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UPDATE 3-British oil worker abducted off Nigeria
Sat Mar 31, 2007 1:05 PM GMT
Email This Article | Print This Article | RSS [-] Text [+] (Adds confirmation worker is British)
LAGOS, March 31 (Reuters) - A British oil worker was kidnapped from an offshore drilling rig in Nigeria on Saturday, officials and industry sources said.
"We can confirm there was an incident in the early hours of this morning in which a British national was taken hostage," a spokeswoman for Britain's Foreign Office in London said. "We are in touch with the Nigerian authorities to try to secure a swift and peaceful resolution."
She confirmed the kidnapped person was an oil worker but said his name was not being released.
"An expat was kidnapped from the Bulford Dolphin rig," said an industry source, without giving any further details.
The rig is situated about 40 miles (65 km) off the coast of the lawless Niger Delta, Nigeria's oil heartland where kidnappings of foreign workers for ransom or to press political demands are common.
Six Britons, one American and a Canadian were kidnapped from Bulford Dolphin on June 2 last year in a night raid by gunmen in speedboats. They were released two days later.
The Bulford Dolphin rig is owned by the Norwegian oilfield services group Fred Olsen Energy ASA (FOE.OL: Quote, Profile , Research) and leased to Nigerian firm Peak Petroleum, which operates it in partnership with Equator Exploration (EEL.L: Quote, Profile , Research). Continued...
ONGC Mittal venture to acquire assets in Africa, Turkmenistan
The ONGC-Mittal (Q, N,C,F)* Group joint venture, ONGC Mittal Energy (OMEL), announced two-three large transactions for oil and gas assets abroad, reports Business Line.
The joint venture, attracting attention due to its high-profile promoters, deliberated on issues, like the Kazakhstan and Nigerian assets and specific exploration assets in Africa, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan.
The promoters held discussions on the business aspects of ONGC-Mittal Energy Services (OMESL), the other joint venture set up to provide trading, shipping and terminal services.
``The main focus would be Africa and the two CIS countries where we have identified assets,`` sources said.
OMEL, been awarded two blocks in Nigeria-OPL-279 and OPL-285, reported, the company, is in an advanced stage of signing a farm-out agreement in respect of an exploration block in Turkmenistan. OVL`s subsidiary, ONGC Nile Ganga B.V., acquired interest in a producing property in Syria along with China National Petroleum Corporation, a part of which is held by OMEL.
With regards to the Kazakh assets, source said, that OVL, roped in Mittal Group for buying stake in Satpayev block in Kazakhstan.
On the prospects of OMESL, sources said that, the joint venture was formed to trade oil and gas sourced by OMEL. OMESL`s been participating in the tenders floated by MRPL, a subsidiary of ONGC.
The shares of the company closed at Rs 877.45 up Rs 7.15 or 0.835. The total volume of share traded was 253,197 at the BSE (Thursday).
GAO: Looming Threat To U.S. Oil Supply
2007-03-30 21:21:44
Posted By: Intellpuke
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A report released Thursday by the non-partisan Government Accountability Office concludes that worldwide oil production will eventually grind to a halt and the United States has no strategy in place to deal with the possible catastrophic results.
The report, titled "CRUDE OIL - Uncertainty About Future Oil Supply Makes It Important to Develop a Strategy for Addressing a Peak and Decline in Oil Production," outlines the threat to oil supply posed by global political instability and the lack of new oil field discovery. According to the report, "More than 60 percent of world oil reserves, on the basis of Oil and Gas Journal estimates, are in countries where relatively unstable political conditions could constrain oil exploration and production." These countries include Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran and Nigeria. Energy market analysts agree that the significant threat of instability in oil producing nations has inflated the price of oil.
As the report demonstrates, it is quite unclear when peak oil production will occur: "The amount of oil remaining in the ground is highly uncertain, in part because the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) controls most of the estimated world oil reserves, but its estimates of reserves are not verified by independent auditors." Despite a lack of reliable information, the report states that "most studies estimate that oil production will peak sometime between now and 2040." Some analysts think world oil production has already peaked.
(story continues below)
"Today's report once again emphasizes our need to prepare for peak oil by implementing forward-thinking approaches and advance initiatives that will move our nation toward greater energy stability and independence," Congressman Tom Udall (D-New Mexico) said during a joint press conference with his Republican counterpart after the GAO released its findings.
Congressman Roscoe Bartlett (R-Maryland) called the report "a clarion call for leadership at the highest level of our country to avert an energy crisis unlike any the world has ever before experienced."
Tensions with Iran pushed crude oil prices above $66 per barrel Thursday, a six-month high, as analysts fear that a confrontation with the regime could jeopardize exports from the country. In 2005, worldwide oil consumption surpassed 84 million barrels per day. By 2030, that number is expected to reach 118 million barrels per day, 40 percent of which would come from China and India, according to the report.
The report also addresses a need for significant investment in alternative fuels for transportation such as "ethanol, biodiesel, biomass gas-to-liquid, coal gas-to-liquid, natural gas ... and hydrogen." But investment in alternative fuels to offset expected crude oil shortages continues to lag. The report noted that within the next five years, ethanol produced from plant matter could be available commercially. Currently, ethanol production is limited to about 5 billion gallons per year because corn, the main ingredient used to produce ethanol, is needed to feed livestock, the report states. The report concludes by encouraging the Secretary of Energy and other relevant federal agencies to create and implement a plan to stave off peak oil.
The first step, however, is figuring out exactly when world oil production will peak.
Matt Simmons is the president and founder of Simmons and Company International, one of the largest investment banks serving the oil industry. Simmons's company has invested billions of dollars in oil-related technology and played a major role in the development of new technologies over the past thirty years. He says the industry "doesn't have any new technology coming on line," adding that "the idea new oil extraction technology can save us is a complete fallacy." Simmons thinks that world oil production may have peaked in 2005 and said "the odds of us not peaking in the next five years are zero." Simmons called the work of Congressmen Udall and Bartlett "a heroic effort to awaken our country to this threat to the survival of our economy."
Bob Gallagher, president of the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association, has a more conservative view of the current situation. He said market forces will drive the production of alternative fuels quickly enough to supplement crude oil. However, he finds this report encouraging. "If this report serves as a wake-up call to Congress and the American public, it will be well served. The government has failed the American public with regard to energy policy." His concern is over our reliance on imported oil from unstable regions such as the Middle East.
Phil Flynn, vice president and senior energy analyst for Alaron Trading, agrees that the tensions in global oil supply are distressing. He speculates: "If people take [the GAO] report as gospel, it alone could drive oil prices up. We may see oil hoarding by companies and even countries. It could create a panic situation." He adds, "If Venezuela cuts off exports or China begins hoarding, or the Middle East becomes more unstable, we could have severe problems."
Intellpuke: Within the past few days I posted a commentary by U.K. Professor George Monbiot, writing for the Guardian Unlimited's website, who warned that switching to biofuels could create more problems by placing people and vehicles in competition. Monbiot wrote that the push for biofuels, such as ethanol, could mean having to decide whether corn, for example, would be used for food or fuel. In that case, he wrote, people would lose and vehicles would win. He also wrote that the push for biofuels threatens forested areas which would be cleared for crops to make biofuel and this, in turn, would work to accelerate global warming. You can find Prof. Monbiot's commentary in Free Internet Press' archives (check the left-hand column).
You can read this very good article by Matt Renner, reporting for Truthout.org, in context here: www.truthout.org/docs_2006/033007A.shtml
Also, if you want to read more about the coming - if it hasn't already arrived - decline in global oil production, a very good place to start is here: www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/
Nigeria's Yar'Adua wants to broaden privatisations
Fri 30 Mar 2007, 16:05 GMT
[-] Text [+] By Estelle Shirbon
ABUJA, March 30 (Reuters) - The presidential candidate of Nigeria's ruling party would privatise refineries and factories to tackle his country's frequent fuel supply problems and generate employment, he told Reuters on Friday.
Umaru Yar'Adua, who has pledged to continue economic reforms and an anti-corruption campaign initiated by President Olusegun Obasanjo, also defended his record as governor of northern Katsina state against accusations of conflict of interest.
"The policy of privatisation is the right one given our experience since independence and I am going to continue with it," said Yar'Adua, who will run for president on the platform of the People's Democratic Party (PDP) on April 21.
The elections are due to mark the first transition from one elected leader to another in Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation and biggest exporter of crude oil, since it gained independence from Britain in 1960.
Yar'Adua was little known outside of Katsina until he emerged as the PDP candidate with strong backing from Obasanjo during primaries in December in which many better known candidates were pressured out of the race.
The soft-spoken Yar'Adua, whose health caused concern after he unexpectedly interrupted his campaign on March 6 to seek medical care in Germany for a few days, is seen as the leading candidate because of the PDP's powers of incumbency.
He said he would continue deregulating the downstream petroleum sector, aiming to eliminate fuel subsidies and privatise refineries. Obasanjo's administration has been trying to sell the biggest refinery, in the southern city of Port Harcourt, but has suffered a series of setbacks.
"It has proved since independence that for running these production outfits efficiently, the public sector has not served the purpose," Yar'Adua said in an interview at a guest house in the capital Abuja.
HELP CREATE JOBS
Despite exporting about 2.5 million barrels of crude oil per day, Nigeria relies on fuel imports to meet the bulk of its domestic demand because its refineries are dysfunctional after decades of neglect and sabotage.
But the fuel import business is often manipulated by middlemen acting for powerful patrons and supply is erratic. Nigerians frequently have to queue around the clock for fuel.
"It is better that the private sector take over and operate these utilities and these companies," Yar'Adua said.
"The important thing is that the companies, the factories and the refineries should function at the highest capacity so that we can help Nigerians create jobs and the commercial activities surrounding this production will take place."
Yar'Adua has been governor of Katsina, a semi-arid agrarian state in the far north of Nigeria, since 1999. The PDP has presented him as a model of integrity in a country plagued by endemic corruption, but in his home state he has many critics.
They point to the new state government headquarters, the most expensive project completed by his administration to date. The total cost was $29 million, of which $17 million went to Lodigiani, a company chaired by a cousin of Yar'Adua.
He said he had merely revived a contract awarded in 1991, before he became governor, and that had been dormant.
"The work stopped because of lack of payment of certificates of valuation. What I did was, this abundant contract which was barely begun, to continue with it," he said.
Nigeria: Obasanjo Cancels Sale of AP to Jimoh Ibrahim
This Day (Lagos)
March 29, 2007
Posted to the web March 29, 2007
Ayodele Aminu
Lagos
President Olusegun Obasanjo has stopped the sale of 28.7 percent equity interest of the Nigeria National Petroleum Company (NNPC) in African Petroleum Plc (AP), to Barrister Jimoh Ibrahim.
