Oil Runs News

South Korea's third-largest refiner S-Oil Corp signed a long-term liquefied natural gas (LNG) supply contract with Malaysia's Petronas for 15 years starting from next year, the North Asia company said on Friday. S-Oil expects to buy 700,000 tonnes of LNG per year from state-owned Petronas from March 2018 through March 2033, it said in a stock filing exchange. "We have inked the deal on good terms for our company amid the current favourable LNG market conditions," said the refiner in the filing. S-Oil, whose main shareholder is Saudi Aramco, declined to provide price details for the deal. The refiner said in a separate statement the deal was part of its efforts to ensure stable supplies of LNG.

Gulf of Oman port bids to become transhipment centre for region; to more than double container capacity by 2017. Part of Oman's drive is to industrialise, diversify beyond oil. An advertisement by the highway outside Dubai's massive Jebel Ali Port tells firms they don't need to ship goods through the Strait of Hormuz, the traditional gateway to the Gulf. Instead they can have goods delivered to a port in Oman, outside the Gulf, and bring them into the region by road. "Why go through the Strait when you can go straight to the Gulf," the billboard reads, in a challenge to Jebel Ali, which has become one of the biggest ports in the world by handling many of the region's imports via Hormuz.

Barents Oberver reports that the recently discovered oil spill now threatens marine life and sea birds in the White Sea, the unique Arctic waters in Russia’s northwest. The magnitude of the spill remains unknown, but environmentalists fear for the worst. Last year’s spill, which took place at the same time of year, polluted more than 210,000 square meters of waters and 400 square meters of the coastline. While the Belomorsk Oil Base in 2011 put out oil booms, it is not able to do so this year because the bay is not yet ice-free,say WWF Russia. According to Aleksey Smirnov, chairman of the Murmansk regional Committee on Environment and Nature Management, the oil leakages to the sea come from the numerous of spill which over the years have run into the adjacent land.

The federal Minerals Management Service gave the green light to Shell Oil's plan to drill exploratory wells in the waters of the Chukchi Sea off Alaska's northwest coast next summer. "We are very concerned because drilling for oil runs the risk of devastating spills in a sensitive marine ecosystem already stressed by dramatic climate change," said Marilyn Heiman, director of the Pew Environment Group's U.S. Arctic program. Shell purchased a swath of oil leases in the Chukchi Sea in 2008 when the previous administration opened up 30 million acres for drilling. Beginning in July 2010, Shell plans to drill three exploratory wells - the first time in 19 years that drilling will be allowed in the Chukchi Sea northwest of Barrow.