INDUSTRY BRIEFS

TANKERS

NEMARC SHIPPING CO.reported its MT Uikku tanker carried the first products exported from Russia's Yenisei River area through northern seaway routes. In mid July the vessel started its voyage to the Yana River estuary and took a return cargo for Rotterdam from Dudinka where transshipment of the cargo took place directly from local river vessels. This month, sister ship MT Lunni is scheduled to make a similar voyage.

NORWAY'S Den norske stats oljeselskap AS is to begin trials of two shuttle tankers that will be used to export oil from Heidrun field in the Norwegian Sea when it begins production in fall 1995. The tankers are fitted with submerged turret loading buoys, a system developed by Statoil and first used by the Shell Esso combine in Fulmar field in the U.K. North Sea (OGJ, Oct. 25, 1993, p. 34).

LUBRICANTS

MOBIL CORP. unit Mobil Petroleum (Tianjin) Co. will build a $30 million lubricant oil manufacturing and blending plant in the port area of Tianjin, Northeast China. It's scheduled to start up in mid 1997 with capacity to produce 300,000 bbl/year of lube oil and 40,000 bbl/year of grease. The plant is Mobil's first large investment in China since the 1940s.

PIPELINES

USX DELHI GROUP unit Delhi Gas Pipeline Corp., Dallas, broke off its negotiations to purchase Oasis Pipeline Corp's West Texas gas gathering system and treating equipment. Details aren't disclosed.

COLUMBIA GAS SYSTEM INC., Wilmington, Del., continues to seek agreement on a consensual reorganization plan with the committee representing creditors of its main unit, Columbia Gas Transmission Corp. Creditors seek more than $2 billion of parent company assets to satisfy claims filed against the subsidiary. A trial to hear issues raised by the committee was scheduled to get under way last week in federal district court in Delaware. The Columbia companies have been operating under Chapter 11 bankruptcy since July 1991.

NORAM ENERGY CORP. unit Mississippi River Transmission Corp. will receive $3.48 million in a settlement with Koch Gateway Pipeline Co. The U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved the terms in which Koch Gateway will refund the money stemming from Koch's outstanding claims to recover costs associated with gas take or pay contracts during the 1980s.

EXPLORATION

SHELL OFFSHORE INC. let contract to Geco Prakla, a unit of Schlumberger Oilfield Services group, Houston, to conduct a 3D, triple streamer, triple source, marine seismic survey in the Gulf of Mexico. The Geco Tau seismic vessel will tow three 5,800 m streamers and three 5,400 cu in. source arrays, acquiring nine simultaneous lines of coverage with each pass.

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF INTERIOR'S Minerals Management Service issued a request for public comments to evaluate interest in a proposed simultaneous U.S. Russian oil and gas lease sale in 1997 offering tracts in the Chukchi Sea between Siberia and Alaska (OGJ, Aug. 8, p. 25).

RUSSIA'S Kalmykia republic awarded an oil and gas concession covering its entire 25,000 sq miles of land area to Bass Energy Co., Kingwood, Tex. Bass intends immediately to begin developing prospects near existing fields, with later work to include finding and developing reserves throughout the republic, including acreage claimed by Kalmykia in the Caspian Sea.

PETRO CANADA'S first well in Algeria flowed 5,650 b/d of 44 gravity oil from F6 Siluro Devonian perforations at 2,660 m and 4.2 MMcfd of gas from Ordovician pay at 3,100 m. The well is in the Sahara Desert on the 8,000 sq km Tinrhert block, 1,000 km southeast of Algiers. Petro Canada is obligated to spend $29 million (Canadian)/year and drill at least one wildcat/year for 5 years.

RUSSIA'S Central Geophysical Expedition, a division of the Ministry of Fuel & Energy, bought eight System Two MRX land seismic data acquisition systems from Input/Output Inc., Stafford, Tex., for use in Siberia. Two more 180 channel systems were bought by Russian regional geophysical contractors. Combined cost of the 10 systems is $11.5 million.

KAZAKHSTAN'S Caspian Sea area will be surveyed by a western group consisting of Agip SpA, British Gas plc.. Mobil Corp., Shell International Petroleum Co. Ltd., Total SA, and the British Petroleum Co. plc/Den norske stats oljeselskap SA combine. Western Geophysical Corp. will perform the survey in shallow water and swampland off Kazakhstan.

