(EnergyAsia, September 24 2012, Monday) — The following is an edited version of the keynote address delivered by Kevin Rudd, a former Prime Minister of Australia, at last Friday’s Singapore Global Dialogue. The core objective of the Asian hemisphere in the first half of the 21st century is to avoid instability, conflict or war between (more…)

(EnergyAsia, September 21 2012, Friday) — Shareholders of stagnated Canadian upstream company Nexen Inc have voted overwhelmingly in favour of a proposed C$15.1 billion takeover by state-owned China National Offshore Oil Company (CNOOC). Of the votes cast, 99% of Nexen’s common shareholders and 87% of preferred shareholders accepted CNOOC’s offer of C$27.50 a share, representing (more…)

(EnergyAsia, September 20 2012, Thursday) — Latin American demand will push ultra low-sulphur diesel premiums against North Sea Brent crude to a four-year-high of US$30 mark in the fourth quarter, but, “the party will not last,” predicts US-based consultant ESAI. In its latest Global Transport Fuels Outlook report, ESAI said the region’s diesel deficit will (more…)

(EnergyAsia, September 19 2012, Wednesday) — Mozambique, one of the world’s poorest countries, is in a strong position to cash in on its rich natural gas reserves, but it will need to first invest heavily in strengthening its legal system and building its infrastructure. According to natural resources consulting firm GlobalData, the East African country (more…)

(EnergyAsia, September 18 2012, Tuesday) — POWER-GEN Asia, the region’s premier conference and exhibition for the power generation, transmission and distribution industries, will open at the IMPACT Exhibition & Conference Centre in Bangkok, Thailand on October 3. Delegates, exhibitors and participants will have three days of opportunities to make deals as well as discuss issues (more…)

(EnergyAsia, September 18 2012, Tuesday) — Greenpeace said it “cautiously welcomed” the Japanese government’s decision to phase out nuclear energy use by 2030 but warned the country remains exposed to disaster for another 18 years. The government has announced plans to expand the country’s production and consumption of renewable energy under its landmark new ‘energy (more…)

(EnergyAsia, September 18 2012, Tuesday) — Five months after starting construction of their oil storage project in the southern Malaysian state of Johor, engineering group Dialog and Dutch oil and chemical storage firm Royal Vopak are setting their sights on building a liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal near the same location. The proposed US$1.3 billion (more…)

(EnergyAsia, September 17 2012, Monday) — Crude oil prices will face near-term weakness, but will recover to average more than US$100 a barrel next year, said consultant Wood Mackenzie. At last week’s APPEC 2012 conference in Singapore, Alan Gelder, the company’s head of downstream research, said the oil market would be influenced by two trends (more…)

(EnergyAsia, September 17 2012, Monday) — Has Indian upstream company ONGC Videsh made the right move paying a total of US$1 billion for a 2.72% stake in mature Azerbaijan oilfields, and 2.36% interest in an oil pipeline? Analysts are asking this question after the subsidiary of state-owned ONGC announced it would be using the bulk (more…)

(EnergyAsia, September 17 2012, Monday) — World oil prices closed last week sharply higher with WTI crude breaking US$100 for the first time since early May and Brent at more than US$117 after the US Federal Reserve promised to launch another round of stimulus. The oil markets have also been driven all week by escalating (more…)

(EnergyAsia, September 14 2012, Friday) — Germany’s specialty chemicals company LANXESS began construction of its 200-million-euro neodymium-based performance butadiene rubber (Nd-PBR) plant on Singapore’s Jurong Island early this week. When completed in the first half of 2015, the 140,000 metric tons/year plant will be the largest of its kind globally, producing raw materials for use (more…)

(EnergyAsia, September 14 2012, Friday) — Mongolian coal miner SouthGobi Resources Ltd fired CEO Alexander Molyneux on September 12 as the fall-out continues over a failed takeover attempt of the company by Aluminum Corp of China Ltd or Chalco. Last week, state-owned Chalco called off its C$925 million takeover bid after months of trying unsuccessfully (more…)

