(EnergyAsia, July 8 2014, Tuesday) — Mongolia’s economy will experience slower growth over the next three years as it struggles to adjust to persistently high inflation and balance of payment problems that began since the start of the decade, said the World Bank. Real GDP % 2011 2012 2013 2014f 2015f ...
(EnergyAsia, July 7 2014, Monday) — Three months after agreeing to form a joint venture firm, a group of Mongolian companies and China’s Shenhua Energy are still working out the details for cross-border rail links to serve the coal trade between the two countries. In April, China’s leading coal miner formed a joint venture with...
(EnergyAsia, July 4 2014, Friday) — Singapore’s oil trading and refining industry has begun a steady decline as it confronts limits to growth imposed by land scarcity, rising business cost and safety concerns over congestion of the nation’s heavily used sea channels to handle oil, gas and other merchandise shipments. After more than 50 years...
(EnergyAsia, July 3 2014, Thursday) — US-based Afton Chemical Corporation has started construction of a new chemical additives manufacturing facility on Singapore’s Jurong Island. The plant is expected to start up in January 2016 to add to the Richmond, Virginia company’s global supply network of additives to meet growing demand in the Asia-Pacific and Middle...
(EnergyAsia, July 3 2014, Thursday) — Philippines-based Jetti Petroleum Inc expects to start up its new fuel storage facility in Bataan province on Luzon Island in October. Construction of the one-billion-peso terminal to store gasoline, diesel, fuel oil and ethanol in Mariveles municipality to serve the province’s growing fuel demand is more than half completed....
(EnergyAsia, July 2 2014, Wednesday) — With the worsening conflicts in Iraq and Syria casting uncertainty over Middle East oil supplies, the International Energy Agency (IEA) has retained its latest forecast for 2014’s global oil demand to 92.76 million b/d. This implies a rise of about 1.45% over last year’s consumption of 91.43 million b/d...
(EnergyAsia, July 1 2014, Tuesday) — Puma Energy, one of the world’s largest independent midstream and downstream companies, has acquired InterOil Corp’s oil refining and fuels marketing businesses in Papua New Guinea for US$525.6 million, the two companies have announced. With the takeover of InterOil’s 28,000 b/d refinery in Port Moresby, a network of 52...
(EnergyAsia, July 1 2014, Tuesday) — Buoyed by an improved reading of the world economy, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) has returned to issuing bullish forecasts for global oil demand growth with its June report predicting record consumption over the next two years. The world will consume 91.79 million this year and 93.12 million b/d...
(EnergyAsia, June 30 2014, Monday) — Two months after its start-up, Southeast Asia’s newest oil storage terminal built partly on reclaimed land on the eastern coast of Malaysia’s Johor state was officially launched last Thursday by Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak. In April, Pengerang Independent Terminals Sdn Bhd (PITSB) started up the RM5-billion project’s first...
(EnergyAsia, June 30 2014, Monday) — The International Energy Agency (IEA) has served notice that it may lower its medium-term forecast for Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) production amid the worsening geopolitical situation in the Middle East, with Iraq effectively plunged into civil war. The agency and other analysts have long pinned their hopes...
(EnergyAsia, June 27 2014, Friday) —- With the impending closure of one of its two refineries, Australia’s largest downstream oil company expects its first-half after-tax profit to fall to between A$150 million and $170 million compared with A$195 million for the same period last year. (US$1=A$1.05). Caltex said it is winding down production at its...
(EnergyAsia, June 26 2014, Thursday) — Chinese state-owned companies are plodding away in talks with their counterparts in Kuwait and Ecuador to jointly develop two major oil refinery projects. Sinopec and Kuwait Petroleum Co (KPC) expect to start up an integrated oil refinery-petrochemical complex in China’s southern Guangdong province by 2017 while China National Petroleum...
(EnergyAsia, June 25 2014, Wednesday) — Fresh from signing a world-record gas-supply deal with China, Russia’s Gazprom is expanding ties with India through new agreements to increase the supply of liquefied natural gas (LNG) and to jointly develop upstream projects. The Russian firm’s Singapore-based subsidiary, Gazprom Marketing & Trading, will raise the annual supply of...
