INDUSTRY BRIEFS

TANKERS

MARLTRANS INC., Philadelphia, will build as many as six double hull refined products tankers the next 34 years at a cost of about $45 million each. The 40,000 dwt vessels will be used in U.S. trade. Marltrans formed a subsidiary, Marl-trans Ocean Transport Inc. (MOT), to tender contracts for their construction. Marltrans will retain at least 50% ownership of MOT.

GEOTHERMAL

CALPINE CORP., San Jose, Calif., agreed to participate with Mexico's Constructora y Perforada Latina SA de CV (Coperlasa) in a 160,000 kw contract at the Cerro Prieto geothermal site in Baja California. The contract is between Coperlasa and Mexico's state electric utility Comision Federal de Electricidad. Calpine will invest $18.5 million, structured as a loan to Coperlasa, and receive fees for its technical services. It also will pay $1.5 million for an option to purchase a 29% interest in Coperlasa.

PIPELINES

A U.S. BANKRUPTCY COURT confirmed Chapter 11 reorganization plans for Columbia Gas System Inc. (CGS) and its pipeline subsidiary Columbia Gas Transmission Corp. (CGT). The two have been operating as debtors-in-possession since July 31, 1991. The plan provides for distribution of about $3.6 billion to CGS creditors and $3.9 billion to CGT creditors.

PETROLEO BRASILEIRO SA let an $85 million contract to Coflexip Stena Offshore Group, Paris, for installation of flexible pipe umbilicals in 1,000 m of water off Brazil. The Flexservice 1 pipelay vessel will begin in January 1997 a 4 year work program under the contract. The vessel will have new laying and lifting equipment installed for the project.

EOTT ENERGY PARTNERS LP, Houston, agreed to buy a 265 mile crude oil gathering system and a 349 mile common carrier crude oil pipeline extending from Mobile, Ala., to Liberty Station, Miss., from Amerada Hess Corp. for $54 million, excluding certain crude oil inventories. The gathering system gathers about 32,000 b/d of crude from about 630 leases. The main line system transports the gathered crude, crude delivered to and from the Mobile terminal, and crude received from other common carrier lines to refiners near the system and to the Capline system. The system's tank farms can store about 3.6 million bbl.

TEJAS POWER CARP., Houston, added about 30 bcf of dedicated gas reserves from two blocks off Texas to its Galveston Island Gathering System (GIGS). Tejas signed a long term purchase contract with Walter Oil & Gas Corp. covering production from Brazos Block 341. Tejas had been receiving about 5 MMcfd from the block after completion of production facilities in mid-October. In addition, Seagull Energy Corp. is completing a well on Galveston Island Block 362 that will add about 10 MMcfd to the GIGS system starting in late November. They are the first dedicated reserves added to the GIGS system since 1992.

REFINING

POLAND'S Petrochemia Plock SA acquired a license from HRI Inc., a unit of Institut Francais du Petrole (IFP), for the first H-Oil unit in Poland. Plans call for installing a 33,700 b/d H-Oil unit at Petrochemia's 300,000 b/d Plock refinery. It will upgrade and desulfurize residuals to produce cleaner fuels, with emphasis on low sulfur diesel and fuel oil, while reducing production of heavy fuel oil.

TOTAL started work on an ethyl tertiary butyl ether (ETBE) unit at its 309,000 b/d Normandy, France, refinery. The $30 million, 3,180 b/d unit is to go on stream by yearend 1996. Using IFP technology, the unit will use as feedstock about 9.4 million gal/year of agricultural ethanol. Interests are Total and cereal producers association Ethanol Holding 40% each and General Confederation of Beet Planters 20%. Total also is building an ETBE unit at its Dunkirk refinery.

DRILLING-PRODUCTION

NORSK HYDRO AS let a $480 million engineering, procurement, and construction contract to Haugesund Mekaniske Verksted (HMV) yard, north of Stavanger, for a semisubmersible production unit for installation in Block 34/8 Visund field off Norway, to begin production in summer 1998. The platform, to weigh 23,000 metric tons, will be anchored in 335 m of water. Visund reserves are estimated at 300 million bbl of oil and 2 tcf of gas.