Consequently, he has directed the Bureau for Public Enterprise (BPE) to take over the controversial shares and advertise them through a competitive tender.
THISDAY gathered that the Presidency's decision to halt the transaction might not be unconnected with the protests that have continued to trail the transaction.
The NNPC had acquired the equity interest through its staff pension fund in 2005 in a debt-swap of over N10 billion AP owed the corporation. The acquisition was subsequently gazetted and slated for sale to the Nigerian public.
A top official of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), confirmed to THISDAY last night that Barrister Ibrahim, who is currently the Group Managing Director of NICON Group and a chain of other companies including Global Fleet Limited, had in the past couple of weeks been mopping AP shares at the floor of the exchange before moving in early this week to buy the NNPC's stake worth N17.5 billion.
The source further disclosed that the bid to sell the NNPC equity in AP to Ibrahim flopped because the two camps in the transactions (the NNPC on one side and the Minister of Energy, Edmund Daukoru/Jimoh Ibrahim on the other) could not reach an accord.
"The Minster of Energy, we believe was trying to help Ibrahim buy the NNPC shares but it appears the NNPC kicked against it and informed President Obasanjo who cancelled the deal at the point of payment," the NSE top official told THISDAY last night.
One of the shareholders' association chairman, Alhaji Mukbtar Mukbtar, however, told THISDAY that Obasanjo initially approved the sale of the NNPC shares to Ibrahim based on Daukoru's claim that Ibrahim had already acquired 10 per cent of AP, a development that was later discovered to be incorrect. After discovering that he was misled, Mukbtar said it was at this point Obasanjo directed that the deal be stopped.
The unilateral transfer of the NNPC equity to Ibrahim would have set him on collision course with Acema Management Company Limited, a related company of Afribank Nigeria Plc.
Acema had bought the 30 percent shares divested in 2005 by AP former core investors, Sadiq Petroleum Limited, following the row with the NNPC over the debt-for-equity demand, a development that conferred on Acema the status of a core investor.
Sources disclosed that earlier arrangement among the parties (AP, Acema, NNPC and the Federal Government) was that Acema would get the first right of refusal when the NNPC's shares in AP were to be disposed, or alternatively, BPE would sell the shares to the Nigerian public.
THISDAY checks revealed that Ibrahim has already negotiated a loan of about N17.5 billion with Union Bank of Nigeria Plc, an arrangement that was packaged between the two parties early this week.
Commenting on the development last night, sources in AP confirmed that Obasanjo has cancelled the transactions but could not give any reason for the cancellation.
The Group Public Affairs of NNPC, Dr. Levi Ajuonuma, initially declined comments on the issue but pressed further, he said he neither knows anything about the purported sale of the AP shares to Jimoh Ibrahim nor the cancellation of the deal.
If the NNPC shares had been sold to Jimoh Ibrahim, he would has been second time lucky after his earlier bid to purchase the shares divested by Sadiq Petroleum was not approved by the capital market regulators.
Subsequently, Afribank's Acema, which already have some shares in the oil marketing company, bought over 120 million shares of AP Plc worth about N6 billion, which was crossed in about four deals on the Exchange.
Sadiq Petroleum had emerged the core investors in AP by purchasing the 30 percent equity divested by the Federal Government in 2000 under its privatisation programme.
Sadiq, however, ran into murky waters when it emerged later in 2001 that AP was indebted to banks and the NNPC to the tune of N26 billion.
The core investors protested the claims and accused the BPE of misleading it and concealing the facts during privatisation process.
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Sadiq Petroleum owned by Chief Peter Okocha, a close friend of Vice President Atiku Abubakar and now gubernatorial candidate of the Action Congress (AC), got the Federal Government to constitute a tribunal of inquiry on the debt matter.
However, while the tribunal headed by Justice Edet Robert Nkop (rtd) submitted that the debt claims were wrong, the NNPC maintained that the oil marketer owed it N10 billion.
In what industry watchers described then as a fallout of the emerging feud between President Olusegun Obasanjo and his deputy, Okocha was forced to resign his chairmanship position in AP.
ExxonMobil, Local Firm in Landmark Deal
By Ntai Bagshaw, 03.31.2007
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Local Content
History was made Wednesday as a wholly Nigerian company, Dover Engineering Limited, presented to ExxonMobil the detailed engineering designs of three new satellite wellhead platforms complete with modifications and tie-in to existing facilities, which it had executed.
This development marks the first detailed offshore engineering for fixed platforms to be executed in Nigeria. It also marks the first detailed engineering design project of over 100,000 man-hours executed entirely in Nigeria. Dover does not have any expatriates in its nearly 100-man staff.
The company’s managing director, Engr. Eloka Ejeh said the project to design these platforms in Abang, Oyot and Itut, all offshore locations in Akwa Ibom State, was awarded by ExxonMobil in February 2006 for a sum of about N1billion following competitive bidding. The project was completed March 2007 by the Nigerian firm and officially handed over to the oil multinational at a Project Close-Out Meeting on Wednesday. Issues of security in the Niger-Delta had some impact on the schedule.
In a release, ExxonMobil stated that “Dover Engineering Limited has proved herself competent to function as a major player and indigenous partner in engineering design of oil and gas facilities in Nigeria and internationally.”
The local content development is an initiative of the Nigerian Government to help develop local capacity building in the Nigerian oil & gas industry and to enable Nigerians participate actively in the industry. It is the utilization of the Nigerian human and material resources in the exploitation and exploration of the Nigerian hydrocarbon resources. The oil and gas industry the world over plays a dominant role in technology development and advancement. The use of local inputs is a way of reducing production costs and improving the economic base of the oil producing country.
In Nigeria, the Oil and Gas sector plays a very dominant role in the economy. About 90 percent of the total revenue of the country is from Oil and Gas production while over 90 percent of the nation’s foreign exchange earnings comes from the sales of crude oil. Yet Nigerians have very little share of the oil and gas business. It is in order to reverse this situation that the government has initiated the local content policy.
It is hoped that local content development would ensure that the percentage of locally produced materials, personnel, goods and services rendered to the industry are increased, thereby generating more employment and economic empowerment without compromising standards.
Before the advent of the local content initiative by the present administration, in put by Nigerian firms in the oil and gas sector has been minimal and Nigerian operators have been clamouring for more space in the sector dominated by foreign companies and multinationals.
In a paper titled "Value Creation Within The Nigerian Economy By Oil and Gas Sector: A Nigerian Content Perspective", and presented at the 11th Offshore West Africa (OWA) Conference and Exhibition in Abuja, Henry Okolo, Vice Chairman/Chief Executive, Dorman Long Nigeria Limited, said only a comprehensive enforcement of the Nigerian Content Develop-ment policy in the oil and gas industry will help realise the objectives of the National Economic Empowerment Strategy (NEEDS) as well as contribute to the nation's economic development.
Okolo observed that while Nigeria has been an oil and gas producing country for over 50 years, “beyond collecting crude oil sales revenue and related taxes, the country is still a peripheral player in the industry when compared with countries in South America, Middle East and Asia”.
Making a strong case for full implementation of the local content policy he argued that, increasing the participation of local operators in the nation's oil and gas industry would positively impact the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and affect its growth by as much as 10 per cent per annum.
With the industry’s expenditure budget projected at over $12billion per annum over the next five years, he said if more than 10 per cent of this amount was domesticated, Nigeria would be on the way to speedy economic recovery and growth. He added that increased Nigerian content in the oil and gas industry would help create more employment as well as eliminate poverty. “Our experience indicates that every $1billion local fabrication and construction work creates 50,000 new jobs per annum. Full implementation of the oil industry Nigerian Content policy will generate more than 500,000 new jobs for Nigerians annually," he explained.
It is for this reason that the successful completion of the design of the offshore platforms by Dover Engineering is being celebrated by the initiators of the local content policy. Local industry operators would also be celebrating this feat as it is bound to create more opportunities for them.
In 2006, Dover Engineering Limited acquired the operations and facilities of Vetco Aibel (former ABB Lummus Global) one of the foremost international engineering design companies in Nigeria. Dover Engineering currently has engineering offices in Lagos and Port Harcourt.
China's Sinopec plans $3 billion overseas upstream sector investment this year
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Last Update: 4:54 AM ET Mar 30, 2007
BEIJING (MarketWatch) -- China Petrochemical Corp., better known as Sinopec Group, plans to invest $3 billion in the overseas upstream sector this year, a senior company executive said.
The planned investment is lower than the investment made by Sinopec last year, said Zhou Baixiu, president of Sinopec International Exploration And Production Corp., which is a unit of Sinopec Group.
Zhou, also an assistant to Sinopec Group's president, didn't give a comparative investment figure for 2006.
-Edited by Tracy Gan
-Contact: 201-938-5400
Tryoty, so then are you implying that others on this Board have been right - pleeeeeeeeeaaaasssseee - LOL.
ND9
Nigeria: Chevron Secures Land for Agura IPP
Daily Champion (Lagos)
March 28, 2007
Posted to the web March 28, 2007
Lagos
Chevron Nigeria Limited, American upstream oil multinational operating the NNPC/Chevron Joint Venture, has secured a Certificate of Occupancy for 62.251 hectares of land at Agura village, Ijede in Ikorodu council area of Lagos for its Power Generation Project.
General Manager, Government and Public Affairs, Mr Femi Odumabo, said the certificate presented at the Lagos State Secretariat, Alausa Ikeja, by the Commissioner for Lands, Fola Arthur-worrey on behalf of the state governor; Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu; signifies a major step in the company's commitment to embark on a power generation project as part of its corporate social responsibility and support for the federal government in boosting electricity supply in Nigeria.
The Agura IPP, Daily Champion reports, will not only benefit the project host community, increase the volume of available power on the national grid and facilitate commercial and social activities; it is expected to help in Chevron's efforts to end routine flaring of associated gas by 2008.
The successful acquisition of the land followed effective consultations and tripartite engagements among the company, Lagos State Government and the Community land owners.
"It re-affirms Chevron's reputation as a trustworthy company that engages in lasting, mutually beneficial partnerships and is noted for its commitment to high ethical standards and business principles," Mr Odumabo stated.
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"The award of the Certificate of Occupancy (CO) also confirms the company's endorsement by the neighbouring communities of the project location and the Lagos State Government who took leadership and steered the negotiations culminating in the signing of the agreements and payment of the necessary compensation for the land.
"The company therefore thanks the Lagos State government and the stakeholder communities for the successful conclusion of the acquisition and the effective public-private partnership demonstrated in the growing relationship the company has built with the government and the people," he added.
Chevron reiterates its commitment to the power project and solicits the continued support of the government and people of Lagos State, especially the neighbouring communities of the proposed project site to enable the company successfully execute the project.
