LNG
TOTAL and Yemen's government signed an agreement last week confirming selection of the French company as the leader of a group developing Yemen's liquefied natural gas export project, following a Feb. 22 cabinet decision to that effect. A final contract is to be negotiated for the $3 billion project to develop an export capacity of 5 million metric tons/year of LNG.
THE FIRST OF FOUR LNG carriers to be built for Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. (Adnoc) docked out at Kvaerner Masa Yards' Turku, Finland, shipyard. The 135,000 cu m capacity carrier has 40.44 m diameter tanks, the biggest spherical aluminum cargo tanks built, Kvaerner said. Adnoc placed the order in April 1993, and delivery is slated for 1996-97.
REFINING
THE KOGALYMNEFTEGAS unit of Russia's state owned Lukoil let contract to Ventech Engineers, Pasadena, Tex., to build a distillate hydrotreater and catalytic reformer at Kogalym, Siberia. Ventech claims the $18 million project is the first refinery construction job in Russia by a non-Russian company to receive a license governed solely by Russian specifications. Equipment is to be shipped to St. Petersburg port in the fourth quarter.
CONOCO LTD. let a $5.4 million contract to AMEC Design & Management Ltd., Stratford-upon-Avon, U.K., for construction of a laboratory and medical center at Humber refinery, South Killingholme, U.K. Work will include analysis of refinery products and monitoring of effluent discharges. The laboratory is scheduled to open in August.
FINLAND'S Neste Oy granted Bechtel Corp., Houston, exclusive rights to market its NExTAME process technology to refiners in North and South America. Neste said the process increases oxygen content and octane number of gasoline and reduces its olefin content and vapor pressure. The process is said to be unique in not requiring recovery of methanol feedstock.
PETROCHEMICALS
DOW EUROPE SA will hike capacity at its Terneuzen, Netherlands, styrene plant by 50,000 metric tons/year to a total 1 million tons/year by May 1996. Dow is studying increases in styrene monomer capacity at other plants worldwide.
JAPANESE MANUFACTURERS exported 1.18 million metric tons of petrochemicals in 1994, up 32% from 1993 and from the record 1.06 million tons exported in 1992. Rising prices for petrochemicals on international markets allow Japanese petrochemical producers to sell more product overseas despite having some of the industry's highest production costs.
SOLVAY POLYMERS INC. let contract to Jacobs Engineering Inc., Houston, for engineering, procurement, and construction of a Unipol polypropylene plant at its Deer Park, Tex., petrochemical complex. Start-up is set for late 1996. Capacity is not disclosed.
BP CHEMICALS LTD. and Hoechst AG will cooperate on development of new polyethylene compounds for pipe manufacture. Hoechst will manufacture materials for gas and water pipes at Frankfurt, and BP will manufacture medium density polyethylene compounds at Grangemouth, Scotland. The companies will each market the same products under different brand names.
TERMINALS
FINLAND'S NESTE OY started design work on an oil products terminal to be built at Riga, Latvia. Neste said six oil companies have applied for sites to store and transfer imported products in the port area. The design work, to be complete within 2 months, will include routing of roads, a railway, and oil product pipelines; plans for piers and car and train loading sites-, and harbor infrastructure.
COMPANIES
MONUMENT OIL & GAS PLC, London, is to sell its Australian subsidiary to a new firm, Novus Petroleum Ltd., Sydney. For $41.5 million Novus will receive a 12.5% interest in Australia's Harriet oil field, and part of Monument's interests in the MON-SDC Block in Laos, Block SB3 in Malaysia, and Block SW1 in Thailand. A further $9 million payment depends on the outcome of third party transportation negotiations and exploratory drilling on this acreage during the next 3 years.
NATURAL GAS CLEARINGHOUSE INC., Houston, merged with Trident NGL Holding Ltd., The Woodlands, Tex., to form NGC Corp., concluding a transaction disclosed last summer (OGJ, Aug. 15, 1994, p. 44).
CABOT OIL & GAS CORP., Houston, plans a 1995 capital and exploration budget of $25-30 million, including $10-15 million to drill 20-30 net wells. Cabot slashed drilling outlays from 1994's spending of $47.9 million for 169 net wells because of weak natural gas prices.
