Aug 2000

Despite the persistence of sanctions, Iraq appears confident that it will be able to resume its position as one of the world’s major oil-producing nations and has already drawn up plans for the day when the embargo is lifted.

While sanctions continue to cripple the Iraqi economy, they appear to be failing in their stated aim of forcing the removal of the current regime. As time goes on the humanitarian issues are becoming more dominant and the debate about the impact of sanctions more clouded.

As the attention paid to recent wrangling over Opec’s output volumes attests, oil price reigns supreme in the global oil and gas business. However, the future of its offshore sector has always been determined as much by the progress of bespoke technology as by oil’s dollars-per-barrel price.

THE AUSTRALIAN oil and gas sector, led by a resurgence in crude oil output, is recovering strongly from the difficulties caused by the Asian economic crisis and the subsequent crash in oil prices. A combination of those factors and a severe, temporary restriction on output from the Gippsland Basin, offshore Victoria, resulted in crude oil production bottoming in the fourth quarter of 1998 at an average of 253,700 barrels a day (b/d).

Despite having a favourable fiscal regime, when compared with most other countries, Australia is relatively unexplored, writes Michael Sarich, economic modelling consultant, Merak Projects, Australia

A YEAR AGO, Gulf Canada’s president, Dick Auchinleck, was a lone voice, if not a curiosity, as he promoted the virtues of reviving Arctic natural gas development. Now, everybody wants to get involved.

Investors, wary of the risks tied to most South American countries and yet attracted by the promise of the region’s top companies and projects, have become willing to jump back into Latin America.

ARGENTINA’s federal government is promoting an extension of the country’s oil and gas concession contracts in an effort to secure significant investment for the coming years. The legal framework defining which government body is entitled to grant such extensions remains unclear.

Bidding in the second licensing round was much more successful in terms of the foreign bidders attracted into the round, than the first round, although Petrobras still won the most attractive acreage.

Global prospects for natural gas are bright, but, while total reserves are thought to be sufficient to meet the huge projected growth in demand worldwide, they are not always found where they are most needed. That’s where non-conventional gas reserves, such as methane hydrates, come in.

Does energy efficiency hold the key to the quickest and most cost-effective way to boost the integrity of the US electricity supply network and stop the blackouts?

Bigger is better, right? The answer is clear: business units can - but don’t always - benefit from size. But many companies are already too big

Nordic countries already have a competitive international power sector, leaving many other countries struggling in their wake to introduce deregulation reforms. How could Norway, Sweden and Finland move so fast?

Despite a new regulatory framework, without substantial development of the gas market Venezuela will find it difficult to encourage foreign investment

World demand for energy again remained stubbornly flat in 1999, growing by only 0.2 per cent, well below the average increase for the past ten years of 0.9 per cent. If the significant fall in Chinese energy use is excluded, however, global consumption rose by 1.4 per cent. The weakness in growth was concentrated in the emerging and developing economies whose energy consumption fell by 2.3 per cent during the year, compared to 1.4 per cent growth in demand in the OECD area, according to the BP Amoco Statistical Review of World Energy 2000, published last month.