Aban now ranked in top 10 - offshore drilling assets
Aban Offshore acquires residual stake in Sinvest; to delist co
Mumbai, March 29. (PTI): Global drilling services firm Aban Offshore on Wednesday said, it has completed the compulsory acquisition of the remaining 1.99 per cent stake of Norwegian firm Sinvest ASA and would be delisting the shares from the Oslo Stock Exchange with effect from March 30.
The ASPL and Aban International Norway AS (AIN) combine now hold 100 per cent of the share capital of Sinvest ASA, Aban Offshore said in a communiqué to the BSE.
Post-acquisition, Aban Offshore is now ranked among the top 10 companies in the field in terms of offshore drilling assets under management.
Aban had carried out the compulsory acquisition of the remaining 1.99 per cent stake in Sinvest ASA, under the Norwegian Public Ltd Companies Act.
The redemption price offered was fixed at Norwegian Krone 135 per Sinvest share, it had said, which would have cost Aban Group around Rs 56.85 crore for some 6 lakh shares.
In December 2006, Aban Offshore had made a $800 million (Rs 3,600 crore) open offer to acquire the remaining 66.24 per cent stake in Norwegian firm Sinvest ASA.
The mandatory offer by Aban, with which last year acquired 33.76 per cent stake in Sinvest for $446 million, was presented by Aban International Norway AS (AIN), a new wholly-owned subsidiary of Aban Singapore Pte Ltd (ASPL).
Why make fun of Oilphant? So many people have posted predictions on this board and how many of them have been right?
ND9
India transaction earns best deal awards for JPMorgan
New Delhi, March 28. (PTI): Fund raising exercise for an Indian company has earned rich accolades for global banking giant JPMorgan Chase, which has been feted with as many as eight best innovative deal awards from across the world.
JPMorgan's Global Trade Services unit has bagged a total of eight awards for innovative Europe and Asia transactions from various publications -- The Asset, Finance Asia, Global Trade Review, Trade Finance and Trade & Forfeiting Review.
The awards have been given to JPMorgan for arranging structured finance solutions for the Aban Group, an Indian offshore oil and gas drilling company, and Bank Petrocommerce, a Russian bank working with the Uzbek Government.
Both transactions provided funds for facilitating vital energy initiatives in India and Uzbekistan, JPMorgan said.
Aban worked with JPMorgan Chase and Indian Overseas Bank to fund an oil rig purchase from Singapore's PPL Shipyard.
Although highly complex and dependent on the teamwork of many interested parties, both the deals were completed in a relatively short time, the US-based firm said in a statement.
For Aban Group, JPMorgan provided a deal structure where the Indian firm was able to establish a loan on its books when oil rig was delivered and rental agreements were in place.
"The solution was unique but replicable," JPMorgan Chase's Global Trade Sales unit head Craig Weeks said.
"It highlights the strength of JPMorgan's network trade concept, in which we leverage information exchanged between banks in our global correspondent network to facilitate trade flow risk mitigation and financing solutions," he added.
JPMorgan Chase is a leading global financial services firm with assets worth $1.4 trillion and operations in more than 50 countries.
Spec, do the math based on what?
Also, you have hundreds and hundreds of posts. Could you tell me approximately when you posted the rationale on why one EEZ block is worth more than all of ERHC's interest in JDZ. Or maybe the post #.
I'm not trying to be a wise guy here........ I really don't ever remember messages on this subject.
thanks,
ND9
Tryto, how do you know each EEZ block is worth more than ERHC's JDZ assets combined?
Is that documented somewhere or are you just hoping?
ND9
China's Hu heads to Russia urgently seeking fuel
By Emma Graham-Harrison | March 23, 2007
BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese President Hu Jintao goes to Moscow on Monday, confidently offering trade deals with an economy roaring back home, but urgently seeking oil, gas and assurance as the two countries eye each other's resurgent power.
Hu's three-day state visit to Russia will be his third as president, showing how seriously Beijing is courting its neighbor and President Vladimir Putin. Above all, Russia has the energy supplies China needs to fuel its growth.
"At present, Chinese-Russian relations are developing vigorously and have reached unprecedented levels," Hu told Russian journalists ahead of his visit. He is expected to unveil business deals worth over $4 billion, Chinese officials said.
China is the world's number two oil consumer, and Russia the second-largest exporter. But their potential partnership has been hobbled by both nations' desire to keep a grip on the strategic energy sector and maximize their oil majors' profits.
Previous plans for key crude and gas pipelines have languished after initial agreements were trumpeted by both sides, underscoring the brittleness of the two countries' friendship.
"Chinese-Russian ties are in a phase of improvement that is no mean feat, but undercurrents persist and mutual confidence still urgently needs upgrading," stated an overview of relations in a recent Chinese oil policy journal.
China wants lower prices for the gas and it is unclear whether Russia has enough crude to satisfy China and Japan -- who have been vying for supplies. Moscow has flip-flopped over which of these Asian rivals should get the first pipeline connection.
"People might have the goodwill, but the relationship seems to move ahead of the actual projects, the goodwill doesn't deliver," said Kang Wu, at the East-West Center in Hawaii.
But Beijing may be getting ready to swallow -- or make its firms swallow -- higher prices to restart the gas deal, said Keun-Wook Paik, an energy specialist at Chatham House think tank.
"My understanding is that a team has been in Moscow already," he told Reuters, adding that the visit could yield a formal deal.
"The Chinese side understands how contentious the Russians are over price issues," he added.
INVESTMENT VERSUS TRADE
Beijing and Moscow often align against Western nations on international issues, and have used their veto-holding permanent seats on the U.N. Security Council to blunt censure of Iran's nuclear ambitions, a topic Hu and Putin are likely to discuss.
But the two sides' history of rivalry and distrust that culminated in border battles in 1969 has not been entirely erased despite surging bilateral trade, which the two plan to boost to $80 billion by 2010, and could hinder efforts to move economic cooperation beyond cross-border sales.
Moscow is keen to diversify buyers for its fuel amid rising tension with major European customers over everything from its management of the energy sector to human rights.
But Russian officials are as reluctant as their Chinese counterparts to let foreigners take a substantial stake in the lucrative industry, after clawing back many assets sold off during the headlong privatization rush of the 1990s.
Earlier talk of investment in refineries, or Chinese firms buying into the Russian upstream, appears to have cooled, although Hu will make a stopover in Tatarstan, home to Tatneft, a top-10 oil firm controlled by the local government.
"Both sides know they need to keep control of their energy resources, and new (Russian) rules to enhance state control are the same as what China is doing," said Wenran Jiang, an energy expert at the University of Alberta in Canada.
They are also jostling for influence in Central Asia, once Moscow's backyard and now an increasingly important market and resource supplier for China. Moscow has been reasserting influence over the former Soviet states, said Li Yongquan, a Russia expert in a Chinese government think tank.
"This is presenting fresh challenges to our country developing energy cooperation with Central Asian states," Li told a Chinese energy journal.
China oil demand to increase by 6.5 pct annually through 2010
Beijing. March 23. INTERFAX-CHINA - China's oil demand will increase at an annual rate of 6.5 percent from 2007 to 2010, and annual oil imports will reach 200 million tons by 2010, according to a senior oil expert from the Research Institute of Economics and Technology (RIET) under China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC).
Petrobras and Sao Tome in possible oil deal........ read article below.
Sao Tome and Principe to ask Brazil to open up credit line [ 2007-03-23 ]
Sao Tome, Sao Tome and Principe, 23 March – Sao Tome and Principe plans to ask Brazil to open up a credit line for the archipelago to purchase a commercial passenger plane for the only Sao Tome airline, STP-Airways, a spokesperson said in Sao Tome Thursday.
According to a report on Sao Tome state radio, the aircraft, the price of which was not given, is for STP-Airways, a company created just over a month ago and which has routes between the capital of the archipelago and Lisbon, Portugal, through a rental agreement with Angolan airline TAAG.
TAAG has made a 120 passenger Boeing aircraft available to STP-Airways on a six-hour route between Sao tome and Principe and Portugal, via Luanda.
The government radio station said that a ministerial delegation from Sao Tome would leave this weekend for Brazil in order to negotiate with the Brazilian authorities, as part of the process to open up a credit line, which began in 2004, at the end of a visit by Brazilian President Lula da Silva to the capital of Sao Tome.
The delegation includes the Foreign Minister, Carlos Gustavo dos Anjos and Public Works Minister, Delfim Neves.
Sao Tome government sources told Macauhub that the Brazilian company Petrobras was also involved in the process.
If a credit line is opened up for Sao Tome and Principe, Petrobras will have the right to take part in oil exploration in Sao Tome and Principe, both in production and sale of the product, the sources added.
Over the last five years, Brazil has increased its cooperation with Sao Tome and Principe, particularly in the education sector via the granting of scholarships and technical assistance. (macauhub)
Emeka Offor mentioned in this new article...........
I’ll Save the President if..., Says Nnamani
From Sufuyan Ojeifo in Abuja, 03.22.2007
Following the indictment of President Olusegun Oba-sanjo and Vice President Atiku Abubakar by the Senate review committee set up to revisit the report of the ad-hoc committee on the Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF) Senate President, Senator Ken Nnamani, offered a political lifeline.
He said he would save the neck of the President if such would bolster national interest, as the office he occupied was symbolic of the Nigerian nation.
Nnamani, who spoke at a press conference in his office yesterday in Abuja after the Senate plenary session, stated that the institution of the Presidency represented the symbol of the nation, adding that it was immaterial whether or not the occupant of the office was liked.
According to him, “It is an institution that all Nigerians should respect. We must respect the institution of the Presidency. It is not Chief Olusegun Obasanjo that I am talking about. I am talking about the institution itself - the Presidency.”
He declared further: “I would do whatever is within my powers to save the Presidency in (the) national interest. I would do that because it is more than a person; it represents our common psyche and our common identity is exemplified in the Presidency.”
According to Nnamani, if the President was doing very well, the country would be smiling, noting that there was a time the President was Chairman of about four international organisations, including NEPAD, African Union (AU) and so on.
“That was a big shoe he was wearing, bringing honours to country,” he said.
The Senate President said all that was necessary would be done to support that kind of performance on the international scene as well as in the country.
He assured: “I will do my part to protect the institution of the Presidency in national interest.”
Responding to a question on whether or not he met with an emissary of the Presidency in the persons of the PDP governorship candidate in Anambra State, Dr. Andy Uba, and another Igbo businessman, Sir Emeka Offor, in recent times in the build-up to the submission of the PTDF report, Nnamani said: “I am not the
Senate President of any specific state. I am the Senate President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. You made mention of Mr. Andy Uba.
"He was my junior in secondary school. I was the Senior Prefect of the school when he was in Class 2. He was our school goalkeeper for junior team. He visits me from time to time.”
Nnamni said Offor “is my personal friend who does not work for the Presidency and he is an independent businessman. He visits me from time to time and many people do visit me.”
