Nov 2000

State-controlled Petroleum Development Oman (PDO) admits it had a difficult year in 1999, with low oil prices and budget constraints affecting production. However, most targets were fully or nearly-fully met, including those covering reserves additions and production. Cost-cutting programmes were also implemented.

New technology and market potential has spurred Statoil to reassess decade-old plans for its Snøhvit LNG project. Located at 70° north latitude, it would be the world’s first polar LNG development and the landmark field development in Norway’s Barents Sea, writes Paul F Hueper from Stavanger.

IBERDROLA and Eni announced, on 4 October, a wide-ranging gas and power alliance that develops the Italian company’s role as an international gas supplier and provides the Spanish utility with gas for important power generation projects currently in development in Spain.

What should have been the best of times is turning into the uneasiest of times for Newfoundland’s offshore, long hailed as Canada’s second energy frontier after the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin.

AspenTech’s DMCplus™ multivariate controller played a significant role in the improved throughput of the FCC unit at Agip Petroli’s Sannazzaro refinery. The control system allowed the unit to operate at very close to its economic limits and the project achieved pay-back within two months

The challenge of the future will not be for oil companies to drill deeper wells or shoot better seismic, but to manage knowledge effeciently, argues Frank Inouye, managing director of Deltaic Systems

Sentiment towards China has altered radically in the last few months in the wake of a steady flow of good economic news. The slowdown of the previous two years has been replaced by a flood of foreign direct investment.

For much of its modern history, the development of natural gas as a major energy source did not appear a credible, or even desirable, option in China. Even as late as the 1980s, the government was proclaiming coal as energy king; coal was cheap and reserves were plentiful. In addition, China had developed a large-scale oil industry. The widespread utilisation of natural gas appeared little more than an unnecessary and expensive luxury.

Consumers of gas have worries about long-term supplies and whether there is enough investment in new-field development. Producers worry about types of contract and sharing risk.

Worldwide, demand for gas continues to grow, bringing with it an increase in trading volumes and projects to provide the infrastructure to keep the world supplied.

Royal Dutch Shell announced last month that it would step up its commitment to gas-to-liquids. Building on the success of its commercial prototype plant in Sarawak, Malaysia, the group believes its technology can give it a lead in a nascent industry that will enable the world’s reserves of gas to supply its growing demand for clean fuels. Derek Brower went to Bintulu to find out more

Jack Jacometti says you don’t come across concepts like GTL very often, but GTL is only one of the elements of SMDS that excites him.

In the past few years a large number of ambitious energy development projects have been proposed for the Russian Far East, envisioning exports, via pipeline or through LNG carriers, of large volumes of natural gas. Yet few outlooks for the Russian Far East establish realistic project parameters.

The first cargo of Omani LNG was shipped just four years after construction of the plant began and already officials appear confident that expansion plans will go ahead.

Spain’s two biggest power companies, Endesa and Iberdrola, have agreed to a “friendly” merger in a bid to join the elite club of global energy giants and battle it out with the likes of Electricité de France, E.ON and RWE of Germany, and Italy’s Enel for European power market domination. In a joint statement last month, the two said they aimed to develop an ambitious programme of international expansion and diversification and create Europe’s fourth biggest electricity company, in terms of stock market value, with combined assets of 68 billion Euros ($58 billion) and a market capitalisation of 36.5 billion Euros($31.3 billion).

California price spikes – is it the beginning of the end of electricity deregulation? What about hedging - is it the nirvana?

As the European Union’s Gas Directive comes into force there are already powerful forces for change sweeping through the industry By Andrew Ellis, ECON Centre for Economic Analysis

The future energy needs of Brazil are one of the most important strategic issues facing the country. They are also potentially one of the world's largest investment opportunities for power developers.

It's no secret that “everybody is talking to everybody". But how are today's power utility winners valuing assets in such a changing landscape? By Simon Allen, PricewaterhouseCoopers

By Peter Suozzo, UBS Warburg

The Bacton-Zeebrügge interconnector has reintroduced an oil price element to UK gas markets. Will oil products retain a key role in European pricing, or will an alternative form of pricing emerge based on gas and electricity?