CONOCO INC. formed a business unit to pursue electric power projects worldwide. Conoco Power, to be headquartered in Houston, at first will focus on operations in North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific.
COGENERATION
THE CHANNEL INDUSTRIES GAS CO. unit of the intrastate pipeline group of Tenneco Gas, Houston, installed gas metering and data acquisition control systems and gas pipeline spurs to fuel cogeneration power plants at two Deer Park, Tex., industrial sites on the Houston Ship Channel. Installations include 1,900 ft of 10 in. line and equipment to handle 60 Mcfd of gas at Shell Oil Co.'s 215,900 b/d refinery and 3,500 ft of 8 in. and related instrumentation for as much as 38 Mcfd at Occidental Chemical Corp.'s petrochemical plant.
GOVERNMENT
WISCONSIN'S Public Service Commission directed PSC staff to begin developing a market based approach to regulating the way in which utility customers buy gas and began investigating issues associated with implementing the model. PSC's goal is to spur creation of customer choice of gas supply by developing a system that incorporates as much competition as is consistent with the public interest. A preheating is set for Apr. 5, with a public hearing to follow May 16.
ALABAMA'S
state revenue department proposed regulations to administer the state's severance tax on oil and gas that industry says would significantly increase revenue collected from producers and royalty owners. The move came as a surprise because an ad hoc industry tax committee had been working with the department on severance tax regulations proposed last year. A revenue department official said the state was losing severance revenue at an unacceptable rate.
NIGERIA'S military ruler Gen. Sani Abachi appointed a new cabinet on Mar. 20, after a 6 week period without a cabinet during which there has reportedly been at least one attempted coup. The new petroleum minister is Dan Etete, a former businessman with no previous oil industry experience. Former Petroleum Minister Don Etiebet recently was stripped of his post.
EXPLORATION
MAXUS SOUTHEAST SUMATRA INC. and partners drilled an oil discovery and two successful delineation wells on their Southeast Sumatra production sharing contract area in Indonesia. The 1 Aida wildcat, about 1.5 km southwest of Widuri field, flowed 1,047 b/d of 34 gravity oil with an initial reservoir pressure of 1,431 psi from 56 ft of net pay at 3,669 ft. The 2 Risma and 3 Risma wells, drilled from the same surface location about 1 km southwest of the 1 Risma discovery well, flowed a combined 4,639 b/d of oil and 10.3 MMcfd of gas from several Oligocene Talang Akar pays.
THE GECO-PRAKLA unit of Schlumberger Oilfield Services, Houston, this month expects to finish a 3,200 line km 2D seismic survey in the Timor Sea. About 2,100 line km of the data will cover unleased acreage off Australia to be offered for exploration licenses beginning in April, with the rest covering prospects in Indonesian waters.
AMOCO TRINIDAD OIL CO. let contract to Petroleum Geo-Services AS (Pgsas) unit PGS Exploration (U.S.) Inc., Houston, to acquire 45,000 km of common midpoint, high density, seismic data off Southeast Trinidad. Surveying is to start in May, with acquisition continuing through the summer. Another Pgsas unit, PGS Tensor Inc., also of Houston, is to process the data.
DRILLING-PRODUCTION
READING & BATES CORP.'S board rejected the unsolicited merger plan proposed in late February by Sonat Offshore Drilling Inc., saying Sonat Offshore's offer of $100 million cash and shares of its common stock didn't recognize R&B's current or long term value (OGJ, Mar. 6. p. 38). R&B's board also adopted a shareholder rights plan and declared the right of R&B stockholders to purchase one share of R&B preferred stock for each outstanding share of R&B common.
NORWAY'S Storting (parliament) approved a plan by state owned Den norske stats oljeselskap AS to develop Norne field off Central Norway. The 440 million bbl Norne discovery in Block 6608/10 is to begin production in late 1997, using the world's largest production ship (OGJ, May 23, 1994, p. 23).
