A Barrel Full

The impact on the European refining sector of some of the developments in the Middle East is a big uncertainty. What is certain is that there will be some kind of impact. New refineries are either in contruction or planned, and the European market is one of the focuses of these investments.
This week we have […]

Wondering where all the oil we need will come from? Saudi Arabia reckons it knows.
Al-Falih said Saudi Arabia is committed to maintaining 1.5 milion barrels of oil a day of spare production capacity. The kingdom, which recently underwent a big expansion of its oil output, currently has a spare capacity of 4 million barrels a […]

News of a big marriage in the oil services sector.
Schlumberger Ltd and Smith International, Inc. jointly announced today that their Boards of Directors have unanimously approved a definitive merger agreement in which the companies would combine in a stock-for-stock transaction.
As the knowledge side of the industry grows in importance, so the major players are growing […]

The current Natural Gas surplus is impacting on everyone, and even the mighty Gazprom is not excluded.
Russia’s gas export monopoly Gazprom said on Friday it had agreed with Total and Statoil to delay the giant Shtokman gas field by 3 years due to major changes in the global gas markets.
The reason is that the USA, […]

This news is from about a week ago, but I found it interesting on a number of levels.
KBR announced today that it has signed a Collaboration Agreement with BP to promote, market, and execute licensing and engineering services for the slurry bed residue and coal upgrading Veba Combi Cracker (VCC) Technology.
The first reason why I […]

Today’s theme is Brazil, simply because a number of unrelated stories nicely illustrate the rise of that country as an energy giant. Brazil is the most fashionable thing in the industry.
First up we have an update on drilling in the sub salt, by one of the fortunate first movers.
BG Group (25%) and partners Petrobras (65% […]

Rig count numbers are out for December 2009.Though down on a year ago, the rig count continues to grow as companies have overcome their reluctance to invest upstream.
The worldwide rig count for December 2009 was 2,509, up 100 from the 2,409 counted in November 2009 and down 712 from the 3,221 counted in December 2008.
Interestingly, […]

2009 was a year of extremes, following a truly black swan of a year in 2008. So what of the coming twelve months. For what its worth, here are a few forecasts.

Crude oil prices will not rise above $100 per barrel, unless there is a war involving Iran. There is too much spare capacity to […]

It is unusual to have such big news releases at this time of year, but this one is undoubtedly a big one.
Firms from China, South Korea and the United Arab Emirates have won $9.7 billion worth of contracts to develop Turkmenistan’s largest natural gas deposit, government sources in the Central Asian state said on Tuesday.
The […]

This time they managed to get the oil companies to bite.
Iraq’s Oil Ministry awarded seven service contracts to international oil companies to develop some of its biggest oilfields in the second bidding round.
First Up West Qurna 2 field in the southern part of Iraq.
A total of four bids were delivered for the West Qurna 2 […]