Oil Conglomerate News

United States taking share from OPEC nations in Asia, Europe, as China’s biggest U.S. crude buyer to double imports. In the two years since Washington lifted a 40-year ban on oil exports, tankers filled with U.S. crude have landed in more than 30 countries, ranging from massive economies like China and India to tiny Togo. The repeal has unleashed a flood of U.S. shale oil, undercutting global crude prices, eroding the clout of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and seizing market share from many of its member countries. In 2005, before the shale revolution, the United States had net imports of 12.5 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude and fuels - compared to just 4 million bpd today. U.S.

DONG Energy said it has reached a settlement with Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering and Technip over who bears responsibility for construction errors concerning an offshore platform for the idled Hejre field. The settlement clears a major hurdle for the Danish company's plans to divest its oil and gas unit to focus on its growing business of developing offshore wind farms. DONG said in a statement that the agreement will reduce the 2.5 billion Danish crowns ($367 million) of provisions it made in relation to the Hejre field ahead of its listing, which was one of the largest in the world last year. It will also have a positive impact of around 900 million crowns on operating profit in DONG's Discontinued Operations…

Denmark's finance minister Kristian Jensen will hold a news conference about the government's ongoing negotiations with the Danish Underground Consortium (DUC) about a new tax agreement for North Sea oil and gas operations at 1745 CET on Wednesday, the finance ministry said in a statement.   DUC consists of Danish shipping and oil conglomerate A. P. Moller-Maersk, Shell, Chevron CVX.N and state-owned Nordsofonden.   The deal is seen as crucial for Maersk as it seeks to focus its operations on the North Sea and spin off its energy assets via a listing or merger. (Reporting by Teis Jensen; Editing by Toby Chopra)

A. P. Moller-Maersk's chairman says that the Danish shipping and oil conglomerate could be split up in several companies, after it on Thursday appointed the head of its container business as new chief executive. "The question is whether we should be a large group, or whether we should be a number of independent companies," Michael Pram Rasmussen told Danish online media Finans. "It is a possibility for us, but it is not something you just do. It would be a huge task," he said.

Container shipping demand at lowest since 2008 crisis; additional capacity supply far outstrips demand. Shipping and oil conglomerate A.P. Moller-Maersk said on Friday third-quarter profit almost halved and global demand for container transportation this year would grow at a slower pace than previously expected. The Danish company, which operates the largest container shipping business in the world, kept a reduced forecast made two weeks ago for a 2015 underlying profit of $3.4 billion, down from the $4.0 billion previously expected. Maersk has taken a double hit to its businesses -- its oil units have floundered as crude prices halved since last year, while low trade volumes and an overcapacity of vessels have weighed on Maersk Line, the container shipping business.

A.P. Moller-Maersk said on Friday it downgraded its profit outlook for 2015 by $0.6 billion to an underlying result of around $3.4 billion. The Copenhagen-based shipping and oil conglomerate said market conditions world-wide have been weaker than the group expected. "Particularly the container shipping market deteriorated beyond the group's expectations especially in the  latter part of third quarter and October," it said.   (Reporting by Ole Mikkelsen)

Cameroon has awarded a contract for its Kribi port to a consortium led by French logistics group Necotrans, the two parties said. The deepwater port will allow for the import and export of raw materials such as timber and cotton as well as vehicles and service equipment for Cameroon's oil and gas sector. A contract for the Kribi container port was awarded to a Bollore-led consortium last week. The government is rushing to get Kribi operational to ease congestion on the port of Douala, 150 kilometres to the north. "As the only deepwater port in Central Africa, Kribi will be the economic lifeblood for Cameroon and the region, notably Chad and the Central African Republic," Necotrans President Gregory Querel said in a statement.

A consortium led by France's Bollore failed to make the final shortlist of firms vying to manage a new container terminal in Cameroon's southern port of Kribi, according to a commission report seen by Reuters on Monday. The government commission, charged with recommending a container terminal manager, shortlisted Philippines-based ICTSI and port operator APM Terminals, a unit of shipping and oil conglomerate A.P. Moller-Maersk. The commission said in its report it had reservations over the sustainability of the proposal from Bollore's consortium and found the offers from ICTSI and APMT to be the most plausible. "The Commission accepted the offers of ICTSI and APMT as being the most advantageous for Cameroon and the central African sub-region," it said.

