(EnergyAsia, February 29, Friday) — Leverkusen, Germany-based specialty chemicals group LANXESS will build a 100,000 metric tonne per year butyl rubber production plant on Singapore’s Jurong Island. The 400-million-euro plant is due to be commissioned in 2011, said Axel C. Heitmann, LANXESS chairman at a press conference in Singapore. The plant, the company’s largest, will (more…)

(EnergyAsia, February 28, Thursday) — Noble Group Limited, a global supply chain manager of agricultural, industrial and energy products, said it has appointed Gavin May, Gloucester Coal’s former CEO, and former CFO Barry Tudor, to lead Noble’s coal asset strategy in Australia. The company’s Australian coal assets include coking and thermal coal mines in the (more…)

(EnergyAsia, February 28, Thursday) — Environment ministers from the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) are asking their development partners for additional financial and technical assistance to improve their environmental and natural resource management. In a joint statement issued after the second GMS Environment Ministers Meeting in Vientiane, Laos last month, the ministers called for the need (more…)

(EnergyAsia, February 27, Wednesday) — IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, said it has agreed to help the Bank of the Philippine Islands build a sustainable energy financing loan portfolio. IFC will help BPI expand its financial products, focusing on micro, small, and medium enterprises in manufacturing. The bank will also focus on (more…)

(EnergyAsia, February 26, Tuesday) — Japan’s Kyocera Corporation said it will supply and install its solar power generating systems in Tunisia under a yen-loan project by the Japanese government through Itochu Corporation. Starting April, Kyocera will install its solar power generating systems in 500 households in villages that do not currently have electricity in the (more…)

(EnergyAsia, February 25, Monday) — BGC, an international financial brokerage firm, said it has agreed to acquire the assets of Singapore-based Radix Energy through a new BGC subsidiary to be named BGC Radix Energy. The transaction is expected to close in early March 2008. BGC, which provides integrated voice and electronic services to wholesale fixed (more…)

(EnergyAsia, February 22, Friday) — Singapore has been chosen as the location for a new global alliance of small to mid-sized logistics firms created to challenge the dominance of the large multi-national companies, said US-based BDP International. Believed to be the first alliance of its kind in the world, BDP Global Network Services will be (more…)

(EnergyAsia, February 21, Thursday) — India’s gasoline surplus and Iran’s increasing inability to secure letters of credit will drive Asian gasoline cracks down to below $6 per barrel by the end of 2008, predicts US consultant ESAI. In the February 2008 issue of its Pacific Basin Stockwatch, a six-month outlook on Asia-Pacific product markets, ESAI (more…)

SINGAPORE: Federal International’s Banyan Utilities seeking UN carbon credits accreditation  (EnergyAsia, February 20, Wednesday) —Singapore-listed Federal International (2000) Ltd said its 60%-owned subsidiary, Banyan Utilities Pte Ltd, is seeking accreditation under the Clean Development Mechanism of United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (CDM-UNFCCC).As part of the accreditation process, Banyan Utilities is organising a stakeholder (more…)

(EnergyAsia, February 20, Wednesday) — “BioEnergy Forum 2008”, to be held in Bangkok, Thailand from April 28 to 30, will address issues pertaining to the economics and sustainability of biofuels.More than 30 key speakers will focus on the latest bioenergy trends and issues facing on the entire biofuels value chain over eight sessions. There will (more…)

(EnergyAsia, February 20, Tuesday) — US-based Transocean Inc said it has been awarded a large contract by a Marathon Oil Corp-led consortium to drill exploration wells in a deepwater location in Indonesia.NYSE-listed TransOcean said the 689-day contract, to start in the fourth quarter of 2009, is expected to generate revenue of about $351 million. The (more…)

(EnergyAsia, February 19, Tuesday) — Oslo-listed IMAREX ASA has announced it is acquiring commodities broker Spectron Group plc for a GBP 70.35 million or around US$140 million.   IMAREX, which operates a derivatives market for a wide range of commodities, said the deal “substantially strengthens” its position as a premier trading and clearing hub for (more…)

