Oil Deposits News

Is neo-colonialism in the Gulf of Guinea the answer to West Africa’s maritime crime crisis?In October 2020, China’s transport ministry established an ad hoc workgroup to lay down precautionary measures for ships and seafarers passing through high piracy risk West African waters.The move came as China told its vessels to up vigilance and implement a series of precautionary measures to ensure the security of ocea-going vessels and seafarers amid rising attacks and a surge in kidnaps in the Gulf of Guinea.Plans outlined by Wu Chungeng…

Some corals have lived for centuries at the fringes of Mauritius. Now smothered for days in heavy fuel oil spilled from a wrecked Japanese ship nearby, parts of those reefs may be in trouble.The full impact of the toxic spill is still unfolding, scientists say. As the Indian Ocean island's residents scramble to mop up the oil slicks and clumps, they are seeing dead eels and fish floating in the water, as fuel-soaked seabirds limp onto shore.Satellite images also show the 1,000…

Gazprom Neft, is the third largest oil producer in Russia, and Mubadala Petroleum (Abu Dhabi, UAE) have entered into a memorandum of understanding in the field of technological cooperation.The partners agreed to work together to create new technologies that include the development of innovative solutions in oil production and digitization of production processes.Gazprom Neft and Mubadala Petroleum are partners in the Gazpromneft-Vostok joint venture, which manages the development of 12 fields in the Tomsk and Omsk regions of Western Siberia. This joint venture is also involved in implementing a technological project — the “Paleozoic…

The National Maritime Law Enforcement Academy (NMLEA), and its subsidiary International Maritime Law Enforcement Academy (IMLEA), announced a teaming agreement with AMES Maritime Security (AMES) of Kingston, Georgetown (Guyana) to provide international level maritime safety and security services. The cadre of professionals from within both organizations are recognized for their military, maritime, and security skills and competence, and their ability to provide training, exercise, education, assessment, consultation, and other services.

Brazil stays in the spotlight - Tanker Research & Consulting department at Poten & Partners takes a look at the tanker market in the country. The Rio Olympics were successfully concluded on August 21. Ten days later, on Wednesday, August 31, Brazil’s Senate voted 61-20 to remove Dilma Rousseff as president of the most populous country in Latin America. Ms. Rousseff was accused of using illegal bookkeeping maneuvers to cover up a growing budget deficit. Interim president (and former vice president) Michel Temer will finish out her term, which runs through the end of 2018. Brazil remains the oil powerhouse of Latin America, but the problems facing Petrobras have already had a profound impact on both their upstream and downstream oil industry and could influence the tanker market as well.

Ecuador has paid $112 million to energy company Chevron Corp over a four-decade-old contract dispute, even though it remains in disagreement, the head of the central bank has said. A Hague arbitration court awarded the U.S. company $96 million in 2011 in a dispute stemming from a 1973 deal that called for Texaco, later acquired by Chevron, to develop fields in exchange for selling oil to Ecuador at below-market rates. Various appeals by Ecuador against the ruling failed. "We have today paid around $112 million," the central bank head Diego Martinez told a local radio station late on Friday. That amount represented the award plus interest. "We don't agree with how these international mechanisms work ...

The unified command in Paducah continues its response to a spill in the Mississippi River at mile marker 937, Wednesday as active recovery efforts are underway to remove the submerged clarified slurry oil spilled as a result of a collision involving two towboats on September 2, 2015, the U.S. Coast Guard reported. According to the Coast Guard, recovery is focused on the two anomalies near the incident site that were detected by high resolution side scan sonar. The two areas were broken down into 24 grids to enable response personnel to target removal of the oil and document the progress. As of Tuesday afternoon, an environmental clamshell equipped with precision dredge position software was removing moderate to heavily oiled sediment from the river bottom.

