Congress has allowed the oil and gas business to ease the extra load taxpayers will assume from the vote-winning part of the economic rescue package signed into law Oct. 3.
The November contract for benchmark US light, sweet crudes hit new lows for the year, trading as low as $77.09/bbl Oct. 10 before closing at $77.70/bbl, down $8.89 for the day on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
The quest for commercial viability of oil shale ultimately could prove the most practical option among unconventional hydrocarbon resources to add large quantities of proved US reserves, say researchers working toward this goal.
Oil companies researching oil shale development are watching the unfolding of US leasing and environmental regulatory policies that could influence the economics of producing unconventional petroleum resources, said the National Oil Shale Association.
Although Kazakhstan has said it plans to arrange delivery of its oil to the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline via Azerbaijan and on to Georgia’s Black Sea port of Batumi, traders expressed fears, after the Georgia-Russia conflict, about the efficiency of the trans-Caucasus routes and about possible future pressures from Russia.
Brazil’s National Petroleum Agency (ANP), apparently bowing to pressure from the government, has reduced the number of exploration and production concession blocks to be auctioned at the 10th round, scheduled for Dec. 18.
Petroleo Brasileiro SA (Petrobras) has inaugurated the P-51, the company’s first domestically built semisubmersible platform—a milestone event according to government and company officials.
The US House Natural Resources Committee’s minority staff released its own report on Oct. 9 challenging one which the majority staff issued 6 months ago that has been the basis of many 2008 Democratic candidates’ energy stands.
The full-page, A-section advertisement in the Oct. 9 Washington Post stood out from others; it was not for a major commercial bank saying how much it appreciated its depositors.
Egypt’s State Council Administrative Court said it will issue a ruling Nov. 18 regarding a case lodged by a former ambassador and several lawyers against the export of Egyptian natural gas to Israel.
Modec Inc.’s floating storage and offloading unit Ta’Kuntah has reached a milestone in the industry—offloading a total of 1 billion bbl of oil to 1,745 export tankers.
Russia’s state-owned OAO Gazprom has signed an asset swap agreement granting German utility E.On AG a stake in the Yuzhno-Russkoye natural gas project.
Atlas Energy Resources LLC, Philadelphia, is the largest producer of gas from Devonian Marcellus shale in the Appalachian basin and has drilled more than 80 wells, almost all of them vertical, the company said in a webcast Oct. 8.
Italy’s Eni SPA has signed an agreement with Papua New Guinea for a long-term partnership to pursue sustainable development of the country’s untouched hydrocarbon resources.
Exploration services are likely to grow much faster than the overall oil field services market worldwide for years, Schlumberger Ltd. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Andrew Gould said.
Following the Su Tu Den discovery in Block 15-1 off Vietnam, a fast-track field development program culminated in first oil production only 2 years and 82 days after declaration of the field’s commerciality.
Shifts in energy demand and biofuels capacity will disrupt the global refining industry, potentially turning the US into a net exporter of gasoline by 2010.
The Batelle two-curve method of fracture-arrest prediction for X70 and X80 high toughness steels requires correction factors based on the steel’s grade and toughness level.
