Iraqi oil minister survives attack
BAGHDAD: Iraq’s oil minister survived an apparent assassination attempt when a roadside bomb blasted his motorcade.
The attack on Oil Minister Ibrahim Bahr Al Uloum’s motorcade lent weight to fears of more violence before an October 15 constitutional referendum.
The apparent bid to assassinate the oil minister was the latest insurgent strike against an energy sector key to Iraq’s economic future.
Contracts awarded
RIYADH: Saudi Sahara Petrochemicals has asked Korea’s Daelim Industrial Corp and Italy’s Tecnimont to build two propylene and polypropylene plants in the Gulf centre of Jubail.
Sahara said it had sent the two companies a letter of intent to carry out the 2.3 billion riyal ($613 million) project. The two plants, which will produce 460,000 tonnes of propylene a year and 450,000 tonnes of polypropylene, are due to start production in the second quarter of 2008. Propane feedstock will be supplied by Saudi Aramco.
Vote may hit CNPC deal
ALMATY: Kazakhstan’s lower house of parliament voted unanimously to let the state intervene in the sale of foreign-held stakes in oil companies, a move that may derail CNPC’s takeover of PetroKazakhstan.
The bill, which becomes law only after upper house approval and President Nursultan Nazarbayev signs it, also seeks to limit property rights for “strategic resources” which are defined as oil and gas assets and energy sector resources.
Opec output up
LONDON: Opec pumped at near full tilt again in September, raising output 20,000 barrels per day (bpd) on the month to 30.17 million bpd as Iraq increased exports.
New Timor Sea gas discovered
SYDNEY: Australian oil and gas producer Santos Ltd said it had discovered a new gas field off Australia’s Northern Territory.
It said the Caldita One well, operated by ConocoPhillips, encountered “significant hydrocarbons” with gas flowing at approximately 33 million cubic feet per day through a one inch choke.
Deal on gasfield
BEIJING: China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) and French firm Total SA have agreed to jointly develop a gasfield in northwest China.
The two signed an agreement to develop the Sulige gasfield in the Ordos Basin that could have gas reserves of up to 602.6 billion cubic metres.
Exxon in China talks
YUZHNO-SAKHALINSK (Russia): ExxonMobil’s Russian subsidiary is holding talks with China on the possibility of supplying it with gas from its Sakhalin-1 project, a top Exxon manager said.
Colombia plan may cost $850m
MONTEVIDEO, (Uruguay): Brazil’s state oil company Petrobras is seeking partnership with Colombia’s Ecopetrol to double the capacity of Cartagena refinery to 140,000 barrels per day, Ecopetrol president Isaac Yanovich said.
The expansion will require some $850 million in investment and Ecopetrol should choose a partner in the first half of next year, Yanovich said during a meeting of the Latin American and Caribbean Association of Oil and Gas Companies.
PDVSA signs deal
BRASILIA: Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA signed a draft agreement with Argentine company Rhasa to buy its assets that include a small 7,000 barrel-per-day (bpd) refinery in the Buenos Aires province for $100 million.
Venezuelan Energy Minister Rafael Ramirez said in Brazil the negotiations should be completed by February. Apart from the refinery in the town of Campana, Rhasa also has a distribution network with 62 service stations and an own fuel transport network.
Cilacap restarts
JAKARTA: Indonesia’s state oil company PT Pertamina has restarted its 230,000 bpd crude distillation unit (CDU) in Cilacap after maintenance.
Pertamina shut the unit, in Central Java, in the first week of September. It has two CDU units at its Cilacap refinery complex. The other one has capacity of 118,000 bpd.
IOC unit ready
NEW DELHI: Indian Oil Corp (IOC) has started commissioning a diesel hydrotreating unit at its Panipat refinery.
The new unit will help IOC, India’s largest refiner, meet its requirement for low-sulphur diesel from its own plants instead of importing the fuel. “The unit has been mechanically completed,” an official said.
Expansion planned
NEW YORK: Marathon Oil Corp said it would shut refinery operations at its Detroit refinery for 50 days as it completes an expansion project.
The expansion, which will increase the refinery’s capacity from 74,000 to 100,000 bpd, will be completed by mid-November.
Gabon aims to boost production
JOHANNESBURG: Gabon plans to lift oil production to at least 300,000 barrels per day (bpd) next year from 270,000 at present and will soon unveil a report detailing its 2004 oil revenues.
“In 2006 we expect to increase it to 300,000 bpd ... But this is a conservative figure,” said Theophile Ogandaga, a technical advisor in Gabon’s Mines and Energy Ministry.
Hydro finds gas
OSLO: Norsk Hydro has struck gas in the Norwegian Sea.
“The discovery is regarded as being positive for this area of the Norwegian Sea,” the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate said. Hydro drilled wildcat well 6605/8-1 in production licence 283 in 838 metres of water.
Transocean wins deal
NEW YORK: Transocean Inc said its drillship, the Deepwater Pathfinder, won a potential $315 million contract to drill off Nigeria.
The contract, which could run for 800 days, is with a consortium led by Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Co. It is expected to commence in April 2006.
Agreement signed
MADRID: Spain’s Repsol YPF has signed an agreement with the Brazilian, Argentinian and Venezuelan governments to allow it to obtain new oil concessions.
Repsol will also provide support for Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) in Argentina, providing the Venezuelan firm with up to 10 per cent of the production of its Argentine concessions.
$1.2bn order won
OSLO: Norway’s Aker Drilling has ordered two large drilling rigs from contractor Aker Kvaerner for about 7.6 billion Norwegian crowns ($1.16 billion), Aker Kvaerner said.
