Pemex coker shut after blast

MEXICO CITY: Mexico’s state oil company Pemex said it has shut its coker at the oil refinery damaged in an explosion early in the day.

The company also said that its crude runs at the damaged Cadereyta refinery dropped to 200,000 bpd from 215,000 bpd in the wake of the accident. The 275,000-bpd capacity refinery typically runs at 240,000 bpd.

Sinopec oil platform tilts over

BEIJING: An oil platform in the shallow waters of Bohai Bay off eastern China’s Shandong province lurched dangerously, dumping four people into the water and trapping 32 others on the facility, the Ministry of Transport said.
Oil valves on the No3 platform had been shut down and the platform remained stable, the ministry said, citing reports by operator China Petroleum & Chemical Corp’s (Sinopec) Shengli Oil field. Shengli, Sinopec’s largest oilfield, produced 556,700 barrels of oil per day in 2009.

Boone Pickens sees oil at $85

LAS VEGAS: Oilman and natural gas proponent T Boone Pickens sees the price of oil rising to $85 per barrel by the end of the year. In late December, Opec Secretary-General Abdullah Al-Badri said $75-$85 a barrel was a “comfortable” level for oil prices. Referring to previous Opec forecasts, Pickens said; “They’ve already told you what the deal was. They told you they had a finite resource and they had to protect generations into the future.”

Australia LNG at record high

SYDNEY: Australia’s liquefied natural gas production hit a record high for the 2009-10 financial year, boosted by rising demand in north Asia, according to an industry report released. LNG production grew by 7.5 per cent last year to 18.7 million tonnes per annum (Mtpa), up from 17.4 Mtpa, Australia-based energy advisory firm EnergyQuest said.

“The growth in LNG production was driven by growing demand for Australian LNG in Japan, China and Taiwan,” EnergyQuest chief executive officer, Graeme Bethune, said.

Iraq sets targets for 10 oil fields

BAGHDAD: Iraq’s South Oil Co and its foreign partners have set quarterly 2011 production targets for Iraq’s southern oilfields including a 1.25 million barrel per day year-end target for workhorse Rumaila, SOC documents show. The documents obtained by Reuters show the SOC expects production to rise to 2.285 million bpd from all 10 oilfields it is involved with.

Soco says DRC well unsuccessful

LONDON: British oil explorer Soco International said a well being drilled in Democratic Republic of Congo found water and was being abandoned, causing its shares to reverse big gains made earlier this week.

The Nganga 1 well, the first of three to be drilled in the Nganzi block, encountered hydrocarbons but the sands were also water-bearing and the well lacked a lateral seal, Soco said.

“Currently, preparations are being made to plug and abandon the well, and subsequently move to the Kinganga Nyanya 1 exploration well, previously designated the “D” prospect,” the company said.

Angola sees bid round in 2011

CAPE TOWN: Angola is aiming for another offshore oil bid round in 2011, after a four year hiatus, as the African oil giant looks to emulate huge pre-salt oil discoveries in Brazil, a senior oil ministry official said.

Anibal Silva, deputy minister of petroleum, said Angola was producing in the region of 1.9 million barrels of oil per day and would maintain this level for the rest of the year, despite it being above Opec caps.

“We are trying to see which will be the best time to launch it (the oil bid round) again. I think maybe next year we can have this round again,” Silva told Reuters in an interview.

Sri Lanka to offer more blocks

COLOMBO: Sri Lanka said it would offer new oil exploration blocks in an area off the northern coast where the initial flare-up of a quarter-century war with the Tamil Tiger separatists ended the hunt for oil.

The Indian Ocean island’s Petroleum Resources Development Secretariat said it was planning to call bids for blocks in 15,000 sq km of the shallow Cauvery Basin, just off the northern area the Tigers controlled until their defeat last year.

“A lot of Indian companies are showing their interest,” Neil De Silva, director-general of the secretariat, told Reuters.

“The depth there will be around 100 metres and the cost for explorations will be very low.”

Lukoil product exports to rise

ST PETERSBURG: Russia’s Lukoil plans to increase oil product exports from its Baltic Sea terminal of Vysotsk in September by raising fuel oil shipments, industry sources said.

The sources said Lukoil, Russia’s No 2 oil producer, plans to gradually substitute half of its vacuum gas oil exports via Vysotsk with increased fuel oil volumes during the fall months.

BP refinery reports failure

HOUSTON: BP stopped supplying feedstock into a gasoline reformer at its 437,080 barrel per day (bpd) Texas City, Texas refinery due to a compressor seal failure, the company reported in a notice filed with Texas pollution regulators. The failure released chemicals including benzene, isobutane, pentane, propane into the air, according to the notice.

Ecuador work takes longer

QUITO: Ecuador’s biggest oil refinery will be shut down for 40 days of maintenance rather than the originally scheduled 23 days, state petroleum company Petroecuador said. The 110,000-barrels-per-day (bpd) refinery in the province of Esmeraldas was closed last month while one of its crude processors was refurbished. “The original period will be prolonged to 40 days,” Petroecuador said in a statement. To meet domestic consumption demands, Ecuador will import an increased amount of oil derivatives while the maintenance continues.

Gazprom eyes $1bn Eurobond

MOSCOW: Russia’s gas export monopoly Gazprom has mandated JP Morgan and Calyon to organise a Eurobond issue worth around $1 billion in November, a banking source told Reuters. “They (Gazprom) have reduced their debt and they need to periodically make appearances on the market,” the source said. “The size of the placement will not be very big, around $1 billion. They do not need a great deal of money.” Gazprom was not immediately available for comment.

Kenya, Essar keen on pipeline

KAMPALA: Kenya and India’s Essar Group are keen to combine forces with Uganda in building a refinery and pipeline for its newly-found oil, a statement said.

