INTERNATIONAL BRIEFS
TANKERS
FOURTEEN OF 32 CREWMEN on the 267,801 dwt ABT Summer tanker were reported missing after an explosion and fire ripped the vessel 900 miles off Angola. The amount of oil spilled was not determined at OGJ presstime, but the tanker was carrying 1.43 million bbl of crude. The Liberian flag vessel, owned by Somatra of Bermuda and operated by Arabian Bulk Trade of Al Khobar, Saudi Arabia, is under charter to Iranian Oil Tankers Co.
TWO OIL TANKERS collided at Sao Sebastiao terminal on Brazil's southeast coast, spilling about 1,100 bbl of crude. A gash 8 in. wide and 7 ft long was torn in Penelope, under charter to state oil company Petroleos Brasileiro SA. The other tanker, Piquet, owned by Petrobras, was undamaged. Petrobras had recovered about 730 bbl of crude last week.
U.S.S.R. last month declared a state of emergency in the Gulf of Aniva off southern Sakhalin Island after a 1,600 bbl spill of heavy fuel oil. The spill occurred during tanker offloading. Some of the oil drifted onto beaches.
CHEVRON CORP. christened J. Dennis Bonney, a 149,995 dwt tanker that will carry about 1.1 million bbl of crude per voyage. At first it will operate between West Africa and the U.S. East Coast but will deliver crude from the Middle East to California later in the year. Chevron's fleet now has 42 tankers that in all carry about 1.37 million b/d of oil.
REFINING
CORPOVEN SA will build a refinery with initial capacity of 100,000 b/d to be fed by Orinoco belt heavy crudes near the Jose petrochemical complex in eastern Venezuela. Corpoven plans eventually to hike the plant's capacity to 400,000 b/d. Corpoven parent Petroleos de Venezuela SA wants the refinery built under a joint venture with a foreign multinational company.
INDIA'S Cochin Refineries Ltd. plans to hike refining capacity to 150,000 b/d from 90,000 b/d at a cost of $270 million, including expansion of fluid catalytic cracking capacity to 30,000 b/d from 20,000 b/d. Cochin also plans to spend $200 million to boost production of benzene and install more crude and liquefied petroleum gas storage. Cochin in 1991 logged its third consecutive year of more than 100% utilization of refinery capacity.
GAS PROCESSING
PLUSPETROL SA'S 53 MMcfd Bermejo gas processing plant in Argentina and 16.8 mile Argentina-Bolivia pipeline are on stream. The project is covered under a $64 million exploration and production contract between Argentina's Pluspetrol and Bolivia's state owned Yacimientos Petroliferos Fiscales Bolivianos involving the Bermejo area. Total investment to date is $16 million. The X-44 Bermejo discovery well, completed last December, has produced 18.23 MMcfd of gas.
NATIONAL IRANIAN OIL CO. let contract to Gaz de France's engineering subsidiary Sofregaz to supply equipment for the DaIan gas treatment plant in Fars province. The,$60 million contract is part of the development of Aghar and Dalan natural gas fields.
DRILLING-PRODUCTION
KERR-MCGEE OIL (U.K.) PLC let contract to Brown & Root Vickers Ltd. for conceptual design of Gryphon field development off the U.K. Production from Gryphon, Kerr-McGee's first operated field in the North Sea, is to begin in 1995 using a concrete gravity structure with storage capacity of at least 500,000 bbl and tanker loading facilities.
SAUDI ARAMCO OIL CO. let a construction engineering and procurement contract to National Petroleum Construction Co. of Abu Dhabi and affiliate Zamil-NPCC for five wellhead platforms in Zuluf field off Saudi Arabia. The contract includes fabrication and loadout of the platforms, each with six well slots.
SHELL U.K. EXPLORATION & PRODUCTION let contract to John Brown, division of Trafalger House plc, for detailed engineering, procurement, and followup engineering of compression facilities for Sole Pit gas field development on U.K. North Sea Block 48/14. Work will include jacket and topsides of the compression platform and bridge and modification of the existing production platform. Completion is expected in October 1993.
