The Sikinos, a Greek-flagged tanker transporting crude from Sudan to China, was attacked by pirates off Oman, but the ship escaped its pursuers.

Pirates operating off Somalia have seized another very large crude carrier, this time the Greek-flagged M/V Maran Centaurus, which was enroute from Jeddah to New Orleans.

State Oil Co. of the Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR), after increasing the existing capacity for tankers, may begin shipping oil from its export terminal at Kulevi on Georgia's Black Sea coast in 2010.

Indonesia’s Port of Sabang, in Aceh Province on the island of Pulau Weh at the northern entrance to the Malacca Strait, is being readied to accommodate super tankers and super cargo ships.

Russian authorities said all of the onshore and offshore facilities for oil exports have been finished at the Port of Kozmino—the planned terminus of the East Siberia-Pacific Ocean (ESPO) pipeline, now under construction.

US Chemical Safety Board Chairman John S. Bresland urged more states to adopt the American Society of Mechanical Engineers’ pressure vessel code to reduce the number of catastrophic accidents resulting from pressure vessel failures.

Somali pirates, firing rocket-propelled grenades at a Hong Kong-flagged oil tanker, have launched their deepest attack ever into the Indian Ocean, according to the European Union Naval Force (EU Navfor).

China’s state-owned China National Petroleum Corp., aiming to improve the security and speed of Chinese oil supplies from the Middle East and Africa, has begun construction of import facilities for an oil pipeline across neighboring Myanmar.

The governments of Italy, Russia, and Turkey—aiming to reduce oil shipping away from crowded Turkish straits—agreed to build a 550-km oil pipeline from Turkey’s Black Sea port of Samsun to its Mediterranean port of Ceyhan.

The Port of Long Beach and the US Army Corps of Engineers announced a $40 million harbor-dredging project to improve navigation for oil tankers and other ships by removing and relocating nearly 1.5 million cu yards of sediment from the sea floor.

Brazil’s largest union of oil workers, the Federacao Unica dos Petroleiros (FUP), claimed international oil companies are pressuring legislators to amend a bill that would extend special benefits to the country’s state-run Petroleo Brazileiro SA (Petrobras).

Oiltanking Holding Americas has settled a lawsuit it filed earlier in 2009 against Enterprise Products Partners LP and Teppco O/S Port System LLC, its former partners in the proposed Texas Offshore Port System.

Russia’s state-owned natural gas monopoly OAO Gazprom, meeting the demand of the Russian government, has completed the construction of the second stretch of the 139-km Minsk-Vilnius-Kaunas-Kaliningrad gas pipeline.