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Despite March exports drop, record output for new buoys

As new offshore export facilities come online, Iraq has the opportunity to increase oil sales, despite enduring security and infrastructure challenges. Iraq’s single point mooring (SPM) buoys in the Basra Gulf exported an average 829,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude in March, a new high for the expansion of the southern export system."Total exports from SPMs was 25.7 million barrels in March," said a senior official involved in Iraqi oil exports.This month a new export platform will be fully operational, and by mid-year a third SPM will be ready for use, further increasing southern oil export capacity.Iraq has made nearly $15 bill…

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Ditch being dug on northern Iraqi border with Syria

A ditch is being built on the northern Iraqi border with Syria to prevent terrorists from Syria crossing over into the Kurdish administered region, the Kurdish Regional Government authorities said. Bulldozers at a border village of Mosul’s Zumar district are digging a 17 km long, two meter wide, three meter deep ditch, according to a Kurdish peshmerga general, who wishes to remain anonymous. "This region is the transit route for terrorists. They cross our border from here and they commit bomb attacks in Iraq’s different regions," said the general to AA reporter emphasizing the importance of blocking the border for their security. Meanwhile, Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), a political offshoot of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) increasing its control in northwestern Syria, protested against the KDP decision to build the ditch. A group of around one thousand PYD-affiliated people demonstrated near the ditch, […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Total Says Kashagan Oil Field Won't Yield Much Output This Year

An aerial view shows the artificial islands at the Kashagan offshore oil field in the Caspian sea in western Kazakhstan in this October 16, 2013 file photograph. PARIS— SA said Friday it doesn’t expect the to yield much output this year but said it was on the cusp of approving a $4 billion . The resumption of the Kashagan project has been beset with problems even since a tricky-to-fix gas leak forced the French company and its partners to stop production in October. "If there were to be any production by the end of the year, it wouldn’t be much," Total’s president for exploration and production, Arnaud Breuillac, told reporters on the sidelines of an oil conference in Paris. He said the companies are waiting for the results of analyses and ultrasound probes on the leaking pipeline to identify the problem and find ways to fix it. Resuming output […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Total Says Kashagan Oil Field Won’t Yield Much Output This Year

An aerial view shows the artificial islands at the Kashagan offshore oil field in the Caspian sea in western Kazakhstan in this October 16, 2013 file photograph. PARIS— SA said Friday it doesn’t expect the to yield much output this year but said it was on the cusp of approving a $4 billion . The resumption of the Kashagan project has been beset with problems even since a tricky-to-fix gas leak forced the French company and its partners to stop production in October. "If there were to be any production by the end of the year, it wouldn’t be much," Total’s president for exploration and production, Arnaud Breuillac, told reporters on the sidelines of an oil conference in Paris. He said the companies are waiting for the results of analyses and ultrasound probes on the leaking pipeline to identify the problem and find ways to fix it. Resuming output […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Oil India Said to Study Purchase of Shell’s Nigerian Blocks

Oil India Ltd. (OINL) , the nation’s second-biggest state-run explorer, is studying an acquisition of Nigerian oil and gas assets owned by Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSA) , according to people familiar with the matter. Oil India is weighing a bid for stakes Shell holds in some onshore blocks, valued at as much as $2 billion, the people said. It will partner with India’s Sandesara Group on the potential purchase, according to the people, who asked not to be identified as the deliberations are private. The explorer joins Dangote Group , controlled by Africa’s richest man, and Seplat Petroleum Development Co. in seeking to acquire Nigerian assets being sold by Western rivals. Shell and Chevron Corp. are divesting fields in the country amid persistent violence and crude theft in the oil-rich Niger River delta. India’s government-run oil companies are building on their record $5.5 billion of acquisitions last year […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Oil pipe leak blamed for tainted water in China

An oil pipe leak caused excessive levels of the toxic chemical benzene in a major Chinese city’s water supply, prompting warnings against drinking from the tap and sending residents to queue up to buy bottled water. The scare, which has affected more than 2.4 million people in the northwestern city of Lanzhou, has once again raised concerns over safety of China’s oil pipes. Last year, a ruptured oil pipeline resulted in explosions in the eastern city of Qingdao, killing 62 people. In Lanzhou, a crude oil pipeline run by the state-owned China National Petroleum Corp. had a leak that tainted the source water feeding a local water plant, the official Xinhua News Agency said. Phone calls to the oil company’s local and national offices rang unanswered on Saturday. The city of Lanzhou said it has been monitoring levels of benzene in water pipes to ensure public […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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China Takes On Big Risks in Its Push for Shale Gas

China’s largest energy company has made the country’s first commercially viable shale gas discovery, but the path to energy independence is fraught with risks, as one town has seen first-hand. JIAOSHIZHEN, China — Residents of this isolated mountain valley of terraced cornfields were just going to sleep last April when they were jolted by an enormous roar, followed by a tower of flames. A shock wave rolled across the valley, rattling windows in farmhouses and village shops, and a mysterious, pungent gas swiftly pervaded homes. “It was so scary — everyone who had a car fled the village and the rest of us without cars just stayed and waited to die,” said Zhang Mengsu, a hardware store owner. All too quickly, residents realized the source of the midnight fireball: a shale gas drilling rig in their tiny rural hamlet. This verdant valley represents the latest frontier in the worldwide […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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The Absurdity of US Natural Gas Exports

Quiz: 1. How much natural gas is the United States currently extracting? (a) Barely enough to meet its own needs (b) Enough to allow lots of exports (c) Enough to allow a bit of exports (d) The United States is a natural gas importer Answer: (d) The United States is a natural gas importer, and has been for many years. The EIA is forecasting that by 2017, we will finally be able to meet our own natural gas needs. In fact, this last year, with a cold winter, we have had a problem with excessively drawing down amounts in storage. Figure 2. US EIA’s chart showing natural gas in storage, compared to the five year average, from Weekly Natural Gas Storage Report . There is even discussion that at the low level in storage and current rates of production, it may not be possible to fully replace the natural gas in […]

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Baker Hughes sees drilling efficiency increase

Drilling efficiency overall in the United States is 3 percent better than it was at this time last year, oil services company Baker Hughes said Friday. Baker Hughes published its quarterly onshore well count for the United States. It said the number of wells tallied in the first quarter was down 230, or 3 percent, when compared with fourth quarter 2013. Year-on-year, however, the well count was up 4 percent and rig efficiency was improving. "Due to improved drilling efficiencies, the average U.S. onshore drilling rig now produces 3 percent more wells compared to the same quarter last year," it said . Well counts were down in the Eagle Ford and Barnett shale basins in Texas, the Marcellus shale play in the eastern United States and the Williston shale area of the Northern Plains. Decreases, Baker Hughes said, were offset by gains in the […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Texas holds No. 1 oil spot, EIA says

Texas recorded the largest increase in proven oil reserves of any state, eclipsing North Dakota by nearly 2 billion barrels, the U.S. Energy Department said. The Energy Information Administration, the statistical arm of the Energy Department, said Texas and North Dakota helped pushed proven crude oil reserves in the country to record highs. EIA said proved oil reserves in 2012, the last full year for which complete data are available, increased for the fourth consecutive year and were the highest since 1976. "At the state level, Texas recorded the largest volumetric increase, up 3.0 billion barrels, in proved oil reserves among individual states, largely because of development in the Permian and Western Gulf basins," EIA said in a report Thursday. "North Dakota had the second-largest increase, up 1.1 billion barrels, driven by development of the Bakken and Three Forks formations in the Williston Basin." […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple