INTERNATIONAL BRIEFS

COMPANIES

SHELL CANADA LTD. will accent natural gas operations in an increased capital and exploration budget of $768 million (Canadian) for 1990, up $55 million from last year. Of this year's total, the upstream sector will get $509 million, including $250 million for gas development and $127 million for western Canada gas exploration. Shell's oil products segment will get $178 million, chemicals $14 million.

IMPERIAL OIL LTD., Toronto, plans to cut capital and exploration spending to about $700 million this year from $871 million spent in 1989 and $956 million in 1988. This year's outlays will include about $140 million for exploration.

EXPLORATION

CHINA started trial production near Jinggu at the first producing oil well in Yunnan province, about 100 miles northeast of Cangyuan on the border with Myanmar. The well is thought to be on the western shelf of Lanping Simao basin, 170 miles southwest of Kunming. The Chinese are also running seismic surveys and drilling wildcats in Yunnan's Chuxiong basin.

ELF AQUITAINE ANGOLA gauged combined flows of 28,000 b/d of 300 gravity oil from its 1 Cobo wildcat on Block 3 off Angola. The find is 5.6 miles south of Bufaloa field and 18.6 miles south of the Palanca field. Partners in the block are Elf, Angola's Sonangol, Naftagas, Ina Naftalin, Ajex Petroleum, a Mitsubishi Development Corp. subsidiary, and units of Agip SpA, Repsol SA, and Svenska Petroleum.

PARTNERS in Negev Venture 2 agreed to a $1.5 million increase to $18.9 million in the budget for the 2 Yam wildcat being drilled to a projected 17,000 ft in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Ashdod, Israel. The original budget was $12 million, but slower than expected drilling required two increases in that figure. The well, spudded last October, was drilling at 13,900 ft at last report, said Isramco Inc., New York, a working interest partner.

TOTAL CFP took a farmout on the Essequibo permit off Guyana, originally awarded to Offshore Guyana Exploration, an affiliate of ECI Petroleum, Houston, which has run a 1,000 km seismic survey. Total will take over as operator, conduct more seismic surveys, and drill a well.

SHARJAH, United Arab Emirates, awarded a 1,018 sq km onshore exploration concession to a unit of Amoco Corp., OPEC News Agency reported. Amoco Sharjah is to start a seismic survey this year. The company operates Sharjah's only oil field, Sajaa, which produces about 60,000 b/d.

PROCESSING

KUWAIT'S highest planning body approved a $2 billion (U.S.) petrochemical project, soon to be put out for bids. Drawing on domestic naphtha and natural gas for feedstock, the project is to start manufacturing a product slate that includes low and high density polyethylene, ethylene glycol, polystyrene, styrene monomer, and butadiene by 1994.

IRAN let a $28.9 million contract to Air Liquide, Paris, for design and construction of three industrial gas units at two petrochemical complexes, all due on stream by yearend 1991. Shiraz will get a 5,000 ton/year argon unit. Arak's ethylene oxide plant will get 450 ton/day oxygen and nitrate units.

NOVA CORP., Calgary, plans to dispose of the key rubber division of its subsidiary, Polysar Energy & Petrochemical Corp. The division, whose assets are valued at $1.4 billion (Canadian) by Nova, had sales of synthetics of $812 million in 1989 and operates plants in Canada, the U.S., Belgium, and France.

DRILLING-PRODUCTION

CANADA NOVA SCOTIA Offshore Petroleum Board will conduct hearings on plans by Lasmo Nova Scotia Ltd. and Nova Scotia Resources Ltd. to develop Cohasset and Panuke oil fields off Nova Scotia, about 25 miles southwest of Sable Island. The project, expected to cost $150-200 million (Canadian), calls for a 30,000 b/d production platform and a tanker storage/offloading system.

INDIA'S OIL & NATURAL GAS COMMISSION started up an in situ combustion pilot in Balol oil field in Mehsana, Gujarat. ONGC claims the injector well drilled for the pilot is the world's deepest for in situ combustion at 3,445 ft.

TOTAL MARINE Norsk AS agreed to buy Unocal International Corp.'s Norwegian subsidiary for $322 million (U.S.). The purchase of Unocal Norge AS will give Total Marine another 80 million bbl of reserves, including an 18% interest in Veslefrikk field which went on stream at the end of last year and is producing more than 30, 000 b/d.

FAR EAST LEVINGSTON Shipbuilding Ltd. (FELS), Singapore, bought a Class 116C rig kit from Marathon LeTourneau Co. The kit consists of components for a mobile offshore rig, mainly leg components and gear units used for jacking up the unit, along with engineering technology. FELS will build the rig for an undisclosed client at one of its Singapore yards.

ESSO REP, Exxon Corp.'s exploration and production affiliate in France, wants to buy British Petroleum Co. plc's French upstream assets, which are on the market. BP owns interests in 37 onshore permits and has production of 4,400 b/d in France.

TRANSPORTATION

PETROLEUM AUTHORITY of Thailand let contract to Fluor Daniel for a feasibility study of a gas pipeline expansion project in the Gulf of Thailand. The study, financed by the U.S. Trade and Development Program, is to be complete in mid-1990. It will cover examination of the current pipeline system to enable increases in throughput and boost the use of natural gas obtained from the southernmost part of the gulf.

TEXACO PETROLEUM CO. hired Harbert International Inc. to install a pipeline crossing under the Napo River in Ecuador. The project will be under the joint management of Harbert's South American division and the company's Harcro Inc. subsidiary, Tulsa. The crossing will consist of 3,600 ft of 16 in. line installed by horizontal drilling, the first use of that construction method in Ecuador. Completion is set for June 1 .

EUROPEAN MARINE Contractors Ltd. (EMCL) let contract to a group made up of Volker Stevin Offshore BV, Van Oord-Utrecht BV, Dredging International NV, NV Baggerwerken de Cloedt & Zoon, and Jan de Nul NV for dredging of about 200 km off Netherlands and Belgium. The project, on which EMCL is main contractor, is in preparation for Statoil's gas pipeline from Sleipner field in the Norwegian North Sea to Zeebrugge, Belgium.