INDUSTRY BRIEFS

LNG

UNITED ARAB EMIRATES' Abu Dhabi Gas Liquefaction Co. Ltd. for the first time will sell liquefied natural gas to the European market. It agreed to sell LNG to Belgium's Distrigas and France's Gaz de France, which will take delivery of undisclosed volumes during the next 3 months.

QATAR agreed to sell Turkey 2 million tons/year of LNG for 25 years. An LNG project scheduled in Qatar by Ras Laffan Liquefied Gas Co. will supply Turkey with deliveries that could start in mid-1998.

PIPELINES

INTERLINE RESOURCES CORP., Alpine, Utah, bought Conoco Pipeline Co.'s crude oil gathering system in East Central Wyoming. The system, which gathers 350,000 bbl/year, consists of 180 miles of gathering and trunk lines, as well as pump stations and storage tanks. Price is not disclosed.

KOCH REFINING CO., a unit of Koch Industries, Wichita, expects by fourth quarter to complete a pipeline expansion from its 190,000 b/cd Corpus Christi refinery that will add as much as 80,000 b/d of products capacity into the Dallas-Fort Worth area. The expansion reflects Koch Refining's outlook for product deliveries to Central Texas.

GAS STORAGE

ANR STORAGE CO., Detroit, a unit of Coastal Corp., Houston, received approval from the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to implement gas tariff changes. The most significant allows ANR Storage to provide a higher peaking service with withdrawal options of 10-126 days instead of 50-126 days. in addition, customers may inject and withdraw storage volumes year round and inject at higher daily rates.

COMPANIES

YUKOS OIL CORP., Moscow, opened an office in Houston for its Yukos America Inc. subsidiary to serve as a base for coordinating joint ventures with other oil companies and work with service and supply companies in the U.S. and South America. Created in 1993, Yukos Oil produces more than 600,000 b/d of oil from 29 fields in western Siberia's Yugana area.

SHELL CANADA LTD. and one of its units sued Castle Energy Corp., Radnor, Pa., and two Castle units and an affiliate seeking to end Shell's 10 year obligation to supply feedstock to Castle's 83,700 b/cd Indian Refining Co. refinery at Lawrenceville, III. Terms of the agreement call for Shell to supply 13,000 b/d of Caroline condensate under a netback sales arrangement ending in 2002. The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Chicago.

PREMIER CONSOLIDATED OILFIELDS PLC, London, made a bid to take over Pict Petroleum plc, also of London. Premier's paper offer values Pict at A102 million ($159 million). Amerada Hess Ltd., which holds 48.3% of Pict's share capital, said it supports the takeover. Amerada agreed to sell its shares of Pict to Premier if the offer becomes unconditional. Amerada also agreed to,take a 25% interest, worth as much as A19.8 million ($30.9 million), in the enlarged Premier if the deal goes through.

WILLIAMS COS. INC., Tulsa, settled lawsuits stemming from its cash/stock offer for Transco Energy Co., Houston. The suits, seeking to block the acquisition, were filed by Transco shareholders soon after Williams disclosed it will pay $1.04 billion to buy 60% of Transco (OGJ, Dec. 19, 1994, p. 27).

TERMINALS

CABINDA GULF OIL CO., an affiliate of Chevron Corp., will convert Offshore Pipelines International Ltd.'s tanker Jamestown to a floating production and 185,000 bbl storage vessel for service off Angola. The tanker will process as much as 20,000 b/d. Offshore Pipelines International also will install an export pipeline from the tanker to existing facilities in offshore production Area B.

EXPLORATION

ENRON OIL & GAS CO., Houston, acquired from ARCO 404,000 acres of undeveloped fee mineral interest and 5,800 acres of undeveloped mineral leasehold interest in Kern, Tulare, and San Luis Obispo counties of the southern San Joaquin Valley in California. The purchase includes 3D and 2D seismic data, well files, regional studies, and a prospect portfolio Enron plans to incorporate into a seismic program.

CANADIAN OCCIDENTAL PETROLEUM INC., Calgary, let a $3.5 million (U.S.) contract to a unit of Solid State Geophysical Inc., also of Calgary, to conduct a heliportable 3D seismic survey on the Masila block of South Yemen. The 165 km survey, currently under way, is scheduled for completion in March.