(EnergyAsia, September 14 2012, Friday) — Australia’s coal industry said the government’s decision to remove the fixed carbon floor price is a small step in the right direction, but does not address what it says are the fundamental flaws in the national carbon pricing scheme that damages the industry’s competitiveness. The Australian Coal Association (ACA) (more…)

(EnergyAsia, September 13 2012, Thursday) — The following is an edited version of the speech by Teo Eng Cheong, chief executive of IE Singapore (IES), the country’s trade department, at the 4th Asia Pacific Summit of the World LNG Series held this week. IES is the government agency responsible for promoting Singapore’s trade as well (more…)

(EnergyAsia, September 13 2012, Thursday) — The following is an edited version of a comment by consultant EnerData on the recent massive power blackout in India. India’s Black Tuesday of July 31 marked the greatest power outage in history: the blackout occurred in 20 of the country’s 28 states and affected three of its five (more…)

(EnergyAsia, September 13 2012, Thursday) — BHP Billiton said its equal joint-venture operation with Japan’s Mitsubishi Corp would cease production at its Gregory open-cut coal mine near Emerald in Queensland state from October 10. BHP Billiton Mitsubishi Alliance (BMA) made the decision following a continuing operational review of the Gregory Crinum operations, which determined that (more…)

(EnergyAsia, September 12 2012, Wednesday) — Russian mining and metals company Mechel OAO said it signed two agreements at last week’s Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in the seaport of Vladivostok. The NYSE-listed company has agreed to supply coal to Russia’s RAO Energy Systems of East, and to cooperate with South Korea’s STX Group (more…)

(EnergyAsia, September 12 2012, Wednesday) — Dubai consumed more electricity than it produced in the second quarter compared with the same period last year. According to utilities monopoly Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA), the emirate’s peak electricity consumption grew 3.8% to 6,165 MW while production rose by 3% to 9,605 Gwh. The agency did (more…)

(EnergyAsia, September 12 2012, Wednesday) — Australian science agency CSIRO has issued a statement rejecting the claim made in a television commercial that ‘CSIRO [and government studies] have shown that groundwater is safe with coal seam gas.” CSIRO said that it has never made such a statement nor do the results of its research support (more…)

(EnergyAsia, September 11 2012, Tuesday) — Prophecy Coal Corp, a Canadian company focused on coal and power projects in Mongolia, said wholly-owned subsidiary Prophecy Power Generation LLC has submitted its power purchase agreement proposal to the Mongolian government. The proposed agreement details the terms under which Prophecy Power would be prepared to supply power to (more…)

(EnergyAsia, September 10 2012, Monday) — Bunker fuel spilled into the sea off Singapore’s Jurong Island at about 2 pm yesterday (September 9) following a collision between two vessels. Less than 60 metric tonnes of bunker fuel leaked from the tank of a South Korean-registered liquefied petroleum gas carrier, DL Salvia, after it collided with (more…)

(EnergyAsia, September 10 2012, Monday) — Foster Wheeler AG said it has been awarded a contract by Shell Global Solutions International B.V. to develop a basic engineering package (BEP) for a world-scale mono-ethylene glycol (MEG) facility at Ras Laffan in Qatar. Foster Wheeler did not reveal the value of the contract that was secured by (more…)

(EnergyAsia, September 10 2012, Monday) — South Korean engineering firm Daelim said it has secured a US$345 million contract to build a coal-fired power plant in the Mekong River Delta for a subsidiary of state-owned Electricity of Vietnam (EVN). Daelim plans to deliver the 330MW unit of the O-Mon Thermal Power Plant to Can Tho (more…)

(EnergyAsia, September 7 2012) — Royal Dutch Shell has signed to become the first customer to use a pioneering terminal now under construction in the Netherlands to store, break-bulk and distribute liquefied natural gas (LNG). The terminal at the Maasvlakte near Rotterdam port is being developed by gas infrastructure company NV Nederlandse Gasunie and liquid (more…)

(EnergyAsia, September 7 2012, Friday) — Asia’s three largest economies share a common threat from increasingly insufficient and unreliable domestic power supplies to meet demand growth. For now, Japan and India, the region’s second and third largest economies, are the most threatened as companies have been forced to reduce or shut down operations with the (more…)