May the Chinese government’s approval for its plan to acquire a 60% equity interest in the Mei Feng coal mine located near Urumqi in western China’s Xinjiang province. Last year, China Coal said its 75%-owned Chinese subsidiary, Xinjiang Huamei (more…)

(EnergyAsia, April 13 2011, Wednesday) — globalCOAL said the ICE-based Newcastle coal futures contract traded at near-record levels last Friday (April 8). The 3,040 lots cleared in a single day, equivalent to over 3 million tonnes of coal, represented the second highest daily volume on record since July 2010. “Activity in the gC ICE Newcastle (more…)

(EnergyAsia, April 12 2011, Tuesday) — Australian mining giant BHP Billiton said it has approved a US$400 million investment to expand its fully-owned Hunter Valley Energy Coal project in New South Wales state. The RX1 project will expand the Mount Arthur Coal’s run-of-mine thermal coal production by four million tonnes per year (t/y), to approximately (more…)

(EnergyAsia, April 11 2011, Monday) — Crude oil prices closed at their highest levels since September 2008 on the worsening unrest and conflicts in the Middle East and Africa, and further weakness in the US dollar. Brent crude oil prices gained nearly US$8 last week to finish at US$126.74 a barrel while laggard US WTI (more…)

(EnergyAsia, April 11 2011, Monday) — Australia’s Cougar Energy Limited said it is making progress on its underground coal gasification (UCG) projects in China but not in Western Australia state. The ASX-listed company said it has signed a co-operation agreement with Inner Mongolia DeTailong Investment Energy Ltd for the cooperation and commercialisation of a UCG (more…)

(EnergyAsia, April 8 2011, Friday) — The following is an edited version of a commentary by Chris Jochnick, director of Oxfam America’s Private Sector Department. As David and Goliath stories go, it would be tough to match the struggle between poor, marginalised communities and one of the most powerful companies in the world, Texaco (now (more…)

(EnergyAsia, April 8 2011, Friday) — Australian Stock Exchange(ASX)-listed MetroCoal Ltd said it has appointed Caldrex Capital Pty Ltd to market and manage expressions of interest for a joint venture (JV) partner for the wholly-owned Wandoan West tenement, or exploration permit for coal (EPC) 1164. The East Brisbane, Queensland-based energy company said in its 2009 (more…)

(EnergyAsia, April 8 2011, Friday) — Green Power Asia Pte Ltd (GPA) recently held a meeting to seek feedback from stakeholders and the public on its 6.32 megawatt (MW) cogeneration electricity plant which will be powering Fuji Oil (S) Pte Ltd’s manufacturing facility located in the northernmost region of Singapore. GPA, a Singapore-based efficient energy (more…)

(EnergyAsia, April 8 2011, Friday) — Sembawang Shipyard, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Singapore’s Sembcorp Marine, said it has signed a long-term alliance contract with Canada’s Teekay Marine Services to provide ship-repair, refurbishment, upgrading and related marine services for its fleet of 137 ships. Teekay Marine Services is a subsidiary of Teekay Corporation, an international leader (more…)

(EnergyAsia, April 7 2011, Thursday) — Natural gas is emerging as a beneficiary of the ongoing crisis at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power complex, according to global business research and consulting firm, Frost & Sullivan. The crisis is a huge public relations disaster for the nuclear industry as it struggles to contain the huge radiation leaks (more…)

(EnergyAsia, April 7 2011, Thursday) — UK major BP said it has teamed up with two local companies to sign up four new coalbed methane (CBM) production sharing contracts (PSCs) in the Barito basin of South Kalimantan in Indonesia. The four PSCs cover an area of approximately 4,800 sq km. BP and Indonesian state energy (more…)

(EnergyAsia, April 6 2011, Wednesday) — International classification society Bureau Veritas said it has set up a joint development centre with COPPE/UFRJ, the Ocean Engineering department of Brazil’s Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, to develop tools and technical requirements for the country’s expansion into deepwater oil sector. The Paris, France-based company said the technical (more…)

(EnergyAsia, April 5 2011, Tuesday) — Qatar is producing its maximum 77 million tonnes of liquefied natural gas (LNG) a year thanks to last week’s boost from Qatargas to add to RasGas’s production. Qatargas said it achieved an “historic milestone” operating all seven of its liquefaction trains at capacity to produce 42 million tonnes of (more…)

(EnergyAsia, April 4 2011, Monday) — CNOOC Limited, the listed arm of China’s largest offshore petroleum giant, China National Offshore Oil Corp, and France’s Total have each agreed to acquire from UK’s Tullow a one-third interest in three prospective onshore areas in Uganda. Subject to closing terms and conditions and approvals from the Ugandan government, (more…)