The Oil and Gas Journal articles from October 2000

The Oil and Gas Journal archives from October 2000

Oil market slowly rebalancing.
October 2, 2000... While the announcement of an 800,000 b/d OPEC output bike effective Oct. 1 may have done a little to improve oil consumer anxiety and take a bit of the wind out of the oil price sails, the real production increase is pretty negligible. Because...

Increased drilling won't quell natural gas prices.
October 2, 2000... Despite increased gas drilling, producers have warned that supply will be insufficient to avert further gas price spikes in the US this winter. But energy company officials--speaking at a natural gas summit of state governors last month in...

COMPETITION FOR CANADIAN EXPLORATION ACREAGE.
October 2, 2000... COMPETITION FOR CANADIAN EXPLORATION ACREAGE is driving lease prices to levels not seen since the 1980s, reports Raymond James & Associates Inc. The firm said higher oil and gas prices have prompted Canadian producers to pay close to $300...

THE GOVERNMENT-DIRECTED PUSH FOR RENEWABLE ENERGY.
October 2, 2000... THE GOVERNMENT-DIRECTED PUSH FOR RENEWABLE ENERGY has taken another key step forward. The G8 governments' task force on renewable energy sat down for the first time, in Rome, with the stated aim of mapping out a plan to expand use of...

THE CLINTON ADMINISTRATION.
October 2, 2000... THE CLINTON ADMINISTRATION last week said it will release 30 million bbl from the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve over 30 days to reduce crude oil prices and increase heating oil and gasoline stocks (see Editorial, p. 27, and Watching...

CHINA'S PETROCHEMICAL EXPANSION LOOKS TO BE BACK ON TRACK.
October 2, 2000... CHINA'S PETROCHEMICAL EXPANSION LOOKS TO BE BACK ON TRACK after a slowdown the past few years in the wake of the Asian economic meltdown. China has approved a proposal to develop a multibillion-dollar petrochemical complex at a refinery in...

BP.
October 2, 2000... BP said that its Yangtze River Acetyls Co. (Yaraco) Jv submitted a feasibility study to the Chongqing municipal government for a project to produce acetate esters in China. The proposed plant will have a capacity of 80,000 tonnes/year of ethyl...

Chevron Chemicals.
October 2, 2000... Chevron Chemicals began commercial production at its polystyrene plant at Zhangjiagang in eastern China's Jiangsu province, near Shanghai. Chevron will export about 50% of the 100,000 tonne/year output; the rest will be sold in China. ...

Shell Chemicals.
October 2, 2000... In other petrochemical action, Shell Chemicals placed an $8.5 million order for TotalPlant Solution (TPS) controls, transmitters, engineering, and installation from Honeywell's industrial automation and control business to be used as part of an...

TOPPING REFINING.
October 2, 2000... TOPPING REFINING NEWS this week, Sunoco plans to begin routine maintenance on a 93,000 b/d FCCU at its Marcus Hook, Pa., refinery. Sunoco's Marcus Hook and Philadelphia refineries make up Sunoco's 500,000 b/d capacity Delaware Valley...

AGIP NIGERIA PLANS TO INVEST $1 BILLION.
October 2, 2000... AGIP NIGERIA PLANS TO INVEST $1 BILLION in the Nigerian oil industry in the next 3 years to increase its production there to 360,000 boe/d from 240,000 boe/d, said Gras Pietro, chairman of Agip's parent firm, ENI. Pietro said that Agip's...

General Dynamics Worldwide Telecommunication Systems.
October 2, 2000... In other production action, Saudi Aramco awarded General Dynamics Worldwide Telecommunication Systems a $27.8 million contract to build a new fiber-optic network connecting its Persian Gulf offshore oil platforms to the mainland. Design and...