The plunge in oil prices is starting to hurt Oklahoma's energy-related revenues and if the price remains low, could hit income and sales tax revenues if energy workers have less money to spend, the state's treasurer said on Friday. The monthly numbers for November show the first year-on-year decline in energy tax revenues for the state in 19 months. Overall state revenues remained healthy, but the state treasurer expressed caution. "We are beginning to see the signs of softening prices, but we've not yet seen the impact of these extremely low prices of below $70. That will take a few months to get in," Ken Miller, Oklahoma State Treasurer, told Reuters on the sidelines of the National Association of State Treasurers' conference.

Uganda will auction new oil exploration acreage by December and compensate land owners at the site of a planned crude oil refinery, a government official said on Friday. Investor interest in Uganda's hydrocarbons potential has been growing since the east African country discovered commercial crude reserves in 2006, now estimated by government geologists at 6.5 billion barrels. Last month, the energy ministry issued a tender for a consultant to help prepare and package seismic and other data for the exploration fields that will be up for auction. "The consultant will also tell us how many blocks, which ones, what are their value," said Ernest Rubondo, commissioner for Petroleum Exploration and Production Department.

After a legal show-down in Texas this week, the outlook for a handful of tankers holding some $300 million worth of Kurdish oil is not looking good. Seemingly unable to find enough buyers willing to take a risk on million-barrel cargoes of disputed crude, the Kurdish authorities are paying over $75,000 a day to keep all three far-flung vessels afloat. A fourth ship began filling up at a terminal on the Turkish coast on Thursday, potentially adding to the tally, Reuters reported. Unless they can seal last-minute discreet sales or reach some kind of deal with Baghdad over how to share oil revenues, experts say, chances are slim of unloading ships now dotted around the globe, from Texas to Malaysia. In total, they have already been at sea for nearly half a year.

Reuters - Brazil's state-run oil company, Petroleo Brasileiro SA, said on Friday that it had discovered new, good-quality oil deposits in the so-called sub-salt region. Petrobras, said the discovery was made in the Florim and Iara fields in the offshore Santos basin. Petrobras expects to continue exploration around the two wells until September. (Reporting by Paulo Prada. Editing by Andre Grenon)

Masirah Oil Limited announced the testflow rates of the previously announced discovery at the second exploration well in Block 50 Oman, were very encouraging. The exploration well was drilled to its final depth into the Cambrian formation. The key objectives of the exploration well were to prove the presence of movable hydrocarbons and a working petroleum system within the block. Several zones in the well show evidence of hydrocarbon presence. During a 48-hour test, hydrocarbons were flowed to the surface and the well achieved light oil flow rate of up to 3000 stock tank barrels per day (stb/d) with no water production. This is the first offshore oil discovery in the east of Oman after more than 30 years of exploration activities.

In general the floating production sector looks healthy and growth remains strong. But the sudden expansion of shale oil and tight oil production could disrupt the growth trajectory in the deepwater sector. The underlying drivers for deepwater development point toward continued sector growth. Spot and futures crude pricing is at levels supporting deepwater development. Oil demand keeps growing and there continues to be need for new future sources of oil. The threat of supply disruption from traditional sources remains, prompting oil companies to look at alternative sources. Activity in the deepwater sector is robust. More than 200 deepwater projects are in the planning stage that will likely require a floating production system for development.

The need for a comprehensive and risk-aware understanding of Arctic dynamics before proceding with development is emphasised in a recent research paper. The melting of the Arctic is expected to offer prospects for maritime transport and hydrocarbon exploitation that could potentially create an Arctic economic boom. In principle, more accessible Arctic sea routes could offer substantial savings in logistics between Asian, American and European markets when compared to the current global maritime trade routes via the Panama and Suez Canals. It is estimated that as much as 13 per cent of undiscovered oil deposits and 30 per cent of undiscovered gas deposits on the globe are located in the Arctic area.