Aker Drilling is a unit of industrial holding group Aker ASA Aker Kvaerner and Aker ASA are controlled by Norwegian industrialist Kjell Inge Roekke.
Total finds oil
PARIS: French oil company Total has reported a new discovery of light crude in Libya. During production testing in Libya’s block NC 186, the well flowed at a rate of up to 2,060 barrels per day of 40-degree-API oil, indicating a high-quality light oil.
Kuwait firm to raise $21.8m
KUWAIT: Kuwait Pipe Industries and Oil Services Co said it planned to raise 6.38 million dinars ($21.8 million) in a one-for-10 rights issue.
The issue, which will increase the company’s capital by 10 per cent, will run until October 23.
“The company has a capital of 15.2 million dinars and we intend to increase the capital by 10 per cent,” a company official said.
Yemen signs PSA
SANAA: Yemen has signed an oil production-sharing agreement (PSA) with Australia’s Oil Search Ltd and Pet Oil of Turkey on Block 3 in Shabwa province.
The state news agency Saba that under the agreement, the two companies would invest a total of $10 million on exploration over two phases.
Yemen, an independent oil producer, pumps around 450,000 barrels per day (bpd).
Crude unit restarts
KUWAIT: Kuwait’s Mina Abdullah refinery has restarted an 80,000-bpd crude distillation unit after more than three weeks of planned maintenance.
Nasser Al Shamma, manager of technical services at Mina Abdullah said the unit will work at full capacity.
Iraq exports rise
LONDON: Iraq exported a total of 1.52 million bpd of crude oil in September, up 30,000 bpd from August, shipping sources said.
The rise was due to increased exports from the Turkish terminal of Ceyhan, the destination for crude from Iraq’s northern oilfields.
Exports from Ceyhan in September totalled 3.9 million barrels, up from around 650,000 barrels in August.
Egypt offers blocks
Johannesburg: Egyptian state-run EGPC will announce a new international bid round offering 15 oil and gas blocks, a senior Egyptian oil official said.
Of the 15 blocks to be offered, nine will be in the Gulf of Suez and the rest in the western and eastern deserts.
Quick takes
India to buy two crude carriers
NEW DELHI: India has approved the purchase of two very large crude carriers by state-run Shipping Corp of India (SCI), Finance Minister P Chidambaram said.
The crude carriers of about 300,000 DWT (Dead Weight Tonne) will cost $129.10 million each.
The government allowed Shipping Corp to tap the global market for 80 per cent of the funds while the rest will come from internal resources.
The acquisition, which will be completed in three to four years, will lead to an increase in SCI’s crude oil tanker tonnage to meet increased crude oil imports.
Venezuelan reprieve for oil firms
CARACAS: Private oil companies holding operating agreements in Venezuela could have up to three years to pay back tax claims for hundreds of millions of dollars made by the government as part of a wider probe of the deals, the head of the SENIAT tax authority said.
“There could be a payment agreement, a payment time, up to 36 months,” Jose Vierma said.
The SENIAT is investigating companies with 32 operating agreements in the world’s number five oil exporter for the 2001 to 2004 period.
The agency says the 22 companies did not correctly file their taxes.
Companies which do not pay within 15 days of notification could face fines of up to 250 per cent of the original amount. Companies which do not contest and pay within the 15 days only face a 10 per cent penalty.
Vierma said that if companies did not pay the back demand, the government could potentially seek to shut down the oil operations.
Prosafe wins $271m Brazil job
OSLO: Norwegian oilfield services company Prosafe has won a preliminary contract worth $271 million from Devon Energy to employ a floating production vessel offshore Brazil.
The contract for a floating production, storage and offloading vessel (FPSO) for the Polvo field is for seven years plus eight one-year options to extend the job.
“Prosafe remains very optimistic on the outlook for the FPSO market,” the company said.
The job for Prosafe’s very large crude carrier M/T Apollo on Brazil’s Polvo field marks entry into a new region, the firm said.
ENVIRONMENTAL EYE
Warming causes record Arctic ice melt
NEW YORK: The Arctic ice shelf has melted for the fourth straight year to its smallest area in a century, driven by rising temperatures that appear linked to a buildup of greenhouse gases, scientists said.
Scientists at Nasa and the National Snow and Ice Data Centre, which have monitored the ice via satellites since 1978, say the total Arctic ice in 2005 will cover the smallest area since they started measuring.
It is the least amount of Arctic ice in at least a century, according to both the satellite data and shipping data going back many more years, according to a report from the groups.
As of September 21, the Arctic sea ice area had dropped to 5.31 million sq km, the report said.
From 1978 to 2000, the sea ice area averaged 7 million sq km, the report said. It noted the melting trend had shrunk Inuit hunting grounds and endangered polar bears, seals and other wildlife.
The report warns that if melting rates continue, the summertime Arctic may be completely ice-free before the end of the century, echoing last year’s findings from the Arctic Council, an eight-nation report by 250 experts. The melting trend increasingly appeared to be caused by a buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the scientists said.
“It’s increasingly difficult to argue against the notion that at least part of what we are seeing in the Arctic, in terms of sea ice, in terms of warming temperatures ... is due to the greenhouse effect,” said Mark Serreze, a research scientist at NSIDC.
“We’ve put a hit on the system and we are in the midst of a grand global experiment,” Serreze said about the impact of global warming and ice melting on humans and animals. “We will have to live with the outcome.”
The NSIDC, part of the University of Colorado at Boulder, helps NASA analyse satellite data.
Most scientists believe greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide that is released mainly from cars and utility smokestacks, cause global warming by trapping solar heat in the atmosphere.