Dow Jones Newswires News

Venezuelan authorities said they will release a U.S.-operated  oil-exploration survey vessel Teknik Perdana and its 36 crew members after detaining the ship last week, multiple sources reported. The 285-foot vessel was taken into custody while conducting a seismic study in resource-rich waters that are allegedly part of a centuries-old border dispute between Venezuela and its neighboring country Guyana. Teknik Perdana was said to be on hired for Guyana in its own territory when Venezuelan naval patrol seized the survey vessel Thursday, claiming it was trespassing on its national waters.

Samsung Heavy Industries (HII) Q4 3012 net profit fell 59% due to costs related to an oil-leakage accident in 2007. Net profit for the three months ended December 31 fell to KRW73 billion from KRW176.5 billion a year earlier, reports Fox Business News; however, fourth-quarter sales and operating profit rose on orders for higher-end ships. Full-year 2012 net profit fell 6.4% to KRW796.4 billion. Operating profit climbed 11% to KRW1.206 trillion and sales rose 8.2% to KRW14.49 trillion. Source: Fox Business News/Dow Jones Newswires

According to a report from the Dow Jones Newswires, German industrial conglomerate ThyssenKrupp AG (TKA.XE) is in exclusive talks to sell large parts of its Blohm + Voss shipbuilding business to U.K. private equity fund Star Capital Partners. Source: Dow Jones Newswires

According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, two oil tankers have been booked for use as floating storage vessels off the U.S. Gulf Coast this month, shipping brokers told Dow Jones Newswires on June 27.   Source: The Wall Street Journal

Statoil ASA (STO, STL.OS), which built its oil and gas expertise in Norway's offshore waters, is stretching its land legs in the U.S., where it seeks to partake of the shale bounty. Like many international oil and gas companies, Norway's Statoil has poured billions into joint ventures with some of the North American independents that in the last decade figured out how to profitably unlock the oil and gas trapped in shale, bankrolling their drilling while hoping to learn some of their techniques. But peering over its partners' shoulders is not enough: Statoil plans to run its own U.S. shale operation in South Texas's Eagle Ford Shale by early 2013, said the company's executive vice president for North America, Bill Maloney.

According to a report from Dow Jones Newswires, the northern end of the Houston Ship Channel was closed Jan. 4 after some 15,000 gallons of beef fat spilled into the waterway from a ruptured storage tank. In all, about 250,000 gallons of beef tallow spilled from a land-based tank owned by privately held agricultural product firm Jacob Stern and Sons Inc. The 15,000 gallons of fat that reached the waterway did so via storm drains. (Source: Dow Jones Newswires)

Strike action at 's state-administered Autonomous Port of Marseille, which encompasses the oil terminals of Fos-Lavera, continued to disrupt activity there, with 19 oil and gas vessels affected, the Tuesday. The Lavera terminal is closed, the port said in a statement, adding the Fos terminal is working, albeit slowly. Five ships are being unloaded at the Fos petroleum terminal, the said. The port said the 24 vessels included 11 tankers of refined petroleum products; seven crude oil tankers; one gas tanker; four ships containing chemicals and one container ship. Workers are organizing the strike action to protest a government privatization plan.