Oil News from around the web, Crude oil for August 2009 delivery fell 50 cents to $59.39 a barrel ;London Brent fell 40 cents to $60.12; Nigeria militants claim attack on Lagos oil depot
Posted on July 13, 2009 – 10:59 am | by oilandgaspress.com
TNK-BP closed the necessary transactions to take near-complete control over the shares in the Lisichansk refinery, a top producing refinery in Ukraine.
The refinery, located near the eastern border in Ukraine, is the newest such facility in the nation. TNK-BP said the refinery is capable of processing 8 million tons of crude feedstock each year for domestic and export markets.
“Ukraine is one of key operating regions for TNK-BP,” said Mikhail Fridman, the interim chief executive at TNK-BP. “By investing more in refining, we make an important step towards growth of our Ukrainian business.”
In the announcement of the shareholder acquisition near 100 percent, the Anglo-Russian venture said it anticipated further modernization of the refining assets held in Ukraine
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The State Oil Co. of Azerbaijan Republic is a diverse supplier as its trading offices establish relations with various partners, officials say.
Russia, China, Iran and U.S. allies in Europe see Azerbaijan as a key energy supplier as conventional resource partners plateau.
In an interview with the Trend news agency in Azerbaijan, SOCAR Economics Director General Tofig Gahramanov said the state-owned company is interested in reaching agreements with a diverse client base.
A delegation from Baku and SOCAR will visit South Korea soon to discuss long-term storage leases as the company examines its potential in Asian markets.
“It’s no secret that presently Indochina and Southeast Asia as a whole occupies one of top places worldwide for energy consumption,” he said.
He went on to describe the market for the Azeri Light crude blend as “infinite,” saying only half of its oil is committed to European markets.
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Norway’s EMGS has landed a deal to provide survey services offshore Ghana for Hess Corporation.
The US $10 m contract covers electro-magnetic scanning and delineation services covering Hess acreage offshore Ghana where pre-acquisition work is already underway.
Surveying is expected to start immediately with processing and interpretation work to be carried out by EMGS in Houston
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Petrofac, the international oil and gas facilities service provider, has been awarded a contract worth more than US$350m for the Kauther gas-field depletion-compression project. The contract was awarded on behalf of the Government of Oman by Petroleum Development Oman (PDO), which has been developing the Sultanate’s gas fields on behalf of the Government since 1978.
Petrofac will undertake the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) of the gas compression system, and associated facilities at the Kauther gas plant, in addition to undertaking the commissioning and six months of initial operations.
The project follows the successful completion of the Kauther gas plant in 2007, which Petrofac built on an EPC basis for PDO, including commissioning and operations. In early 2008, Petrofac was asked to carry out the front end engineering and design (FEED) for the gas depletion compression project and then invited to submit a commercial proposal for the EPC on a negotiated basis. - Emirates News Agency, WAM
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Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) and ConocoPhillips, USA, yesterday signed The Shah Gas Field Joint Venture and Field Entry Agreement in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
ADNOC and ConocoPhillips will jointly share the cost of the Shah gas field development project.
This large-scale project involves the development of sour gas reservoirs within the Shah field, located onshore approximately 180 km south-west of the city of Abu Dhabi. The project will involve several gas gathering systems, construction of processing trains to process one billion cubic feet per day gas at Shah to produce 540 million cubic feet per day of network gas, in addition to new gas and liquid pipelines and the construction of sulfur exporting facilities at Ruwais Industrial City. Great attention was given during the Front End Engineering and Design stages to select state of the art HSE systems and as a result of extensive risk assessment and recovery studies.
A new Company will be formed to manage and operate Shah facilities upon completing the project, with a 60 percent interest for ADNOC and a 40 percent interest for ConocoPhillips.
ConocoPhillips is an integrated energy company with interests around the world. - Emirates News Agency, WAM
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Dana Gas, the Middle East’s first and largest regional private sector natural gas company, has announced that production from the recently discovered Sondos gas field has delivered outstanding results.