Responding to another question on the resignation of members of the review committee, he said it was due to communication gap.
According to him, “If you have the letter that they wrote, you would notice that the word ‘lay’ - to lay on the table - was never mentioned there. They were desirous of making a quick presentation and the whole thing bordered on legislative due process.
“I believe that as long as we follow the due process, no matter how pressing the item is, we must follow the procedure, which we have done today (yesterday) and the next thing to do is to take it - the presentation. The semantics is this that you lay down the report and we schedule it when we take it for presentation.”
He said the report was not scheduled on the order paper for yesterday and that there was no way the Senate could have allowed it to be presented. adding that now that it had been laid on the table, it would be scheduled for presentation and debate.
Nnamani also noted that the review committee tried to side-step the conventions of laying the report on the table and even discussing it with the leadership of the Senate that set it you up in the first place.
He agreed that the report as claimed by the committee was urgent, but stressed that "the urgency will not make us to avoid the procedure. Today (yesterday), the Senate rejected their resignation and the report had been laid on the table."
On the state of emergency rule in Ekiti State which expires April 12, the Senate President said that Obasanjo had the constitutional prerogative of proclaiming emergency in any part of the country as he deemed fit.
He said it was for the National Assembly to give such proclamation the necessary ratification.
According to him, “If the emergency rule in Ekiti expires and the President feels that the situation that gave rise to the proclamation in the first place is still there, he knows what to do and he will call on the National Assembly for ratification.
“We will go through it and if we think it is in order, we would ratify it. So there are procedures again. As long as the process is followed properly, I do not think anything will be out of hand. Where you run into problem is where you try to circumvent the due process procedure; whether it is in your home or in government circles, follow the rules until the rule is amended.
You do not amend the rule by force.”
The Senate President said the procedure for proclaiming a state of emergency was clearly defined in the Constitution and the role of the National Assembly was also very explicit.
“We are not in a position to change it,” he said. “It is outlined who does what and what follows and so on. So, what has been guiding us is that we try to follow the rules. When we follow the rules, wherever it takes us, so be it.”
Afren and Amni secure $200M loan
Nigerian Firm Secures N26bn Loan for Oil Field
• As police quiz Total CEO
By Ayodele Aminu with agency reports, 03.22.2007
An indigenous oil company - Amni Petroleum Intern-ational and its UK joint venture partner, Afren sealed a $200 million (N26 billion) five-year debt facility, underwritten by French bank BNP Paribas, to fund the development of a promising offshore oil field located in the Niger Delta.
The oil firm’s loan facility is coming just as the Chief Executive of French oil firm Total, Mr. Christophe de Margerie has been detained by French police for questioning in a probe into alleged corruption in Iran.
Afren, which also has a former Nigerian oil minister, Dr. Rilwanu Lukman as it’s Chairman, said yesterday that BNP together with Standard Bank had subscribed to a $15 million equity investment in the company.
Afren said it had submitted a field development plan for the Okoro Setu development and expects to get the nod from Nigeria's Department of Petroleum Resources soon.
First oil from Okoro Setu is due early next year, with peak flows estimated at between 15,000 and 20,000 barrels per day.
Amni International Petr-oleum Development Company is one of the few indigenous companies producing crude oil out of the lot granted oil licenses in 1992 as Federal Government sought to boost indigenous participation in the upstream sector of the oil industry.
The completion of drilling in the Okoro-3 appraisal well in the Niger delta late last year boosted reserves at the Okoro-Setu project by 75 per cent, with proved reserves now topping 35 million barrels of oil.
The probe also confirmed the well's productivity potential and other key reservoir properties, including the eastern extension of Miocene Agbada formation and the hydrocarbon contacts seen in the initial discovery.
Tests indicate that estimated production capacity for a completed production well would be at least 4000 barrels of oil per day, a company release said.
Afren added that initial post well analysis of the results indicated that probable reserves at Okoro-Setu are now in the 40 million barrel of oil range.
Okoro-3 aimed to evaluate the eastern extent of the field and complete the full data suite needed for development planning.
Development drilling on both the Okoro and Setu Fields is scheduled to start in the third quarter of 2007 and field development planning is currently on schedule for first oil in early 2008.
It would be recalled that the embattled oil chief, who took the helm at Total last month, has been under investigation for several months by French judges probing corruption allegations linked to the Iraqi oil-for-food programme and a gas project in Iran.
Total is Nigeria's fourth largest crude oil producer and the leading fuel marketing company in the country.
A Total spokesman has confirmed de Margerie will be questioned by French police from the financial brigade.
De Margerie and two other Total employees will be questioned "as part of the French judicial inquiry into the company's activities in Iran opened in December 2006", the spokesman told AFX News.
He said de Margerie and his colleagues will also be interviewed over allegations of bribery in connection with a gas contract won in 1997 with the National Iranian Oil Company to operate the South Pars gas field.
The probe began in December under investigating magistrates Philippe Courroye and Xaviere Simeoni, and police are acting on orders from Courroye, a source told Agence France-Presse.
The news of Margerie's appearance was initially reported by regional daily l'Est Republicain.
The spokesman declined to comment on the paper's claims that police have also summoned Total's Finance Director, Robert Castaigne, Personnel Director,
Jean-Jacques Guilbaud and the Head of its Gas Business, Philippe Boisseau.
He however, refused to name the two other employees and declined to comment on the paper's claim.
De Margerie also faces questioning over suspicions of bribery of public officials in Cameroon as part of a probe launched in January.
AFP's source said both inquiries resulted from information provided in November 2006 by a unit at the economy and finance ministry charged with fighting money laundering, called Tracfin.
Commenting on the alleged corruption in Iran, Total in a statement released yesterday morning, said it supports its employees and added that the agreements signed in 1997 were done so in accordance to applicable laws.
The French giant added it is confident that the investigation will establish the absence of any illegal activities.
"Total has a strict code of conduct and adheres to it in all countries where the group is present regardless of the difficulties linked to its activities and the environments in which it operates," the release added.
It is common practice in France for a suspect to be held for questioning, after which the judge may or may not file formal charges.
De Margerie was Head of Exploration and Production at Total before succeeding Thierry Desmarest as Chief Executive. Desmarest is still Chairman at Total.
"I would like to underline it's just an inquiry and there has been no outcome. I am calmly waiting for that," de Margerie told a news conference on Total's 2006 results in February, a day after he was confirmed in his new post.
The Peak Oil Crisis: Situations To Watch
By Tom Whipple
Thursday, 22 March 2007
Evidence is mounting that oil prices will soon climb to new, perhaps unaffordable for many, highs. Some think “soon” is three, four, or five years away. Others think “soon” may be as close as three, four, five, or six months. It is this latter scenario in which oil and gasoline prices reach new highs before the year is out that we look at today.
Everyone, of course, understands that at anytime a bolt from the blue could seriously curtail world oil supplies and run prices to unimagined highs in a matter of days or weeks. Such an impossible-to-anticipate event might be an assassination, a coup, a new war, a terrorist strike or even a well-placed storm.
There are, however, on-going situations which alone or in combinations could push oil prices to new highs in an easily observable and anticipatable manner.
The most obvious situation is the state of US crude and products stockpiles. Although they are currently considered “ample,” total US stockpiles have been dropping since February indicating that we are burning more than we are pumping and importing. Increased US production is largely out of the question. US oil peaked 35 years ago and talk of new deep water discoveries will be nothing but talk for at least the next five or six years.
Thus the issue becomes why imports have been dropping. Some hold that US importers are cutting back during the spring maintenance season when oil refineries traditionally undergo cleaning and overhaul. Others, looking at the drops in crude production by the US’s traditional suppliers such as Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, and Venezuela, are starting to wonder if importers can really find all the crude they want to import. Keep in mind that one of these days the US will be bidding for available supplies against the well-heeled such as China, Japan, and Europe.
The next problem clearly coming onto the radar screens is the Nigerian elections in April. Without going into a long story, it is looking as if the Nigerian electoral process is more likely to initiate yet another civil war than to successfully pass power from one president to another. Oil production is already down about 600,000 barrels a day due to insurgent attacks and more are promised if the elections turn into a fiasco. Many scenarios are possible ranging from a near-total cutoff of Nigeria’s on-shore oil production to US intervention. Watch this one closely.
The 64 billion barrel question, however, is the state of the Saudi oil fields. Many hold, and with good reason, that when Saudi Arabia goes into depletion, the oil age is on the way out. During the last six months Saudi production has dropped from 9.5 million to 8.5 million barrels a day. Now there are several possible reasons for this drop ranging from not being able to find buyers for their heavy, sulfur-laden oil at today’s prices, through a desire to force up prices by cutting supplies, to the key issue which is that the Saudis simply can’t find and open new production fast enough to keep ahead of depletion in their aging fields. If this is the case then 2007 will be a seminal year.
Although the Saudis proclaim that all is well and their “capacity to produce oil” will soon reach new heights, it is likely that before the year is out we should have a better insight into the kingdom’s future as an oil producer.
If Saudi production continues to drop during 2007, suspicions of trouble in the kingdom’s oil fields will increase to a feverish pitch— as of course will oil prices. If prices increase significantly this summer and the Saudi’s don’t respond with significantly higher production, then many will hold that, at least temporarily, the Saudis can not increase production.
A sleeper issue due to come to a head this spring is the nature of the participation by western oil companies in production of synthetic crude from Venezuela’s Orinoco heavy oil sands. A few weeks back, President Chavez decreed the six western oil companies must turn over 60 percent interests and control of the Orinoco projects to the government’s oil company. Negotiations are now going to determine the terms under which the Western oil companies will remain involved in the projects in which they have already invested $30 billion.
The next few weeks should tell whether the oil companies are willing to stay in the Orinoco helping the Venezuelans make synthetic crude, using the oil companies proprietary technology, for much less profit, or simply walk away seeking to recover their investment in the courts. At stake is about 500,000 barrels a day of synthetic crude production which the Venezuelans may or may not be able to keep running by themselves.
Keep an eye on the hurricane season. The El Nino hot spot in the Pacific, which many believe suppressed the 2006 hurricanes in the Gulf, has cooled off. Surface temperatures are already above normal so the ingredients are in place for an active 2007 hurricane season.
Keep the other eye on what the Mexicans are telling us about production from their giant Cantarell oil field, most of which has been coming to the US. Should production really tank in 2007, some believe that the US will have difficulty finding enough oil on the world market to import.
Iraqi oil production continues to bubble along with exports running about 1.5 million barrels a day. Stealing oil and revenue in Iraq is obviously so profitable to the various insurgent groups that nobody wants to blow up the gravy train until they have to. If the recently announced US crackdown on oil stealing is successful, we might see more oil infrastructure blowing up and exports going down.
As a closing thought, keep your remaining eye on the dollar. Some believe there is enough financial turmoil just ahead to limit our ability to import oil.