(EnergyAsia, June 24 2014, Tuesday) — Will rising oil prices crimp global demand growth, stimulate supply and hurt global economic growth? As Brent surged to a nine-month-high of more than US$115 a barrel in response to the latest outbreak of conflicts in the Middle East, the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) may have to...
(EnergyAsia, June 23 2014, Monday) — Royal Dutch Shell’s sharply reduced 4.5% stake holding in Australian upstream firm Woodside following last week’s sale of 156.54 million shares will give both companies a freer hand to decide on their respective investment strategies. The sale will ease more than a decade of tensions between the two companies...
(EnergyAsia, June 20 2014, Friday) — US-based FTS International (FTSI) said it has signed a 15-year joint venture agreement with state-owned Sinopec Group to supply its oilfield services and hydraulic stimulation expertise to China, initially focusing on shale-rich Sichuan province. The China-incorporated SinoFTS Petroleum Services Ltd, 55% owned by Sinopec and 45% by FTSI, will...
(EnergyAsia, June 20 2014, Friday) — Driven by China, Asia’s energy demand will grow at five times the rate of North America’s by five times between 2014 and 2030, predicts UK-based consultant Wood Mackenzie. This is equal to adding a new Brazil to global energy demand every year over that 16-year period, but global supply...
(EnergyAsia, June 19 2014, Thursday) — BP said it has signed an agreement for the annual supply of up to 1.5 million tonnes of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) over 20 years starting 2019. In London this week, BP’s executive vice president, Dev Sanyal, and CNOOC chairman, Wang Yilin,...
(EnergyAsia, June 18 2014, Tuesday) — A day after cutting off natural gas supplies to Ukraine, Russia’s Gazprom celebrated the listing of its shares on the Singapore stock exchange. The listing underlines Gazprom’s pivot towards the world’s fast-growing economies, giving it access to capital from the region’s cash-flush investors barely a month after it had...
(EnergyAsia, June 16 2014, Monday) — Following the boom in North America, the natural gas industry will experience a “golden age” of demand and supply growth in China over the next five years to 2019, predicts the International Energy Agency (IEA). In its latest Medium-Term Gas Market Report, the Paris-based agency said Chinese natural gas...
(EnergyAsia, June 13 2014, Friday) — Russia’s Minister for Development of the Far East, Alexander Galushka, recently visited the facilities of mining firm Mechel in the region as part of his work tour to monitor the country’s ports and infrastructure projects serving the Pacific markets. The company said its chairman, Igor Zyuzin, accompanied Mr Galushka,...
(EnergyAsia, June 12 2014, Thursday) — The world will face the twin threats of rising oil prices and production cost in its quest to develop hydrocarbon reserves to meet growing energy demand, said the International Energy Agency (IEA). It estimates that over the next two decades to 2035, the world will have to invest a...
(EnergyAsia, June 11 2014, Wednesday) — Finland’s Wartsila said its dual-fuel engines will power the world’s first liquefied natural gas (LNG)-fired icebreaker now being built by the Arctech Helsinki Shipyard for the Finnish Transport Agency. Wartsila said it will fit the vessel with a 8-cylinder 20DF, two 9-cylinder 34DF and two 12-cylinder 34DF engines, enabling...
(EnergyAsia, June 10 2014, Tuesday) — Central Asia is increasing efforts to export natural gas to China, with four fully operating pipelines expected to nearly triple delivery to 80 billion cubic metres per year by 2020. Two pipelines, A and B, are currently delivering a total of 30 bcm/year from Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, while line...
(EnergyAsia, June 9 2014, Monday) — Aggreko, a UK-based leading provider of temporary power and temperature control services, has expanded its Southeast Asian operations by opening a new depot in Songkhla in Thailand and adding to the electricity generation capacity on Indonesia’s Bali Island. Aggreko said the Songkhla depot will help raise service standards for...