The Oil and Gas Journal articles from August 2000

The Oil and Gas Journal archives from August 2000

Market Movement.
August 7, 2000... Crude prices buoy gasoline prices A study of recent crude oil and gasoline price movements supports the view that, in general, higher gasoline prices are the result of high crude oil prices. So says API, which noted that gasoline...

CASPIAN SEA EXPLORATION PROSPECTS GROW BRIGHTER.
August 7, 2000... Offshore Kazakhstan International Operating Co. (OKIOC) partners revealed a few details late in July about their Kashagan East 1 wildcat, spudded last fall in the North Caspian Sea. Drilled to 16,400 ft TD, the well found oil pay in Palaeozoic...

DEVELOPMENT OF CHEVRON-BHP'S TYPHOON PROJECT CONTINUES.
August 7, 2000... Cooper Cameron is now testing the first of four subsea production systems, assembled from components of its Mosaic product line, for later installation in the deepwater Typhoon project being developed by Chevron and BHP in the Gulf of Mexico...

A PARKER-SAIPEM JV WILL BEGIN DRILLING IN KAZAKHSTAN.
August 7, 2000... Kazakhstan's Karachaganak consortium awarded a 3-year drilling contract to Parker Drilling and JV partner, Italy's Saipem. Parker and Saipem will provide five rigs and conduct work for Karachaganak Integrated Organization on the...

US OIL COMPANIES STILL GRAPPLE WITH WEAK PERFORMANCE ON WALL STREET DESPITE MUCH-IMPROVED OIL AND GAS PRICES.
August 7, 2000... Marathon Oil has devised a plan to refocus its upstream operations to rescue its recent poor stock performance. Marathon plans to overhaul its upstream operations to help narrow a "value gap" that exists between analysts' target price for...

NATURAL GAS WILL BE THE PRIMARY TARGET.
August 7, 2000... NATURAL GAS WILL BE THE PRIMARY TARGET this year for drillers in Western Canada, says the Petroleum Services Association of Canada in its midyear forecast. PSAC says about 15,529 wells will be drilled in 2000, 60% of them gas. The forecast...

MEANWHILE, US WELL COMPLETIONS ARE UP.
August 7, 2000... US well completions last quarter totaled 6,326, vs. 4,116 in the same period last year, a 54% jump, notes API. In the second quarter, oil well completions rose 95% to 2,133, gas well completions 42% to 2,982, and dry holes 31% to 1,211. API...

US ENERGY SUPPLY ISSUES CONTINUE TO HEAT UP.
August 7, 2000... US ENERGY SUPPLY ISSUES CONTINUE TO HEAT UP in this presidential election year. US Rep. Don Young (R-Alas.) last week asked Pres. Bill Clinton to confirm or deny rumors that he intends to designate the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge...

THE PUSH FOR A US BAN ON MTBE.
August 7, 2000... THE PUSH FOR A US BAN ON MTBE gathers momentum, threatening to disrupt future gasoline supply fungibility in the country, even as a federal investigation into the recent Midwest gasoline price spikes continues (see related story, p. 20). ...

US NORTHEAST WINTER FUEL OIL SHORTAGE CONCERNS PERSIST.
August 7, 2000... US Energy Sec. Bill Richardson said, "It's important that we address the heating needs of this region now. We are working with the Congress, state and local officials, and industry representatives to be prepared for the coming winter. If we...

BRAZIL HAS ITS FIRST OFFSHORE PRODUCTION FROM A FOREIGN OPERATOR.
August 7, 2000... BRAZIL HAS ITS FIRST OFFSHORE PRODUCTION FROM A FOREIGN OPERATOR since the opening of oil and gas exploration to non-Brazilian companies in 1998. Laying claim to that feat is Santa Fe Snyder, which started up production from the CES-124...

TOPPING PIPELINE NEWS.
August 7, 2000... TOPPING PIPELINE NEWS, state-owned Russian oil firm Rosneft is ready to sell part of its stake in the Caspian Pipeline Consortium, Rosneft Vice-Pres. Sergei Oganesyan said at a briefing in Moscow late last month. CPC is building an oil...