U.S. MINERALS Management Service scheduled a Dec. 6 workshop at its New Orleans office to discuss a proposed testing program to assess drilling training and testing for lessee and contract employees. MMS has proposed a rule to provide more flexibility in training offshore oil and gas workers.

CLAYTON WILLIAMS ENERGY INC. (CWEI), Midland, Tex., claimed its fourth world record this year for length of a dual slim-hole horizontal well lateral. The 1 Merka Unit in Robertson County, Tex., was completed in Austin chalk with dual stacked laterals of 6,015 ft each. The previous record was 4,200 ft.

WHITING PETROLEUM CORP., Denver, acquired the Gulf Coast and Mid-continent oil and gas producing leases of Transfuel Inc., the Houston unit of Diamond Energy, Los Angeles, for $16.8 million. The deal adds 425 b/d of oil and 6.3 MMcfd of gas to Whiting's net production.

INTERNATIONAL FINANCE CORP. is investing $8 million in the India Oil & Gas Finance Facility, which will provide equity and financing for $1-4 million small and medium size oil and gas development projects in India. Creditcapital Venture Fund (India) Ltd. (CVF) is providing $2 million for the facility. IFC, a member of the World Bank group, owns 10% of CVF. The investments, to support New Delhi's efforts to privatize and boost oil and gas production in fields, could pave the way for a larger oil and gas fund.

UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA, BDM-Oklahoma, and the U.S. Department of Energy signed a cooperative research and development agreement to conduct a reservoir management project in Citronelle oil field, Mobile County, Ala. The focus will be on developing a reservoir management strategy in an old field with an established waterflood. BDM-Oklahoma operates DOE's National Institute for Petroleum & Energy Research at Bartlesville, Okla.

DEVON ENERGY CORP., Oklahoma City, agreed to purchase certain Wyoming oil and gas leases and a gas processing plant from an undisclosed company for about $50 million. The leases are in a 24,646 acre federal unit in North Central Wyoming and include 38 producing wells, 16 proved undrilled locations, the plant, natural gas liquids to be extracted at the plant, and 13,000 acres of undeveloped leases. Devon will spend $9 million to drill and complete wells on the 16 drillsites beginning in early 1996 and $4-5 million to expand the gas plant's capacity to 28 MMcfd from 16 MMcfd.

VINTAGE PETROLEUM INC., Tulsa, agreed to buy producing acreage in Argentina for $56.9 million cash under separate agreements with Astra Cia. Argentina Petroleo SA and Shell Cia. Argentina de Petroleo SA. Vintage will acquire 100% working interests in seven concessions covering 450,000 acres on the southern flank of the San Jorge basin. The properties, near Vintage's Santa Cruz province acreage, produce a net 3,960 b/d of midgravity sweet crude. Plans call for workovers, development and step-out drilling, improving existing waterfloods, and installing new water-floods.

ALTERNATE FUELS

BITUMENES ORINOCO SA unit Bitor Europe signed a contract to supply 500,000 metric tons of Orimulsion, the Venezuelan heavy oil/water emulsion boiler fuel, to Italy's electric utility ENEL ENEL will use the fuel at its Brindisi South power plant, which has four 660,000 kw generating units. One unit will use Orimulsion for a 6 month trial beginning October 1996, with shipments arriving from Venezuela at the power plant terminal. Bitor hopes to negotiate a 2 million ton/year supply contract for the plant beginning in 1997.

EXPLORATION

PREMIER OIL PLC, London, signed a production sharing contract to explore the halmahera block off Indonesia. The block, covering 15,750 sq km east of Sulawesi, has seen exploration limited to acquisition of only 700 line km of seismic data. The license is held with state firm Pertamina. Foreign interests are operator Premier 40%, Seafield Resources plc, London, 30%, and Clyde Expro plc, Led- bury, U.K., 30%.

HS RESOURCES INC., San Francisco, and Aspect Resources LLC agreed to form a 50-50 limited liability company giving HS various seismic rights, options, and mineral interests in more than 68,000 gross acres in shallow and deep reservoirs of South Louisiana and the Upper Texas Gulf Coast. The new company expects to acquire 55 sq miles of 3D seismic by yearend with another 20 sq miles available by Mar. 31, 1996. Drilling is to begin by midyear 1996.