TIDAL RESOURCES INC., Triumph Energy Corp., Target Carbons Ltd., and an undisclosed private oil and gas company formed an exploration joint venture and took a farmout on a combined 90,000 acre block in Northeast British Columbia and Northwest Alberta. The block, mostly in British Columbia, is 8 miles west of Alberta's gas prone Hamburg area. The JV will start a seismic and drilling program this winter, with work extending for at least two drilling seasons.

RUSSIA'S Gazprom bought a 240 channel offshore digital seismic data acquisition system from Whitehall Corp., Dallas, featuring advanced streamer technology for deepwater surveys. The system is to be used to upgrade the Professor Rjabinkin seismic vessel, owned and operated by Sevmorneftegeofizika Trust, Murmansk, Russia's largest geophysical contractor. Price is not disclosed.

INPUT/OUTPUT INC.'S land 3D seismic data acquisition systems are priced at $1-4.5 million, not $104.5 million as reported (OGJ, Jan. 2, p. 20).

GAS PROCESSING

BRIDGELINE GAS DISTRIBUTION LLC, New Orleans, a unit of Texaco Natural Gas, Houston, increased gas compression capacity at its storage site near Sorrento, La. It installed a 2,200 hp gas injection compressor, which augmented two existing 2,200 hp units. The new compressor adds 31 MMcfd injection capacity, increasing capacity to as much as 100 MMcfd.

PETROCHEMICALS

FINA INC.'S first quarter debottlenecking project at its Carville, La., polystyrene plant will increase capacity on all production lines and boost FINA's polystyrene capacity by 45 million lb/year to 775 million lb/year. FINA also will build a 250 million lb crystal polystyrene production line at Carville, with operations to start in third quarter 1996. The two projects will give the company 1.025 billion lb/year polystyrene capacity.

DRILLING-PRODUCTION

EXXON CORP. unit Esso Exploration & Production Natuna Inc. and Indonesia's Pertamina agreed on terms under which Natuna gas field will be developed. The project now can move to its next step of securing market outlets from potential liquefied natural gas buyers in Asia (OGJ, Nov. 21, 1994, p. 30).

SOUTHERN MINERAL CORP., Houston, agreed to acquire an undivided interest in 400 producing leases in nine states from Diverse GP III, a private Texas partnership. The purchase will double Southern's net equivalent volume of oil to an undisclosed total. Southern will make the buy via issue of its stock equal to the value of the acquired leases.

A GAS WELL blew out and caught fire Jan. 8 at Pasarapudi, East Godavari district, in India's southern state of Andhra Pradesh, forcing as many as 3,000 residents to be evacuated temporarily. Drilling on the Oil & Natural Gas Corp. Ltd. well reached 9,110 ft when the accident occurred. There were no reports of injuries.

QATAR GENERAL PETROLEUM CORP. is conducting a 3D seismic survey of Midan Mahzam and Bu al-Henin oil fields 80 km off Doha, Qatar. Work, which began last December, is expected to take 3-6 months to complete. The company plans to drill 100 wells in the fields.

WRT ENERGY CORP., The Woodlands, Tex., received a revolving credit facility for as much as $40 million from Internationale Nederlanden (U.S.) Credit Corp. The credit will permit WRT to close by the end of February on lease acquisitions that will place the company's proved oil and gas reserves at 57.7 bcf of gas and 7.7 million bbl of oil on a proforma basis as of Sept. 30, 1994. Those volumes are up from 13.9 bcf and 1.9 million bbl on the company's Dec. 31, 1993, reserve report.

AMERICAN INTERNATIONAL PETROLEUM CORP. (APIC), New York, signed a technical assistance contract (TAC) with Indonesia's PT Ustraindo Petrogas in which APIC agreed to operate jointly with Ustraindo all active areas held by Ustraindo in Indonesia. The areas cover 22 oil and gas fields that include a total of 2,000 wells in South Sumatra, West Java, and North East Kalimantan under four TACs with Pertamina.

