RIL, ONGC, BPCL bag top honours at PetroFed Oil & Gas awards

Reliance Industries, ONGC and Bharat Petroleum Corp (BPCL) walked away with the top honours at the annual PetroFed Oil & Gas Industry Awards here today.

BPCL bagged the 'Leading Oil & Gas Corporate of the Year' award as also 'Oil & Gas Marketing Company of the Year' award.

Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) walked away with the 'Exploration & Production Company of the Year' award while RIL won the 'Refinery of the Year' award.

Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd (HPCL) won the 'Oil & Gas Pipeline Transportation Company of the Year' award and Indian Oil Corp (IOC) won 'Human Resources Management Company of the Year' award.

Oil Secretary Saurabh Chandra presented the PetroFed Oil & Gas Industry Awards for 2013 for excellence in performance in various categories.

Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan was to give away the awards but he could not attend because he was travelling.

Congratulating the award winners, Chandra emphasised on the need to enhance domestic production of oil and gas to reduce imports.

In his welcome address, PetroFed chairman and IOC head B Ashok highlighted the need for keeping the spirit of healthy competition alive through such awards.

BPCL also got two special commendations for 'Innovator of the Year (Team)' award for a system to predict refining characteristics of a crude oil sample and a GPS-based pipeline surveillance personnel movement monitoring system.

The 'Innovator of the Year - Team' award was bagged by the 10-member team of IOC and Chennai Petroleum Corp Ltd (CPCL) led by R K Malhotra, then Director (R&D), Indian Oil.

They developed and commercialised technology for co-processing of non-edible oils in diesel hydro-processing operations of an existing refinery.

The 'Innovator of the Year - Individual' award was won by Dr Shashikant of IOC for developing catalyst for Olefin Polymerisation and a process for manufacture of Tarpaulin Grade Polyethylene.

The individual award also carries a cash component of Rs 2 lakh while the team award in innovation carried a cash award of Rs 50,000 for each member of the team. There were also two special commendations in the 'Innovator of the Year - Individual' award - one each for Indian Oil's Guwahati Refinery and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited.

Oil India Ltd was chosen for the 'Environmental Sustainability - Company of the Year' award while Essar Oil and GAIL won awards for project management.

The 'Woman Executive of the Year' award was given to Ritu Mathur - Team Leader, Aviation HR of BPCL. This award also carries a Rs 1 lakh cash prize. A special commendation in this category was conferred on Sita Baruah, Senior Maintenance Manager of IOC's Guwahati Refinery.

The award winners were selected through a process of collation by knowledge partner PricewaterhouseCoopers and evaluation by the Awards Committee led by Prodipto Ghosh, Distinguished Fellow, TERI and former Secretary to the Government of India.

Source: ET

ONGC to produce 20 mmscmd of gas from KG basin by 2018

ONGC, India’s largest public sector oil and gas explorer, plans to produce around 20 million metric standard cubic metres (mmscmd) of gas per day by 2018 and 90,000 barrels of oil per day by 2021 from its Krishna Godavari Basin block KG DWN 98/2 in Kakinada, Andhra Pradesh. Drilling activities are expected to start in a couple of months, a senior company official told Financial Chronicle.

The declaration of commerciality (DoC) for drilling in around 18 wells in the KG DWN 98/2 offshore field has not come in yet from the directorate of hydrcarbons (DGH), the official said. The company was supposed to start drilling in the first half of 2014. Although, the timeline to start production stays the same, plans to start drilling have got delayed slightly, the official said.

“The cost of drilling each deepwater well would be around Rs 150 crore to Rs 200 crore and all put together, it would cost something between Rs 18,500 crore to Rs 20,000 crore,” the official said.

The company had earlier told this paper that it has plans to initiate production with around 30 mmscmd from the 18 wells. ONGC has identified some 87 billion cubic metres of resources in the block.

Recently, the company got into a legal tangle over the misappropriation of gas from the same block by Reliance Industries (RIL), India’s largest private oil explorer. RIL’s KG D6 block shares the boundary with ONGC’s KG DWN 98/2. The matter is sub judice, as ONGC has sought legal help from the Delhi high court.

