INDUSTRY BRIEFS
TERMINALS
INTERCONTINENTAL TERMINALS CO. completed its purchase of Farmland Industries Inc.'s deepwater export site on the Houston Ship Channel. The terminal includes two tanker berths, 87 acres, and more than 25,000 ft of railway. ITC will integrate the site with its adjacent 6 million bbl storage and distribution terminal. The purchase gives ITC five deepwater berths capable of handling the biggest tanker the channel can accommodate.
COMPANIES
BRITISH PETROLEUM CO. PLC agreed to sell its consumer products division under a management buyout for 250 million ($375 million). This is the second part of the BP Nutrition division to be sold in a planned divestment of noncore assets (OGJ, Mar. 22, p. 25).
FARMLAND INDUSTRIES INC., Kansas City, Mo., and Transworld Oil U.S.A. Inc., Houston, agreed in principle to form a joint venture to gather and refine crude oil. The venture will acquire and operate Farmland's 62,000 b/d Coffeyville, Kan., refinery and crude gathering system in Kansas and Oklahoma. Transworld will supply the venture's crude and feedstock requirements under a long term agreement in association with Oman Oil Co. Ltd., which will guarantee crude supplies to the refinery. Farmland will purchase and market all the venture's refined products under a long term agreement as well as review fertilizer investments in Oman.
WIND RIVER GATHERING CO., a joint venture of KN Energy Inc.'s KN Gas Gathering Inc. (KNG) and Tom Brown Inc.'s Retex Gathering Co. Inc., closed the purchase of about 110 miles of gas pipeline and related field assets in Wyoming's Wind River basin. KNG holds a 55% interest in the venture and will operate the system, Retex holds 45% and supplies most of the gas transported on the system.
CONOCO (U.K.) LTD. will move its U.K. exploration and production functions to Aberdeen. Some production activity currently is at Aberdeen, with others in London and Warwick. Some staff will be cut in coming months.
DRILLING-PRODUCTION
ARCO BRITISH LTD.'S 16/21 b-25Z appraisal well in the U.K. North Sea's Blenheim field flowed at a stabilized rate of 13,700 b/d of oil. The well, drilled by the Glomar Arctic III semisubmersible in Block 16/21b to test the western extension of the field into part of Block 15/25c(A), had horizontal displacement of 1,900 ft through Paleocene. Measured depth is 9,620 ft. Blenheim is in 500 ft of water 150 miles east-northeast of Aberdeen. Operator ARCO 44.2%, Summit North Sea Oil Ltd. 40%, and Goal Petroleum plc 15.8% plan to develop the field.
DEN NORSKE STATS OLJESELSKAP AS oversaw tow-out of the Sleipner A platform from a deep fjord at Stavanger to Norwegian North Sea Block 15/9. First production from East Sleipner field is expected Oct. 1 (OGJ, May 10, p. 34).
MARATHON OIL U.K. LTD. completed installation of the 28,500 metric ton East Brae platform on U.K. North Sea Block 16/3a. First oil is expected in mid-December and first gas sales in October 1994, with gas output rising from 270 MMcfd to 350 MMcfd. Peak oil production of 115,000 b/d is expected in 1995. Project cost is estimated at 867 million ($1.3 billion).
VINTAGE PETROLEUM INC., Tulsa, expects to close by July 1 on its $38 million cash purchase of undisclosed U.S. producing leases. Current net production from the leases averages about 3,000 b/d of midgravity oil and 700 Mcfd of gas. Closing is subject to federal antitrust approvals.
CROSS TIMBERS OIL CO., Fort Worth, agreed to acquire ARCO interests in producing leases in West Texas and Southeast New Mexico for $37.1 million cash, subject to regulatory approvals and third party purchase rights. Leases consist of working and royalty interests in Russell field of Gaines County, Tex., Prentice field of Terry and Yoakum counties, Tex., and several unnamed fields in Lea County, N.M. Cross Timbers estimates the leases hold proved reserves of 5.7 million bbl of crude and condensate and 11 bcf of gas.
