Earlier this month, Royal Dutch Shell Plc pulled the plug on its Convent refinery in Louisiana. Unlike many oil refineries shut in recent years, Convent was far from obsolete: it’s fairly big by U.S. standards and sophisticated enough to turn a wide range of crude oils into high-value fuels. Yet …
Read More »BP Sells Its London Head Office as It Shifts to Low-Carbon Energy
BP has announced the sale of its London head office to Hong Kong investment firm Lifestyle International for £250m ($332m). The British oil giant also agreed to lease its 1 St James’s Square property in central London back from Lifestyle International for two years, saying the deal would give it …
Read More »Iran Resumes Gas Excavation from Phase 16 of South Pars Field
The offshore platform of Phase 16 of southern Iranian South Pars Field has come back to production, according to an official with Pars Oil and Gas Field. The platform stopped gas excavation a year ago due to damages to parts of its pipelines stretching 110 kilometers on the seabed. Alireza …
Read More »Saudia, Russia in Tight Race to Become China’s Top Oil Supplier
Saudi Arabia and Russia are in a tight race to become China’s top oil supplier in 2020, with both countries boosting crude exports to the economic powerhouse even as the coronavirus pandemic hit global demand for oil this year. Saudi Arabia, which was China’s top supplier last year, has exported …
Read More »US Extends Sanctions Waiver for Iraq to Import Iranian Gas
Washington has granted Iraq a shortened 45-day sanctions waiver to import Iranian gas that will expire days before US President Donald Trump’s term ends, an Iraqi official said Saturday. Baghdad buys gas and electricity from its neighbor Tehran to supply about a third of its power sector, worn down by …
Read More »Oil Rig Count Falls for the First Time in 2 Months
Baker Hughes reported on Friday that the number of oil rigs in the United States fell by 5 to 231, ending eight weeks of increases to oil rigs in the U.S. The total number of active oil and gas rigs decreased for the week by 2, with oil rigs decreasing …
Read More »Two-Thirds of Energy Company Employers Cut Labour Costs due to COVID
A survey by energy labour market organization PetroLMI shows that more than two-thirds of the employers in Canada’s oil and gas sector imposed labour cost reduction measures in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns, including 37 per cent who enacted permanent layoffs. The division of Energy Safety Canada surveyed …
Read More »Iraq to Invite International Firms to Help Build 300,000 b/d Refinery
Iraq plans to invite international companies to compete in order to build a 300,000 b/d refinery south of the country, the oil minister said Nov. 18, as OPEC’s second largest oil producer seeks to wean itself off crude products imports. The refinery, to be built in Fao in the Basra …
Read More »Chevron Looks to Biden to Preserve Its Venezuela Foothold
Chevron’s willingness to keep a foothold in oil-rich Venezuela will now be a thorny political issue for President-elect Joe Biden to sort out. The U.S. Treasury Department extended until June 3 its authorization for Chevron to carry out essential transactions in the country to preserve its assets, from a previous …
Read More »World Energy Supply must be Sustainable
Any successful vaccine for the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) would rely on the global energy sector for its mass production, said Ahmad Al-Khowaiter, chief technology officer at Saudi Aramco, on Tuesday. “Fortunately, we have an energy system in place that can power the manufacture, transportation and storage of the billions of …
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