IN THE REFINING SECTOR.
August 7, 2000... IN THE REFINING SECTOR, Technip has nearly finished installing a fluid catalytic cracker at the Turkmenbashi refinery in Turkmenistan. The unit has capacity to process 1.8 million tonnes/year of oil and produce 900,000 tonnes/year of...

A STRING OF MISFORTUNE WITH OIL SPILLS.
August 7, 2000... A STRING OF MISFORTUNE WITH OIL SPILLS continues for Petrobras. On Aug. 1, the company reported that a processing unit at one of its refineries in Rio de Janeiro state had leaked MTBE. It is the third incident involving the leakage or spill...

Letters.
August 7, 2000... Gas to liquid I read with interest Mr. Paul Grimmer's recent comments on gas-to-liquid (GTL) economics (OGJ, July 10, 2000, p. 7). It is surprising that Conoco is about to spend an additional $50 million on a GTL pilot plant to develop...

Summertime, and the driving's easy.
August 7, 2000... While traveling on a minivacation with my family while the US price of gasoline was peaking recently, that price spike didn't appear to have slowed down summer vacationers, truck transportation, or commuters. The turnpikes of Oklahoma were...

The politics of energy use.
August 7, 2000... With the always simmering politics of energy and the environment headed for the boil in a US presidential election year, the oil and gas industry should stay ready to assert perspective when threats emerge. One such threat will develop as the...

Europe, Asia pace modest gains in Global Energy Investment index.
August 7, 2000... The first quarter 2000 performance of the 20 countries in the Global Energy Investment (GEI) index maintained the slow growth pace of the index in the third and fourth quarters of 1999. The average GEI score for the 20 countries tracked in...

Richardson calls for improvement in oil data.
August 7, 2000... US Energy Sec. Bill Richardson has called for an improvement in oil supply and demand data gathering as a means to bolster oil market stability. He told representatives of oil producing and consuming nations that "it is time to get our...

Gas outlook.
August 7, 2000... Industry spokesmen are trying to remain optimistic, but the US appears headed for tighter natural gas supplies and much higher prices this winter. Sen. Frank Murkowski (R-Alas.) recently held an energy and natural resources committee...

FTC Midwest gasoline price probe to last another 3-4 months.
August 7, 2000... The US Federal Trade Commission's investigation into recent US Midwest gasoline price increases will continue another 3-4 months. In an interim report to Congress, FTC discussed possible causes of the spikes, including crude oil price...

Andersen: Upstream spending to improve into 2001.
August 7, 2000... Spending for oil and gas exploration and production should improve through the last half of this year and into 2001-- after plummeting 22% to $62 billion worldwide in 1 999, including a 29% drop in US upstream spending to $25 billion--Arthur...

US independents pace strong reserve replacement rate.
August 7, 2000... Independent US oil and gas companies replaced a robust 256% of total oil and gas production in 1999--the highest reserve replacement figure recorded in the past 5 years--compared with 113% by major oil companies, says Salomon Smith Barney Inc....

Petrobras to undertake ADR offering, swap assets.
August 7, 2000... In recent months, Brazilian state oil firm Petroleo Brasileiro SA has made several strategic moves while forming several key international alliances to ensure a strong foothold in the worldwide oil and gas market. Petrobras is hoping to...

Apache promotes two executives.
August 7, 2000... Apache Corp., Houston, has named Mike Harris Worldwide director of drilling for the company's exploration and production technology group. Harris brings 20 years of experience to Apache and joins them from his most recent position as BP's...

Russian oil firm privatization push proceeds amid takeover battles.
August 7, 2000... The Russian Ministry of Property Relations has submitted draft resolutions to the government on the sale of 19 68% of the shares in the Slavneft oil company and 85% of Onako in what could herald a new phase in the carve up of the Russian oil...

UK offshore gloom.
August 7, 2000... As the UK offshore industry struggled to emerge from last years economic slump, dubiously hopeful headlines began to recur in the trade press. The promise of a "Third Age" for the province had the ring of a sector trying to convince itself of...