S
Nigeria: Transcorp, Oando, Others Line Up to Buy PH Refinery
Daily Trust (Abuja)
March 21, 2007
Posted to the web March 21, 2007
Anas A. Galadima
Two Nigerian companies, Oando and Transcorp were among eight bidders lined up yesterday by the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) for the purchase of federal government's shares in Port Harcourt Refining Company Limited (PHRC).
The firms jostling to buy 51 per cent or more in PHRC are Refinee Petroplus/ Transcorp Consortuim, Oando Plc, Global Oil & Energy, Bluestar Oil Services, Indorama International Finance and Linkglobal International. The others are Essar Infrastructure and Mittal Investment.
A statement from the bureau said yesterday in Abuja that the firms are currently conducting the necessary financial law compliance checks, known as "due diligence" and will have site visits of the PHRC facilities.
The BPE had to reissue a call for interested companies to come forward last year.
The statement which was signed by the BPE's Head, Public Communications, Chigbo Anichebe, said: "The previous bid process was stalled due to multiple memberships in bidding consortia by a technical partner which would have led to the disqualification of most of the bidders. Consequently, the Technical Committee of the National Council on Privatization (NCP), directed that a fresh request for proposal (RFP) be issued to bidders 'after further clarification on the bidding procedures.'
After this extension, Oando and Transcorp entered the bidding, he said.
Mr Anichebe explained that by the January 19, dead-line, six bids were received from the following prospec-tive investors: India-based Mittal Investments Ltd, Indorama International Finance Ltd, Global Oil & Energy, LinkGlobal Inter-national Ltd, Taleveras Group Oil Works Ltd (DFP project Finance Ltd).
"After evaluation, Mittal Investments Ltd, Indorama International Finance Ltd, Global Oil & Energy and LinkGlobal International were pre-qualified for the technical bid stage.
The four new pre-qualified bidders joined the initial four earlier pre-qualified, which are Essar Infrastructure of India, Oando Plc, Refinee Petroplus and Transcorp Plc."
PHRC has two refineries at Alesa-Eleme near Port Harcourt in Rivers State - Port Harcourt 1 and Port Harcourt 2. Port Harcourt 1 is a topping and reforming refinery with a name-plate distillation capacity of 3,000,000 MTA (60,000 bpd). It began operations in 1965 but was largely destroyed by fire in 1989. It was then rebuilt using current technology.
Port Harcourt 2 is a complex, conversion refinery with a nameplate distillation capacity of 7,500,000 MTA (150,000 bpd). It came on stream in 1988 and was originally intended to serve as an export refinery. It has been subsequently dedicated to domestic market service given frequent interruptions in supply from the other three refineries in Nigeria. Port Harcourt 2 has considerable clean fuel capability, including lead-free gasoline.
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The bureau had said last year while extending the deadline for submission of expressions of interest that interested applicants were expected to be international and local oil and gas companies with a proven track record in the successful ownership, management and operation of crude oil refineries.
The statement said "To be pre-qualified, the prospective investors provided verifiable evidence of their ability to own, manage and operate a refinery of similar capacity. In this regard, the following information was requested from bidders: Evidence of successful investment(s) in and management of refineries plus verifiable evidence of strong investment capabi-lities; evidence of ample financial resources to impro-ve the refinery; thus enhancing its evidence of proven technical ability to manage and operate refineries.
Ownership structure including brief profile of significant shareholders and capabilities (technical and operational) in refinery operations indicating number of years in the industry, including international experience, list of plants owned, managed and operated by the company; and audited financial statements for the last five years were also reviewed, BPE said.
Nigeria: BPE Names 8 Bidders for PH Refinery
Daily Champion (Lagos)
March 21, 2007
Posted to the web March 21, 2007
Uche Obike
Lagos
Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) has pre-qualified eight bidders for 51 per cent or more of the Federal Government's shares in Port Harcourt Refining Company Limited (PHRC), following advertisement for expressions of interest from prospective investors.
Chigbo Anichebe, Head, Public Communications, in a statement in Abuja yesterday disclosed that the pre-qualified bidders were Global Oil & Energy, Bluestar Oil Services, Indorama International Finance, Oando Plc, Linkglobal International, Essar Infrastructure, Mittal Investment and Refinee Petroplus.
According to him, the firms are currently conducting due diligence and site visits of the PHRC facilities.
He explained that in calling for new Expressions of Interest (EOI), BPE had put the deadline for submission of applications for January 19, 2007.
"The existing pre-qualified bidders who had earlier expressed interest were advised not to re-apply, but those still interested in participating in the bid process may simply revise their bids."
"The previous bid process was stalled due to multiple memberships in bidding consortia by a Technical Partner, which would have led to disqualification of most of the bidders. Consequently, the Technical Committee of the National Council on Privatization (NCP) directed that a fresh request for proposal (RFP) be issued to bidders after further clarification on the bidding procedures," he said.
He added that the clarification session with the bidders took place on March 30, 2006 and a revised RFP issued immediately thereafter.
Subsequently, Anichebe said that the transaction was re-opened to other bidders and advertisements for expressions of interest were placed in December 2006, while the deadline for submission of application was January 19, 2007.
Explaining further, he noted that by the deadline of January 19, 2007, six bids were received from the following prospective investors: Mittal Investments Ltd, Indorama International Finance Ltd, Global Oil & Energy, LinkGlobal International Ltd, Taleveras Group, and Oil Works Ltd (DFP project Finance Ltd).
He said that after evaluation, Mittal Investments Ltd, Indorama International Finance Ltd, Global Oil & Energy and LinkGlobal International were pre-qualified for the technical bid stage, while the four new pre-qualified bidders joined the initial four earlier pre-qualified, which are Essar Infrastructure of India, Oando Plc, Refinee Petroplus and Transcorp Plc.
Anichebe added that the interested applicants are expected to be international and local oil and gas companies with a proven track record in the successful ownership, management and operation of crude oil refineries.
"To be pre-qualified, the prospective investors provided verifiable evidence of their ability to own, manage and operate a refinery of similar capacity. In this regard, the following information was requested from bidders:
- Evidence of successful investment(s) in and management of refineries plus verifiable evidence of strong investment capabilities;
- Evidence of ample financial resources to improve the refinery; thus enhancing its
- Evidence of proven technical ability to manage and operate refineries.
- Ownership structure including brief profile of significant shareholders and capabilities (technical and operational) in refinery operations indicating number of years in the industry, including international experience, list of plants owned, managed and operated by the company; and
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- Audited Financial Statements for the last five years," Anichebe said.
The BPE spokesman explained that "PHRC has two refineries at Alesa-Eleme near Port Harcourt in Rivers State: Port Harcourt 1 and Port Harcourt 2. Port Harcourt 1 is a topping and reforming refinery with a name-plate distillation capacity of 3,000,000 MTA (60,000 bpd). It began operations in 1965 but was largely destroyed by fire in 1989. It was then rebuilt using current technology."
He added that "Port Harcourt 2 is a complex, conversion refinery with a nameplate distillation capacity of 7,500,000 MTA (150,000 bpd). It came on stream in 1988 and was originally intended to serve as an export refinery. It has been subsequently dedicated to domestic market service given frequent interruptions in supply from the other three refineries in Nigeria. Port Harcourt 2 has considerable clean fuel capability, including lead-free gasoline."
Addax Petroleum and Turkish Genel Enerji to Spend $120M on Kurdistan Oilfield Plans
Dow Jones
Addax Petroleum Corp.,(AXC.T) a Toronto Stock Exchange-listed oil company, and its Turkish joint venture partner Genel Enerji A.S. will spend as much as $120 million on exploring and developing an onshore oilfield in Kurdistan region (Iraq) that could produce 200,000 barrels a day of crude oil by 2009, a company official said Tuesday.
Addax and Genel Enerji, which have set up a 45:55 joint venture called Taq Taq Operating Co., or TTOPCO, to operate in Kurdistan-Iraq, will complete drilling of a third appraisal well in the Taq Taq development area in the country's north by early April, Addax asset manager Pradeep Kabra told Dow Jones Newswires on the sidelines of a Dubai conference.
Kurdistan Oil
The joint venture plans to drill another two wells this year and to complete a 3D seismic survey covering the Taq Taq development area, located northwest of Kirkuk, and a 2D survey covering additional exploration prospects, in the third quarter, Kabra said at the 4th Mideast Upstream conference.
Pending the final outcome of the appraisal campaign, the companies will go ahead with the full field development, which is expected to yield about 200,000 barrels a day of oil by 2009, Kabra added.
Test results for two appraisal wells already completed recorded flows of 29,790 barrels a day and 26,550 barrels a day, according to TTOPCO's Web site.
The joint venture company signed a revised production sharing agreement, or PSA, with the Kurdistan regional government in November. The move followed the conclusion of the original PSA between the Kurdish authorities and Genel Enerji in 2004.
Under the agreement, the Kurdistan regional government has the option to take a 20% stake in TTOPCO, Kabra said.
Iraq, holder of the world's third largest oil reserves, is seeking investments into its ailing oil infrastructure to boost output from the present 2 million barrels a day to at least pre-Iraq-Iran war levels of 3.5 million barrels in the 1980s.
Poor maintenance and under-investment in the past 20 years, and frequent attacks on the country's oil infrastructure since the country's invasion by the U.S. in 2003 have left the sector in a desperate state.
According to Iraq's new draft hydrocarbons law, Kurdish authorities will have to review contracts already signed with international oil companies and are required to have the agreements approved by an independent consultant appointed by the federal oil and gas council, to be established by the draft law.
"It is reasonable to say that the existing contract is within the scope of the constitution," Kabra said.
Nigeria lists five Asian groups for refinery sale
Tue Mar 20, 2007 11:21 PM IST
LAGOS (Reuters) - Nigeria has shortlisted five Asian-led consortiums and three others for a majority stake in its 210,000 barrels per day (bpd) oil refinery complex, the privatisation agency said on Tuesday.
Attempts to privatise the Port Harcourt Refining Company Ltd (PHRC) have suffered a series of setbacks since 2002 as the plant, in Africa's oil heartland the Niger Delta, failed to attract enough international interest.
The Bureau for Public Enterprises (BPE) said the new suitors are India's Mittal Investments, Essar and Global Oil and Energy, Indonesia's Indorama and Chinese-led Linkglobal International.
A consortium led by Switzerland's Refinee Petroplus and Nigeria's leading fuel retailer Oando Plc and Bluestar Oil services, a unit of top industrial conglomerate Transcorp, also made the shortlist.
"The firms are currently conducting due diligence and site visits of the PHRC facilities," the BPE said in a statement.
The privatisation agency had suspended a previous attempt to sell 51 percent or more of government equity in the refinery in March 2006, citing multiple membership in bidding consortiums.
The four companies that were pre-qualified for the botched sale were asked to revise their bids when the privatisation process was restarted in December. They all made the new list.
The PHRC comprises two refineries -- the 60,000 bpd Eleme plant, which first started production in 1965 and was rebuilt in 1985 after it was largely destroyed by fire, and the 150,000 bpd Port Harcourt II plant that was originally designed for export and came on stream in 1988.
The plants need huge investment to become fully operational and meet international environmental standards, according to industry analysts.
Privatisations are among a batch of free-market economic reforms being carried out by President Olusegun Obasanjo, who must step down after landmark elections in the world's eighth biggest oil exporter next month.
The International Monetary Fund has said the pace of the programme is too slow.
Perry Partners takes stake in Afren?
3. Full name of person(s) subject to the notification obligation (iii):
Perry Partners International, Inc
4. Full name of shareholder(s) (if different from 3.) (iv):
Morstan Nominees
Class/type of shares Number of shares Number of voting rights % of voting rights
if possible using (ix)
the ISIN CODE
Direct Direct (x) Indirect (xi) Direct Indirect
5,874,711 3.36%
Title: Good governance earns Sao Tome-Principe more debt relief
---------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 19 Mar 2007
Title: Good governance earns Sao Tome-Principe more debt relief
---------------------------------------------------------------
By Lavinia Mahlangu
The island nation of Sao Tome and Principe, just off Africa's west coast, has earned itself further debt relief by, amongst others, exercising good governance and maintaining a stable economy.
Sao Tome originally benefited from U$ 200 million in debt relief in December 2000 under the Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) program, which helped bring down the country's U$ 300 million debt burden.
In August 2005, Sao Tome signed on to a new 3-year International Monetary Fund (IMF) Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility program worth U$ 4.3 million
Last week, the World Bank's International Development Association (IDA) and the IMF agreed the country had made good progress to reach the completion point under the Enhanced HIPC initiative.
"To reach the completion point, Sao Tome and Principe met all the triggers aimed at maintaining macroeconomic stability, ensuring commitment to the national poverty strategy, strengthening public expenditure management, raising the quality of education, improving health outcomes and fighting malaria," the World Bank said.
In addition Sao Tome and Principe took steps to improve governance, especially in its emerging petroleum sector, and to fight corruption through an on-going comprehensive judicial, administrative reform.
It becomes the 22nd country to reach the completion point under the initiative.
Debt relief under the Enhanced HIPC Initiative from all of Sao Tome and Principe's creditors amounts to U$99 million in net present value (NPV). In addition, a topping up of enhanced HIPC assistance was approved in an amount equivalent to U$25 million in NPV terms, as of the Completion Point.
Total assistance under the Enhanced HIPC Initiative, including topping-up, is estimated to correspond to approximately US$263.46 million in nominal terms, said the Bank.
Marie Francoise Marie-Nelly, World Bank Acting Country Director for Sao Tome and Principe, noted that "reaching HIPC Completion Point was a key milestone for the country which will have an important development impact as the funds that would have been used for debt servicing could now be deployed for poverty reducing expenditures."
In order to achieve optimum results, she added, the country had to continue on the path of macroeconomic stability, improvements in governance, including sustained public finance management reform and structural reforms to foster private sector development and diversification of the economy.
Arend Kouwenaar, IMF Mission Chief for the country said its government made good progress toward securing macroeconomic stability and established a good track record of policy implementation.
"Looking forward, a main challenge will be to develop strong institutions to secure a transparent management of oil revenue and to secure a proper execution of the government's Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) that would strengthen growth in the non-oil economy and support the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals," Mr Kouwenaar said. - BuaNews
Chevron CEO cleared $17 mln from '06 stock,options
Mon Mar 19, 2007 5:10PM EDT
Market View
PRESS DIGEST - New York Times business - Oct 31
Chevron may assist Reliance in KG basin - sources
Unrest delays Chevron gas project in Bangladesh
Bangladesh expects enough gas supply by March
At the Helm:
David O'Reilly
Chairman of the Board, Chief Executive Officer
Salary: USD 1,550,000
Bonus: USD 3,500,000
Age: 60
Mr. O'Reilly has been Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Chevron since January 2000. Prior Positions Held: Mr. O'Reilly was... Full Bio
Full Management Team
Insider Trading Email This Article | Print This Article | Reprints[-] Text [+] NEW YORK, March 19 (Reuters) - Chevron Corp. (CVX.N: Quote, Profile, Research) Chief Executive David O'Reilly reaped more than $17 million from exercising stock options and stock awards in 2006, adding to a compensation package worth nearly $13.5 million.
Earnings at the second largest U.S. oil and gas company rose about 22 percent to $17.14 billion in 2006 as soaring oil prices boosted earnings and stock prices across the industry.
O'Reilly, 60, cleared about $9.3 million from exercising 487,200 previously awarded stock options and $7.8 million from stock awards during the year, Chevron said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Those benefits augmented a compensation package that included $1.6 million in salary, $3.5 million of incentive awards and $8.1 million of stock and option awards. O'Reilly's 2006 pay package also included a total of $228,617 for employee savings plans, life insurance and perks such as use of the company plane.
Electick, thanks for you thoughts. EOM.
GoodWorks draws criticism over Nigerian connections
President of that country is accused of plundering billions
By MAE GENTRY, SHELIA M. POOLE
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 03/18/07
On a recent evening, at a gala dinner at the Georgia Aquarium, more than 600 people toasted the 10th anniversary of GoodWorks International, an Atlanta-based lobbying and consulting firm co-founded by civil-rights icon Andrew Young.
Guests heard about GoodWorks' success in developing new markets in Africa and the Caribbean "while working toward a greater good," as the group's Web site proclaims. Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin praised the firm for its "public-purpose capitalism."
GoodWorks
(ENLARGE)
Businessman Carlton Masters (above) and former Atlanta mayor Andrew Young (below) founded the lobbying and consulting firm GoodWorks International.
WILLIAM BERRY/Staff
(ENLARGE)
Andrew Young,said opponents of Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo are 'trying to undercut the influence of the president.'
What guests may not have known is that GoodWorks is entangled in a controversy concerning the firm's dealings with Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo.
Obasanjo's critics portray him as a corrupt leader who has plundered the nation's oil billions. His supporters point to his role in bringing democracy to Nigeria, ending 19 years of military rule in Africa's most populous country.
Like Obasanjo and any large organization, GoodWorks has its share of critics — and supporters.
The firm, its supporters say, has strengthened relations between the United States and Africa, helped spur business development, created jobs and done what all lobbyists do — open doors for their clients.
Others, though, say GoodWorks' relationship with Obasanjo may undermine the organization's altruistic motto — "Do Well By Doing Good."
Omoyele Sowore, a Nigeria-born journalist and frequent critic of Obasanjo's regime, questions GoodWorks' role in representing corporations doing business in Africa.
"That's where the contradiction between his [Young's] civil rights credentials falls flat on its face," Sowore said, "because he represents all these oil companies that have been involved in massive human rights abuses and pollution of the environment in Nigeria."
But Young and one of GoodWorks' co-founders, Jamaica-born businessman Carlton Masters, dismiss those allegations and say their organization is being dragged into the west African nation's contentious presidential race — even though Obasanjo is not on the ballot.
By criticizing GoodWorks, Young said, Obasanjo's opponents are "trying to undercut the influence of the president."
Over the years, GoodWorks, which also represents companies such as Chevron, Motorola and the gold mining concern Barrick Gold, has been paid millions of dollars to lobby for Nigeria.
The nation has been one of the organization's major clients, once providing as much as 40 percent of GoodWorks' revenues, Masters said.
Nigeria has paid GoodWorks $1.75 million since 2000 to lobby for the Nigerian government, according to records GoodWorks is required to file with the U.S. Justice Department. Those records do not reflect the firm's retainer, which is $60,000 a month, Masters said.
The company spent $166,405 to place ads in The New York Times and the Washington Times that "portray Nigeria's progress in improving governance and economic development," according to the documents.
The firm also set up meetings between U.S. and Nigerian officials to prevent sanctions against the west African nation for providing asylum to former Liberian President Charles Taylor, who's now on trial for war crimes.
It's not uncommon for foreign governments and other international clients to hire lobbyists to look out for their interests in the United States, said Alex Knott, project manager for LobbyWatch, a project of the Washington-based Center for Public Integrity.
"We have found more than 2,200 former congressional and government officials have registered as lobbyists since 1998," he said. "It's not illegal, but a lot of people believe it's questionable."
Last month, for instance, in an article published in Harper's magazine, Washington editor Ken Silverstein declared that "Andrew Young's days of do-gooding have long since passed."
In a phone interview, Silverstein condemned Young's role as a door-opener for corporations doing business in Africa.
"Who benefits from Andy Young's relationship with the government of Nigeria? It's not the Nigerian people," said Silverstein, a former writer with the Los Angeles Times. "As I see it, the primary beneficiaries of his work in Nigeria and elsewhere in Africa are these corrupt, authoritarian regimes he works with and his private corporate clients."
Young dismisses the criticism and said Silverstein "doesn't understand the world in which we live ... He's still trying to redistribute wealth that isn't there."
Obasanjo's opponents in Nigeria are angry, Young said, because Obasanjo initiated what Young calls an honest-government campaign.
"[Former leaders] were able to get a cut of almost every contract, and Obasanjo wiped that out," Young said. "And of course, they think we're getting the cut."
'Morally and legally right'
Young, who is now 75, began his career as an ordained minister.
He was a close confidant of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s and later went on to build a political career.
He served as Atlanta's mayor and as a U.S. congressman. President Jimmy Carter appointed him U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, where he reached out to Africa as no ambassador before him had. It was his friendships with various African leaders that helped Atlanta land the 1996 Summer Olympics.
"Andy's a very special person who has a great deal of respect on the continent of Africa," said Julius Coles, president of Washington-based Africare, a nonprofit organization that provides development assistance to Africa. "He can go there and get things done that other people cannot."
In 1996, Young formed GoodWorks with Masters, a former international banker, and Hamilton Jordan, former White House chief of staff under Carter.
Jordan is no longer associated with the firm, which, in addition to its Atlanta headquarters, has offices in New York, Washington and seven African nations.
GoodWorks, Masters said, believes in its motto and its name: It urges its clients in oil, mining, tourism and other industries to "create some corporate social responsibility" in their dealings with African nations, such as building hospitals or helping to provide fresh water.
"We want to be morally and legally right," Masters said. "We want to make sure at the end of the day, based on that man, Andrew Young, that his reputation and the advances that he has made on behalf of many of us are not tainted because of our actions."
Obasanjo, a former Nigerian general, first came to power in 1976 as the nation's military ruler after his predecessor was assassinated.
Three years later, he became Africa's first modern military leader to hand over power to civilian rule. He became a civilian head of state in 1999, winning the first of two elections as president.
