Oil And Gas Block News

A cyclone barrelled into eastern India on Friday, bringing down trees and power lines and "extensively" damaging the tourist town of Puri, but there were no early reports of casualties with a million people evacuated before it made landfall.Tropical Cyclone Fani, the strongest to hit India in five years, spent days building up power in the northern reaches of the Bay of Bengal before it struck the coast of the state of Odisha at around 8 a.m., the state-run India Meteorological Department (IMD) said.Howling winds gusting up to 200 kph (124 mph) whipsawed trees, uprooting scores, and driving rain impacted visibility, while streets were deserted in the state capital Bhubaneswar and Puri."Damage in Puri is extensive…

India has evacuated more than 300,000 people along its northeast coastline by boat, bus and train ahead of a severe cyclone due to make landfall on Friday, with many villagers piling household possessions on to trucks before fleeing their homes.Severe cyclonic storm Fani was churning up the Bay of Bengal about 320 km (198 miles) south-southwest of the Hindu temple town of Puri where special trains were put on to evacuate tourists and the beaches were empty.In total, about 1.2 million people are expected to be evacuated from low-lying areas of 15 districts in the eastern state of Odisha to cyclone shelters, schools and other buildings…

Interest for prompt spot cargoes still keen; demand could roll over to April. Asian spot liquefied natural gas (LNG) prices rebounded this week as persistently cold weather in North Asia forced buyers to enter the spot market to replenish inventory. Spot prices for March <LSG-AS> delivery in Asia climbed 40 cents to $10.60 per million British thermal units (mmBtu) this week, according to several LNG traders in Asia. Cargoes for delivery in the first half of March are trading between $10.70 and $11 per mmBtu while cargoes for the second half of the month are trading at just above $10 a barrel, they said. Angola LNG sold a cargo for February at close to $11 per mmBtu to a Chinese company, traders said. The company has offered a March cargo as well.

French oil firm Total  will decide how much interest it will retain from 2018 in Indonesia's offshore Mahakam oil and gas block over the next two days, the country's energy minister said on Friday. From Jan. 1, 2018, state energy company Pertamina will take over as operator of Indonesia's top gas producing field from Total. But it is not yet clear how Total and other partner Japan's Inpex, will split the 30 percent stake that Indonesia has proposed they share. "Inpex has said they are ready to continue no matter what portion (they get)," Energy Minister Sudirman Said told reporters. (Reporting by Jakarta bureau; Writing by Fergus Jensen; Editing by Tom Hogue)

According to www.business-standard.com, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) has signed a deal with Brazil’s Petrobras for exchange of stakes in oil blocks in each other’s countries. ONGC will reportedly offer Petroleo Brasileiro SA (Petrobras) stake in its deepwater oil and gas block in the Krishna-Godavari basin, in which it discovered gas reserves estimated at 5-15 trillion cubic feet. In return, Petrobras – according to the report – will offer ONGC Videsh Ltd (OVL) stake in oil blocks in Brazil.

China National Oil and Gas Exploration and Development Corp (CNODC), a unit of China’s CNPC, has acquired the exploration rights to an oil and gas block from Indonesia's PT Waropen Perkasa, one of 10 onshore and offshore oil projects originally tendered by the Indonesian government in June 2004. China's major oil firms -- Sinopec, CNOOC and China National Petroleum Corp, the parent of Hong Kong-listed PetroChina Co Ltd. -- are all scouring the globe for oil resources to feed China's soaring demand. China imported 130 million tons of crude oil in 2005, up 3.3 percent year-on-year. (Source: Forbes)