Oct 2010

The protests haven’t stopped and emotions still run high, but Canada’s oil-sands producers, long the target for environmentalists’ anger, have regained some ground in the battle for public opinion

Opposition to the expansion of Canadian export pipelines could deter investment in the oil sands, compromising the security of US energy supplies, says Ron Liepert, Alberta’s energy minister

BNK PETROLEUM aims to begin producing shale gas in Europe early next year

Statoil and Talisman are to spend $1.3bn to buy 97,000 acres in Texas’s liquids-rich Eagle Ford shale-gas play from local producer Enduring Resources

Shell has shelved plans for a 400,000 barrels a day (b/d) bitumen upgrader in Alberta, but insists it is not responding to public and shareholder pressure on oil-sands producers

Fuel sourced from the oil sands and burnt in the US is on average just 6% more carbon intensive than the average crude grade consumed there, much less than previously thought, says IHS Cera

Large-scale deposits of unconventional gas in China could affect the development of traditional oil and gas projects in Central Asia, speakers at the KazEnergy Eurasian Forum in Astana said last week

CNOOC is to buy a third of Chesapeake Energy’s Eagle Ford shale-gas acreage for $1.1bn, marking the arrival of China in the US energy sector

Oil and gas firms spent $21bn to secure a foothold in the US shale-gas industry in the first half of 2010, says Wood Mackenzie, equivalent to a third of global upstream mergers and acquisitions (M&A)

Talisman Energy’s expansion in Texas’s Eagle Ford Shale is accelerating its strategy to redefine itself as a leading North American unconventional-energy player, even as its development of assets in Quebec slows down

Environmental concerns over shale-gas development could stop development in Europe, says the European Commission

The Barnett Shale is the US’ most prolific unconventional gasfield, but it could soon relinquish the title to the Eagle Ford

Itochu buys share in Fidelity's Wyoming shale-oil

Encana Capex reduces spending by $200m

SilverBirch plans C$43m investment in 40 to 50 wells

China's ministry of land and mineral resources (MLMR) will offer exploration licences for six shale-gas blocks to four domestic companies. The round will open after paperwork is completed later this month, say local reports

Alberta government confirms Southern Pacific Resource’s STP-McKay Thermal Project

Shale-gas production poses no threat to gas deposits, says industry minister Bob McLeod

Kogas signs aggreement with the University of Queensland

Israel's Brack Capital Energy set to begin exploring Xing’an region of Inner Mongolia

Lakes Oil partners PetroChina in collaboration of Australia's southern tight-gas

India aims to forge shale-gas agreement with the US

Council meets environmental/legal experts for Marcellus Shale

IF $80/b oil is a threat to the US economy, as some analysts claim, then prepare for a rocky few months. The world's dominant producers are in no mood to soften the market, even as it threatens to breach $85/b

Many uncertainties hang over the LNG industry in the short to medium term, but the long-term outlook remains bullish, writes Alex Forbes

With several LNG-export projects planned, Australia could triple its export capacity by 2020. Coal-seam gas will underpin many of the plants, writes Ian Lewis

LNG demand in Asia weathered the economic storm, but plans for a trading hub in Singapore could shake-up the region's market, say Susan Farmer, Stefan Ricketts and Ben Smith*

The Medgaz gas pipeline, linking Algeria directly with Spain, was being commissioned last month – prompting forecasts of heightened competition in the European LNG market, Martin Quinlan writes

Medgaz has been driven more by the visions of the two governments than by an immediate commercial need

During a decade in which world trade in gas expanded by 81%, Algeria's exports declined by 11%

With its LNG business expected to make nearly $2bn this year, BG's Brazilian operations are still making the headlines, writes NJ Watson

US energy policy remains President Obama's number-one priority, but with control of Congress in the balance, it will remain in limbo

US unemployment data suggest the country's economic recovery remains weak. This will weigh on world energy markets in the coming months

BP is working hard to rebuild its shattered reputation and has a big new Caspian gasfield on its books, but it will take more than that to comfort investors, writes Miles Lang

Despite efforts to portray a stable upstream investment environment, oil firms, both foreign and local, are demanding clarity in Kazakhstan's fiscal regime

As energy firms move into countries with unfamiliar or unstable, political, legal and financial systems, local contractual advice is vital, write Jean-Pierre Douglas-Henry and Sashe Dimitroff*

The oil sands' tailing problem will be under control within a decade, says Rick George, Suncor's boss. He tells Derek Brower why the environmentalists have got Alberta wrong

Opposition to Canadian export pipelines could deter oil-sands investment, compromising US energy security. Alberta energy minister Ron Liepert talks to Derek Brower

Canada is under mounting pressure to decide how far it will allow foreign state ownership of natural resources

