On the Absheron Peninsula of the Caspian Sea thousands of years ago, flames rising from the ground that never flickered out so astonished itinerant Persians that they named the area “Azerbaijan”-the land of fire.
It might have been Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) who started it. In October 2004, near the end of his unsuccessful campaign for the presidency, Kerry suggested in a speech in Santa Fe, NM, that the country commit itself to independence from oil from the Middle East.
US demand for ethanol is outstripping supply and raising imports of the product, said Jacques Rousseau, senior energy analyst at Friedman, Billings, Ramsey Group Inc., Arlington, Va.
BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc. said it’s unsure how long Prudhoe Bay oil field might be shut down pending replacement of an estimated 16 miles of a severely corroded oil transit line that resulted in a small spill.
US energy officials tried to assure markets and consumers that other crude supplies are available to offset up to 400,000 b/d of production, which will be missing as BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc. shuts down the eastern operating area of its Prudhoe Bay gathering system in Alaska.
Dissatisfied over responses from US Department of the Interior officials, a House committee’s chairman and the chairman of its energy and resources subcommittee demanded more information from Interior Sec. Dirk A. Kempthorne about missing price thresholds in federal deepwater leases.
India’s recent licensing rounds for oil, natural gas, and coalbed methane assets continue to attract international attention, partly due to the efforts of V.K. Sibal.
A research team recently estimated mean volumes of undiscovered conventional recoverable hydrocarbons in northern Afghanistan at 1.596 billion bbl of crude oil, 15.687 tcf of gas, and 562 million bbl of natural gas liquids.
Petroleo Brasileiro SA’s (Petrobras) new 5-year plan (2007-11) shows Brazil’s oil production increasing to 2.374 million b/d in 2011 from 1.684 million b/d produced in 2005.
The US market for petrochemical and refining catalysts is currently about $2.7 billion and will increase to about $3.2 billion at a growth of 3.0%/year, according to a technical market research report “Petrochemical (Petroleum and Chemical) Catalysts” from Business Communications Company Inc., Norwalk, Conn.
A recent study of four commercial hydrodesulfurization (HDS) catalysts found that using the most active one for ultralow-sulfur diesel (ULSD) production resulted in significant economic benefits.
With the international transportation networks of oil and gas pipelines aging, automated ball indentation (ABI) testing provides a means of monitoring their structural integrity, particularly important in high-consequence areas.