The Sondos field, found in the West El Manzala concession in Egypt’s Nile Delta region, was discovered in February 2009, with estimated gas reserves of 20 billion cubic feet, and was tested at 11.1 million standard cubic feet per day (mmscfd) of dry gas. It currently has two producing wells, “Sondos-1″ and “Sondos-2″, delivering at an average daily rate of 12 mmscfd.
Commenting on the occasion, Dana Gas Chief Executive Officer, Ahmed Al Arbeed expressed great happiness on the achievement. “We are delighted with the new discovery, which is a new addition to the series of discoveries achieved by the company in 2008 and 2009 as a result of Dana Gas’ aggressive drilling campaign in Egypt. The drilling campaign achieved excellent results so far, promising to add momentum to the company’s 2009 production in Egypt,” he said.
“The discovery of the Sondos gas field was particularly significant for Dana Gas, as it is set to push the company’s production rate beyond 37,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd) - its peak production rate for the first half of 2009 - compared to the 31,650 boepd on which the company’s Egyptian operations ended in 2008,” he added.
The Sondos Field project’s schedule was fast-tracked, which took less than a month to complete. This was carried out by tying the two wells into the existing gas pipeline, to deliver the gas to the company’s South El Manzala Plant.
Also commenting on the achievement, Dr. Hany El-Sharkawi, President of Dana Gas Egypt said the discovery of the Sondos Field was an exciting one for the company and serves as proof of the effectiveness of Dana Gas’ aggressive drilling campaign in Egypt. “We are delighted with the results achieved in a short period which exceeded all expectations. These promising results will continue to boost the company’s production,” he added.
In addition to its activities at the Sondos Field, Dana Gas has also increased gas production at its El Basant Field, following the successful completion of the “El Basant-3″ development well in June 2009. - Emirates News Agency, WAM
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A sharp decline in crude prices allied with output cuts to reduce the UAE’s oil export revenues by nearly US$40 billion (Dh146.8bn) in the first half of 2009 while OPEC lost a whopping US$415bn, official US figures showed yesterday. From nearly US$61bn in the first half of 2008, the UAE’s oil export income plunged to about US$21bn in the first half of 2009, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said.
EIA, an affiliate of the US Department of Energy, also expected the combined oil earnings of the 12-nation Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries to dive by around 43 per cent to US$530bn in 2009 from a record US$968bn in 2008.
The agency gave no figures on prices and production but crude prices averaged around US$50 in the first half of 2009 compared to more than US$80 in the same period of 2008.
The UAE’s oil production was also expected to be lower by nearly 200,000-300,000 bpd in the first half of this year in line with a collective OPEC agreement to trim supplies by up to 4.2 million bpd to prevent a price collapse.
The report showed Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter, earned only around US$61 billion in the first half of 2009, below a third of its US$192 billion income in the same period of last year.
Kuwait’s income was put at US$20bn while it was estimated at nearly US$10bn for Qatar, US$22bn for Iran and US$16bn for Iraq.
OPEC as a whole earned about US$230bn in the first six months of this year, below half its revenues of US$546bn in the first half of 2008.
But EIA revised up its previous forecast of OPEC’s earnings for 2009 from around US$530bn to US$540bn. It also raised its estimates for 2010 to around US$672bn from US$620bn, apparently expecting some price recovery.
The surge in crude prices to a record average of US$95 in 2008 combined with rising production boosted OPEC’s income to its highest ever level of US$968bn in current prices and allowed most members to record massive fiscal surpluses. Prices rapidly plunged in the second half of 2008 under the pressure of faltering demand because of the global financial turbulence.- Emirates Business 24|7
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Five of the six partners in the Nabucco gas pipeline project will sign on Monday an intergovernmental agreement in Ankara on the transit of Caspian gas to Europe.
The ambitious project, estimated at $7.9 billion, is designed to pump Central Asian gas via Turkey to Austria and Germany through Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary and around Russia. Gas supplies through the pipeline are expected to start in 2014.
The heads of government from Turkey, Austria and Hungary, as well as energy ministers of Bulgaria and Romania are due to attend the signing ceremony. European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and officials from about 30 countries will also take part.
Sixth partner, Germany, who will receive gas from the pipeline but not transit it, is not taking part in the ceremony.