TRITON CONTINUES TO PRESS ITS EQUATORIAL GUINEA SEARCH DESPITE A DRY HOLE.
October 2, 2000... Triton said it would plug and abandon its Ceiba-6 delineation well off Equatorial Guinea after initial logs failed to find oil and gas. Ceiba-6, a significant step-out well outside and southeast of the Ceiba field in Block G, was drilled to...

Corridor Resources.
October 2, 2000... In other happenings on the exploration front, Halifax-based Corridor Resources reports a natural gas discovery with its McCully No. 1 wildcat, drilled about 7 miles northeast of Sussex, NB. Operator Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan will pay...

Indo-Pacific Energy.
October 2, 2000... Indo-Pacific Energy reported that Phillips Petroleum, operator of permit ZOCA 96-16 in Australia's Timor Sea, will begin drilling the Coleraine-1 exploration well with the Ocean General semi. Indo-Pacific said it would take at least 4 weeks for...

QATARGAS PLANS.
October 2, 2000... QATARGAS PLANS TO EXPAND ITS ANNUAL LNG CAPACITY TO 8.2 million tonnes from 6 million tonnes. Qatargas owns and operates the country's first and largest LNG plant, which uses gas from the country's giant North field. The company's...

WOODSIDE ENERGY UNVEILED ITS DEVELOPMENT PLAN FOR ECHO-YODEL GAS-CONDENSATE FIELD.
October 2, 2000... WOODSIDE ENERGY UNVEILED ITS DEVELOPMENT PLAN FOR ECHO-YODEL GAS-CONDENSATE FIELD on Australia's North West Shelf. The field--in 140 m of water, 120 km northwest of Dampier, Australia, and 23 km southwest of the Goodwyn Alpha platform--will...

Petro-Canada.
October 2, 2000... In other development action, Petro-Canada reported that development of Terra Nova oil field on the Grand Banks off Newfoundland will have cost overruns, with production start-up delayed until mid-2001. The estimated cost of development has...

COFLEXIP HAS COMPLETED FUEL-RECOVERY WORK FROM THE SUNKEN ERIKA TANKER.
October 2, 2000... Coflexip Stena Offshore wrapped up the delicate subsea operations aimed at pumping out some 11,245 tonnes of heavy fuel from the Erika tanker, which sunk in high seas off the coast of Brittany, France, last December (OGJ, Dec. 20, 1999, p. 38)....

National Steel & Shipbuilding.
October 2, 2000... In other tanker happenings, BP awarded General Dynamic's subsidiary National Steel & Shipbuilding a $630 million contract for the construction of three double-hulled tankers for the carriage of crude oil from Valdez, Alas., to US West Coast...

TOPPING PIPELINE.
October 2, 2000... TOPPING PIPELINE NEWS, Enterprise Products Partners plans to expand its Gulf Coast midstream system with a recent acquisition.. Enterprise agreed to buy Acadian Gas, a unit of Shell Oil affiliate Coral Energy, for $226 million. The...

Alberta Energy.
October 2, 2000... Elsewhere on the pipeline front, if Alberta Energy (AEC) and its partners receive approval to build an $850 million (US) heavy crude oil pipeline in Ecuador, AEC says, they could begin the project within several months. The Ecuadorean...

Letters.
October 2, 2000... Clement Malin's overview Re: Clement Malin's "Petroleum industry faces challenge of change in confronting global warming" (OGJ, Aug. 28, 2000, p. 58). Clement Malin's overview of the global warming challenge for the petroleum industry...

Mariculture's oily battleground.
October 2, 2000... Nonprofit research firm Gulf Marine Institute of Technology (GMIT) may have a long, difficult battle ahead before its plan to research and raise native finfish within their natural Gulf of Mexico environment is realized. The Gulf Breeze,...

Clinton's SPR mistake.
October 2, 2000... US Pres. Bill Clinton gave illuminating context last week to his Sept. 23 order to make 30 million bbl o strategically hoarded crude oil available to a market straining against shortage. Wringing the prerogative of incumbency for all it's...

