Table of Contents

International news for oil and gas professionals

More than usual uncertainty about the economic drivers of energy markets complicates forecasts about oil demand in a year of continuing relocation of the growth centers for supply and demand.

The year 2013 could be a lackluster period for overall well completions in the US and Canada with declines possible if not likely in both countries.

With the lifting of a ban on hydraulic fracturing, oil and gas companies hope the South African government will authorize natural gas development in the Karoo basin, which awaits actual exploration for unconventional resources.

Recent announcements by the UK government encouraging development of shale gas are not enough to ensure its commercial viability, and the key determinant will be the quality of the subsurface and well performance, Wood Mackenzie Ltd. said.

Chevron Canada Ltd. plans to acquire a 50% state in the Kitimat LNG project and proposed Pacific Trail Pipeline (PTP) and a 50% interest in 644,000 acres in the Horn River and Liard basins in British Columbia.

Costs for designing and building refining and petrochemical plants were essentially unchanged from this year's first quarter to its third quarter, according to the latest edition of the IHS Downstream Capital Costs Index.

Maybe it was because it was a presidential election year. Whatever the reason, words seemed to matter more than substance to Washington's energy policy-makers in 2012, and produced some good nominees for the Watchy, this column's annual salute to entertaining Washington moments of the past year.

A new state-by-state study estimates total unconventional oil and gas production in the Lower 48 will contribute $63 billion in federal, state, and local tax revenues in 2012, with contributions rising to nearly $113 billion by 2020, said IHS.

Can Alaska match some of the other emerging oil plays in the Lower 48, namely the Eagle Ford shale and the Bakken?

As a technology new to the Midwest, carbon dioxide enhanced oil recovery (CO₂ EOR) has several barriers to overcome before it can gain a sustained presence in the region.

Tut field has proved to be feasible for the application of enhanced oil recovery technology.

Growth in the need to upgrade heavy crude oils, such as Athabasca bitumen and others, into synthetic crude oils as well as the need to process heavier conventional crudes is increasing the use of coking.

Early last year, BP—whose subsidiary BP Developments Australia Pty. Ltd. holds an interest in the North West Shelf (NWS) venture off Australia—released a crude oil assay of the condensate produced in the massive project.

Here are annual values for the Nelson-Farrar refinery inflation cost index since 1926.

The projected financial performance of proposed US LNG export plants supports the building and commissioning of at least a few of them.

Examining the variance of hydrate particle size with focused-beam reflectance measurements (FBRM) yields a clearer understanding of the microscopic mechanisms guiding hydrate formation and plugging, with the square-weighted chord length method emerging as capable of predicting hydrate plugging fairly well.