Maersk Drilling, is a unit in shipping and oil conglomerate A.P. Moller-Maersk. Hess has exercised the four one-well options included in the current contract for the jack-up rig Maersk Resolute. Each of the four additional wells has an estimated duration of around 90 days implying an extension of the current contract by around 1 year. The current seven firm wells programme is expected to end by April 2015. With the exercising of the four one-well options, the rig will be employed until April 2016. The estimated value of the extension is around $75 million. Reporting by Ole Mikkelsen

Port operator APM Terminals, a unit of shipping and oil conglomerate A.P. Moller-Maersk , said on Thursday it had signed a memorandum of understanding with the government of Ghana to expand its Tema Port. APM Terminals said the agreement included a "private investment" in excess of $1 billion by Meridian Port Services of which APM Terminals controls 35 percent. "Both in the short- and long-term view we see Ghana as a country with great potential," Peder Søndergaard head of Africa and Middle East activities in APM Terminals told Reuters. Meridian Port Services (MPS) is a joint venture between APM Terminals, Bolloré Africa Logistics and the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority.

Denmark's A.P. Moller-Maersk said on Wednesday it would invest billions of dollars in new ships, reap hundreds of millions in savings and announced valuable contracts for its drilling rigs. But shares of the world's largest container shipping company fell more than 3 percent, partly because it failed to announce any of the initiatives the market had anticipated for its investor day in Copenhagen. Analysts had hoped that Maersk would say it had sold a big oil asset in Angola, which would have cut future capital investments, or unveil an increase in its payments to shareholders.

Cargo shipping volumes are picking up as Asia recovers from the recent economic crisis, a partner of Danish shipping and oil conglomerate A.P. Moeller said. A.P. Moeller is the parent of Maersk Sealand, the world's leading container shipping line with a fleet of some 250 vessels. Bjarne Hansen said that work on integrating U.S. Sealand, acquired by A.P. Moeller last year, with the group's own Maersk container li, Hansen said. The merger of Maersk and Sealand had caused hardly any loss of customers, he said, despite A.P. Moeller's management fearing that some customers might give their business to other shippers to avoid excessive exposure to one company.

Maersk-Sealand, the world's biggest container line, will move its transhipment hub to the Malaysian port Tanjung Pelepas (PTP) from Singapore. Maersk-Sealand, part of Danish shipping and oil conglomerate A.P. Moeller, bought 30 percent of PTP, and expects the move of transhipment activities to PTP from Singapore to give the company more control over operations and entail cost savings. Container handling at PTP, which started operations in October last year, has been forecast to double to one million twenty-foot equivalent units teu in 2001 and reach 3.8 million teu per year once the port reaches full capacity.

Hutchison Port, a unit of conglomerate Hutchison announced earlier on Wednesday a 30 percent investment in Westport Holdings, a multi-purpose terminal in Malaysia's biggest port, Port Klang. Hutchison, controlled by Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing, said in a statement that the deal would allow it to participate in Malaysia's economy. It gave no other details of the deal. Malaysia has 15 ports including Port Klang, on the west coast of Malaysia, which is the nation's main port. Port Klang, which is made up of three ports, the north, south and west ports, has been trying to compete with Singapore, the largest and busiest container port in the world.

Container shipping line Maersk Sealand, owned by Denmark`s shipping and oil conglomerate A.P. Moeller (APM), said on it was ready to expand again after a successful integration of its last major acquisitions. "We aim for a bigger market share and want to grow faster than the market", APM Chief Financial Officer Eivind Kolding said. In 1999 Maersk Line acquired South African shipping group Safmarine and U.S.-based international container line Sea-Land for a total of $1.04 billion. The deals made the Danish group the leading global container line with 250 ships and 700,000 containers and an estimated market share of 13 percent. However, the APM group`s ambitions are not limited to shipping activities, which accounted for 90 percent of 2000 first-half revenue.

According to AFP, Kuwait Oil Tanker Co. (KOTC) will soon order four giant oil tankers expected to cost some 500 million dollars, chairman Abdullah Al Rumi said on Wednesday. The new order was approved by the national oil conglomerate Kuwait Petroleum Corp. (KPC), and will be offered in a tender soon, Rumi told the official KUNA news agency. Each has a capacity of 300,000 tonnes and will replace old tankers in the company’s fleet of 24 vessels. KOTC signed three contracts in 2004 with South Korean companies to build seven new vessels at a cost of 540 million dollars. Delivery is expected to start next year. They include two very large crude carriers (VLCC), two liquefied petroleum gas tankers and three petroleum products vessels. Source: Business Times