UNOCAL CANADA LTD. began production of Slave Point sour gas in the Jon, Suhm, and Hoss areas of Northeast British Columbia, with four wells producing 12 MMcfd. The gas is moving into Unocal's Aitken Creek storage reservoir at present. Production is to increase to 15 MMcfd under a dehydrated gas delivery contract with Westcoast Energy Inc. for its Fort Nelson gas processing plant. Processed gas will be sold to B.C. Gas Inc. beginning Nov. 1.
VIKOR RESOURCES LTD. is seeking approval to drill 39 producing wells and 17 water and carbon dioxide injection wells in Joffre field, near Red Deer, Alta., in hopes of making Canada's first CO2 miscible flood commercial. Currently there are 16 producers and eight injectors, with production at about 132 b/d of oil. With Energy Resources Conservation Board approval, Vikor will hike production to 395 b/d by about 2000 with CO2 injection reaching 11 MMcfd.
KELT ENERGY PLC won approval for a six well development program in Singleton oil field near Goodwood, about 11 miles from Kelt's Horndean oil field in southern England. Production from 2.25 million bbl Singleton field is expected to peak at 1,000 b/d. Kelt operates on behalf of Monument Petroleum Mitre Ltd., Teredo Petroleum plc, and Ultramar Exploration Ltd.
MAYAN LP will spend $4 million for continued development of Beaver River gas field in northern British Columbia, increasing its outlay to $6 million for an after payout interest of 45%. Beaver River original gas in place is estimated at more than 1 tcf. Partners are operator Beaver River Resources and United Gunn Resources Ltd.
PLUSPETROL started production from Cuchuma field on the Olleros block 10 km from Cruz Quemada, Salta province, off Argentina. Five wells are producing a combined 1,258 b/d of oil from Upper Cretaceous Yacorite at about 1,150-1,310 ft. Cuchuma is the first field on sustained production on one of the 78 blocks Argentina awarded under the Houston plan (OGJ, Jan. 14, p, 51).
PIPELINES
SEVEN COMPANIES submitted bids to lay the $735 million, 1,300 km Kandla-Bhatinda refined products pipeline in Northwest India's Jammu/Kashmir, Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi, western Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Gujarat areas. The project is to be complete in 4 years. Bidders are Lucky Goldstar, Snamprogetti, GTM Entrepose, Spie Capag, Birla GTM, Essar India, and a venture of Larsen & Toubro and Czechoslovakia's Strojexport. World Bank will provide $200 million for the project.
GAS AUTHORITY OF INDIA will extend its HBJ pipeline from the Rajghat station to the state owned Maruti Udyog Ltd.-Suzuki joint venture auto plant at Gurgaon in Haryana to move 17.7 MMcfd of gas to the plant for power generation and process needs. Deliveries will commence in March 1992.
CHINA'S largest gas pipeline distribution network, with capacity of 71 MMcfd, was completed in Shanghai's Pudong area. The system, of undisclosed length, is to supply gas to industry and 100,000 households. Construction began in late 1983 and was finished ahead of the 1992 target date. Throughput is expected to reach design capacity in early June.
CANADA'S Interprovincial Pipe Line Inc. increased pipeline deliveries of crude oil and other liquids to an average 1.5 million b/d in first quarter 1991 from 1.4 million b/d a year ago.
A SOVIET MI-8 transport helicopter carrying 10 pipeline workers and a three man crew is missing after apparently crashing in western Siberia's Tyumen province. A 1987 order to install radio locator beacons on all aircraft was apparently disobeyed and contributed to a failure to find the helicopter. The U.S.S.R. transports thousands of oil, gas, and pipeline workers by air to the remote region, which has few roads.
COMPANIES
LAGOVEN SA, biggest operating unit of Venezuela's state owned Petroleos de Venezuela SA, asked several international banks for proposals to supply a $100 million export credit.
SHERRITT GORDON LTD., Fort Saskatchewan, Alta., wants to acquire a gas producing company. Sherritt Gordon uses gas as feedstock in manufacture of fertilizer and in nickel and cobalt refining and wants a gas producer to improve cost control.
PETROCHEMICALS
SASOL LTD., Johannesburg, let a turnkey contract to Uhde GmbH, Dortmund, Germany, and its Uhde (Pty.) Ltd. unit for design and construction of a 240,000 metric ton/year Uhde process ammonia plant at Sasolburg, South Africa. It will replace a less efficient, 64,000 metric ton/year plant. Feedstock will be gas from an existing coal liquefaction plant at Sasolburg. Sasol will use the ammonia in production of chemical feedstocks. The plant is to start up in mid-1993.