Coles, the president of Africare, said Obasanjo has played a significant role in calming the instability in Côte d'Ivoire, formerly known as the Ivory Coast.
"[He] has contributed significantly to peace on the African continent and to conflict resolution," Coles said, "and he's been a steady, good friend of the United States."
At a recent tribute to Obasanjo in New York, President Bush sent a message praising the outgoing Nigerian president's "commitment to peace and freedom," according to an article on NigeriaVillageSquare.com, an online publication. Former Secretary of State Colin Powell expressed admiration for Obasanjo's "dedication to duty ... even at the expense of your own freedom."
But Obasanjo has been widely criticized, too.
A Feb. 14 opinion piece in the International Herald Tribune, which is owned by The New York Times and distributed around the world, charged that Obasanjo "kept the oil portfolio for himself so that he could use Nigeria's vast oil wealth for political ends."
The article, written by former Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Herman J. Cohen, who served under President George H.W. Bush, said Obasanjo's "energy policies have done little to alleviate Nigeria's crushing poverty and social unrest."
"Moreover, as Obasanjo enters the final months of his second four-year term, he is subverting his country's fragile democracy in order to prolong his personal power."
Others say Obasanjo has failed to improve the lives of ordinary citizens in oil-rich Nigeria, which accounted for 8 percent of total oil imports to the United States in 2006, according to the Energy Information Administration.
"Despite soaring oil prices and a burgeoning treasury ... Nigeria remains mired in corruption, crime, poverty and violence," according to a recent report by Human Rights Watch. "Corruption has become a way of life and has bred a political system founded on patronage, influence-peddling, theft and brutality."
And therein lies the reason for the recent controversy surrounding GoodWorks.
Sowore, the Nigerian journalist who has been a vocal critic of Obasanjo and GoodWorks, questions GoodWorks' role as a facilitator in Nigerian oil sales to Jamaica.
"I don't know how a lobby firm on one side also becomes an international oil broker," said Sowore, who was tortured and jailed for his pro-democracy activities in Nigeria under a previous regime.
Today, he speaks for Amnesty International and other groups and also runs the Web site saharareporters.com, which investigates corruption and human-rights abuses in Nigeria.
Their history
Young and Obasanjo met three decades ago, when Young, then the newly minted ambassador to the United Nations, swept through Africa at President Carter's behest. The relationship between the two men continued after Young resigned as ambassador in 1979.
Young helped Obasanjo's sons enroll in Morehouse College and Georgia Tech, Young said, and when Obasanjo was jailed by an earlier regime, Young sent him books, tapes and a Bible.
Masters, too, has grown close to the Nigerian president.
Obasanjo served as host and "father of the day" two years ago, when Masters married Hope Sullivan, daughter of the late Rev. Leon H. Sullivan, a civil rights leader who developed a code of conduct for corporations doing business in South Africa.
Masters also conceived the idea for an Obasanjo Presidential Library, the first of its kind in Africa, and helped raise millions of dollars for the project, estimated to cost $30 million to
$50 million.
Wole Soyinka, a Nigeria-born author and winner of the 1986 Nobel Prize in literature, has joined critics who charge that donors were strong-armed to contribute to the Obasanjo library.
Fund-raising for the project, Soyinka said in a telephone interview from Washington, D.C., was "executive extortion."
Masters calls such complaints "disingenuous," and said his work on behalf of the Obasanjo library was done as a private individual — not as president and CEO of GoodWorks — and that neither his firm nor its U.S. clients contributed to the project.
"This is a private initiative. There is not one single dollar of government money involved in it," he said. "Anybody who gave any commitments gave it in the bright day, in the sunlight."
This isn't the first time Young has been criticized for his relationships with controversial figures.
He resigned as ambassador after an unauthorized meeting with a representative of the Palestine Liberation Organization. He is friends with Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, who has been condemned by the international community for his crackdown on political opponents.
Last year, while serving as a spokesman for a group supporting Wal-Mart, Young apologized after a Los Angeles newspaper quoted him making offensive remarks about Jewish, Korean and Arab shop owners.
GoodWorks has also come under fire before.
In 1997, after Nike hired GoodWorks to investigate alleged worker abuse at factories in Southeast Asia, human rights activists called the firm's findings a whitewash and blasted a report by Young that essentially absolved the sporting-goods manufacturer.
But Charles R. Stith, director of the African Presidential Archives and Research Center at Boston University, said Young's contributions mustn't be forgotten.
"While he lives comfortably, he clearly has not cashed in or attemped to cash in on his contributions of making the world a better place to the extent that a lot of people in public service have," Stith said. "I know he goes to bed at night with a clear conscience."
Researcher Alice Wertheim and staff writer Maria Saporta contributed to this article.
Global oil glut hidden by rig dearth makes drillers good betPublished: Sunday, 18 March, 2007, 08:49 AM Doha Time
Chicago/oslo: The professionals most familiar with the so-called oil shortage know there is an estimated 3tn barrels under land and sea. That is why they are making their biggest bets in drilling rigs where the scarcity is no illusion.
Oil drillers “are the most attractive way to go,” said Don Hodges, who holds about 160,000 shares of Transocean Inc and about 120,000 shares of GlobalSantaFe Corp among the $1.1bn managed by Dallas-based Hodges Capital Management. “There is a shortage, it takes time to build one and it takes a lot of money. Their earnings are going to go up every year for the foreseeable future.”
Orders for offshore rigs have surged sixfold in the past five years, and rental rates are at the highest ever after oil prices tripled and industry profits soared. The wait for the most sophisticated rigs, which can drill in waters more than a mile deep, is a record three years, and the cost to lease one has quadrupled since 2004, climbing to more than $500,000 a day.
“It’s a big problem,” Ashley Heppenstall, chief executive officer of Stockholm-based oil producer Lundin Petroleum AB, said in an interview. “There has been a gross underinvestment in the industry for a number of years and we paid for that last year. We had delays in some of our drilling campaigns.”
Lundin plans to sink wells this year in Norway, Russia and Sudan, and has permits to explore in Vietnam, Ethiopia and Congo.
ExxonMobil Corp, BP and the rest of the largest oil producers are being forced to pay more to get the rigs they need to meet the world’s ever-rising energy demand.
With crude prices above $50 for most of the past two years, investors from Boone Pickens to billionaire John Fredriksen, who controls the world’s largest oil tanker company, are betting on drilling companies to outperform producers.
“We think drilling companies are going to stay very busy,” hedge fund manager Pickens, who is sticking to his prediction that oil prices will reach $70 a barrel this year, said in an interview Qatar last month. The situation for drillers is “very positive for profitability,” he said.
The rise in rig costs contributed to the five-year jump in oil prices by driving up production costs, hindering the discovery of new deposits and slowing the development of existing finds. There is some 3.02tn barrels of crude oil left under the ground, according to the US Geological Survey.
The oil left underground in the US alone is enough to replace every barrel pumped from Iran for the next 20 years, according to statistics compiled by London-based BP, Europe’s second-biggest oil company.
A new deepwater rig that is capable of drilling in waters 7,500ft or more costs $525mn to $625mn to build, up from $300mn to $400mn during the late 1990s, according to the Dallas-based analyst.
The shares of drillers are poised to replace oil and gas producers as the industry leaders, Hodges said. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Oil & Gas Drilling Index, which includes Transocean, Noble Corp and Dallas-based Ensco International Inc, is little changed in the past year.
A measure grouping producers such as ExxonMobil and Chevron Corp, the Standard & Poor’s 500 Integrated Oil & Gas Index, jumped 22% in that time. The losers are smaller companies that sink wildcat wells in hopes of finding a gusher.
Desire Petroleum, a UK-based oil explorer with a permit to drill offshore the Falkland Islands near Argentina, has sought a rig since early 2005. The firm lost £1.68mn ($3.3mn) in its most recent six-month period.
The rigs most in demand are known as drillships and semisubmersibles, equipment used in deep waters.
The battle for rigs has intensified as oil producers boost exploration in the Gulf of Mexico, West Africa and Brazil. The number of offshore rigs in West Africa has increased to 56 from 44 a year ago, according to industry analyst ODS-Petrodata.
In Asia and Australia, the number rose to 86 from 79. “It takes three years from when you order a rig until it is delivered, and we haven't seen this before,” said Martin Huseby Karlsen, an analyst with DnB NOR Markets in Oslo.
Lease rates have soared to a record. Seadrill Ltd, the Norwegian driller founded by Fredriksen, in January said it rented out a rig for an unprecedented $525,000 a day. Contracts in early 2004 were signed for about $125,000 a day.
“There’s a fight for resources in the entire industry, not only rigs,” Norsk Hydro chief executive officer Eivind Reiten said in an interview. “That;s putting pressure on costs, and may challenge the progress of some of the projects, but my company, Hydro, is fortunate in being well positioned there.”
Oslo-based Hydro is Norway’s second-largest oil company.
The number of offshore drilling rigs on order at shipyards, a measure of demand, has jumped to 115 from 18 five years ago, according to ODS-Petrodata. With few rigs yet delivered, the number of offshore rigs operating worldwide is little changed in the past five years, at 657.
Transocean’s net income last year was $1.39bn, up from $19.2mn in 2003. The stock more than tripled during that time. Noble’s net income jumped to $732mn in 2006 from $166.4mn in 2003.
Shares of the Sugar Land, Texas-based company doubled.
The retreat in oil prices from the record $78.40 a barrel in July poses no threat to exploration, said Alf Thorkildsen, chief financial officer for Seadrill Management AS, the Stavanger, Norway-based operating arm of Seadrill. “We’re not concerned with oil prices at around $50,” said Thorkildsen. “If they go below $30, that’s another issue.”
Seadrill is looking at buying competitors to get rigs and workers now and avoid the three-year wait. The biggest acquisition in the industry last year was when Fredriksen bought Norway’s Smedvig for $2.4bn.
Seadrill, based in Hamilton, Bermuda, beat out Noble and became the industry’s sixth-largest following the purchase. Fredriksen declined to comment for this story.
GlobalSantaFe, the world’s second-biggest offshore driller by sales, with 61 offshore rigs, would be a “perfect fit” for Seadrill, because of its “premium drilling fleet and high- quality management team,” said Alan Laws, an analyst at Merrill Lynch & Co in New York.
While oil and gas prices rise and fall, rig owners can lock in years of revenue with long-term leases. Houston-based Transocean on February 14 estimated its so-called contract backlog, or revenue expected from existing agreements, was almost $21bn for the next nine years.
Shares of rig companies are also cheaper than oil companies including ExxonMobil. Transocean trades at more than 10 times expected earnings, while Noble, the third-largest US offshore oil and gas driller, is at 8.1 times.
