Oil Today News

The Bomin Group, a global physical supplier and trader of marine fuel oil, today reaffirmed its commitment to providing physical bunkering products and services in the Baltic, including Rostock, Germany’s largest Baltic port. In line with the company’s new regional hub structure, Bomin’s Hamburg office will take responsibility for physical operations and infrastructure in the region. Bomin Deutschland is operating two state-of-the-art bunker barges in the Baltic area – MT Bergen Troll and MT Lioba – providing customers with a full range of quality products including MGO DMA 0.1 percent, RMG 380 3.5 percent, RMD 80 0.1 percent, and RME 180 3.5 percent.

At the risk of dredging up (bad) memories, I find myself harkening back to 1985 when, as a young mariner, I lived in Houston, Texas. As the situation in the oil patch worsened, neighborhoods in and around the Bayou City emptied out as oil workers looked for other things to do. I had two roommates who had to do just that. Now, as then, these are challenging times. Today, merchant shipping – in particular the Jones Act subset of that sector – finds itself inextricably tied to the energy business, in one form or another. MarineNews is a North American coastal, brown water, and workboat magazine. That means, for example, that we cover all but a few hundred of the approximate 40,000 hulls in the U.S. merchant fleet. Less than 90 blue water international vessels are left flying the U.S. flag.

LNG America has selected Taylor-Wharton to commence the front-end engineering and design work for the cryogenic topside of the company’s 3,000 cubic meter Gemini Class LNG bunker barge scheduled for delivery at the end of 2015. “Taylor-Wharton has been actively engaged in the development process and instrumental in helping to develop the critical path time line for a late 2015 in-service date,” said Keith Meyer, CEO of LNG America. The LNG bunker vessels will provide a critical building block in the bridge between the natural gas industry and the global marine industry…

LNG America announces the selection of the American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) as the classification society for North America’s first LNG bunker barges, currently being designed by Jensen Maritime. ABS will assist LNG America in working with shipbuilders and regulators in developing these first-of-their-kind barges that meet or exceed all technical and regulatory requirements. “We are pleased to be working with ABS on this important domestic initiative. ABS has watched ship propulsion move from wind to coal, from coal to oil, and now from oil to natural gas.

Offshore exploration is a history of man v. Prospecting for oil is a dynamic art. From a lake in Ohio, to piers off the California coast in the early 1900s, to the salt marshes of Louisiana in the 1930s, to the first “out-of-sight- of-land” tower in 1947 in the Gulf of Mexico, the modern offshore petroleum industry has inched its way over the last roughly 75 years from 100 ft. of water ever farther into the briny deep, where the biggest platform today, Shell’s Perdido spar, sits in 8,000 ft. of water. As a planet, we have two unquenchable thirsts – for water and for oil.

The White House likes to claim a share of the credit for the drilling revolution that has transformed North America's energy production and security. Except the revolution has largely taken place on private rather than public land, and energy producers feel frustrated about the numerous obstacles and long delays in obtaining permission to drill in areas directly controlled by the administration. "Crude oil production has grown each year President Barack Obama has been in office to its highest level in 17 years," the Council of Economic Advisors wrote back in the summer of 2013. "Government-funded research supplemented private industry's work to develop the technology that sparked the boom," the council explained ("Reducing America's dependence on foreign oil", Aug. 29, 2013).

Based on updated information and scientific assessments, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, and Chair of the National Incident Command’s Flow Rate Technical Group (FRTG) Dr. Marcia McNutt (Director of the U.S. Geological Survey) today announced an improved estimate of how much oil is flowing from the leaking BP well. Secretary Chu, Secretary Salazar, and Dr. McNutt convened a group of federal and independent scientists on Monday to discuss new analyses and data points obtained over the weekend to produce updated flow rate estimates. Working together, U.S. government and independent scientists estimate that the most likely flow rate of oil today is between 35,000 and 60,000 barrels per day.

The Coast Guard approved the salvage and oil removal plans earlier this week for the M/V Kent Reliant which has been grounded outside San Juan harbor since September 18. The salvage operation will begin with the removal of all the vessel’s oil products which is expected to last two days then the partial removal of cargo is expected to begin. A Protective boom has been deployed and staged in environmentally sensitive areas around Isla de Cabras and Isla de Esperanza. The salvage company, Titan Marine, was forced to delay the start of offloading procedures for the heavy fuel oil today due to poor weather conditions. The primary considerations of the response coordinators, Federal On-Scene Commander, Coast Guard Capt.

With 21 percent of existing VLCCs and about 35 percent of both the Suezmax and Aframaxes fleets still on order, tanker owners may be starting to wonder how far today’s boom rates can last. However, according to the latest edition of BP’s stalwart Statistical Review of World Energy, now in its 53rd year, there will be hefty shipping requirements for a long time yet. Energy demand continues to rise – last year, primary consumption rose by 2.9%, as a result of the “global economic recovery and the ongoing boom in China”. China’s oil consumption rose to 5.38m b/d, up 11.5% from 5.03m b/d in 2003, accounting for about 40% of the total global increase.