Operating companies aren’t among the businesses in the US asking for taxpayer dollars to be bailed out due to historic fluctuations in oil and gas prices the past 2 years.
With the Christmas holidays approaching, members of the oil and gas industry are anticipating stockings full of rocks from the new Santa-elect in Washington, DC, while other industries’ wishes for bundles of cash will come true.
Larger estimates for Venezuela have increased worldwide oil and gas reserves from previous estimates, according to Oil & Gas Journal’s annual survey of proved reserves.
An ailing global economy will stall oil demand growth for a while, but industry must prepare itself to fulfill long-term growing global oil demand, speakers said Dec. 10 at Deloitte LLP’s energy conference in The Woodlands, north of Houston.
A national energy council should be established in the US to develop a 50-year energy strategy, with the council developing benchmarks to monitor progress and making regular public reports, said economist Joseph Stanislaw.
Most senior oil and gas professionals participating in a recent survey said they are thinking increasingly about how their companies can participate in a US transition to renewable energy and alternative fuels.
Enforcement of the federal Clean Water Act has deteriorated badly under the Bush administration, two US House committee chairman charged on Dec. 16. Violations involving oil spills make up nearly half of the CWA violations which have been detected but not addressed, they added.
Japan’s leading refiner Nippon Oil Corp. and sixth-ranked Nippon Mining Holdings Inc., faced with sluggish domestic demand for gasoline, plan to merge into a holding company.
Southwestern Energy Co., Houston, which had planned to accelerate its Mississippian Fayetteville shale play in Arkansas in 2009, will instead keep about the same level of activity as in 2008.
New Zealand Crown Minerals offered six exploration blocks in the Northland basin northwest of Auckland and two off East Cape in the Raukumara basin off the North Island.
Cantex Energy Corp., San Antonio, in partnership with Big Canyon Energy, signed an exploration and development agreement with Slawson Exploration Inc., Wichita, covering the Big Canyon prospect in Terrell County, Tex.
Calgary’s Triangle Petroleum Corp. is using expertise honed in Texas’ Barnett shale and Arkansas’ Fayetteville shale to develop shale gas resources in eastern Canada’s Maritimes basin.
To increase oil recovery from existing fields, operators in both Egypt and Syria have started producing heavy oil with thermal enhanced oil recovery processes.
In 2008, growth in crude distillation capacity continued to build on momentum of past years; refiners added more capacity than the past 2 years, according to the latest OGJ Refinery Survey.
Energy agreements reached earlier in 2008 between Serbia and Russia enhance the security of European natural gas supply, despite perceived competition between the South Stream pipeline (included in these agreements) and the Nabucco pipeline.