Irving, Texas-based ExxonMobil trades at more than 12 times expected profit. BP Capital, the Dallas hedge fund managed by Pickens, boosted stakes in oilfield services stocks including Transocean and GlobalSantaFe in the fourth quarter, according to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
Two of the five biggest holdings in the fourth quarter at Touradji Capital Management, a hedge fund firm founded by Paul Touradji, a former commodities trader at Julian Robertson’s Tiger Management, were Diamond Offshore Drilling, an oil driller controlled by the Tisch family, and Hercules Offshore. Both of the rig owners are based in Houston.
“We’re bullish on offshore drillers,” said Maxime Carmignac, who counts Noble, GlobalSantaFe and Transocean among the $13bn in assets she helps oversee at Carmignac Gestion in Paris. “Offshore drillers are cheap, undervalued and less volatile than producers and the commodities themselves, oil and gas. They are sitting on a huge amount of cash flow and may benefit from merger and acquisition activity.”
Expectations are so high the risks from falling short are mounting. Baker Hughes on February 15 said profit rose less than predicted in the fourth quarter and will trail behind estimates in the current quarter on slowing sales growth in North America. The Houston company’s shares that day sank 9.4%, their biggest drop since 2001. – Bloomberg
Russian Firms Eye West Africa Opportunities
Petroleum Intelligence Weekly (subscription), NY - Mar 16, 2007
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West African gas pipeline ready for commissioning —Kupolokun
By Franklin Alli with Agency Report
Posted to the Web: Monday, March 19, 2007
The $1.1billion 1000km West African gas pipeline (WAGP) has been completed and may be commissioned this month, according to the group managing director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Funsho Kupolokun. The commissioning ceremony will be performed by President Obasanjo.
The pipeline traverse 1,000km onshore and offshore from Nigeria’s Niger Delta region to its planned terminus in Ghana.
Four nations, Nigeria, Ghana, Togo and Benin signed a 20-year agreement on the implementation of the pipeline which provides for a comprehensive legal, fiscal and regulatory framework, as well as a single authority for the implementation of the project.
The project begun in 1982, when the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) proposed the development of a natural gas pipeline throughout West Africa. In the early 1990’s, a feasibility report deemed that a project was commercially viable. In September 1995, the governments of four African countries signed a Heads of Agreement (HOA). The feasibility study was carried out in 1999. On 11 August 1999, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed by participating countries in Cotonou. In February 2000, an Inter-Governmental Agreement was signed. The WAGP implementation agreement was signed in 2003. The construction started in 2005. The first gas delivery is scheduled for March 2007. The main user will be Takoradi power plant in Ghana.
The pipeline is owned and operated by the consortium of Chevron (38 per cent), Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (25 per cent), Royal Dutch Shell (17 per cent), Takoradi Power Company Limited (16 per cent), Sociéétéé Togolaise de Gaz (SoToGaz - 2 per cent) and Sociéétéé Beninoise de Gaz S.A. (SoBeGaz - 2 per cent).
The project is an International Gas Transmission System that will transport clean, reliable and competitively priced natural gas from Nigeria to customers in Ghana, Togo and Benin. Both public and private sector companies from these four countries are collaborating in a Joint Venture company known as the West African Gas Pipeline Company (WAPCO) to construct and operate the Pipeline. The 678km, US$635 million Pipeline extends from the existing Escravos-Lagos pipeline at the Alagbado “Tee” in Nigeria and proceed to a beachhead in Lagos and from there offshore to Takoradi, in Ghana, with gas delivery laterals from the main line extending to Cotonou (Benin), Lome (Togo) and Tema (Ghana).
The Escravos-Lagos pipeline system has a capacity of 800 MMscfd, and the WAPCO system will initially carry a volume of 170 MMscfd and peak over time at a capacity of 470 MMscfd.
As a source of lower-cost sustainable fuel for power generation and direct use for industrial and commercial customers, the Pipeline fosters an enabling environment for economic development and job creation in the sub-region.
Sinopec to revive 2 bln usd convertible bond issue this year - report
18/3/2007 23:44 London Time | story 1452
BEIJING (XFN-ASIA) - China Petroleum and Chemical Corp (Sinopec), the largest oil refiner in Asia, later this year plans to revive its up to 2 bln usd convertible bond sale that was put on hold after Hong Kong''s equity markets plunged last month, the South China Morning Post reported, citing unnamed sources.
Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers were hired to arrange the deal, the sources told the Hong Kong newspaper.
The convertible bond sale, which is planned to raise between 1.5 bln and 2 bln usd, would be Sinopec''s first.
Sinopec said last week that it plans to issue 10 bln yuan worth of 182-day short-term debt on the interbank market on Wednesday.
(1 usd = 7.74 yuan)
andrew.pasek@xinhuafinance.com
For more information and to contact AFX: www.afxnews.com and
www.afxpress.com
ΠΗΓΗ: AFX news
Chevron Announces World-Class Field
I guess Chevron will, when the time is right, announce a world class field.........
DN9
**************************************
Chevron Announces Inauguration of the World-Class Bibiyana Gas Field
Project Slated to Be a Leading Supplier of Gas
SAN RAMON, Calif. and DHAKA, Bangladesh, March 18
/PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Chevron Corporation (NYSE: CVX) today announced
the inauguration of the Bibiyana natural gas field, which is located
onshore in Block 12 in the northeast of Bangladesh in Habiganj District.
Bibiyana, one of the largest gas fields in Bangladesh, is expected to
initially produce 200 million cubic feet of natural gas per day (mmcfd).
The plant's full capacity of 600 mmcfd is scheduled to be available by late
2007, with the field reaching maximum total production of 500 mmcfd by
2010. Once full production is realized, Bibiyana is set to become the
largest producing gas field in the country.
Speaking during the inauguration ceremony at the Bibiyana field, John
Watson, president, Chevron International Exploration & Production, said,
"Achieving first gas at Bibiyana is a significant milestone for Chevron and
demonstrates the company's ability to select and execute major capital
projects.
"Bibiyana is a world-class gas resource that is expected to supply
reliable, clean energy for the next 20 to 30 years," he said.
The project includes 12 development wells, a gas plant, a natural gas
pipeline and a condensate pipe line. The company has signed a gas purchase
and sales agreement with Petrobangla, the state owned oil and gas company.
Managing Director and President of Chevron Bangladesh Andrew Fawthrop
said, "The Bibiyana project was a huge undertaking that demonstrates our
ability to bring online technically complex projects in challenging
circumstances. We extend our gratitude to our employees, the government,
Petrobangla, local contractors and the community for working with us to
reach this landmark achievement.
"Chevron is proud of our record at Bibiyana, where Bangladeshi
contractors have performed more than 10 million man hours of
project-related civil works, pipeline and gas plant construction without
any major incident. At peak construction, the project employed more than
2,000 Bangladeshi workers through Bangladeshi contractors," said Fawthrop.
Chevron holds interests in three production sharing contracts in
Bangladesh, encompassing more than 10,000 square kilometres (2.47 million
acres). Chevron Bangladesh has a 98 percent working interest in Bibiyana,
Jalalabad and Moulavi Bazar fields, with the latter two fields having a
combined average total production of 330 mmcfd. Chevron also has a 43
percent interest in Block 7 in southern Bangladesh where the company
conducted seismic survey in 2006.
The Bibiyana inauguration event was attended by Dr. Fakhruddin Ahmed,
the Honorable Chief Adviser of the Caretaker Government; Tapan Chowdhury,
Power and Energy Adviser; Patricia A. Butenis, U.S. Ambassador to
Bangladesh; A.M.M. Nasir Uddin, Secretary, Energy & Mineral Resources
Division; John Watson, President, Chevron International Exploration &
Production; and Andrew Fawthrop, Managing Director and President of Chevron
Bangladesh.
Chevron Corporation is one of the world's leading energy companies.
With approximately 56,000 employees, Chevron conducts business in
approximately 180 countries around the world, producing and transporting
crude oil and natural gas, and refining, marketing and distributing fuels
and other energy products. Chevron is based in San Ramon, Calif. More
information on Chevron is available at http://www.chevron.com.
Cautionary Statement Relevant to Forward-Looking Information for the
Purpose of "Safe Harbor" Provisions of the Private Securities Litigation
Reform Act of 1995.
Some of the items discussed in this press release are forward-looking
statements about Chevron's activities in Angola. Words such as
"anticipates," "expects," "intends," "plans," "targets," "projects,"
"believes," "seeks," "estimates" and similar expressions are intended to
identify such forward- looking statements. The statements are based upon
management's current expectations, estimates and projections; are not
guarantees of future performance; and are subject to certain risks,
uncertainties and other factors, some of which are beyond the company's
control and are difficult to predict. Among the factors that could cause
actual results to differ materially are changes in demand for and supply of
crude oil and natural gas; results of additional testing; selection and
successful execution of development plans; actions of competitors; the
potential disruption or interruption of project activities due to war,
accidents, political events, civil unrest or severe weather; and general
economic and political conditions. You should not place undue reliance on
these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this
press release. Unless legally required, Chevron undertakes no obligation to
update publicly any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new
information, future events or otherwise.
SOURCE Chevron Corporation
Balance - thanks, good seeing you posting again. EOM
ND9
Electick, I worry about my investment in ERHC because of the Nigerian corruption factor. I've read lots of your posts and appreciate them. However, sometimes, I'm not sure what side of the fence you are on (I'm sure that's my fault, not yours).
So I'm trying to decide on buying more or not? I started buying ERHC about 2 yrs ago. Have not sold a single share. So I'm long and strong on ERHC, however, still concerned.
If investing for the long term, would you be a buyer, seller, or would you just hold here?
thanks,
ND9
Lovemelongtime - the Nigerian fish rap newspaper articles are just opinions from those who write thm. They have opinions about SEO, just like you. Maybe in some instances, they know more than you. Maybe in some instances, you know more than them. Everybody has an opinion.
I typically just post articles I find. If you look back at all my posts, I would guess that ~90% are basically me posting articles I find. It's up to the reader to decide what to make of post.
Some of the Nigerian articles I believe, some I don't. Just like our papers here in the USA some I believe, some I don't.
ND9
Walldog, oh, ok, so now you are saying that the real power is the PDP..........
That's somewhat different than earlier today when you said, "SEO got us here, when no one else on the planet could have done it...NO ONE!"
ND9
PS - Oh, and by the way, if you're important enough, I'm sure SEO will take your phone call.
Walldog0 - You might want to read the article I just posted. The source didn't say SEO had the power, the source said that when SEO comes to their office, they know he (SEO) is speaking for the Minister and the President (i.e., the real power)........
However, that's just me posting one Nigerian article. I'm surely not an expert on SEO like you are. Hey, since you know so much about him, including all his powers, maybe you can give him a call...... then give us some insight into the future of ERHC?
ND9
Homeport - yep, thanks. Let's hope for the best.
ND9