TRUNKLINE GAS CO., Houston, hired Offshore Pipelines Inc., Houston, to perform repairs in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico resulting from last year's Hurricane Andrew. OPI will salvage a four pile platform from South Timbalier Block 73, install two four pile platforms on South Timbalier 72 and Ship Shoal 139 blocks, and reroute 10 pipeline ends of 6-30 in. Elsewhere, Enron Gas & Oil Trinidad Ltd. hired OPI unit Offshore Pipelines International Ltd. to install on the SECC block off Trinidad the Kiskadee A platform and 6 miles of 14 in. line.
MAGELLAN PETROLEUM AUSTRALIA LTD.'S 9 Palm Valley development well flowed 15 MMcfd of gas at a stabilized rate from the P-2 member of lower Ordovician Pacoota sandstone at 7,360 ft, the first commercial gas flow from P-2 in a Palm Valley well. The well earlier flowed 4.1 MMcfd from about 6,000 ft. At presstime, the well was to resume drilling another 164 ft to total depth. Palm Valley, Australia's biggest onshore gas field, produces about 25 MMcfd.
GAS PROCESSING
CONOCO INC. purchased a 22.5% interest in Gulf Coast Fractionators (GCF), which owns a natural gas liquids fractionator at Mont Belvieu, Tex., from GCF general partners Trident NGL Inc., operator, and Mitchell Energy & Development Corp. unit Liquid Energy Corp. At the same time, GCF signed agreements with Chemical Bank of New York to provide project financing for a 40,000 b/d expansion of the plant to 120,000 b/d. GCF earlier let a $34 million contract to Pritchard Corp., Overland Park, Kan., for the expansion, due for start-up in fall 1994.
EXPLORATION
PT CALTEX PACIFIC INDONESIA'S 1 Asih wildcat flowed 2,353 b/d of oil in the central part of its onshore Central Sumatra production sharing contract block. Development of the field, 12 1/2 miles southwest of Minas oil field, is under consideration.
ENRON EXPLORATION GO. acquired a 50% interest and operatorship of two South Wales coalbed methane exploration licenses from Oliver Resources plc, Dublin. Licences EXL 200 and EXL 257 cover a total of 670 sq km, a large part of South Wales coal field. Drilling is pending resolution of coalbed gas ownership issues as British Coal Corp. is readied for privatization by the government.
AMERICAN INTERNATIONAL PETROLEUM CORP. (AIPC) increased its Colombian acreage holdings to 1.3 million acres with approval by state owned Empresa Colombiana de Petroleos of its request for two new association contracts there. The Tabacales area covers about 309,000 acres in the Catatumbo basin in the Andes foothills, Aguablanca 74,000 acres in the Magdalena River Valley basin bordering AIPC's Viani and Pull contract areas to the south. Work commitments cover 6 year exploration terms with geological/geophysical work the first 2 years and a wildcat each year beginning the second year.
GLOBAL NATURAL RESOURCES INC., Houston, unit GNR (Cote d'Ivoire) Ltd. agreed to a joint venture with United Meridian Corp., Houston, and World Bank's International Finance Corp. covering exploration and development of hydrocarbons on Block CI-11 off Ivory Coast. Two wells on the block found oil and gas and flowed oil at commercial rates on drill stem test in the 1980s. Under a 1 year initial exploration term, the venture will drill two wells on the structures tapped by the earlier two wells, with the first to spud in the fourth quarter.
PIPELINES
ENSERCH EXPLORATION PARTNERS LTD., Dallas, hired Brown & Root Marine to engineer a deepwater Gulf of Mexico pipeline. The contract calls for detailed design of a 16 in., 52 mile pipeline from a multiwell template in 2,100 ft of water on Enserch's Garden Banks Block 388 to a platform in 250 ft of water on Eugene Island Block 315. Brown & Root's contract is part of a $225 million development project for the block. Water depths along the route will exceed 2,300 ft, with 17 miles of the line in at least 1.000 ft of water, Installation is scheduled in summer 1994.
CONOCO NORGE AS let a $38 million contract to Rockwater Ltd., Aberdeen, to assemble and lay three subsea pipeline bundles in Heidrun field in the Norwegian Sea. The bundles consist of two 3 km, 16 in. oil export lines and a 2 km, 16 in. gas export line. Work is scheduled for completion in April 1994 for installation the following month.