Snohvit development prospects hinge on LNG commerciality.
August 7, 2000... Gas discoveries in the Snohvit area of the Barents Sea--currently only marginal economically--could become commercially viable if sufficient LNG markets materialize within the next 6 years, according to a new report by Edinburgh analysts Wood...

Russia hopes for huge reserves in Barents, eastern arctic basins.
August 7, 2000... Supergiant Shtokmanovskoye gas field, in the Barents Sea, is in the western part of Russia's vast arctic continental shelf. The field lies almost 1,200 km east of the Snehvit complex off northern Norway. Russian authors have written...

Azerbaijan.
August 7, 2000... Lukoil president Vagit Alekperov and Socar president Natik Aliyev signed an agreement on the main principles and conditions of rehabilitation, prospecting, and production sharing for the oil block that includes Zykh and Govsany fields onshore...

Brazil.
August 7, 2000... A group led by Santa Fe Snyder Corp., Houston, placed on production a well in one of six discovered fields off Ceara in the Potiguar basin. CES- 124, a re-entered Petrobras well, yielded about 1,000 b/d of 23[degrees] gravity oil from...

Cameroon.
August 7, 2000... SNH was evaluating bids for KribiCampo deepwater acreage by three companies in the licensing round that dosed June 30. The bidders were Grynberg Petroleum Co., Denver, Fusion Oil & Gas NL, Twickenham, UK, and a combine of Atlas Petroleum...

Israel.
August 7, 2000... Spectrum Energy & Information Technology Ltd., Woking, UK, is acquiring and reprocessing seismic data into a package that covers more than 14,000 km tying offshore Turkey, Cyprus, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Egypt. The package includes...

Kazakhstan.
August 7, 2000... Offshore Kazakhstan International Operating Co. (OKIOC) partners shared the first official details of their Kashagan East 1 wildcat, spudded last fall in the North Caspian Sea. The well went to 16,400 ft in 10 ft of water. It encountered an...

Alberta.
August 7, 2000... Canadian 88 Energy Corp. and Hunt Oil Co. of Canada Inc. plan to place on production within 12 months the 50-50 owned Caroline B Swan Hills oil pool. The companies just completed the 7th well in the pool, estimated to be 12 miles long and...

Yukon Territory.
August 7, 2000... The government will soon issue a call for nominations of tracts to be included in a second oil and gas licensing round. The government will list available tracts and likely set a deadline for bids in early 2001.

Michigan.
August 7, 2000... Range Petroleum Corp., Calgary, and Markwest Hydrocarbons Inc., Denver, signed a non-binding arrangement that allows Range to participate in the drilling of up to seven Silurian pinnacle reefs in northern Michigan. The first of the tests,...

Oklahoma.
August 7, 2000... GHK Co. LLC, Oklahoma City, has placed on line eight wells producing gas from Mississippian Jackfork in the Potato Hills field area in the northern Ouachita Province. The eight wells averaged a combined 69 MMcfd of gas during January 2000...

Texas.
August 7, 2000... West Harvey E. Yates Co., Roswell, NM, was to re-enter a wildcat in Culberson County near the New Mexico line to test Mississippian. Yates is to evaluate the zone at 9,200 ft at the former dry hole drilled by Enron Oil & Gas Co. in...

Wyoming.
August 7, 2000... Anschutz Exploration Corp., Denver, staked two wildcats to Pennsylvanian Minnelusa in eastern Wyoming near the South Dakota line. The wildcats, projected to about 4,000 ft, are in eastern Niobrara County on the Black Hills uplift, IHS...

Propagation equations support top cement pulsation technique.
August 7, 2000... A new cementing technology, top cement pulsation, can delay the static pressure loss of the slurry and effectively prevent gas migration under complex geologic conditions. [12] When designing a cement job, cement quality is directly related...

Drill-pipe logging string redesign cuts costs for Hibernia.
August 7, 2000... A drill-pipe-conveyed logging string, capable of gathering in one run per well all measurements and fluid samples needed for proper reservoir evaluation, is one of the innovative tools used in developing the Hibernia oil field, offshore eastern...

Solid expandable tubulars extend well's life.
August 7, 2000... Expandable cased-hole liners changed the status of a 5 1-year old, Occidental Permian Ltd. well from a plug- and-abandonment candidate to an active injecting well. Enventure Global Technology, a company formed by Shell Technology Ventures...

Operational changes fix FCCU catalyst loss problem.
August 7, 2000... After experiencing a huge catalyst loss while bringing up one of its fluid catalytic cracking units (FCCUs), Sinopec's Shijiazhuang, China, refinery detected and isolated five leaking clusters from its FCCU external cooler. The company...

Biadiesel alternative fuel wins health test okay.
August 7, 2000... Proponents of biodiesel say it has become the first alternative fuel to complete the health effects testing requirements of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendment. They say the tests show biodiesel, made from renewable resources such as soybean...

US DOE awards hiodesullurization research grant to Enchira Biotechnology Corp.
August 7, 2000... The US Department of Energy has awarded a $900,000 grant to Enchira Biotechnology Corp. (formerly Energy Biosystems Corp.). The Woodlands, Tex., to conduct research and development on the biodesulfurization of gasoline feedstocks. With...

Model helps prevent failures from pressure-induced fatigue.
August 7, 2000... Liquid pipeline service failures have occurred because of pressure-cycle-induced fatigue crack growth of defects. [1] Our own familiarity with this phenomenon suggests that it may be more common than the public record reveals. Such...

Grand Banks' Jeanne d'Arc basin.
August 7, 2000... No. 1 hot spot for Canada's remote offshore E&D The remote Grand Banks area off Newfoundland continues to be Canada's top offshore exploration and development hot spot, with activity still focused on oil prospects in the prolific Jeanne...

Sable offshore project delivering gas, with more to come.
August 7, 2000... The Sable Offshore Energy Project on the Scotian Shelf off Nova Scotia is now well under way. Deliveries of natural gas to markets in the US Northeast and Atlantic Canada are scheduled to reach more than 500 MMcfd this fall, once pipeline...

Gas pipeline proposals reviving interest in Arctic Canada E&D.
August 7, 2000... A pipeline to tap Arctic Canada's natural gas reserves for southern markets in the US and Canada is a possibility once again, for the first time in more than 2 decades. But that possibility is still qualified by large questions of how,...

Apache Corp.
August 7, 2000... Houston, Tex., has named Lisa A. Floyd executive vice president, business development and E&P services. Floyd joined Apache in 1984 and has held numerous technical and managerial positions in the company including vice president of technical...

Vanco Energy Co.,.
August 7, 2000... Houston, Tex has formed a Deepwater Operations Department and has named Robert M. Shivers as manager- deepwater development. The move extends Vanco's commitment to deepwater exploration, operations and development offshore West Africa. ...

Dresser Equipment Group, Inc.,.
August 7, 2000... Dallas, Tex., has named Albert G. Luke president of the recently consolidated DMD-Roots Division. Dresser Equipment Group is a business segment of Halliburton Co. Luke joined the M.W Kellogg Co. in 1982 and held several executive positions...

INDUSTRY SCOREBOARD.
August 7, 2000... [TABLE HAS BEEN CLIPPED]

API IMPORTS OF CRUDE AND PRODUCTS.
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OGJ CRACK SPSREAD.
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API CRUDE AND PRODUCTS STOCKS.
August 7, 2000... [TABLE HAS BEEN CLIPPED]

API REFINERY REPORT--JULY 28, 2000.
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OGJ GASOLINE PRICES.
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REFINED PRODUCT PRICES.
August 7, 2000... [TABLE HAS BEEN CLIPPED]

BAKER HUGHES RIG COUNT.
August 7, 2000... [TABLE HAS BEEN CLIPPED]

SMITH RIG COUNT.
August 7, 2000... [TABLE HAS BEEN CLIPPED]

OGJ PRODUCTION REPORT.
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U.S. CRUDE PRICES.
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WORLD CRUDE PRICES.
August 7, 2000... [TABLE HAS BEEN CLIPPED]

