INTERNATIONAL BRIEFS

Sept. 3, 1990
MTBE MALAYSIA SDN. BHD. let contract to an international group to design and engineer a plant at Kuantan, Malaysia, with capacities of 300,000 metric tons/year of MTBE and 80,000 metric tons/year of propylene. Kellogg Malaysia Inc. will design, construct, commission, and provide procurement and start-up advisory services for the project. Group members are M.W. Kellogg Co., Houston, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. and Nichimen Corp. of Japan, and Pilecon Engineering Sdn. Bhd. of Malaysia.

PETROCHEMICALS

MTBE MALAYSIA SDN. BHD. let contract to an international group to design and engineer a plant at Kuantan, Malaysia, with capacities of 300,000 metric tons/year of MTBE and 80,000 metric tons/year of propylene. Kellogg Malaysia Inc. will design, construct, commission, and provide procurement and start-up advisory services for the project. Group members are M.W. Kellogg Co., Houston, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. and Nichimen Corp. of Japan, and Pilecon Engineering Sdn. Bhd. of Malaysia.

JAPAN'S Export-Import Bank will finance a 35.244 million yen loan to Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. for the import of petrochemical process units from Japan. Repayment period is 10 years beginning at yearend 1993.

SOLVAY & CIE. SA let contract to Trafalgar House plc's engineering division, John Brown, to design and build world scale capacity polyethylene and polypropylene plants at Lillo, Belgium, near Antwerp. Both plants are scheduled to be on stream in fourth quarter 1991 .

DRILLING-PRODUCTION

CLYDE PETROLEUM (NETHERLANDS) BV agreed to buy for cash all of Triton North Sea Operators Ltd.'s interest in Block P/6, operated by a unit of Mobil Corp. in the Dutch North Sea. The purchase increases Clyde's interests in P/6 gas field to 14.25% from 1 2% and in the recently spudded P/6-8 wildcat to 28.125%.

BOWTEX ENERGY (CANADA) CORP., Calgary, signed a letter of intent to buy all oil and gas assets of G.J.S. Resources Ltd. for about $36 million. Involved are proved and probable reserves of 1.263 million bbl of oil and natural gas liquids and 38.5 bcf of gas.

TRIMAT SLANT WELL SERVICING CORP., Red Deer, Alta., let contract to George E. Failing Supply Co. to build a service/workover rig capable of servicing vertical and slant wells to 45 in 1.5 increments. Failing also will build for Precision Drilling Ltd. a skid mounted slant hole drilling rig with rated depth capacity of 2,500 m.

TOTAL PETROLEUM CANADA LTD., Calgary, plans to drill eight more wells and build a gas gathering system by yearend in the Josephine, Alta., area. Total and its partners have drilled 13 wells in the area this year, including the Kiskatinaw discovery, which flowed 22 MMcfd.

RESEARCH

THE U.S.S.R.'S VVO Sudoimport let contract to Masa-Yards Inc., Helsinki, for construction of a research and supply icebreaker to support Soviet Ministry of Oil and Gas Industry operations in the Far East off Sakhalin Island. Worth about 500 million marks (Finnish), it is the first shipbuilding contract under a 5 year trade agreement between the governments of Finland and the Soviet Union. The vessel will be built at Masa-Yards's Helsinki New Shipyard, with delivery scheduled for summer 1992.

GOVERNMENT

BELGIUM agreed to provide Thailand 62.8 million baht (about $2.5 million) to fund a 2 year, 1.7 million kwhr hydroelectric development project and conduct a feasibility study for preliminary design of a gas pipeline system in Bangkok. The 21 month study will chart environmental effects and construction costs of the system.

PIPELINES

CANADA'S NATIONAL ENERGY BOARD WILL BEGIN a hearing Oct. 29 in Fort Nelson, B.C., on an application by West-coast Energy Inc., Vancouver, for its 81.45 km Adsett pipeline project. The proposed line will move gas from Adsett field in Northeast British Columbia to Westcoast's Fort Nelson gas processing plant.

ACQUISITIONS

TOTAL PETROLEUM CANADA LTD. Calgary, paid $11 million for the assets of Amoco Canada Petroleum Co. and Amoco Canada Resources Ltd. in the Josephine area of Alberta. The purchase covers a 77% interest in the Josephine gas processing plant and associated reserves and gathering system.

EXPLORATION

CONOCO INDONESIA INC.'S 1 Sembilans discovery off Indonesia flowed a combined rate of 7,240 b/d of oil on four tests in Tertiary Udang and Miocene Arang. The well, drilled to 6,110 ft, is on the South Natuna Block B in the Natuna Sea, about 1000 km north of Jakarta. Interests in the production sharing contract with state owned Pertamina are Conoco 40%, Texaco Block B South Natuna Sea 25%, and Chevron International Ltd. and Impex Natuna Ltd. 17.5% each.

MOBIL CORP. and Broken Hill Private Co. signed a production sharing contract with Pertamina for exploration and production in the 158,785 sq km Babu block on Irian Jaya's Bomberai Peninsula. Operator Mobil holds a 60% contractor interest in the block and Broken Hill 40%.

REFINING

AN ARTHUR D. LITTLE study predicts European refiners will have to spend $2 billion to meet new diesel fuel specifications on sulfur, not $2 million as reported earlier (OGJ, Aug. 27, p. 1 5).

MOBIL CORP. will restructure operations of its 16 European marketing and refining affiliates into two units, one for marketing and the other for manufacturing and supply. Its new Mobil Europe Center of Operations, with offices in London, will have responsibility for some Europe-wide operations.

PETROLEOS DEL NORTE SA, Las Arenas Vizcaya, Spain, let contract to John Brown Sener SA, Madrid, to engineer process units and procure bulk materials and equipment for a 5,050 b/sd alkylation unit at its Bilbao refinery. The unit, based on Phillips Petroleum Co.'s HF alkylation process, is to be on stream in second quarter 1992.

COMPANIES

NORTH CANADIAN OILS LTD., Calgary, spent $97.4 million in first half 1990, up from $61.6 million in first half 1989. Of the 1990 amount, $32 million went for exploration and development, $39.9 million for acquisition of a 26% interest in Bankeno Resources Ltd., and $20 million for a cogeneration plant it is building at Ada, Mich. It has added 61 bcf of gas and 104,000 bbl of oil and NGL to reserves before revisions.

LNG

JAPAN'S Tohoko Electric Power Co. and Tokyo Electric Co. signed contracts to buy another 6.94 million tons of Indonesian liquefied natural gas from Pertamina in return for price rollbacks. Pertamina agreed to cut the LNG price to the two firms by 4/MMBTU this year and 12/MMBTU in 1994.

GAS PROCESSING

NORCEN ENERGY RESOURCES LTD., Calgary, resumed engineering of a 1.3 long ton/day hydrogen sulfide oxidation processing plant project in Carbondale, Alta., after 2 years of hearings with local zoning agencies and Canada's Energy Resource Conservation Board.

Copyright 1990 Oil & Gas Journal. All Rights Reserved.