Overseas Oil News

Vietnam's state oil firm PetroVietnam said on Friday that tension in the South China Sea will continue to weigh on its offshore operations this year.The company, formally known as Vietnam Oil and Gas Group targets to produce 12.37 million metric tonnes of crude oil this year, down 11.45 percent from last year's output, it said in a statement.Vietnam and China have been embroiled in maritime disputes in parts of the busy waterway, where China claims 90 percent of the potentially energy-rich maritime territory, which Vietnam calls the East Sea."The complicated developments in the East Sea have h

Angola's Sonangol is hoping to start supplying crude oil to Indonesia's state oil firm early next year in a possible joint venture, company officials said on Monday. Indonesia has struggled to attract sufficient investment to halt declining domestic output, which has dropped to about half of its 1995 peak of 1.6 million barrels per day. The former OPEC member has relied increasingly on foreign imports and purchases of overseas oil and gas assets. Sonangol and Pertamina executives are meeting this week to discuss closer cooperation, which could start with the shipment of one crude oil cargo to Indonesia a month. "We are considering a joint venture company with Sonangol related to three groups of businesses -- upstream…

Britain imported more oil products than it exported last year for the first time in 30 years, an official report shows, and analysts say the country is likely to stay dependent on overseas oil as its refineries close. Britain exported 26.2 million tonnes of products such as diesel, kerosene and jet fuel from its refineries last year, but imported 28.2 million tonnes, due to the closure of two major oil processing plants. "The U.K. was a net importer of petroleum products in 2013 for the first time since 1984, the year of the miners' strike," the UK's Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) said in its annual report. Coryton oil…

China's state oil giant China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC) is expected to more than double its overseas oil output to around 120,000 barrels per day (bpd) this year, Chinese industry sources said on Wednesday. CNPC produced about 2.5 million tons of crude oil in 1999, or 51,000 bpd, up one third from the previous year. Overseas production increases this year would come primarily from the company's operations in Sudan where it is expected to reach 60,000 bpd, from Kazakhstan at 30,000 bpd, and Venezuela at 24,000 bpd, the sources said.

China National Offshore Oil Corp, the parent of CNOOC Ltd, said it has set an oil and gas output target for 2010 of 48 mln-50 mln tons of oil equivalent. CNOOC, the country's largest offshore oil and gas producer, said overseas oil and gas output is expected to hit 20-25 mln tons in 2010. CNOOC had oil and gas output of 40.33 mln tons of oil equivalent in 2006 with overseas output at 5.57m tons, it said in a statement. CNOOC has invested in 45 overseas oil and gas blocks in 10 countries including Nigeria, Australia, Kenya and Indonesia. Source: AFX News

China National Offshore Oil Corp. will set up a joint venture to make pipelines along with a local private company. The move represents CNOOC Ltd.'s first foray into the petroleum pipeline manufacturing business. It is expected to help meet its rising demand for pipelines following acquisitions of overseas oil and gas assets. The joint venture will have a pipeline output capacity of 300,000 tons a year. CNOOC has started operations at a new oil field in Bohai Bay off the coast of northeastern China since last year. The company has a 100% interest in the field and is its sole operator. The LD 5-2 field is now producing more than 2,200 barrels of crude oil a day from four wells. Its daily capacity is expected to peak about 9,600 barrels when all the 22 wells are put into operation.

Two oil and gas players, SapuraCrest Petroleum Bhd and Ramunia Holdings Bhd, announced major contracts related to the industry worth $120 million and $24 million respectively. SapuraCrest said its 51%-owned unit Tioman Drilling Co Sdn Bhd had been awarded a contract from Carigali-Triton Operating Co Sdn Bhd (CTOC) for the provision of two drilling units– Teknik Berkat and a new mobile drilling vessel, known as T-10 – to CTOC. Tioman is a joint venture between SapuraCrest and Norway's Smedvig group. SapuraCrest, through its 51%-owned subsidiary Crest Tender Rigs Pte Ltd, has awarded a contract worth $48.8 million to Malaysia Marine and Heavy Engineering Sdn Bhd to construct T-10.