(EnergyAsia, April 23 2013, Tuesday) — UK-based steel tycoon Lakshmi N. Mittal is finding out how tough it is to be an oil trader a year after venturing into the refining business through a jointly owned nine-million-ton per year plant in India’s Punjab state. Instead of thanking him for bringing prosperity, people living near the...
(EnergyAsia, April 23 2013, Tuesday) — Qatar will derive greater commercial and political value from its new liquefaction capacity in the US than from adding to domestic capacity, said consultant Wood Mackenzie. Qatar Petroleum International (QPI) and ExxonMobil, which jointly own the Golden Pass regasification terminal in the US Gulf Coast, are looking to re-develop...
(EnergyAsia, April 23 2013, Tuesday) — Singapore-listed energy and utilities company Sembcorp Industries said its subsidiaries have recently concluded two power deals in India and the UK. The company’s jointly owned Thermal Powertech Corp India has secured a 25-year agreement to supply a total of 500MW of electricity to four power companies owned by the (more…)
(EnergyAsia, April 23 2013, Tuesday) — Cairn India plans to invest 50 billion rupees to boost production at the country’s second largest oilfields in Rajasthan state from 175,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boed) today to 300,000 boed by 2016. (US$1=55 rupees). If Cairn succeeds, production from the 16 onshore fields in the northern...
(EnergyAsia, April 22 2013, Monday) — India’s only state-owned gas importing company said it has signed a 20-year deal to secure 2.3 million tonnes of export capacity in the Cove Point liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal project at Lusby in the US state of Maryland. GAIL (India) Ltd said subsidiary GAIL Global (USA) LNG secured...
(EnergyAsia, April 22 2013, Monday) — Saudi Arabia’s state oil company expects to raise production of Arab Heavy crude at its new giant Manifa oilfield to 500,000 b/d by July, rising to a peak of 900,000 b/d by end-2014. Saudi Aramco said the offshore field, located about 200 km northwest of Dhahran city, officially started...
(EnergyAsia, April 22 2013, Monday) — The world will need 180 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of natural gas feed and “significant” liquefaction capacity over the next decade to meet a projected doubling in global liquefied natural gas (LNG) demand by 2025, said consultant Wood Mackenzie. Presenting at the LNG 17 conference in Houston, US last (more…)
(EnergyAsia, April 22 2013, Monday) — India expects to uncover more oil and gas reserves in waters off its coast as well as onshore in unconventional formations as it seeks to continue raising crude oil production from last year’s record volume of just under 900,000 b/d. India is probably the only major country to report...
(EnergyAsia, April 19 2013, Friday) — Indonesia should introduce fiscal incentives to improve the long-term potential of its mature upstream oil and gas sector, said consultant Wood Mackenzie. Speaking at the recent SEAPEX 2013 event in Singapore, Wood Mackenzie’s head of Asia upstream research said Indonesia still holds huge potential, with an estimated 45% or (more…)
(EnergyAsia, April 19 2013, Friday) — Petronet LNG Ltd, India’s main importer of liquefied natural gas, is planning to hep launch a new carrier that will initially own and operate a vessel to deliver the fuel to two import terminals currently under construction. Petronet is building the terminals at Kochi in Kerala state and at...
(EnergyAsia, April 19 2013, Friday) — Royal Dutch Shell said it has completed the expansion of its Westport Terminal on the west coast of Malaysia with the addition of three new fuel storage tanks and 1.4km of pipelines. The new facilities are part of the third and final phase of the project which started in (more…)
(EnergyAsia, April 19 2013, Friday) — So, who would want to buy a small past-its-shelf-life oil refinery in a highly competitive slow-growth market with a poor profit outlook that is subject to rising environmental regulations? That is the question facing Royal Dutch Shell now that it has decided to sell off its 55-year-old Geelong oil...
(EnergyAsia, April 18 2013, Thursday) — Indian Oil Corp (IOC), the nation’s largest downstream company, said its refinery throughput of 54.6 million tonnes or 1.1 million b/d in the recently ended financial year ending March 31 2013, slightly exceeding its target of 54.25 million tonnes. IOC said its 10 refineries operated at 100.7% of their...
