The May benchmark US crude contract jumped above $107/bbl Mar. 27 in the New York market following the bombing of a primary export oil pipeline in southern Iraq.
Oil & Gas Journal’s semiannual Worldwide Construction Update shows a slight increase in refining and sulfur projects in the engineering stage as well as gas processing construction activity compared with the previous edition of the update.
Saying that the poorest US families now spend 10% of their annual incomes on gasoline because of high oil prices, a US House committee chairman said that major oil companies should direct a similar portion of their profits to alternate energy research and development.
A provision that was inserted into the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA 2007) to keep the US Air Force from developing coal-to-liquids (CTL) fuels could limit imports of Canadian oil produced from tar sands.
The world’s energy producers, consumers, and governments could either cooperate or “scramble” as they try to solve major energy and environment problems, two Royal Dutch Shell PLC executives said on Apr. 1.
National oil companies (NOCs), which now have “superior access to resources and booming domestic markets,” made two thirds of the largest oil and gas discoveries in 2007, said Parker Drilling Co. Chairman and Chief Executive Robert L. Parker Jr. at the RMI Oilfield Breakfast Forum in Houston Mar. 28.
The combined production decline rate for countries outside the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries is steadier and less steep than is generally believed, according to the International Energy Agency, Paris.
The US Environmental Protection Agency on Mar. 12 signed its most stringent standard for ground-level ozone, revising the standards for the first time in more than a decade.
The Colorado Oil & Gas Conservation Commission (OGCC) released a set of proposed rules Mar. 31 that are open to public comment, and a final OGCC decision on the rules is expected in July.
The European Union should provide its refining companies with “a globally competitive level playing field” to help them face the “important” challenges of the next years and make the needed investments, said Panos E. Cavoulacos, president of the 17-member refining trade group Europia.
The most experienced operator in the Arkoma basin Woodford shale gas play is demonstrating that longer horizontal lateral drilling will lead to higher estimated ultimate recoveries and improved rates of return just as in the Barnett shale.
The Russian petroleum tax structure encourages the country’s operators to export refined products rather than crude oil; therefore Russian crude throughput averaged 4.6 million b/d in 2007, a new post-Soviet era record, according to the International Energy Agency’s “Oil Market Report,” published on Feb. 13, 2008.
Continuing a trend starting in 1983, the Nelson-Farrar refinery construction index rose quickly to 2,144.4 in December 2007 from 1,961.6 in January 2006.
Raster-based GIS routing models prevent pipelines from becoming an economic burden on the companies and countries involved in their construction and operation by minimizing not just the economic costs, but also the environmental and social costs of any new project.
Technology challenges in the area of pipeline protection are centered on the areas of corrosion detection and inhibition, remote monitoring and risk assessment, and inspecting unpiggable lines.