PETROCHEMICALS

NORWAY'S Tjeldbergodden Luftgassfabrikk DA let contract to BOC Process Plants, a division of BOC Gases, Murray Hill, N.J., to build an air separation plant that will supply 950 tons/day of oxygen to a methanol plant Statoil will build at Tjeldbergodden, Norway. The BOC plant also will supply liquefied oxygen, nitrogen, and argon for delivery to the Norwegian merchant market.

ASTRA GROUP, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, plans to build a $150 million, 70,000 metric ton/year alkane plant at Yanbu, Saudi Arabia, and a $5 million sulfonic acid plant of undisclosed capacity at Jeddah.

ALBERTA & ORIENT GLYCOL CO. LTD. started up its 660,000 lb/year Prentiss II ethylene glycol plant at Red Deer, Alta. The unit doubles ethylene glycol capacity at the site to 1.3 billion lb/year.

SHELL CHEMICAL CO. let contract to John Brown, Houston, for engineering design, procurement, and construction management of an expansion of its Point Pleasant, W.Va., polyethylene terephthalate resins plant. The expansion will consist of a line that increases production by 200 million lb/year.

REFINING

UNOCAL CORP. received an unsolicited offer from an undisclosed company for its process technology and licensing business. Unocal has started negotiations to sell 200 U.S. patents and 300 licenses, chief of which is its Unicracking hydrocracking technology and Union-fining hydrotreating process.

SUN CO. INC. settled three U.S. Environmental Protection Agency lawsuits alleging waste water and air emissions violations at its 130,000 b/cd Philadelphia and 175,000 b/cd Marcus Hook, Pa., refineries. Sun agreed to spend at least a combined $500,000 to upgrade the waste water treatment system at Philadelphia and insure that specified parts of a waste water project at Marcus Hook are finished this year. It paid $2.3 million in penalties in the two waste water lawsuits and a $160,230 fine for missing a deadline for installing a vapor recovery system at Marcus Hook's barge loading site.

STAR ENTERPRISE will upgrade FCCUs at three of its refineries with a combined $90 million program to increase production of gasoline and other high value products. Work is to begin this year at plants in Port Arthur, Tex., Convent, La., and Delaware City, Del., with start up expected by yearend 1995.

IRAN and Pakistan agreed on construction of a $720 million refinery in Pakistan, with costs shared between the two countries, London's Financial Times reported. Plant site isn't disclosed. The newspaper said the two governments also agreed to export Iranian natural gas and products to Pakistan.

JOHN BROWN began a revamp of Kazakhstan's 135,360 b/d Shymkent refinery, based on conclusions of a study completed last spring (OGJ, Feb. 28, p. 25). The $100 million expansion and upgrade project will use UOP technology to convert the plant's FCCU, a vacuum gas oil hydrodesulfurizer, and a hydrogen plant.

COMPANIES

CHINA NATIONAL CHEMICALS IMPORT EXPORT CO. (Sinochem) agreed to buy 700,000 metric tons of crude oil from Ste. Nationale Elf Aquitaine, Paris, during Oct. 1, 1994-Dec. 31, 1995. At the same time, Elf agreed to buy 300,000 tons of crude from Sinochem during 1995. The sale/purchase agreement between the two nations can be extended in 1996 under the same conditions, Elf said.

MINORITY SHAREHOLDERS of Texaco Canada Petroleum Inc., Calgary, rejected a share offer by parent Texaco Inc. of $1.40 (Canadian)/share. The offer was turned down by 84% of the minority shareholders. Texaco Inc. owns 78% of the Canadian unit. Canadian 88 Energy Corp., Calgary, earlier increased an offer of $1.60/share to $1.65 for all Texaco Canada shares. Texaco Inc. said it is not interested in selling its holdings in the Canadian unit (OGJ, Sept. 12, p. 40).

LIBERTY TECHNOLOGIES INC., Conshohocken, Pa., acquired Beta Monitors & Controls, Calgary. Beta provides the processing segment of the oil industry diagnostic products and services to test rotating, reciprocating machinery.

