The outlook for worldwide exploration and production expenditures is moderately bullish for 2000, according to Salomon Smith Barney, New York. This expected increase in E&P outlays marks the beginning of a long-anticipated recovery phase, the analyst said.
The discouraging politics of oil prices clouds the encouraging science of potential supply. Oil and gas companies must not let good supply news smother in price malarkey.
Whatever broader concerns may exist regarding the constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, investors in the Venezuelan oil and gas business may feel agreeably surprised.
Anadarko Petroleum Corp., Houston, signed a definitive agreement to merge with Union Pacific Resources Group Inc., Fort Worth, in an all-stock transaction valued at about $4.43 billion.
Russia's Tyumen Oil Co. and BP Amoco PLC have apparently resolved a dispute over ownership of a Russian oil firm, thus scuttling US government opposition to loans backing use of US technology in two major Russian projects.
Companies developing fuel cells and other technology aimed at increasing natural gas consumption will soon rival the "dot-com" internet companies as the sweetheart of investors, predicts Scott L. Campbell, president and a founding partner of Washington Policy & Analysis.
Years of environmental review, political battles, and difficult construction culminated in 1999 with completion and start-up of the Pacific Pipeline System in southern California.
Recent field tests showed that a reliable, high-power slimhole motor developed for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) drills twice as fast as conventional systems.
Recent approval of the Typhoon project has launched BHP Petroleum Pty. Ltd.'s first commercial deepwater oil and gas development in the Gulf of Mexico. BHP and operator Chevron Corp. each hold half the project.
Use of near infrared (NIR) technology with a software system for calibrating models can reduce the start-up time for stream-analyzer systems from 1 year to less than a month.
For the past 50 years, geologists have correlated well logs and built cross-sections on paper. Despite widespread computerization in the oil industry, they have not had the technology to completely replace inefficient paper methods-until recently.
Overseas Private Investment Corp., a self-sustaining US federal government agency, agreed to finance $85 million via a credit facility for construction of a $170 million, 36,000 b/d refinery to be built at Napa Napa on Papua New Guinea's Port Moresby Harbor (OGJ, Jan. 17, 2000, Newsletter).
Newly released MuSE Software Development Environment 2000 allows software programmers and end users to better use sound, 3D graphics, new display technologies, and a mix of operating platforms to present and understand complex data using perceptual computing.
Oil & Gas Journal's 2000 Capital Spending Outlook, beginning on p. 44, shows recent trends in oil company spending and estimated expenditures for the current year.