NESTE OY and Petrogal of Portugal formed a joint venture to build a $100 million plant at Sines, south of Lisbon, to produce 50,000 metric tons/year of methyl tertiary butyl ether and 200,000 metric tons/year of alkylates. The unit, in which the Finnish company will own a 65% interest, is to start up in 1994.
CHINA NATIONAL TECHNICAL IMPORT & EXPORT CORP. let an engineering contract to Snamprogetti Ltd. for three new units at the Xinjiang petrochemical complex at Dushanzi in Northwest China. The contract covers a 140,000 metric ton/year ethylene plant, 27,000 ton/year butadiene plant, 10,000 ton/year butene-1 plant: and associated facilities. Feedstock will come from the nearby 60,000 b/d Dushanzi refinery. Work is to take 42 months.
EXPLORATION
OIL INDIA LTD. started seismic surveys on its 26,000 sq km Saurashta license off the west coast of Gujarat state. Under a $4 million contract, Western Geophysical Co. of Singapore will acquire, process, and interpret 7,200 line km of 2-D data. During 1991-95 OIL will spend $40 million for seismic surveys and exploratory drilling on the license. Plans call for three wildcats with combined footage of about 41,000 ft at a cost of $34 million.
MAXUS ENERGY CORP. signed an exploration and production license agreement covering about 1 million acres in Bulgaria. The agreement has an initial term of 5 years calling for gathering and evaluating geological and geophysical data and drilling. The onshore license is east of an area covered by a technical evaluation agreement Maxus signed last year (OGJ, Dec. 12, 1990, Newsletter).
MARATHON PETROLEUM IRELAND LTD. will drill a wildcat on Block 50/3 in the Celtic Sea off Ireland under a farmout from Atlantic Resources plc, Dublin. Marathon will test a postulated structure straddling Blocks 50/2a and 50/3, partly held by both firms. Marathon also will earn an interest in Block 50/1a. Other interest owners in Block 50/3 are Enterprise Oil plc, Neste Oy, and Oliver Petroleum Ltd.
INDIA'S Oil & Natural Gas Commission drilled two gas/condensate discoveries in the Bombay offshore area. ONGC BS-12-1, near South Bassein field 105 km off Bombay, flowed 8.7 MMcfd of gas and 254 b/d of condensate. The Sagar Samrat jack up drilled the well to 6,663 ft in 239 ft of water. ONGC BH-55 flowed 9.4 MMcfd of gas and 218 b/d of condensate on a separate structure in 246 ft of water.
SANTOS LTD.'S 2 Cowan exploratory well flowed 2.88 MMcfd of gas through a 1/2 in. choke on drillstem test of Permian Patchawarra at 7,299-7,397 ft. It is on the Moomba block of PELs 5 and 6, South Australia, 3 km from Daralingie gas field. Operator Santos owns a 60% interest in the block and the discovery, with remaining interests held by Delhi 30%, and Sagasco 10%.
EXPORTS-IMPORTS
INDIA'S Indian Oil Corp. (IOC) withdrew from a proposed deal to import 60,000 b/d of Malaysian products, citing a dispute over prices. IOC had signed a contract to purchase 20,000 b/d of Malaysian crude on deferred payment, and Malaysia's Petronas offered another 10,000 b/d of crude if IOC agreed to lift the 60,000 b/d of products.
ASIAN DEVELOPMENT BANK will lend IOC $150 million to buy crude and refined products in fiscal 1991-92. To date, IOC has made arrangements for term contracts covering 27,000 b/d of its projected 42,000-44,000 b/d of crude imports for the fiscal year. About 70% of its projected fiscal 1991-92 crude imports will come under term contracts.
RESEARCH
ESSO PETROLEUM CANADA will contribute to a $4.9 million (Canadian) research project with Canada's Ministry of Energy, Mines and Resources to develop lubricants for low heat rejection diesel engines, which have significant potential for cutting exhaust particulate emissions. The project, which will get $1.15 million in federal funding, is to be complete by March 1992. Work is under way at the Esso Research Centre in Sarnia, Ont.
Copyright 1991 Oil & Gas Journal. All Rights Reserved.