Iran in $8bn deal
ISFAHAN: Iran has agreed gas export deals worth a total $8 billion with Kuwait and Oman, marking its arrival as a serious supplier to the region and turning up the heat on rival Qatar.

“This positions Iran as a regional supplier and shows it is trying to get one step ahead of Qatar,” said Colin Lothian, lead analyst in the Middle East energy research team at Wood Mackenzie.

PetroChina profit rises
HONG KONG: China’s top oil producer, PetroChina, unveiled second-half 2004 profits that rose 86 per cent to a record high on booming oil prices and signalled renewed efforts to boost output through acquisitions overseas. PetroChina, which derives most of its operating income from oil and gas production, reported its bumper result as oil prices sat above $54 per barrel, near record levels.

CNPC plans
HONG KONG: State-owned China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) is inviting foreign and domestic banks to help it manage its massive funds overseas, CNPC president Chen Geng has said. “CNPC has extensive international businesses with substantial cash flows. It is important for us to ensure the security of our overseas funds,” Chen said.

Firms in pact
LONDON: BP Plc has signed an agreement with Kuwait Petroleum Corp to look jointly for investment opportunities in China. BP and Kuwait Petroleum International, the state-run firm’s international refining and marketing arm, will co-operate in areas such as oil products supply, refining, distribution and marketing.

Cracker shut
TOKYO: Japan’s Sanyo Petrochemical Co Ltd has shut its 443,000 tonnes per year naphtha cracker in Mizushima, western Japan, for about a month of regular maintenance, a company source has said.

Japex plans
Tokyo: Japan Petro-leum Exploration Co (Japex) has plans to boost LNG production from its Yufutsu gasfield in Hokkaido, northern Japan, to 70,000 metric tonnes per year in 2007 from the current 20,000 metric tonnes per year. This will enable the company to meet demand from more city gas companies, a Japex official has said. Japex now supplies LNG from Fufutsu only to city gas companies in Asahikawa city but starting 2007, it will also supply to city gas distributors in Kushiro, Iwamizawa, Muroran and Obihiro, the official said.

CEO wins mandate
Seoul: The scandal-tainted head of SK Corp has won a fresh mandate, surviving a second attempt by foreign investors to oust him from the board of the South Korea’s largest oil refiner. Chey Tae-Won was re-elected as a board member at an annual general meeting as 60.6 per cent shareholders on hand voted for a company proposal to renew his three-year term as an executive director, said chief executive officer Shin Heon-Cheol, who presided over the AGM.

Exports may fall
SEOUL: South Korean exports of diesel are likely to fall by more than a third in April from March levels as some refiners are due to close plants next month for planned maintenance work, a Reuters survey has shown. South Korea’s five oil refiners were expected to export 280,000 tonnes of gas oil in April, down 36 per cent from about 440,000 tonnes exported or booked for exports in March, traders and company sources said in the survey.

Terminal work set
Hong Kong: China is likely to start construction in June of a terminal in the port of Dalian in Liaoning province to store the first phase of the strategic oil stockpile, a source with the city government’s planning commission said. Pre-paration work began last month at the Xishan site in the Dalian New Harbor district, he said. Work includes tearing down four existing crude tanks and levelling the ground to make space for the construction of a three-mil cu m crude storage terminal.

HPCL plant closed
MUMBAI: Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd’s Bombay refinery will stay shut until the end of March for planned maintenance, company officials have said. “It’s a planned shut-down and will not come in the way of us meeting our contracts. This will not lead to any shortages or upsets,” one official said. The shutdown started on February 18.    HPCL accounts for 20 per cent of India’s refining capacity.

Tupras denies sale
Istanbul: The Istanbul stock exchange has allowed trading in shares of refiner Tupras to resume after the company issued a statement denying media reports that it was planning to sell the 20,000 b/d Batman refinery in southeast Turkey. The exchange said Tupras had denied the reports that it had been planning to sell the refinery to Turkey’s state-owned oil exploration company TPAO, but that the company confirmed that the possibility of such a sale had been discussed.

Work resumes
ShanghaiL: Indonesia’s Trans-Pacific Petrochemical Indotama has resumed construction of its refinery and aromatics complex in Tuban in east Java, for which it plans to commence operations in early 2006, managing director Mihir Taparia said at an industry conference in Shanghai. The project’s phase one slate of plants was about 70 per cent completed when its construction was suspended in 1998 with the onset of the economic crisis in Indonesia.

Refiners raise prices
TAIPEI: Taiwan’s two refiners, Chinese Petroleum Corp (CPC) and Formosa Petro-chemical Corp have raised gasoline and diesel prices by four per cent to six per cent as world oil prices hover close to record highs.  State-run Chi-nese Petroleum Corp, the island’s largest refiner, also said it would raise natural gas prices by an average of 2.99 per cent.

Export deal signed
KARACHI: National Refinery Ltd (NRL) has signed an agreement with Swiss Singapore Overseas Enterprises Pte Ltd for the export of 100,000 to 125,000 tonnes Paraffinic Naphtha during
April 1 to June 30, 2005 period.

Money reimbursed
New York: Norwe-gian explorer DNO has said it will receive $4.8 million reimbursement from South Africa’s PetroSA after a farm-in agreement for the Inhaminga Block, onshore Mozambique, fell apart. In 2004, DNO and PetroSA signed an agreement for PetroSA to acquire a 40 per cent working interest in the Inhaminga, but the deal was not sealed. “As a consequence of a change in PetroSA’s exploration strategy, the agreement was not closed and concluded,” DNO said.

