(EnergyAsia, December 28 2010, Tuesday) — Tanjong Agas Oilfields Supply Centre Sdn Bhd, a Dubai-Malaysia joint venture company, is looking to develop an oil and gas supply base in an industrial park in Malaysia’s Pahang state. Located in Pekan town, the 100-hectare supply base is a key plank in the government’s programme to stimulate economic...

(EnergyAsia, December 27 2010, Monday) — STX OSV Holdings Limited, a world leading designer and builder of offshore and specialised vessels, said it will fully own a Vietnam subsidiary after agreeing to acquire the remaining 30% stake by year-end. The Singapore Exchange-listed company said it will buy out Amanda Shipyards Pte Ltd’s stake in STX...

(EnergyAsia, December 27 2010, Monday) — Singapore’s leading science agency, Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), will be initiating research and development (R&D) in oil and gas equipment to strengthen Singapore’s marine and offshore industry. Announcing this S$30 million investment, S. Iswaran, Senior Minister of State for Trade and Industry and Education, said the...

(EnergyAsia, December 27 2010, Monday) — In response to rising domestic and export demand, Russian gas giant Gazprom said it is gearing up to produce up between 570 and 580 billion cubic metres (bcm) of gas a year by 2015. The company is also planning to increase the daily throughput capacity of its underground gas...

(EnergyAsia, December 27 2010, Monday) — The global oil rig market could see an influx of as many as 50 rigs over the next 24 months if most of the idle US Gulf of Mexico fleet resume operations, said ODS-Petrodata, the US provider of market intelligence for the upstream oil and gas industry. The ultra-deepwater...

(EnergyAsia, December 27 2010, Monday) — China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) and its subsidiary PetroChina have each completed the new crude oil storage tanks in different parts of the country. Earlier this month, CNPC completed a 980-million-yuan terminal in the northern port city of Tianjin that has the capacity to store one million cubic metres...

(EnergyAsia, December 27 2010, Monday) — China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC), parent of Asia’s largest oil and gas producer PetroChina, has agreed with Saudi Aramco to expand cooperation in developing downstream oil projects, and trading and increasing supplies to Asia. CNPC chief Jiang Jiemin signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Aramco CEO Khalid A....

(EnergyAsia, December 24 2010, Friday) — Tanjung Langsat Port is targeting to resume operations at its fire-damaged oil and petrochemicals terminal in the southern Malaysian state of Johor by the end of the first quarter. The 100,000-cubic metre terminal has been undergoing repairs and reconstruction after two of its eight tanks were hit by a...

(EnergyAsia, December 24 2010, Friday) — The world’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) market has been recovering from a supply glut of the last two years, said a senior executive at BG Group. Betsy Spomer, the group’s vice president for global LNG, said there were fears of a global oversupply as the world economy plunged into...

(EnergyAsia, December 24 2010, Friday) — Seven months after start-up, Vietnam’s only oil refinery at Dung Quat is still plagued with operating problems despite having recently reached its 140,000 b/d capacity.  According to a progress report on the plant by the National Assembly’s Committee for Science, Technology and Environment, Dung Quat in central Vietnam is...

(EnergyAsia, December 24 2010, Friday) — Royal Dutch Shell Plc has started construction of the company’s largest grease manufacturing plant in Zhuhai in Guangdong province to meet China’s fast growing demand for automotive and industrial greases. Designed to produce lithium, lithium calcium and lithium complex greases which are used in passenger cars and industrial bearing...

(EnergyAsia, December 24 2010, Friday) — Singapore’s main rigbuilders, Sembcorp Marine and Keppel Fels, are ending 2010 on a high note with announcements this week that pushed the value of their respective orderbooks past S$3 billion for the year. (US$1=S$1.30).   Sembcorp Marine’s Jurong Shipyard landed a US$400 million deal to build two jackup rigs...

(EnergyAsia, December 24 2010, Friday) — ExxonMobil is selling its shares in a jointly-owned fuel terminal at the port of Gladstone in Queensland state to partner Caltex Australia but the proposed deal faces opposition from the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC). The ACCC said the proposed buyout will hamper the entry of independent fuel...

(EnergyAsia, December 24 2010, Friday) — A shortage of skilled labour and rising operating costs could derail some of Australia’s A$150 worth of liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects, according to various analysts. In separate reports, Moody’s Investors Service and Fitch warned that significant project developments in Western Australia state are driving up the costs of...

(EnergyAsia, December 23 2010, Thursday) — Russia needs to implement a more “ambitious, growth-friendly and credible” government budget deficit reduction programme than currently planned, said the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Despite growing by around 3.7% in 2010 and 4.3% next year, the Russian economy and its management by the government did not seem to impress...

(EnergyAsia, December 23 2010, Thursday) — Qatar last week claimed the title of the world’s largest producer of liquefied natural gas (LNG) when it officially unveiled its newly completed 77-million-tonne-per-year capacity. US major ExxonMobil Corporation and Royal Dutch Shell, which helped Qatar develop its LNG companies and infrastructure, participated in the celebration at Ras Laffan...

(EnergyAsia, December 23 2010, Thursday) — Germany’s BASF said it and China’s Sinopec have signed a memorandum of understanding to jointly explore a US$1 billion expansion of their integrated petrochemical joint venture, BASF-YPC Co Ltd, in northeastern China. The new projects under consideration will extend the C3 and C4 value chains including the construction of...

(EnergyAsia, December 23 2010, Thursday) — With the full operation of the East Siberia Pacific Ocean (ESPO) pipelines in the second half of the decade, Japan could be importing as much as 500,000 b/d of crude oil from Russia by 2015. ESPO’s first 600,000 b/d pipeline started delivering the new crude strream from December 2009,...

(EnergyAsia, December 23 2010, Thursday) — Global oil consumption is expected to rise by 2.5 million b/d to 87.4 million b/d this year, and by another 1.3 million b/d to 88.8 million b/d in 2011, said the International Energy Agency (IEA). Demand will be driven by North America and developing Asia, with buoyant gasoil demand...

(EnergyAsia, December 23 2010, Thursday) — Dutch oil and chemical logistics firm Royal Vopak said it has raised 20-billion yen through a senior unsecured term loan issuance with an unnamed Asian investor to fund its global growth strategy. The company said the loan has a bullet maturity of 30 years and a fixed coupon which...

(EnergyAsia, December 23 2010, Thursday) — Puda Coal Inc, a supplier of high grade metallurgical coking coal for producing coke for steel manufacturing in China, said it has received approval from the Shanxi Yuncheng Municipal Coal Mine Industry Bureau to expand Dajinhe coal mine in Shanxi province from January 1. Puda said it will double...

(EnergyAsia, December 22 2010, Thursday) — Offshore service vessels (OSV) are becoming larger, more specialised and technically sophisticated as a result of the rising demand for more complex deepwater field developments, said Germanischer Lloyd (GL), the Hamburg, Germany-based society providing certification, inspection and consulting services for the energy and maritime sectors. GL made this observation...

(EnergyAsia, December 22 2010, Wednesday) — Singapore’s Energy Market Authority (EMA) said it is making a full cost-benefit evaluation of implementing smart meters by testing out pilot projects in selected areas of the island state. In response to a letter in a local newspaper, the agency gave the assurance that it will make a rigorous...

(EnergyAsia, December 22 2010, Wednesday) — The US is urging the Chinese government to release geologist Xue Feng detained three years ago on charges of stealing state secrets, citing lack of transparency in the handling of his case. Xue, a naturalised US citizen, is serving an eight-year sentence after being convicted in late 2007 of...