THE ARGENTINE UNIT of Seven Seas Petroleum Inc., Houston, signed a letter of intent to acquire a 25% working interest in a 7,000 acre prospect in Argentina's San Jorge basin from an undisclosed company. A wildcat targeted to 8,200 ft will spud in January 1996.

GAS MARKETING

CONOCO INC. and Alliance Gas Services Inc. agreed to a 50-50 venture to market natural gas. Conoco sells more than 2.2 bcfd, AlLiance about 175 MMcfd.

GAS PROCESSING

CONWEST EXPLORATION COMPANY LTD., Calgary, started commissioning a gas processing plant at Sexsmith, Alta. The plant is handling about 80 MMcfd, a volume set to rise to 150 MMcfd as the plant reaches capacity in December. Conwest holds permits to operate the plant at 210 MMcfd, a level it expects to reach in first quarter 1996.

COMPANIES

TENNECO'S plastics division closed the purchase of Mobil Chemical Co.'s plastics division for $1.27 billion. Mobil Plastics is one of the biggest U.S. manufacturers and marketers of plastic packaging and consumer products.

PANCANADIAN PETROLEUM LTD., Calgary, agreed to buy Lasmo Nova Scotia Ltd. from Lasmo plc, London, for $60 million (Canadian). The subsidiary operates Cohasset and Panuke fields off Nova Scotia, where its net production is 11,400 b/d of oil.

FINLAND'S Neste Oy reports the offering of shares in the state firm, which occurred Nov. 1-15, attracted many institutional and retail investors. The float raised $83 million and cut the government's stake in Neste to 83.6%. Helsinki aims to release further shares in the company and eventually take state ownership as low as 50.1% (OGJ, May 22, p. 17).

MELROSE ENERGY PLC made a $48.4 million bid to take over Pentex Oil plc. Both are London companies. Pentex Chairman Henry Cameron welcomed the takeover, saying combining financial and management skills will speed development of the merged firms' oil and gas assets.

RANGER OIL LTD. acquired 65,119,187 common shares, or 94.4% of the total outstanding, of Czar Resources Ltd. as of the Nov. 14 expiration of its takeover offer. Ranger intends to acquire the remaining common shares of Czar under the compulsory acquisition provisions of Canadian law. Both are Calgary companies.

TEXAS PACIFIC GROUP, a Fort Worth investment partnership, agreed to acquire 45% of the fully diluted equity of Newscope Resources Ltd., Calgary, for $40 million. Newscope will be renamed Denbury Resources Inc. to reflect Newscope's wholly owned U.S. subsidiary.

PETROCHEMICALS

PHILLIPS PETROLEUM CO. started construction on two projects that will boost ethylene production at its Sweeny, Tex., refining/petrochemical complex to 4.5 billion lb/year from 3.6 billion lb/year. A debottlenecking involving addition of furnaces will boost capacity of one train to 2 billion lb/year by second half 1996. In addition, Phillips in November 1996 will restart a 400 million lb/year unit idle since 1992.

UOP AND NORSK HYDRO are offering for license their new jointly developed process for converting methanol to olefins. The UOP/Norsk Hydro MTO demonstration unit that started up in June at Porsgrunn, Norway, processes 0.5 metric tons/day of methanol. The process was developed as a second step to convert natural gas to ethylene and propylene. It features a fluidized bed reactor and regenerator and uses a commercially proven, highly selective molecular sieve catalyst that can handle multiple regenerations.

LNG

AMOCO CORP. and Lone Star Energy, a unit of Enserch Corp., Houston, formed a venture to sell liquefied natural gas as a transportation fuel in Texas. It will focus on railroads, transit vehicles, trucks, and airport ground support vehicles.

TERMINALS

COASTAL CORP. unit Coscol Petroleum Corp. entered into a venture with Sadkora AB, Helsingborg, Sweden, to develop a crude oil and refined prod- ucts terminal at Maardu, Estonia, and market crude and products from Russia and other former Soviet republics. The venture owns and operates EOS Ltd., which has signed a long term contract with a unit of state owned Esoil Ltd. for use of the Maardu terminal. Plans call for refurbishing the existing terminal, increasing storage capacity to 800,000 bbl, and laying a 4.5 mile pipeline from the port of Muuga to the terminal. Work has begun and is to be complete in spring 1996.

Copyright 1995 Oil & Gas Journal. All Rights Reserved.