“Turkey views the Nabucco project as strategic and more important than the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline implemented to pump Caspian oil to global markets,” diplomatic sources said.
Ankara believes that Nabucco will pave the way for the country’s future EU integration.
However, Necdet Pamir, a Turkish energy expert, doubted that the signing of transit documents would give a true start to the project, with uncertainty over where the gas will come from.
“Azerbaijan has insufficient gas for Nabucco. Iraq is unstable, and it is not known when it will start exporting its natural gas to Europe. As for Iran, its involvement in the project is not considered possible until relations with the U.S. have been settled,” Pamir said.
Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov hinted on Friday that his country was prepared to provide gas to Nabucco.
The project will be a continuation of the existing Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum pipeline and is to transport 20 billion cubic meters of gas a year. Two-thirds of the pipe length will pass through Turkish territory.
Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Iran and Iraq are being touted as potential suppliers.- RIA Novosti
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The Libyan government is close to deciding whether to allow the sale of a small Canadian oil exploration firm with operations in the country, resolving a drawn-out saga that has highlighted the reasons why Libya’s oil sector hasn’t blossomed since it reopened in 2005.
Libya says it will either allow the CNPC deal to go forward; deny it on the basis of national interests; or purchase Verenex itself, invoking a clause in Verenex’s drilling contract with
Libya that allows the state to take over a deal if it sees fit.
“All things are under consideration and we hope to reach a decision by August, if not before,” said Shokri Ghanem, head of Libya’s national oil company.
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A dozen companies are today set to launch a renewable energy initiative that its backers claim could within a decade provide Europeans with electricity generated from the Sahara - at a cost of €400bn ($557bn).
Munich Re, the German insurer, Deutsche Bank, utilities RWE and Eon and industrial conglomerate Siemens are among the bluechip names that will form a company to explore the technical and geopolitical challenges of peppering the deserts of North Africa and the Middle East with solar mirrors.
By joining together hundreds of solar thermal power plants and wind farms with high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission cables under the Mediterranean sea, the founders of the Desertec Industrial Initiative hope one day to supply 15 per cent of Europe’s electricity needs.
Concentrating solar power plants use the sun’s heat to generate electricity. Hundreds of mirrors focus the sun’s rays on to a receiver containing a heat transfer fluid, such as oil.
This heat energy is used to produce steam that drives a turbine, much like in a traditional power station. Unlike photovoltaic solar cells, CSP plants are able to generate electricity at night or on cloudy days, by storing the heat they produce.
The Desertec project, compared by Wulf Bernotat, chief executive of Eon, with the challenge of putting a man on the moon, would require the creation of a €45bn electricity super-grid covering Europe, the Middle East and North Africa.
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The Chinese government has confirmed it granted PetroChina approval in June to take a stake in Nippon Oil Corp’s Osaka refinery, a move to feed growing demand for oil in China.
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Nigerian rebels have taken their battle with the government into the country’s main city, claiming to have left an oil tanker loading facility in Lagos harbour in flames.
The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) announced the attack hours before treason charges against one of its senior leaders were expected to be dropped as part of an amnesty deal.
The MEND campaign against Nigeria’s main oil facilities over the past three years have badly hit much-needed oil revenues.
MEND said its fighters carried out “an unprecedented attack” on the Atlas Covey Jetty in Lagos harbour on Sunday night.
It said in a statement that the “depot and loading tankers moored at the facility are currently on fire”.
There was no immediate confirmation from the Nigerian police, military or government authorities. But a loud explosion reverberated across the sprawling city of around 16 million people just before midnight on Sunday.
“We encountered some slight resistance from the Nigerian navy guarding the facility but they were easily over-powered. Over nine may have been injured or killed,” said MEND.
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Tags: Abu Dhabi, ADNOC, Austria, Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum, Caspian gas, ConocoPhillips, Dana Gas, Emirate, Entry Agreement, Europe, field, gas supplies, Hungary, HungaryBulgaria, Joint Venture, Kuwait, Libya, Middle East, North Africa, Oil Company, Photovoltaic, Pipeline, Romania, Russia, Shah Gas Field, solar cells, Solar Power, Turkey, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES, USA
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