British explorer Tullow Oil estimates Uganda’s Albertine basin holds at least two billion barrels of recoverable reserves. It had scheduled to start production in the last quarter of 2011 before Uganda’s tax dispute with Heritage Oil, which is selling its Uganda assets to Tullow, threw those plans into doubt.  Uganda, east Africa’s third largest economy, does not have a refinery and relies on one at the Kenyan coast and a pipeline crossing Kenya for its oil imports.

TransCanada’s pipeline down

CALGARY: TransCanada has shut down its new Keystone oil pipeline to the US Midwest from Alberta for unscheduled maintenance, adding to an already-squeezed system for exporting Canadian crude. The 435,000 barrel a day pipeline, which began operations at the end of June, was shut down and is not expected to be back in service soon, TransCanada spokesman Michael Barnes said.

  “As part of the maintenance program, we simply took an opportunity to conduct some unscheduled maintenance on Keystone, and that should allow us to continue to meet our obligations customers,” Barnes said.

Peru petro talks on Camisea deal

LIMA: Peru’s petroleum agency said that talks with the Camisea natural gas consortium to revise the terms of its contract in the Andean country should conclude in December.

Talks between Perupetro and the Camisea consortium, led by Argentine energy firm Pluspetrol, started in July following protests by villagers in the south of the Andean country who are opposed to natural gas exports. The negotiations had been expected to last into next year, when President Alan Garcia leaves office.

Enbridge oil pipeline restart

CALGARY: The restart of the Enbridge oil pipeline that ruptured in July, wreaking havoc on both the environment and energy markets, is in the hands of US regulators now that the company has completed all required testing, executives said.

Enbridge’s Line 6B, which broke open near Marshall, Michigan, has been tested inside and out in recent days as part of efforts to return it safely to service for refiners in the US upper Midwest and southern Ontario.

ExxonMobil reports shutdown

NEW YORK: ExxonMobil reported a shutdown of an unspecified unit at its 238,600 barrel per day refinery in Joliet, Illinois, according to a fiing with state regulators. The shutdown of the unit caused a release of acid gas. A company spokesman was not immediately available to comment on any production impact.

Peru may hold new reserves

LIMA: Peru’s petroleum agency said the south of the country could be home to another 30 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of natural gas, which would more than double the country’s current proven reserves of the fuel. The exploration chief at state-run Perupetro Elmer Martinez said three sites – two on or adjoining the vast Camisea fields – are believed to contain significant additional reserves.

Clean tanker rates weaken

LONDON: Clean petroleum tanker rates on top global export routes were mostly weaker, but enquiry for larger vessels in the Middle East provided some support to that market. Typical Long Range 2 (LR2), 75,000-tonne shipments from the Middle East Gulf (MEG) to Japan were at W144.40 from W147.25. 

Dana’s new discovery

DUBAI: UAE-based Dana Gas said it had made another gas discovery in Egypt, the firm’s fourth gas find in the country.

The well, South Abu El Naga-1ST in the Nile Delta region, has preliminary estimated reserves of 50 to 90 billion standard cubic feet of gas, with 1 to 2 million barrels of associated condense, Dana said in a statement.

The well will be further appraised and development options studied, the company added.

“The discovery at the South Abu El Naga-1ST well adds significantly to the company’s hydrocarbon reserves,” Dana’s Egypt president, Hany Elsharkawi, said in the statement.

Zanki to head KPC

KUWAIT: Kuwait National Petroleum Co (KNPC) chairman Farouk Al-Zanki will head parent Kuwait Petroleum Corp (KPC), a source familiar with the matter said.

Zanki, who will replace Saad Al-Shuwaib as chief executive, was informed of his appointment and is expected to start “within these days,” the source said. The source said the term was usually three years and would not have an effect on the Opec member’s energy policy.

Zanki, who took the post of KNPC chairman in 2007, is also a member of the board at KPC, the country’s top state oil company.

Aramco extends bids

KHOBAR: State oil giant Saudi Aramco has extended the closing date for bids to build the kingdom’s largest gas plant, industry sources said.

The due date to submit bids for the onshore packages has been pushed to October 24 from a September deadline, sources said.

Wasit would be designed to process up to 2.5 billion cubic feet per day (cfd) of gas from the Arabiyah and Hasbah offshore sour gas fields.

After completing a crude oil capacity expansion plan last year, the world’s top oil exporter has focused on developing gas production to meet rapidly rising domestic demand.

Aramco has given no cost estimate for the Wasit plant, but industry sources said it would cost between $6 billion and $8 billion.

New CEO for Jubail

KHOBAR: A new chief executive officer has been named for a venture between state oil giant Saudi Aramco and France’s Total,  industry sources said.

Said Al-Hadrami, a board member of Saudi Aramco Total Refining and Petrochemical Company (Satorp) replaces Salem Shaheen as president and chief executive of Satorp, sources said. A company spokesperson could not be reached for comment. The oil majors teamed up in 2006 to build a 400,000 barrels per day (bpd) crude refinery in Jubail, on the Gulf coast. Shaheen was appointed president and CEO of Satorp in 2008 as contractors started bidding for the construction of the refinery. Shaheen may join the Oil Ministry as an adviser, sources said.

Iran restarts gas exports

TEHRAN: Flows of gas from Iran to Turkey restarted after supplies were halted by an explosion on August 24, an Iranian gas official told a news agency. “Gas exports to Turkey resumed from the border at Bazargan,” director of dispatching at the National Iranian Gas Company, Hassan Montazer Torbati, told the Oil Ministry’s website Shana.

Torbati said Iran was supplying Turkey with 24 million cubic metres of gas per day, and that that could be increased to 30 million cubic metres if requested.