Drilling & production

A quick round up of recent downstream news from the Americas.

ConocoPhillips today announced approval of the final investment decision for the initial train of a two train LNG 9 million tpa project by Australia Pacific LNG in Queensland, Australia.

Holly Energy Partners has announced two expansion projects to provide 60,000 bpd of additional crude pipeline take-away capacity resulting from increased Delaware Basin drilling activity in southeast New Mexico.

Praj Industries Limited, global biofuels technology and process engineering Company, has won a contract for a large Ethanol plant in Colombia from Isolux Corsan of Spain, who are the main contractors for the project of Bioenergy S.A.

Hess Corp. in partnership with Petroceltic International PLC, has signed production sharing contracts (PSCs) with the Kurdistan Regional Government of Iraq for its Dinarta and Shakrok exploration blocks.

Chevron Corporation has signed binding Sales and Purchase Agreements (SPAs) with Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) for the delivery of LNG from the Wheatstone natural gas project in Australia.

Oil ministers for Iraq, Syria and Iran have signed an Mou for the construction of a gas pipeline to transfer Iranian gas to Europe.

BP has made a second quarter profit of US$ 5.3 billion, compared with a loss of US$ 17 billion a year ago.

Nancy Yamaguchi, Contributing Editor, provides an overview of the Latin American energy markets. The full version of this article can be found in the August 2011 issue of Hydrocarbon Engineering

The Baker Institute has released a report entitled ‘Shale Gas and U.S. National Security’, which outlines the positive geopolitical consequences that shale gas could bring for the US.

Qatargas has signed of a Heads of Agreement (HOA) to supply LNG to Petronas LNG Ltd. with 1.5 million tpa of LNG for 20 years commencing in 2013.

The American Petroleum Institute has announced that petroleum demand was up in June and the first half of 2011.

Iran is threatening to cut off its oil supplies to India next month unless a row over payment is settled.

Santos, the Australian oil and gas producer, has seen a leap in production and its GLNG project is also still on target for first production in 2015.

Total has received government approval to purchase a stake in the Yamal LNG project in the Russian Arctic area.