LNG imports needed to meet growing US gas supply deficit.
October 2, 2000... LNG will be the "swing" supply source for natural gas in the US in coming years, according to a recent research report by Prudential Securities Inc., New York. Growing US demand for natural gas is leading to increased concerns about...

Heating oil worries mount despite SPR release announcement.
October 2, 2000... US heating oil supplies remain a chief topic of concern, despite the imminent release of more crude oil from the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The American Petroleum Institute says that US refineries are running flat out to ensure that...

US natural gas crisis seen looming on the horizon.
October 2, 2000... A natural gas crisis is brewing, with too little new North American supplies coming on stream to significantly affect rapidly growing demand. Supply and demand dynamics are shaping up for trouble, especially for a peak demand period in...

The senator and the secretary.
October 2, 2000... Pres. Bill Clinton's decision to sell 30 million bbl from the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve set the stage for more jousting recently between Energy Sec. Bill Richardson and Sen. Frank Murkowski (R-Alas.) Richardson, of course, is the...

Fitch cautious on oil field sector outlook.
October 2, 2000... The improvement in energy industry commodity prices and industry fundamentals have strengthened the performance of the oil field services sector the past 6 months, But Chicago-based ratings service Fitch IBCA Duff & Phelps said it's taking a...

PERSONNEL MOVES AND PROMOTIONS.
October 2, 2000... US independent refiners shuffle key executives A flurry of changes among key executive positions at three US independent refiners tops personnel news this week. Valero Energy Corp., San Antonio, has recently promoted two executives on...

High crude oil price to slow global economy.
October 2, 2000... Economic growth in the world's major industrialized nations could slow by some 0.4 percentage points next year if oil prices are not brought down from their recent $33/bbl-plus perch, according to the latest calculations by Organization for...

US oil dumping case wins investigation by Commerce.
October 2, 2000... The US Court of International Trade has ruled that the US Department of Commerce must investigate independent oil producers' complaints that four foreign nations "dumped" oil on the US market in 1998-99. In August 1999, Commerce rejected a...

Grandstanding and scapegoating.
October 2, 2000... Rilwanu Lukman must be answering the question in his sleep. Pressed by a reporter's interrogation on the opening day of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries heads of state summit in Caracas last week, the OPEC secretary general...

US oil, gas reserves rise during 1999.
October 2, 2000... Robust commodity prices for oil and natural gas during 1999 bolstered growth in proven US oil and gas reserves, said the US Energy Information Administration in its latest annual report for US oil, natural gas, and NGL reserves. US proven...

Caribbean's Saba Bank area might hold pre-Eocene potential.
October 2, 2000... Reprocessing of several hundred kilometers of seismic data makes it possible for the first time to map structure within the pre-Eocene at Saba Bank in the Netherlands Antilles, eastern Caribbean Sea. Structure mapping indicates a prospect...

Commercial SAGD project launched at Primrose, Alta.
October 2, 2000... Alberta Energy Co. Ltd., Calgary, has launched field operations at a $230 million project that is the company's first commercial use of steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) technology to tap heavy oil. The first phase of the Foster Creek...

Liberia.
October 2, 2000... TGS-NOPEC Geophysical Co., Houston, began a 9,500 km nonexclusive 2D seismic survey in 200-3,000 m of water off Liberia. The company also announced a 2D project off Sierra Leone, and both data sets will blanket the prospective parts of the...

Nigeria.
October 2, 2000... Agip Energy & Natural Resources has agreed to develop Oil Prospecting Lease 91, owned by NNPC's Nigerian Petroleum Development Co. unit, an NNPC official said. OPL 91 contains Okpono and Okono fields, discovered in the late 1970s and 1980s...

British Columbia.
October 2, 2000... The province's raw gas reserves climbed 2.75% to 291.8 bcm while oil reserves held at about 56 million cu m at Dec. 31, 1999, the Oil & Gas Commission estimated. BC had 925 oil and 1,922 gas wells on production at yearend, and 620 wells...

Newfoundland.
October 2, 2000... Spending on oil and gas programs in and off Newfoundland totaled a record $1.5 billion (Canadian) in 1999, up 65% from 1998, the Canada-Newfoundland Offshore Petroleum Board said. Outlays included $252 million on the Grand Banks and $12.3...

Michigan.
October 2, 2000... An exploratory play for gas in Devonian Antrim shale is taking shape north of Detroit more than 100 miles southeast of nearest Antrim production. The activity has Shell Western E&P Inc. staking 10 locations in 9n- and 10n-15e and 10n-16e,...

New Mexico.
October 2, 2000... Carbon Energy Corp., Denver, said its Bonneville Fuels Corp. unit will begin multiwell development shortly in the Avalon area of Eddy County, where it completed a Delaware sand producing well at about 3,500 ft. The 2 Avalon Federal, in...

Wyoming.
October 2, 2000... Abraxas Petroleum Corp., San Antonio, launching a horizontal drilling play for oil in Upper Cretaceous Turner sand in the Powder River basin, said as many as 150 locations might exist on its 62,000-acre block. The 3H Middleton on the...

Improvements in techniques and equipment address cement issues.
October 2, 2000... As the oil and gas industry expands exploration into new and more-complex areas, improvements in oil-field cementing equipment and techniques continue to address the problems that arise. For example, offshore drilling, particularly...

Flow simulations give refiner capacity, product-quality gains.
October 2, 2000... During the past 5 years, Mobil has achieved tens of millions of dollars in capacity and product-quality gains by using computational fluid dynamics(CFD). Mobil has used CFD to improve performance of refinery process equipment such as...

Equipment costs rise moderately.
October 2, 2000... Costs for the five equipment items which make up the Nelson-Farrar miscellaneous equipment cost index were mixed in the 1998-99 period. The miscellaneous equipment index average dropped from 924.4 to 913.5 in 24 months. Greatest increase...

Vapor combustion solves odor problem at marine crude-oil terminal.
October 2, 2000... Over the years, Trans Mountain Pipe Line Co. Ltd. (TMPL), a subsidiary of B.C. Gas, Vancouver, had experienced periodic odor problems at its Westridge marine terminal in Burnaby, BC. These odors were created by the loading of sour crudes and...

Data shows steep Prudhoe Bay production decline.
October 2, 2000... Decline curve analysis illustrates the continuing steep decrease in oil production from the Prudhoe Bay field on Alaska's North Slope and suggests that the field may reach its economic limit earlier than other published analyses. This...

Test verifies water-cut meter accuracy in steamflood.
October 2, 2000... A field evaluation undertaken by an operator has established the capability of new oil and water-monitoring devices accurately to measure water cut in producing streams that have different crude and water salinity. The evaluation included...

Web-enabled software helps manage, operate Aasgard facilities.
October 2, 2000... A data warehouse, based on Intergraph Corp.'s Notia software, provides an extensive portfolio of e-engineering application for creating, browsing, and maintaining facility data on Statoil's Aasgard project. The warehouse was developed as a...

NEW multivariable temperature transmitter.
October 2, 2000... An expanded portfolio of Foundation fieldbus-registered products includes a new intelligent, multivariable temperature transmitter offering H-1 Fieldbus communications. The I/A Series Model RTT25 multivariable temperature transmitter can...

Rate and total indicator.
October 2, 2000... The Model 120 microprocessor based rate and total indicator is designed specific ally for liquid flow measurement. The 120 displays flow rate and total values simultaneously or separately in bright, easy to read vacuum fluorescent digits....

Heavy-duty Slip system.
October 2, 2000... The new LSSI heavy duty slip system is designed for use on deepwater landing strings. The LSSI is rated at 500 tons capacity. The slips assembly is a three-segment design for use in a standard hinged master bushing.