The US may soon join Canada and Venezuela as a large-scale producer of unconventional heavy oil

Plans for an energy bridge to Asia from Canada's oil sands are looking shaky, writes Gary Park

The division between the rich world and the poor one over climate change is growing more intractable with each year that passes

Reducing energy poverty is one of the UN's Millennium Development goals, and achieving it will help ensure environmental sustainability, says the IEA. Tom Nicholls reports

Risky geoengineering solutions are increasingly seen as a viable option for combating global warming

Carbon capture and storage is making progress, but governments will need to accelerate its deployment significantly

"If all goes well, it could be in service by the middle of the decade," Gardiner Hill says

Investors say they are committed to financing carbon mitigation schemes, but without clear climate and energy policies in place, the risk may be too great, writes Tom Nicholls

The Chinese may not be about to slash carbon emissions, but the country is now a world leader in renewable-energy investment, writes Ian Lewis

China's wind-energy programme has been a victim of its own success, as over-capacity, especially in remote areas, has put pressure on the country's under-developed electricity grid, writes Ian Lewis

China is engaged in a push to promote electric vehicles, which could promote the wider global adoption of the technology

Globally, carbon trading is in the doldrums, driven down by the collapse of a US initiative, writes Ian Lewis

The EU is upping the ante before climate talks in Cancun with plans to hike emissions-reduction targets

The EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) has received a boost from an apparent shift in attitude by the airline industry that could lead to the inclusion of aviation emissions in the ETS

HAVING shed its most cumbersome, problematic asset, a new company has surfaced in Alberta's oil sands, eager to develop its remaining 0.9bn barrels of mineable bitumen resources

The 12,000 barrels a day (b/d) venture, around 18 months away from first production, will use steam-assisted gravity-drainage for recovery of the oil

REPSOL's decision to sell 40% of its Santos basin oil assets to Sinopec is an attempt to ease tensions with Sacyr, its largest shareholder, as it plots heavy spending to develop pre-salt prospects

KOREA National Oil Corporation's (KNOC) hostile take over of UK independent Dana Petroleum succeeded in late September

PETROBRAS has successfully completed a huge $70bn share offering, putting it on a firmer footing as it advances with its ambitious $224bn business plan for 2010-14

AFRICA is due to welcome a new state in January, when South Sudan votes in a referendum for independence from the north – or, if the referendum is delayed, simply declares independence

Statoil will make a development decision in the next two years, after it recently increased its holding in the area

THE WORLD has more oil than previously thought

A gas-supply agreement between Russia and China is advancing. But Gazprom may already have missed its chance to meet soaring Chinese gas demand

STATOIL and CNOOC are buying into Texas' Eagle Ford Shale in deals with a combined value of $3.5bn, proving shale-gas acreage is still hot property

NATURAL gas will play a "very prominent role" in Shell's future, says chief executive Peter Voser, with the company pledging to "enhance energy security and cut carbon emissions"

A new exploration deal in Azerbaijan could put Dudley's company in the middle of a battle for the country's gas exports

Oil prices remain firm, with New York's front-month contract trading at around $81/b on 22 October

Global oil supply dropped by 150,000 b/d, to 87.72m b/d, in September on the back of lower non-Opec output

Peter Tertzakian says the world is on the verge of an energy "break point" that will change the way we live and work. He talks to Derek Brower

Environmental approval has paved the way for Australia’s, and the world’s, first coal-bed methane (CBM) to liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects

While hydraulic fracturing (fracking) has substantially improved the economics of shale-gas production, it also has stirred up controversy

For more than 20 years, Canadian Natural Resources – better known by its stock symbol CNQ – has been the bellwether of Canada’s petroleum industry and it shows no signs of relinquishing that role

India plans its first shale-gas auction to go ahead next year

More than 200 ducks have been euthanised after being trapped in toxic waste ponds at the Syncrude, Suncor and Shell Canada oil-sands plants in northern Alberta

Canadian gas producers are quietly extending the boundaries of British Columbia’s (BC) shale-gas activities into the Liard basin, west of the established Montney play and the emerging Horn River basin

There could be 100bn barrels of oil in the Paris basin, claims one of the firms trying to tap the resource. If true, it would be one of the biggest finds in the world

Triangle Petroleum has entered a joint venture with Oppenheimer Global Resource (OGR) to develop shale oil in North Dakota’s portion of the Bakken shale play

Anschutz Energy has sold shale-oil and gas reserves in the northeast US and in North Dakota for an estimated $2bn-3bn, but has not disclosed who the buyer was

Essar Energy has raised a Rs5.7bn ($128m) loan for a coal-bed methane (CBM) based, gas-fired power project in India