AGA NATURAL GAS STORAGE [*].
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PACE REFINING MARGINS.
August 7, 2000... [TABLE HAS BEEN CLIPPED]

U.S. NATURAL GAS BALANCE DEMAND/SUPPLY SCOREBOARD.
August 7, 2000... [TABLE HAS BEEN CLIPPED]

U.S. HEATING DEGREE DAYS [1].
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WORLDWIDE NGL PRODUCTION.
August 7, 2000... [TABLE HAS BEEN CLIPPED]

OXYGENATES.
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Drop in US stocks tied to overdue transit oil?
August 14, 2000... Does the sharp decline in US oil stocks last month ultimately suggest a more bearish reflection of oil markets than a first glance would suggest? The huge drop of 9 million bbl in US oil stocks at the end of July was largely due to a...

Supply constraint to affect gas prices for years.
August 14, 2000... Elevation of US natural gas prices results from supply constraint likely to last several years, says the top executive of a large independent gas producer. In the US and Canada, notes Mark G. Papa, chairman and CEO of EOG Resources,...

Natural gas prices to remain high.
August 14, 2000... US consumers are just beginning to feel the bite from rising natural gas prices. The average wellhead gas price is expected to average $3.03/Mcf in 2000, the highest projected annual inflation-adjusted price since 1985. Many gas...

Martin Whittaker.
August 14, 2000... MORE OIL FIRMS ARE BROADENING THEIR SCOPE OF BUSINESS while burnishing their environmental credentials. In the most recent release of its global analysis of oil and gas companies' environmental consciousness, New York-based investment firm...

Enron.
August 14, 2000... AND THAT BROADER BUSINESS SCOPE IS ALREADY REAPING BIG PROFITS FOR SOME. Enron, for example, reported an almost 40% increase in wholesale energy volumes and continued escalation of profitability from Enron Energy Services, with new...

Chevron.
August 14, 2000... THE BATTLE CONTINUES OVER DEVELOPMENT OFF FLORIDA. Encouraged by a favorable Supreme Court decision in a similar case in June (OGJ Online, June 27, 2000), Destin Dome gas field project partners Chevron, Conoco, and Murphy are suing the US...

Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission.
August 14, 2000... TROUBLED OVER THE EFFECT FLUCTUATING ENERGY PRICES might have on the expansion of the US economy, the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission revealed a four-part approach to a new national energy policy. IOGCC proposes steps to assess...

CLINTON ADMINISTRATION.
August 14, 2000... LOOK FOR MORE POLITICAL HEAT FOR THE CLINTON ADMINISTRATION as another big Iranian project goes to a non-US firm. ENI signed a $3.8 billion buyback deal for development of the fourth and fifth phases of giant South Pars gas field. The project...

BASF PETRONAS CHEMICALS.
August 14, 2000... BASF PETRONAS CHEMICALS--a 60-40 joint venture of BASF and Petronas--said its acrylic monomers complex in Kuantan, Malaysia, is fully operational. The complex is the first major project to be completed at the integrated chemical site in...

TOPPING REFINING NEWS.
August 14, 2000... TOPPING REFINING NEWS, an explosion at Indonesia's 240,000 b/d Balikpapan refinery halted production at the plant, further tightening fuel supplies in that country. The blast occurred early last week, and the subsequent fire was...

Marsulex.
August 14, 2000... In other refining news, BP signed a letter of intent with Marsulex to provide long-term environmental compliance services to BP's Whiting, Ind., refinery. Marsulex will design and build a new facility at the plant to reduce site emissions and...

YETAGUN GAS FIELD MAY SUPPLY LPG.
August 14, 2000... The Thai and Malaysian state oil firms plan to study the viability of building a $150 million NGL separation plant in Myanmar. The proposed facility would extract propane and butane from gas piped from Yetagun--Myanmar's second largest gas...

GEORGIA ASSERTS ITSELF IN THE CASPIAN PIPELINE SAGA.
August 14, 2000... Progress on the Baku-Ceyhan oil line between Azerbaijan and Turkey has been stalled due to Georgia's conditions for the route, which crosses its territory. Although participating nations signed a series of pacts at an Istanbul summit Nov....