(EnergyAsia, February 19, Tuesday) — The Learning Group Executive Education will be conducting a course on reservoir engineering at the Holiday Inn Hotel in Singapore from February 27 to 29. The course addresses fundamental concepts and modern practical methods that will assist in the handling, analysing and interpretation of subsurface and production data at all (more…)

(EnergyAsia, February 19, Tuesday) — Renewable Energy Conference 2008 will be held at the Grand Copthrone Waterfront Hotel in Singapore from March 27 to 28. With spikes in oil prices, rapid depletion of fossil fuels and a booming economy, Asia is hungry for renewable sources of energy such as bioethanol, solar power, hydropower, geothermal power, (more…)

(EnergyAsia, February 18, Monday) — Exxon Mobil Corporation said its technology has resulted in another world record-setting well at the Sakhalin-1 oil project in eastern Russia, enabling the production of more energy while reducing the impact on the environment. The well was drilled from land, using the world’s most powerful land-based rig and employing extended-reach (more…)

(EnergyAsia, February 18, Monday) — “Deepwater Development Asia 2008” will be held at the Prince Hotel & Residence in Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia from March 24 to 26.As oil wells in Asia continue to deplete, more companies are beginning to realise the potential of deepwater fields. Deepwater development is now strategically important for most global (more…)

(EnergyAsia, February 15, Friday) — Canada’s Hanwei Energy Services Corp said it has been licensed by Aerodyn Energiesysteme GmbH, a leading international wind power engineering firm, to produce two versions of its aeroBlade 1.5 wind turbine blades in China.Hanwei will be provided with the moulds, technical know-how, specifications, and support to produce the 37.5 meter (more…)

(EnergyAsia, February 15, Friday) — The 13th ‘Annual Asia Upstream 2008’ conference will be held at the Orchard Hotel in Singapore from February 28 to 29.The conference will review diverse upstream ventures, acreage opportunities, the strategies of the super-majors, independents, national oil companies and governments, investment opportunities, oil and energy finance, and the role of the (more…)

By George Friedman of Stratfor (EnergyAsia, February 14, Thursday) — Tehran has announced that Iran and the US will hold a new round of talks on the future of Iraq at some point next week. The Iranians said the “structure of the discussions have been finalized but the level of participation has not yet been (more…)

(EnergyAsia, February 14, Thursday) — French technology solutions company Areva said it has been awarded contracts worth a total of 41 million euros by two major Indian utilities, National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) and Powergrid. (US$1=0.67 euro). Areva will design engineer, manufacture and supply power transformers for the 3 x 500 MW Indira Ghandi Thermal (more…)

(EnergyAsia, February 13, Wednesday) — Singapore’s Courage Marine Group Ltd, a dry bulk shipper of coal and iron ore, said it has been awarded an urgent contract to transport coal from Indonesia’s Kalimantan province to Guangzhou in China, which has been hit by weeks of severe snow storms. Courage Marine is deploying two handysize over (more…)

(EnergyAsia, February 12, Tuesday) — Moser Baer India Limited said it is planning to invest $1.5 billion to expand its 40MW thin film photovoltaic (PV) modules manufacturing capacity to over 600MW by 2010. The company said its wholly owned subsidiary, PV Technologies India Limited, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with an unnamed global (more…)

(EnergyAsia, February 11, Monday) — Abu Dhabi has begun construction of its ambitious $22 billion Masdar City, proclaimed as the world’s first zero-carbon, zero-waste, car-free city. The global milestone event was marked by the laying of a virtual cornerstone and followed a visually stunning production depicting life in the city. In conjunction with the groundbreaking, (more…)

(EnergyAsia, February 8, Friday) — Graham Corporation said it has received a $1.8 million order for two surface condensers to be installed in a coal-to-liquid (CTL) facility in China. The condensers will be manufactured in Graham’s Batavia, New York facility with final shipment planned for the first quarter of next year. CTL is an emerging (more…)

(EnergyAsia, February 4, Monday) — World Fiscal Systems for Oil & Gas, a 5-day training course on petroleum upstream fiscal systems, will be held at the Hilton Hotel in Singapore from February 25 to 29. This five-day computer-based interactive training course aims to train participants on vital aspects of fiscal systems pertaining to concessions, production (more…)