The two firms have also signed an agreement to share infrastructure for the development of ONGC’s block. TK Sengupta, director offshore of ONGC, said after the development of the first phase, which would be in the water depth of 600 meters to 2,400 meters, the second phase would start in ultra-deep water depths of 2,400 meters to 3,200 meters.

“We would require floating production systems (FPS) to carry out these developments starting with drilling to production. There are only two such producing blocks in the world in the Gulf of Mexico, operated by Shell and Chinook,” said Sengupta.

“The activity is going to be very challenging, but once complete, it will add around 20 mmscmd of gas capacity and around 90,000 barrels of oil to India’s production capacity.

Source: FC

Key Challenges for Australia’s Coming LNG Boom

Australia, the third-largest LNG exporter in the world after Qatar and Malaysia, is expected to overtake Qatar and become the world’s largest LNG exporter by 2020. There are several LNG projects under construction which are thought to become operational in 2017. However, Australia’s road to its LNG “revolution” is presenting numerous challenges that have caused delays on LNG projects. Have a look at the infographic to find out what the key challenges are
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Source: oilgaspost.com

China May Become A Shareholder In One Of Russia's Biggest New Oil And Gas Fields

Russian President Vladimir Putin said his government may offer China an opportunity to hold a share in one of the biggest energy projects in Siberia, the Vankor oil and gas field.
Putin made the tentative offer on Sept. 1 as he and China's vice premier, Zhang Gaoli, presided over the launch of construction of the oil pipeline that will carry nearly 40 trillion cubic meters of gas to China over 30 years, earning Russia $400 billion during the period.

"The new gas branch will significantly strengthen the economic cooperation with countries in the Asia-Pacific region and, above all, our key partner China," Putin said at the ceremony outside Yakutsk, the capital of Russia's Republic of Yakutia.

In fact, China is so important a partner that Putin said it was likely that the Kremlin would permit Beijing to become a shareholder in the Vankor field in the eastern Siberian region of Krasnoyarsk. Vankor, owned by Rosneft, the state-run Russian oil giant that owns the field, has oil reserves estimated at 520 million metric tons and gas reserves of 95 billion cubic meters.

"Vankor is one of the biggest production operations today and very promising," Putin told Zhang, according to a transcript of the event published on the Kremlin website. "Overall, we take a cautious approach to letting in our foreign partners, but we of course set no restrictions for our Chinese friends."

Putin added, "The state authorities support this idea and we would welcome your participation."

Since Putin first became Russia's president in 1999, the Russian government has increased its hold on the country's enormous energy resources. In the process, it has kept Western oil and gas companies and even private Russian firms from developing them.

Still, Russia needs the money and expertise available only from the West, especially at a time when the country's oil companies are impeded by sanctions imposed by the European Union and the United States because of Moscow's suspected support of pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.
As a result, Rosneft is seen as being eager to offer partnerships in Vankor to foreign companies, including Britain's BP, the state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corp. of India and ExxonMobil of the United States. The offer of a share to China indicates that Moscow is eager to show that it can get what it wants from partners in the East as well.

Meanwhile, at the ceremony outside Yakutsk, both Putin and Zhang autographed the newly welded pipeline, a tradition in Russia on such occasions. The structure has been dubbed the "Power of Siberia." Also present was Alexei Miller, the CEO of Gazprom, which will provide the gas to China.

"Gazprom is always a reliable supplier of gas to its customers," Miller said, "which also applies to the "Power of Siberia."

Source: Fool.com

U.S. Now World's Leading Natural Gas Producer

According to the BP 2014 statistical world energy review, the U.S. has achieved world-leading natural gas production, by reaching a new all-time high of 328 billion cubic feet per day (BCPD). World usage of natural gas is about 24% of all primary energy consumed, behind oil's 33% and coal's 30%. Over the past five years, U.S. natural gas production has grown over 20%.

This is obviously due to the capturing of natural gas as a by-product to the massive shale expansion, as the shale "fracking" revolution seems to continue its unprecedented growth. No other global energy-producing nation has come close to matching U.S. production gains, while leap-frogging Russia in 2009, along with Qatar and Iran, previous global natural gas leadership aspirants.