DRILLING-PRODUCTION

BETA WELL SERVICE INC., Calgary, withdrew from its effort to acquire Polyanovskoye field in North Central Siberia from Petro Canada. Beta cited other C.I.S. projects it's conducting that represent more appropriate risk profiles for the company.

TEXACO EXPLORATION & PRODUCTION INC.'S Bay de Chene A 128 well in Bay de Chene field, 40 miles south of New Orleans, is the first successful horizontal well drilled onshore by Texaco in South Louisiana, demonstrating that horizontal technology can be used successfully in sandstone reservoirs. The well has a 517 ft lateral with 6,260 ft measured depth and 5,080 ft true vertical depth. It is producing 1,000 b/d of 29 gravity oil.

TAYLOR ENERGY CO., New Orleans, bought Mississippi Canyon Block 20 field, 12 miles off Venice, La., in the Gulf of Mexico, from BP Exploration & Oil Inc. Production from the field averages 950 b/d of oil and 1 MMcfd of gas, volumes which Taylor plans to increase by performing well workovers. Sale terms aren't disclosed.

TURKMENISTAN'S Oil & Gas Ministry increased its share to 71% from 65% in the Keimir oil producing joint venture with Argentina's Bridas Co. The ministry said it also will begin talks with Dutch firm Larmag Energy Co. to revise terms of the Larmag Cheleken JV. Both JVs were established in 1993.

RED ADAIR CO. INC., a unit of Global Industries Ltd., Lafayette, La.; and Cudd Pressure Control Inc., a unit of RPC Energy Services Inc., Atlanta, teamed up to form Red Adair Cudd Well Control Co. The full service well control company will have Houston headquarters.

BJ SERVICES CO., Houston, proposes to acquire Western Co. of North America, also of Houston, in a cash and stock merger valued at $450 million.

CHAPARRAL RESOURCES INC., Denver, joined forces with two other companies to pursue development of an undisclosed oil and gas field in a mature producing province 230 miles east of the Caspian Sea in western Kazakhstan. The group plans to review field geologic and engineering data, negotiate final terms of its agreement, and present a development plan to the Kazakh government.

CMS ENERGY CORP. unit Nomeco Oil & Gas Co., Dearborn, Mich., is part of a group that will spend $160 million during the next 3 years to develop the 760,000 acre Colon block in the Maracaibo basin of western Venezuela. The work is expected to increase oil production to 30,000 b/d by 1997 from the present 4,500 b/d.

SNYDER OIL CORP., Fort Worth, spent a combined $20 million to acquire a majority stockholding in DelMar Petroleum Inc., Houston, 330,000 net mineral acres mostly in northern Louisiana from forest products company Riverwood International Corp., and interests in 10 wells and undeveloped acreage in Brazos County, Tex., from Dale Operating Co.

ELF CONGO let contract to Smit International, Rotterdam, for transportation of six production platform modules to a Mediterranean Sea assembly site next year from construction yards in the Netherlands, Italy, and France. The modules will be installed on the world's largest concrete barge, destined for use as a production facility in N'Kossa field off Congo.

PETRO HUNT CORP., Dallas, completed its purchase of the majority of the working interest and assumed the operator's role of a total of eight gas wells in East Feliciana and West Feliciana parishes, La., and Amite and Wilkinson counties, Miss. It bought the leases from Exchange Oil & Gas Co., Aransas Drilling & Workover Inc., Herco Inc., Davis Partners Ltd., and other individuals and trusts.

ABU DHABI CO. FOR ONSHORE OIL OPERATIONS let contract to Bechtel Corp. for engineering, procurement, and construction services on a $130 million gas gathering system in Abu Dhabi's Thamama C and F fields. The system is to gather wet, sour gas from Thamama C and F, deliver it to the Bab gas plant, and return sweet gas for injection into Thamama and Bab North fields.

SHELL EXPLORATION & PRODUCTION LTD. used SBS steerable turbodrills supplied by Weir Group plc drilling services unit Neyr-for Weir to drill what Weir believes is Shell Expro's longest horizontal well. On Aug. 20, Shell Expro's PBO2 well in the southern North Sea's Barque field off Great Yarmouth, U.K., reached 21,560 ft, 458 ft beyond the previous mark.