Output grows
London: Russian oil output is likely to grow to 9.6 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2005, an increase of 360,000 bpd or four per cent from last year’s average levels, the International Energy Agency has said. Although the Russian government and pipeline operator Transneft in February predicted output growth of five per cent this year, the IEA said it took a “more conservative view” of Russian production, , citing a slow-down in growth evident since spring 2004, the uncertain fiscal and legislative environment and plans detailed by individual companies.

Oil found
RIO DE JANEIRO: Brazilian state oil company Petrobras has struck light oil in the Santos basin, 160 km from Rio de Janeiro. “Tests in the reservoirs confirmed good quality oil and a high production potential,” Petrobras said. Oil was found in a well drilled 4,370 feet below sea level. Gas was also found in a nearby well in an area where large volumes had previously been discovered.

Blocks on offer
ABUJA: The Nigerian government has said it would adopt a four-stage bidding process in the country’s 2005 licensing round, in which 61 blocks will be offered to investors. A road show on the block offer begins in Abjua on March 22. , and continues to North America, Europe and Asia, Presidential Adviser on Petroleum and Energy Edmund Dakouru, said at the official launch of the licensing round.

Apicorp move
MANAMA: Saudi-based Arab Petroleum Investments Corp (Apicorp) has mandated eight regional and international banks to arrange a $200 million loan to refinance an earlier loan, one of the arrangers has said. Arab Banking Corpo-ration said the five-year facility was fully underwritten by
the mandated lead arrangers. 

Kuwait optimistic
ISFAHAN: Kuwait will be able to raise production 120,000 barrels a day (bpd) by the end of April, Kuwaiti Oil Minister Sheikh Ahmad Al Fahd Al Sabah has said. Sheikh Ahmad said the increase would take Kuwait to 2.7 million bpd, leaving the country a thin margin of spare capacity. Kuwait sits on one tenth of the world’s oil reserves.

Firms in accord
DUBAI: Dubai-headquartered Enoc Lubricants, the lubricants arm of Emirates National Oil Company (Enoc), has signed a distribution deal with Yemen’s Al-Ahmar Trading & Investment Company (Atico).

Reliance to explore
MUMBAI: India’s lar-gest petrochemical producer, Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), has acquired exploration rights to a large deepwater block in Oman. “RIL’s Block-18 is off the Batinah coast in the Gulf of Oman and spreads over 18,000 sq km,” the company said.

Quick takes

Oil product sales fall
NEW DELHI: Domestic oil product sales by Indian state-owned companies fell 2.2 per cent from a year ago in February due to fuel switching, high prices and competition from private firms, a government official has said. State firms sold a lower volume of 7.65 million tonnes of oil products to the local market in February due to last year’s longer month, replacement of naphtha with gas, lower agricultural demand, costlier fuels and the growing share of private firms in the retail sector, the official said. “Farmers used less diesel because of unseasonal rains in north India. Sales of private firms have also increased,” the official said.

Gazprom merger in H1
MOSCOW: Russian gas monopoly Gazprom’s merger with state oil firm Rosneft, approved by President Vladimir Putin in September, may be completed in the first half of 2005, Energy Minister Viktor Khristenko has said. “The working groups are continuing to work out the plan. They say they will need one more month or probably a bit more. I hope this work will be limited to the first half (of 2005),” he said. 

Deposit auction planned
MOSCOW: Russia may auction in May the the rights to develop a big oil and gas deposit in East Siberia, which is expected to attract interest from rival energy majors after years with no auctions for state energy resources. A spokesman for the Resources Ministry said the plan to auction the Chayanda deposit in the region of Yakutia with reserves of 1.24 trillion cubic metres of gas and 50 million tonnes (367 million barrels) of oil has yet to be approved by the Economy Ministry.

Cost overrun expected
BAKU: Costs on the multibillion dollar Shah Deniz gas pipeline are expected to jump by a quarter
from original calculations, the head of the BP-led project has said in the Azeri capital. “On March 31 the projects final cost figures will be announced. They are expected to go up by about 25 per cent which makes a total of about $4.1 billion,” Robert Kelly, who heads the Shah Deniz project, said.

ENVIRONMENTAL EYE

Pemex pipeline spills fuel into river
MEXICO CITY: Mexico’s Pemex has reported another oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico state of Veracruz, the latest in a string of environmental accidents at the state oil monopoly in recent months.
Around 100 litres (26.4 gallons) of crude oil and diesel fuel leaked from a pipeline over the weekend and spilled into the Chiquito River, which runs through the towns of Ciudad Mendoza and Nogales, a Pemex spokeswoman said.
Local media reports estimated the spill at 500 litres.
Pemex was cleaning up the spilled oil and fuel and there were no casualties from the incident, the spokeswoman said, ahead of a more detailed statement from the company.
Environmental groups in Mexico last month lodged a legal complaint against Pemex over a major spill of crude oil in December, also in Veracruz state, that coated the banks of the Coatzacoalcos River and drove away fish.
Pemex has reported more than half a dozen spills of oil or oil products since last October, including a spill of toxic naphtha fuel in another part of Veracruz state which killed dozens of cows.
The company says it needs 150 billion pesos ($13.4 billion) for repairs to its pipelines, half of which are more than 30 years old and corroded, according to Mexico’s IMP oil research institute.