CANADA'S National Energy Board approved Westcoast Energy Inc.'s application to lay three 36 in. pipeline loops totaling 14 miles on its southern main line and install another compressor at Station 4B. The project will boost capacity by 151 MMcfd to 1.857 bcfd. Loops are to be laid this year at a cost of $34.1 million (Canadian). The compressor and associated facilities are to be built in 1994 at a cost of $36.5 million.
TENNECO GAS and Leviathan Gas Pipeline Partners L.P., both of Houston, signed a letter of intent for a joint venture to lay gas gathering facilities in the Viosca Knoll and Main Pass areas off Louisiana to serve expanding development projects in the Flextrend and deepwater areas of the Outer Continental Shelf.
TWO OR THREE EXPLOSIONS and a resulting fire June 7 shut down a large diameter gas pipeline near Torbeyevo compressor station in the Mordovia region of Russia southeast of Moscow. A compressor station operator died and seven others were injured. Supplies of gas from the Tyumen region to Europe via Mordovia were suspended, and the pipeline and compressor station were expected to be out of commission for several days. Cause of the blasts and damage extent were unknown at presstime.
CERTIFICATION
LLOYD'S REGISTER OF SHIPPING, London, signed a technical cooperation agreement with Viet Nam Register of Shipping (Vires). It enables Lloyd's to assist Vires in design approval and surveys of fixed platforms, mobile offshore rigs, early production systems, subsea completions, pipelines, and diving systems off Viet Nam.
EXPORTS-IMPORTS
INDONESIA'S state owned Pertamina said crude and condensate production from the country fell 3.6% to 1.5 million b/d in the fiscal year ended Mar. 31 from almost 1.56 million b/d in fiscal 1991-92. Indonesia's oil exports dropped 11.3% to 777,000 b/d from 876.000 b/d in the same period.
RUHRGAS AG, Essen, and BEB Erdgas und Erdol GmbH, Hanover, signed an agreement with Dansk Naturgas AS, Copenhagen, to boost gas supplies to 90 bcf/year in 1997-2012 from the current 15 bcf/year. Ruhrgas will take two thirds and BEB one third of the gas, receiving it at Ellund on the German/Danish border.
SPILLS
BEAUFORT SEA COOPERATIVE sold its oil spill response equipment based in Tuktoyaktuk, N.W.T., to Canada's Coast Guard, Northern Region. The sale stems from reduced drilling in the Beaufort Sea. Equipment includes containment barriers, skimmers, pumps, and storage containers. The cooperative consists of Amoco Canada Petroleum Co. Ltd., Gulf Canada Resources Ltd., and Imperial Oil Resources Ltd.
HONDURAN REGISTERED oil tanker Gloria, a 1,747 dwt vessel, collided May 28 with the Dutch registered container ship Nedlloyd Rochester in Port Klang, Malaysia. The tanker spilled an unknown volume of bunker fuel. The tanker was leaving port after offloading about 22,000 bbl of fuel oil when it collided with the 19,000 dwt container ship. Both vessels were detained by the harbor master for investigation.
PETROCHEMICALS
EXXON CHEMICAL CO. will increase ethylene capacity at its Baytown, Tex., olefins plant by 450 million lb/year, boosting total capacity at the plant, already the world's largest single train ethylene plant, to 2.5 billion lb/year. The expansion, to be complete in late 1994, will use Exxon's latest cracking technology.
REFINING
BELGIAN REFINING CORP. NV completed rebuilding a 25,000 b/d straight run distillate desulfurizer at its Antwerp refinery after a June 1992 fire. ABB Lummus Crest designed and rebuilt the unit in less than 1 year.
FRANCE'S LITWIN SA won a $100 million contract to provide engineering and supply of a UOP process continuous catalytic reformer for the Kstovo refinery at Nizhny Novgorod, Russia.
AN EXPLOSION AND FIRE in Agip Petroli's 160,000 b/d Milazzo refinery at Messina, Sicily, killed seven workers and seriously injured 15 June 3. The blaze was extinguished in about an hour. Cause and extent of damage were unknown at presstime.
COGENERATION
BRITISH GAS PLC won preliminary approval from Indonesia's government to study feasibility of a $400 million gas fired cogeneration plant at Bumi Serpong Damai in Serpong, West Java. BG would design, build, own, and operate the 400,000 kw plant. When complete in 1996, the plant would sell its entire electrical power production to state utility PLN.
Copyright 1993 Oil & Gas Journal. All Rights Reserved.