Petroleum refining catalyst demand will grow 1.9%/year between 1998 and 2003-a result of proposed gasoline sulfur limits, declining crude quality, and a move to new, higher-value products.
To meet the challenge of making diesel and gasoline with lower sulfur levels, refiners will have to depend on high hydrodesulfurization (HDS) and hydrodenitrogenation (HDN) activity catalysts.
Refiners will find that their choices of process technologies and catalysts will determine their ability to produce ultra-low sulfur (30 ppm) gasoline and diesel.
Units of Shell and BP will spend $1.26 billion excluding lease costs to develop six widely-spaced deepwater oil and gas fields in the Gulf of Mexico using an innovative floating, centralized, multiarm subsea production scheme.
Reliance Industries Ltd., one of India's largest conglomerates, has decided to invest 34.62 billion rupees ($750 million) in its partnership with Niko Resources Ltd., Calgary, for exploration of the 12 blocks awarded the firms earlier this year.
Increased Rocky Mountain access and improved productivity technology could lessen the effects of the accelerated depletion occurring in US oil and gas fields, according to a recent US Energy Information Administration (EIA) study.
Over the next 5 years, 13-17 floating production systems (FPSs) will be ordered every year, says International Maritime Associates Inc., Washington, DC.
Denver-based Rentech Inc. plans to convert its newly acquired Sand Creek plant in Commerce City, Colo., from a methanol plant to a gas-to-liquids (GTL) plant.
A sour gas and oil processing plant in western Poland has recently been completed for a division of Polish Oil & Gas Co., according to contractor Propak Systems Ltd., Airdrie, Alta.
Final bids to build a second crude-oil export pipeline in Ecuador included a surprise bid from a group led by Ecuador's Army Corps of Engineers (CIE) along with two other private-sector bids.
Alaska Gov. Tony Knowles has pledged to spend the rest of his term in office working to break ground on a natural gas pipeline in the next 2 years to move gas from Alaska's North Slope to US Lower 48 markets.
"Looking back on available rigs beginning 45 years ago..., the fleet has seen 2 decades of continuous decline," said John Deane, vice-president and general manager of Schlumberger Drill Bits, at the IADC annual meeting last week.
As retail gasoline prices rose this past summer, European consumers united in protests to air their frustrations over fuel taxes. Although their tactics were questionable, their goal was admirable.
It is gratifying to see contenders for the US presidency argue about energy policy (see related article, p. 20, and Watching Government, p. 22). The subject needs attention. But it needs attention more sophisticated than it has received this year, with the peak of an exaggerated oil-price cycle coinciding with a presidential campaign.
This special analysis of the Reed-Hycalog rig census against the backdrop of current oil and gas markets was provided by Dean E. Gaddy, Senior Editor-Drilling & Special Projects.
Middleton, Mass., has named Michael F. Hoban industry manager for the company's Insulating Glass Sealants Group. Hoban will oversee all sales, marketing, and technical support services for this business segment.
Energy has become a hot-button issue in the US presidential election race between Republican Party nominee and Texas Gov. George W. Bush and Democratic Party nominee and US Vice-Pres. Al Gore.
Oil and gas companies continue to wrestle with the problems of consolidation, new technology, an evolving workforce, and other issues that are reshaping their business.
The seeds of tomorrow's new upstream technology are in today's failures, if oil and gas companies are willing to take the risks and learn from their mistakes, George E. King, a veteran BP engineer, said last week at the annual convention of the Society of Petroleum Engineers.
The fuel price protests, when they began to bite across Britain in mid-September, caught everyone-not least the ruling New Labour government-on the back foot.
Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries sovereigns and heads of state ended their first summit in 25 years with a document calling for oil market stability and fair prices.
Canadian oil and gas companies again demand the company news spotlight, as firms continue to be active in mergers, acquisitions, and asset divestments.
Following the closing of BP's purchase of the interests in Vastar Resources Inc. that it didn't obtain when it acquired ARCO (OGJ Online, Sept. 18, 2000), some of the Houston-based independent exploration and production firm's executive personnel have taken on new roles at other companies.