Noble Drilling Services Inc.
October 2, 2000... Sugar Land, Tex., has named Steven A. Manz vice-president of strategic planning. Manz recently served as director of accounting and investor relations. He holds a bachelor of business administration degree in finance from the University of...

American Eurocopter Corp.
October 2, 2000... Grand Prairie, Tex., has named Rudy Palladina president and CEO, replacing Christian Gras, who has been promoted to executive vice-president of Eurocopter's customer support division. Olivier Francou has been named executive vice-president and...

Howden Process Compressors Inc.
October 2, 2000... Langhorne, Pa., has changed its name to Burton Corblin. Burton Corblin Inc. provides process air and gas compressors to the North American market. The new name emphasizes the company's position as part of the global Burton Corblin network...

Global Industries Ltd. and Oceaneering International Inc.
October 2, 2000... Carlyss, La., and Houston, have signed a letter of intent to exchange certain of their assets and share facilities in Asia and Australia. In the proposed transaction, Global is expected to transfer its remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) and...

The Weir Group PLC.
October 2, 2000... has set up a new organization to increase its share of the hydrocarbon and chemical process pump market. The group brings together the product and marketing expertise of Weir Pumps, Begemann, and the newly acquired Girdlestone, formerly part of...

Torch Inc.
October 2, 2000... New Orleans, has named Eric Smith executive vice-president. Smith served as president and chairman of Saipem Inc. in Houston. He has 16 years' experience in the offshore market, including 10 years with McDermott and 5 years with the Saipem...

KBC Advanced Technologies plc.
October 2, 2000... has named Graham Hill vice-president Asia-Pacific. He will be based in Singapore. Graham's primary responsibilities will be to serve the company's regional clients both in terms of business development and as an account executive for major...

Waukesha Engine Division.
October 2, 2000... Waukesha, Wis., has named Leslie Ludtke coordinator--marketing promotions and electronic marketing. Ludtke will be responsible for coordinating trade shows and special events, handling the activities of the company store (including working with...

CCR Technologies Ltd.
October 2, 2000... Calgary, has named R. M. (Bud) Bell president and CEO. Bell is a former Schlumberger Oilfield Services executive. Bell was vice-president and general manager of Schlumberger of Canada and Alaska and a vice-president of industry affairs...

Grant Geophysical Inc.
October 2, 2000... Houston, has formed a new operating group to target the expansion of the company's transition zone business across the world. This new group will be headed by Rick Dunlop, with Hugh Shields and Cliff Dunlop serving as project managers, and Alan...

US INDUSTRY SCOREBOARD -- 10/2.
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OGJ CRACK SPREAD.
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API IMPORTS OF CRUDE AND PRODUCTS.
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API CRUDE AND PRODUCT STOCKS.
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API REFINERY REPORT.
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OGJ GASOLINE PRICES.
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REFINED PRODUCT PRICES.
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BAKER HUGHES RIG COUNT.
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SMITH RIG COUNT.
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OGJ PRODUCTION REPORT.
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U.S. CRUDE PRICES.
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WORLD CRUDE PRICES.
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AGA NATURAL GAS STORAGE [*].
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PACE REFINING MARGINS.
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U.S. NATURAL GAS BALANCE DEMAND/SUPPLY SCOREBOARD.
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WORLDWIDE NGL PRODUCTION.
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OXYGENATES.
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U.S. COOLING DEGREE DAYS [1].
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Reduced drilling fleet threatens oil, gas production.
October 9, 2000... Unless the industry begins looking at bringing more rigs into the drilling fleet, continued rig deletions in the US may threaten mid to long-term production of oil and gas. "Looking back on available rigs beginning 45 years ago..., the...

Rig utilization rates.
October 9, 2000... The depletion of the US rig fleet comes when increased demand for oil and gas may produce a "Catch-22" situation, with gas rigs taking up successively larger chunks of total drilling activity Baker Hughes says 816 rigs were drilling for gas in...