STATFJORD FIELD in the Norwegian North Sea produced its 3 billionth bbl of oil Mar. 13. Statoil said the field's three platforms have handled 3.138 billion bbl of oil, including output from Snorre field and Statfjord satellites, since production began in November 1979. Gas production from Statfjord passed the 100 billion cu m mark in February. Original reserves in Statfjord are now estimated at 3.914 billion bbl of oil, compared with 3.02 billion bbl when production began.
CHEVRON U.S.A. INC. let an $8.5 million contract to the American Pacific Marine Inc. (APM) unit of American Oilfield Divers Inc., Lafayette, La., to remove four platforms shut in for the past 2 years off the California coast near Santa Barbara. Chevron predecessor Standard Oil of California installed platforms Hazel in 1957 and Hilda in 1960 in Summerland field and Hope in 1964 and Heidi in 1965 in Carpinteria field. Following removal by yearend, the structures' topsides and jackets are to be dismantled and sold as scrap.
EVERGREEN RESOURCES INC., Denver, was named operator of newly designated Spanish Peaks Unit, which consists of about 67,000 acres of Evergreen's Raton basin federal oil and gas leases in Las Animas County, Colo. Evergreen's unit obligation calls for establishing commercial production by drilling three unit wells and recompleting a fourth during the next 2 years.
PIPELINES
THE TRANSCONTINENTAL
GAS PIPE LINE CORP. (TGPL) subsidiary of Transco Energy Co. will seek Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approval of its Sunbelt main line expansion to provide added firm transportation capacity in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina. The expansion will begin providing service in 1997 with incremental capacity extending mainly from TGPL Station 65 to TGPL Station 145 near the North Carolina-South Carolina border. Open season for capacity nominations is Apr. 3-May 2.
A TGPL GAS PIPELINE ruptured and caught fire in a rural area near Baton Rouge last week. Gas supplies to the U.S. Northeast were unaffected, and no injuries or property damage were reported. The fire burned 2% hr before the 36 in. line was capped on both sides of the rupture. Cause is being investigated.
RUHRGAS AG, Essen, will acquire a 14.49% interest in Estonian gas distributor Eesti Gaas AS, Tallinn, a company owned largely by the republic of Estonia and Russia's Gazprom. Last year Eesti Gaas supplied 645 million cu m of gas to distributors and industrial customers. It plans to increase the share of natural gas in Estonia's energy supplies.
AS MUCH AS 1,000 metric tons of oil spilled after the trans-Siberian Unzhero-Sunzhensk pipeline ruptured in the Irkutsk region of southern Siberia Mar. 18, according to Russian press reports. The spill, covering about 20,000 sq m, occurred near a river and hydroelectric dam at the town of Bratsk. The leak forced closure of a 17 mile long stretch of the line.
HONG KONG & CHINA GAS CO. LTD. hired NKK Corp., Tokyo, to lay a 5.7 km subsea gas pipeline from western Kowloon to Lantau Island to meet increasing gas demand in the city. The pipeline will consist of 1.5 km of 30 in. on the Kowloon river canal side and two 4.2 km, 12 in. lines for the subsea portion extending to Lantau. Commissioning is set for summer 1996.
TESORO PETROLEUM CORP. unit Tesoro Alaska Petroleum Co. acquired Kenai Pipe Line Co. (KPL) via a $3 million stock purchase from ARCO and Chevron Pipe Line Co. KPL's Kenai Peninsula, Alas., facilities consist of a marine terminal near Tesoro's 72,000 b/cd Kenai refinery, and the Middle Ground Shoal and Swanson River pipelines.
CHINA signed an agreement with Custom Coal Co., Pittsburgh, to build an $888.6 million coal cleaning plant and 500 mile slurry pipeline in China, following a letter of cooperation signed last year (OGJ, Aug. 29, 1994, Newsletter). The pipeline is said to be the world's longest coal slurry line. Groundbreaking is to begin soon, with completion set for yearend 1997.
LPG
ROYAL DUTCH/SHELL GROUP companies in China and Hong Kong created a $10 million venture with a local liquefied petroleum gas distributor in Qingdao, Shandong province, to distribute and market 50,000 metric tons/year of LPG in Qingdao economic and technical development zone.
Copyright 1995 Oil & Gas Journal. All Rights Reserved.