(EnergyAsia, April 18 2013, Thursday) — Sinopec could begin construction of a long-awaited 12-million tonne/year refinery in northern China’s Hebei province later this year. The planned 28.6-billion-yuan Caofeidian Island refinery, which was approved in August 2011, could start up within two years upon environmental approval by the central government. According to Sinopec, the project will...
(EnergyAsia, April 18 2013, Thursday) — Myanmar’s Ministry of Energy is inviting international bids for production sharing contracts for 11 shallow and 19 deep-sea blocks, said law firm Herbert Smith Freehills. Interested parties have until June 14 to submit expressions of interest for the blocks, said the firm, which has an office in Yangon under (more…)
(EnergyAsia, April 18 2013, Thursday) — Woodside Petroleum has begun cooling off Australia’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) fever with its decision to call off the construction of an out-of-control US$45 billion onshore project in Western Australia state in favour of a cheaper floating terminal as well as the possibility of taking small stakes in new...
(EnergyAsia, April 17 2013, Wednesday) — European commodities group Gunvor Group said it has recently secured a total of US$950 million in credit to support its fast-growing oil and gas business in Asia and the Middle East. Last week, a wholly owned subsidiary, Gunvor Singapore Pte Ltd, launched US$650 million in syndicated revolving credit facilities (more…)
(EnergyAsia, April 17 2013, Wednesday) — The Sri Lankan government intends to seize a strategic oil storage depot in the northeastern port of Trincomalee from the Indian Oil Corp (IOC) after New Delhi voted in favour of a UN Human Rights Council resolution to investigate alleged war crimes committed by Colombo in the recently ended...
(EnergyAsia, April 17 2013, Wednesday) — The US has made its first direct crude oil sales to China since November 2005, but it is far from certain if this heralds the start of a trend amid the growing clamour for American companies to export oil and gas in the face of rising domestic production. Without (more…)
(EnergyAsia, April 17 2013, Wednesday) — Bangladesh is seeking funding to develop a proposed US$327 million offshore oil storage and handling terminal in the Bay of Bengal. The government has approached the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) to support the project which has been hit by rising cost since the completion of a feasibility study in...
(EnergyAsia, April 16 2013, Tuesday) —Hong Kong-listed Brightoil Petroleum (Holdings) Limited said its chairman and CEO Sit Kwong Lam has raised his shareholding in the company from 74.49% to 74.8%. Dr Sit’s wholly owned Canada Foundation Limited bought 27,077,000 shares of Brightoil Petroleum on the open market between March 11 and April 11 2013, the (more…)
(EnergyAsia, April 16 2013, Tuesday) — State upstream firm Oil India Ltd (OIL) has announced plans to set up an international subsidiary to acquire and develop oil and gas assets abroad. India’s second largest state-owned explorer after ONGC said its board approved the proposal for the wholly owned subsidiary at a meeting on April 10...
(EnergyAsia, April 16 2013, Tuesday) — Oil prices sank to nine-month lows as global crude benchmark Brent and US WTI crude joined other commodities in a mass sell-off triggered by panic over spreading economic worries in North America, Europe and Asia. Brent could soon break US$100 support after touching US$100.02 early in New York trading (more…)
(EnergyAsia, April 16 2013, Tuesday) — Temasek Holdings Pte Ltd, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, is venturing into the fast-growing global liquefied natural gas (LNG) business with an initial investment of S$1 billion to launch new subsidiary Pavilion Energy Pte Ltd. (US$1=S$1.25). Seah Moon Ming, a former deputy CEO of another Temasek company ST Engineering, will...
(EnergyAsia, April 15 2013, Monday) — Canada’s Erdene Resource Development Corp said it has recruited Vancouver-based Teck Resources Ltd after terminating its seven-year-old alliance with the local subsidiary of Swiss firm Xstrata to develop coal mining projects in Mongolia. Teck, one of Canada’s largest mining companies, will start fieldwork in Mongolia with its new partner (more…)