ADAMS RESOURCES & ENERGY INC., Houston, expects to participate in drilling 30 Austin chalk wells in South Texas during 1995. One recent Austin chalk completion in which it participates, Nuevo Energy Co.'s 1-H Quinn in Giddings field of Grimes County, Tex., flowed 22.7 MMcfd of gas on a 35/64 in. choke at 4,230 psi. The dual lateral well was drilled with a horizontal extension of 5,849 ft.

PETROLEUM DEVELOPMENT CORP. (PDC), Bridgeport, W.Va., plans to drill 40 development gas wells during first quarter in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. PDC funded its largest public drilling partnership to date last Dec. 30 with investor subscriptions of $7.6 million. It will hold a 20% interest in partnership revenues.

TALISMAN ENERGY INC., Calgary, agreed to sell its Hatton assets in Southwest Saskatchewan to an undisclosed buyer in a deal worth $175-200 million (Canadian). Included are 1,600 wells that in 1994 produced a combined 64 MMcfd of gas in three contiguous fields covering 250,000 net acres with proved and probable reserves on Jan. 1, 1995, estimated at 241 bcf. Also to be sold is a pipeline connecting Hatton Main, Bigstick, and East Hatton fields to Foothills and TransCanada gas pipeline systems. A first quarter closing is expected.

NCE RESOURCES GROUP, Toronto, last Dec. 30 closed its two 1994 offerings of limited partnerships, raising gross proceeds of $30.8 million (Canadian). NCE 1994 Energy Assets Fund raised $5.7 million and NCE Oil & Gas (1994) Fund more than $25.1 million. The limited partnerships invest in oil and gas drilling projects in western Canada, emphasizing development drilling with joint venture partners.

VAALCO ENERGY INC., Houston, is operator for a group that signed a production sharing contract with india's government, Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas, and Oil & Natural Gas Corp. Ltd. (ONGC) for Cauvery Offshore Block CY-OS-90/1 off eastern India. The block holds a 1988 oil discovery drilled by ONGC. Development costs for the field are estimated at $50-70 million.

TRITON ENERGY CORP., Dallas, reported the start-up phase is under way for the second production unit in Colombia's Cusiana oil field central processing site. Production from the field is expected to reach 90,000 b/d when the second production unit is fully operational.

APACHE CORP., Houston, completed its $96.4 million purchase of Crystal Oil Co.'s U.S. oil and gas assets. The acquisition includes net proved reserves of 91.6 bcf of gas and 5 million bbl of oil.

OILSANDS

SUNCOR INC.'S oilsands group produced a record 25.8 million bbl of light sweet crude and other oil products from its Fort McMurray, Alta., oilsands plant during 1994. The previous mark was 22.1 million bbl during 1993. This year the group will start preparing for a $250 million (Canadian) plant expansion designed to increase production to more than 80,000 b/d by 1998.

REFINING

ECUADOR plans to spend $428 million to modernize and expand three refineries, eliminate lead from gasoline, and collect gas currently flared from certain Amazon fields and convert it to LPG for domestic use. Petroleos de Ecuador will increase capacity at its Esmeraldas refinery to 110,000 b/d from 90,000 b/d and boost production at the Peninsula plant to 55,000 b/d from 46,000 b/d and at Amazonas to 20,000 b/d from 10,000 b/d. Expansion at Amazonas is to start in March.

CLARK REFINING & MARKETING INC., St. Louis, asked Chevron U.S.A. Products Co. to extend to Jan. 20 the scheduled closing date on its purchase of Chevron's 185,000 b/d Port Arthur, Tex., refinery. On Dec. 14, Clark withdrew an initial offering of 7.5 million shares of stock it hoped would finance the deal. "Market weakness" forced Clark to seek other means of finance.

SULFUR

FREEPORT-MCMORAN RESOURCE PARTNERS, a 51% owned unit of Freeport-McMoRan Inc., New Orleans, completed its acquisition of most of the U.S. assets of Pennzoil Sulphur Co., a unit of Pennzoil Co., Houston. The purchase includes the Culberson mine in Texas, sulfur terminals and loading sites in Galveston, Tex., and Tampa, charter of a marine sulfur tanker, two sulfur barges, 503 leased and owned railcars, and associated commercial contracts and obligations.