In 2013, U.S. production accelerated in earnest by achieving 20.5% of the global natural gas supply. Russia is the lagging runnerup. Iran, in third place has trailed far behind, while Canada has attained fifth place position by closing in on Qatar.

While the U.S. and Iran consumed approximately as much as they produced, Russia produced 50% more than its internal consumption. While Russia had become Europe's number one gas supplier, it also recently signed a $40 billion, 30-year deal, that will tap into Russia's yet-to-be developed Siberian oil/gas reserves, buried deep under that region's tundra.

While the U.S. natural gas production leadership position is undisputed, America trails in fifth place in proven natural gas reserves. This may be remedied if, and when, the U.S. is able to export the 90% of "shale potential," that awaits states' and federal approval. The latter is mostly located in government-owned areas that cover almost two-thirds of the vast acreage of the fifty states and U.S. territories.

Iran holds the top spot for proved reserves of 18.2% of the world total, with Russia just behind with 16.8% of global proved reserves. These are followed by Qatar, and

Turkmenistan, with the U.S. trailing behind. At 2013 production rates, the U.S. has 13.6 years of proved reserves, while Russia's potential reserves are generally unknown, due to the as yet undetermined amounts that will become available as the Russo/Chinese 30-year agreement begins its long-term development with Siberia.

America's greatest problem in becoming an active global "player" depends on how fast and voluminously the U.S. can complete its export terminals and convert to liquid natural gas for global export shipments.

Source: desertsun.com

China to import 5 billion cu m/year of Russian gas when pipeline starts

China will initially import 5 billion cubic meters of natural gas annually from Russia once the Power of Siberia pipeline is completed, state-owned China National Petroleum Corp. said Tuesday, September 2.

The update comes after Russian gas giant Gazprom on Monday launched construction of the pipeline within its borders.

CNPC said the Russian segment of the pipeline, which will span 2,680 km (1,665 miles), will connect to China at Heihe in northeastern Heilongjiang province.

Once the pipeline is completed, gas supplies to China will start at 5 billion cu m/year and gradually rise to 30 billion cu m/year over the first five years of deliveries. Volumes will reach 38 billion cu m annually from the sixth year onward, CNPC said.

The gas will primarily be sent to China's northern coastal areas, including Beijing, Tianjin, the Yangtze River Delta and other areas with existing pipeline infrastructure.

During the launch ceremony in the East Siberian Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), China's Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli said work on the section of the pipeline in China will start during the first half of next year.

Both CNPC and Gazprom inked a historic deal in May to send up to 38 billion cu m/year of Russian gas to China over a 30-year period starting after 2018.

CNPC said deliveries are still targeted for 2018, although Gazprom said Monday that direct gas supplies to China will start in 2019, adding that the launch of the East Siberian Chayanda field, a key source for the supplies, is scheduled to start by end-2018.

Source: Platts

Gazprom to Start Gas Supplies to China in 2019

Gazprom has set the start of gas supplies to China for 2019, the Russian company said after a meeting between its CEO Alexei Miller and China's First Deputy Prime Minister Zhang Gaoli. The 30-year contract for the supply of up to 38 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year was signed with China's CNPC in May 2014. Under the contract, deliveries are due to begin in four to six year's time.

"The beginning of natural gas production at the Chayanda field has been scheduled for the end of 2018, by which time we should have seen the launch of the first-line section of the Sila Sibiri (Force of Siberia) gas transportation system between the Chayanda field and the city of Blagoveshchensk, and the of first-line gas-processing facilities. This will enable us to start direct gas supplies to China in 2019 in line with the obligations stipulated in the signed contract," Gazprom wrote in a press release on Saturday.

Miller and Zhang also discussed progress in the construction of the Sila Sibiri gas transportation system which will ensure, among other things, gas deliveries to China on the "eastern" route, the company said. They also discussed prospects for organizing Russian gas supplies to China on the "western" route (from gas fields in Western Siberia).

Source: oilandgaseurasia.com