International Petroleum Finance articles from August 2005

International Petroleum Finance archives from August 2005

Change at the top.
August 1, 2005... There's been something of a changing of the guard at the top of the international oil and gas industry in the past few weeks. The world's biggest oil producer, Saudi Arabia, has been mourning the death of King Fahd and marking the accession...

Shell faces up to project costs crisis.
August 1, 2005... Last month should have marked a watershed for Royal Dutch Shell, as the Anglo-Dutch supermajor moved to a single UK stock listing, making good on promises to simplify governance structures in the wake of last year's reserves accounting...

Unocal blow won't alter CNOOC's ambitions.
August 1, 2005... Big Oil's biggest takeover battle in years looks to be over, with Chevron seeing off the challenge of CNOOC Ltd. for control of US independent Unocal--thanks largely, it must be said, to vehement political opposition in Washington to a Chinese...

Q2 good for earnings, so-so for volumes.
August 1, 2005... The second quarter of 2005 wasn't a good one for oil company volumes. With the exception of BP, the big integrated oil companies saw their oil and gas volumes shrink during the period, largely as a result of continued asset sales and higher oil...

Texas city charge overshadows solid quarter for BP.
August 1, 2005... BP's solid second quarter was overshadowed by one very large negative--a $700 million charge taken in connection with the Mar. 23 blast at the group's Texas City refinery, which killed 15 people and injured more than 170 others (IPF Jun.,p6)....

Abu Dhabi quietly builds foreign portfolio.
August 1, 2005... Despite investments worth over $5 billion covering some 1 million barrels per day of refining capacity, Abu Dhabi's International Petroleum Investment Co. (Ipic) remains much less well known for its overseas operations than Saudi Aramco or...

European majors perform petchem U-turn.
August 1, 2005... Notoriously cyclical as a sector, petrochemicals are currently on a two-year high as end-product rates have climbed even faster than crude prices. And yet despite producing more profit than for many years, European majors BP, Royal Dutch Shell,...

Retail price hike helps China's refiners.
August 1, 2005... Last month's decision by China's leadership to allow the country's currency, the yuan, also known as the renminbi, to decouple from the dollar will benefit Chinese oil buyers, but the biggest impact for China's oil markets will stem from the...

Is Roman readying Sibneft for sale?
August 1, 2005... Russia's Sibneft, majority-owned by billionaire and Chelsea soccer club proprietor Roman Abramovich, is in the spotlight once again, with evidence growing that a sale of the company is not far away. Gazprom is viewed as the leading contender...

Wall Street develops a taste for hard assets.
August 1, 2005... Is the center of the energy world shifting to New York? Investment banks and funds are now some of the biggest buyers of energy infrastructure. Purchases of pipelines and power plants from the imploding energy merchants in the Enron era got the...

M&A activity jumps in Q2.
August 1, 2005... The value of global mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in the upstream oil and gas industry surged in the second quarter of this year, due in large part to the multibillion-dollar battle between Chevron and CNOOC Ltd. for control of Unocal (p3)....

Dolphin finalizes finance.
August 1, 2005... Dolphin Energy has finalized financing for its project to supply the UAE with gas from Qatar. Dolphin raised $3.5 billion over four years through a $2.45 billion conventional loan and $1 billion in Islamic financing--the largest amount to be...

Aramco raises spending.
August 1, 2005... Buoyant oil prices and strong global demand for Saudi crude have prompted state giant Saudi Aramco to ratchet up its spending on field development projects, industry sources have told IPF. Aramco's latest five-year business plan envisages...

Oxy back in Libya.
August 1, 2005... Libya has approved the terms for US Occidental to resume operations in the North African country after an exile of 19 years. Analysts expect fellow US companies with Libyan assets--ConocoPhillips, Marathon and Amerada Hess--to announce similar...

Kerr-McGee exits North Sea.
August 1, 2005... US independent Kerr-McGee has taken a huge leap toward its corporate reinvention with the sale of its entire upstream asset base in the UK North Sea to Denmark's AP Moller-Maersk and the UK's Centrica for $3.5 billion in cash. The bulk of...

Total gives up on Novatek.
August 1, 2005... France's Total has abandoned its plans to acquire a stake in Russia's largest independent gas producer Novatek. "As a result of numerous delays, which are difficult to understand, that have occurred since the filing of the application in...

Pogo buys Canada assets.
August 1, 2005... US independent Pogo Producing has moved quickly to reinvest the $820 million it will receive from the recent sale of its assets in Thailand with the purchase of Unocal's Canadian subsidiary Northrock Resources for $1.8 billion in cash--more...

Total buys more oil sands.
August 1, 2005... Total is paying about C$1.35 billion ($1.1 billion) for Canadian heavy oil producer Deer Creek Energy in a friendly takeover that includes a 45% premium for Deer Creek shareholders. The all-cash deal, which follows moves by Chinese and US...

Kinder Morgan buys Terasen.
August 1, 2005... US gas pipeline, distribution and power company Kinder Morgan Inc. (KMI) is acquiring Canadian midstream operator Terasen in a transaction valued at C$6.9 billion ($5.6 billion). The deal includes $3.1 billion in equity and $2.5 billion in...

Repsol buys Trinidad fields.
August 1, 2005... Repsol YPF has exercised an option to buy three oil fields and one gas field in Trinidad and Tobago from BP. The $229 million acquisition will bolster the Spanish company's effort to replace reserves. Repsol said the Teak, Samaan and Poui...

Anadarko, Medco Ink JV.
August 1, 2005... US Anadarko Petroleum has inked a joint venture exploration agreement with Indonesia's largest independent oil and gas company Medco Energi, building on the foundations it established in the country last year. Under the deal, Anadarko...

Nine may bid for Inchon.
August 1, 2005... A total of nine companies are interested in buying bankrupt South Korean refiner Inchon Oil and will be carrying out due diligence on the company until Aug. 18, when new bids for the company will be accepted. The nine companies include both...

Oil prices, strong earnings push equities higher through July.(EQUITY MARKETS)
August 1, 2005... Trying to determine when oil prices--and thus earnings and share prices --will begin to fall has proven a tricky guessing game. For more than a year, many investors and analysts have been expecting oil prices to peak, only to be proven wrong by...

Summer sees revival in Russian investment story.(EMERGING MARKETS)
August 1, 2005... The Russian stock market--which remained weak and unpredictable through much of the Yukos saga--has witnessed a sharp upswing during the normally lackluster summer months, culminating Aug. 8 in a new record high of almost 810 points for...