Regular Features
- OGJ Newsletter
- Letters
  - Don’t hike ethanol cap
    I am strongly opposed to allowing even more ethanol in automotive gasoline for several sound technical reasons (OGJ Online, Mar.9, 2009):
- Journally Speaking
  - Making a difference
    Malaria kills an African child every 30 sec and more than 1 million people a year, said Rex W. Tillerson, chairman and chief executive officer of ExxonMobil Corp., as he explained on “World Malaria Day” last April how the company is fighting the preventable disease.
- IEA, OPEC cut 2009 oil market demand, supply forecasts
  The International Energy Agency and the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries have revised their forecasts for 2009 oil demand and supply in their latest monthly oil market reports.
- Equip/Software/Lit
  - Equipment/Software/Literature
- Services/Suppliers
  - Services/Suppliers
- Advertisers Index
- Editor's Perspective
  - Land-grab defeat doesn’t herald a friendly Congress
    Defeat by the US House of a major lock-up of federal land provides a welcome ray of hope—but a flickering one.
- Market Journal
  - OPEC expects lower oil demand
    A few days before its Mar. 15 meeting in Vienna, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries reduced its latest forecast of 2009 world crude demand by 400,000 b/d for a total loss of 1.01 million b/d to 84.6 million b/d.
General Interest
- Editorial: Ethanol’s new rescue cry
  Every time fuel ethanol blows off its economic moorings, as state-sponsored energy always does, Congress obliges with new support.
- Saudi Arabia, UAE promote energy from sun and wind
  It would seem unlikely that the Persian Gulf region, so commercially dependent on fossil fuel production and exportation, would lead the world’s search for the 21st Century’s energy source.
- OPEC aims at full compliance with existing quota
  The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, noting signs of market strengthening, agreed in a Mar. 15 meeting in Vienna to seek full compliance with a quota cut announced in December.
- OPEC oil exports at 5-year low, analyst says
  Seaborne oil exports of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, excluding Angola and Ecuador, will fall to a 5-year low in the four weeks to Mar. 28, according to analyst Oil Movements.
- Russia declines OPEC membership; offers alternative
  Russia has proposed sending a permanent envoy to the Secretariat of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries in an effort to coordinate policies, again declining membership in the group.
- Watching The World: Algeria deserves a tax break
  Algeria’s energy minister Chakib Khelil recently urged gas-consuming nations to rethink their tax policies if they are to remove barriers and encourage imports (OGJ, Mar.
- Worldwide oil, natural gas deal value plunges
  The total transaction value for worldwide upstream corporate and asset deals plunged to $104 billion in 2008 compared with an annual average of nearly $160 billion during 2005-07, consultants said in an annual report.
- MMS, BLM must clarify lease policies, acting IG says
  Federal oil and gas leasing programs could do more to encourage leaseholders to move more aggressively toward production, the US Department of the Interior’s acting inspector general told a congressional subcommittee on Mar. 17.
- MMS Lease Sale 208 attracts $703 million in high bids
  Apparent high bids totaling just over $703 million were offered for 348 tracts in the central Gulf of Mexico at Lease Sale 208, reported the US Department of the Interior’s Minerals Management Service Mar. 18 in New Orleans.
- Watching Government: Independents begin long haul
  The opportunity was too tempting to resist.
- Ethanol supporters petition EPA to raise gasoline blend level limits
  Ethanol supporters petitioned the US Environmental Protection Agency to raise the limit on the amount of ethanol blended into gasoline to 15% from 10%.
- HYDRAULIC FRACTURING—1: Natural fractures influence shear stimulation direction
  Hydraulic fracturing in the presence of natural fractures causes a complex network of fractures to form because of shear and tensile failure.
Exploration & Development
- New tool determines reserves of mature oil and gas fields
  There are many reasons—economic, preaudits, strategic planning for enhanced recovery, among others—that call for the size or ultimate reserves of an oil or gas field to be estimated.
Processing
- Looming Mideast olefin production may—or may not—spell oversupply
  With an abundance of cheap feedstock, the Middle East is poised to become one of the world’s largest exporters of petrochemicals, targeting markets in Europe and Asia.
Transportation
- Shell completes testing of record-setting tie-in plan
  Shell’s tie-in of the Perdido oil pipeline in the US Gulf of Mexico is the deepest tie-in ever preformed to an already operating system (5,000 ft).