Table of Contents

international News for oil and gas professionals

Poland's push toward exploration, development, and anticipated production of shale gas appears to have become almost a national mission for the European nation seeking to break its reliance upon conventional Russian natural gas and to eventually become a supplier to the European gas market.

The Nabucco Pipeline project is dead. BP PLC killed it. The epic five-country natural gas pipeline that was to bring Caspian resources to Central Europe and lessen European Union dependence on Russian supplies was scuppered in late September by the very same supermajor expected to supply it with gas from Azerbaijan.

Oil producers from the Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan, and Pakistan (MENAP) could be facing a decline in export revenues due to the continuing US fiscal crisis as well as debt struggles in Europe, according to a report by the International Monetary Fund.

National oil companies in the Middle East and North Africa region are expected to invest some $140 billion in the oil and gas industry this year, with even more to follow in coming years, according to a recent report.

The oil and gas industry has long profited from the views of Daniel Yergin, and a new essay, published by Yergin a week ago, is bound to keep his reputation intact.

Changes in Russia's taxation policies will have a positive effect on the country's upstream development, enabling a high level of exports for years to come, according to a report by ESAI Energy LLC.

Norway's Statoil has threatened to sell its North Sea natural gas to other markets if the UK's Energy Sec. Chris Huhne prevails in his efforts to expand the country's use of renewable energy and curb the growth of fossil fuel power plants.

Royal Dutch Shell PLC's Chief Financial Officer Simon Henry said the firm likely will continue to reduce its investment in countries of the European Union due to long-term concerns over the continent's policies on competitiveness.

Efforts by Nebraska's legislature to influence siting of the proposed Keystone XL crude oil pipeline likely would be found unconstitutional, TransCanada Corp., the project's sponsor, said on Oct. 31 as it released legal memorandums prepared at its request by two law firms.

As national environmental organizations increased pressure on the Obama administration to reject the proposed Keystone XL crude oil pipeline's cross-border permit application, the president indicated that he—and not the US Department of State—will make the final decision.

The US Coast Guard has tried to address offshore oil and gas operations' security issues, but could improve its process for managing security inspections, the US Government Accountability Office said in an Oct. 28 report.

Federal oil and gas forecasters have not fully considered factors affecting future US supplies in their recent estimates, members of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas USA (ASPO-USA) warned on Oct. 26.

This article is concerned with showing that the dependence of probable success between two reservoirs has far-reaching consequences for the expected value, volatility, and cumulative probability of anticipated hydrocarbon reserves.

The turn of the 21st century coincided with a remarkable 2 years of giant discoveries.

Conventional oil and gas production in Louisiana has been in steady decline for 4 decades, but in recent years, new technology and innovation has opened up a new resource play in the Haynesville shale that is expected to play an important role in the state for many years.

A recent decision by a Pennsylvania appellate court garnering much attention has raised questions concerning the ownership rights to natural gas in the Marcellus shale formation.

The organic rich, thermally mature, oil-prospective Pilot shale, age equivalent of the Bakken formation in the Williston basin, underlies a large part of the eastern Great Basin in Nevada and Utah.

Chevron Corp. has started generating steam from its solar-to-steam demonstration project for enhancing oil recovery at the heavy oil Coalinga field in Kern County, Calif.

Peak world oil production rate depends on economics and is unlikely to occur before 2018, and rising oil prices and technological developments may further delay this peak.

A midyear update on decommissioning activity in the Outer Continental Shelf of the Gulf of Mexico provides early evidence that 2011 will have a record number of well abandonments and above average number of structure removals.

When industry historians review market developments 5 or 10 years from now, they may declare 2009-11 was a major turning point in the history of propane markets in North America. On the other hand, they may conclude this period was an anomaly.

Studies have demonstrated how mixing primary-tertiary or secondary-tertiary amines have improved the efficiency of amine-sweetening processes in terms of gas purification and process energy requirements.

Statoil has updated an assay of the condensate stream associated with natural gas being produced from Snohvit field in the Barents Sea.

Combining the classical Austin-Palfrey formula with field data creates a new formula capable of predicting the amount of mixed-product volume arriving at each terminal of a long, multiproduct pipeline crossing varied terrain.