The R/V 'Cape Hatteras' is for sale after 31 years service to Duke-University of North Carolina Oceanographic Consortium (DUNCOC). Currently on the market with an asking price of $1.25 million, the ship's future owner will acquire a legendary craft highly respected by the international scientific community. The 135-foot R/V Cape Hatteras is perhaps best known for work in 2010 after the deadly Deepwater Horizon accident jetted oil and natural gas into the Gulf of Mexico. During cleanup efforts…

Famed for Finding Oil Deposits on the Seafloor after the Gulf of Mexico Deepwater Horizon Accident, the Invaluable Seagoing Laboratory is up for Sale. Meticulously tended to by a professional crew, and certified for another decade of exploration, the research vessel (R/V) Cape Hatteras has a lot of life left in her. That service may, however, take place in new seas now that the craft is being retired and sold by the Duke - University of North Carolina Oceanographic Consortium (DUNCOC). Constructed for The National Science Foundation in 1981 by Atlantic Marine Ship Builders, the 135-foot craft has been operated and meticulously maintained for 31 years by DUNCOC, and berthed at Duke University Marine Laboratory (DUML) on Pivers Island in Beaufort, North Carolina.

Petrobras strikes oil deposits in a new discovery in the 'Rights Transfer Area' some 200 km off the coastal city of Rio de Janeiro. Petrobras has discovered good quality oil in the fourth well drilled in the Rights Transfer area in the Santos Basin pre-salt cluster. The well, 3-BRSA-1053-RJS (3-RJS-699), known as Franco SW, is located at a water depth of 2,024 m, some 210 km off the coast of the city of Rio de Janeiro and 17 km south of discovery well 2-ANP-1-RJS (Franco). The discovery was confirmed by good quality cable test oil samples (28º API). They were collected in carbonate rock reservoirs, with rock thicknesses similar to those found in the discovery well. The discovery also confirms the extension of the oil reservoirs in the southern Franco area.

Obama Administration Announces New Partnership on Unconventional Natural Gas and Oil Research. Today, three federal agencies announced a formal partnership to coordinate and align all research associated with development of our nation’s abundant unconventional natural gas and oil resources. The partnership exemplifies the cross-government coordination required under President Obama’s executive order released earlier today, which created a new Interagency Working Group to Support Safe and Responsible Development of Unconventional Domestic Natural Gas Resources. This new partnership will help coordinate current and future research and scientific studies undertaken by the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S.

“Liquidity has come back to some extent,” said Oliver Ebner, Senior Manager, Project and Structured Finance for the National Bank of Abu Dhabi. Ebner is one of a panel of speakers lined up to address a special session on financing the industry in the global economic slowdown at Middle East Money & Ships, the region’s premier networking event for senior executives from the maritime and finance sectors. The conference from 7-8 October 2009 at the Grand Hyatt Hotel, Dubai, will also assess the continued appetite for investment in shipping, the likely pattern for recovery, where the money will come from as well as providing a realistic assessment of the current order book.

Companies developing offshore oil deposits could enjoy tax breaks, Russia's president said Wednesday. The tax breaks proposal came from Sergei Bogdanchikov, head of state-controlled producer Rosneft, who said the idea had been approved by the Industry and Energy Ministry and backed by the economics ministry, but that no final decision had been made. Russia, heavily dependent on revenues from oil and gas exports, is in need of new deposits to meet its obligations under new ambitious projects to supply oil to Pacific Rim countries, as well as Europe and the United States via the Balkans. Bogdanchikov said Russia would increase the production of oil at its offshore deposits five-fold, to 80-85 million metric tons (about 624.7 million bbl), by 2015.

Bloomberg reported that Petroleo Brasileiro SA, Brazil's state- controlled oil company, opened a new exploration frontier with the discovery of oil beneath more than two kilometers of ocean and two kilometers of rock a company official said. While Petrobras doesn't know the extent or size of the oil deposits found about 250 kilometers off the shore of Rio de Janeiro, it is the first time oil has been found under such conditions, offering the chance that Petrobras may increase the production of light crude oil faster than expected, Gabrielli said in an interview. The discovery may be as large as the Campos Basin, Brazil's largest offshore district, said Haroldo Lima, head of Brazil's national petroleum agency, or ANP, in an interview.

Clean up crews working on the Cooper River Oil Spill are concentrating their efforts today on the remaining heavily concentrated areas of recoverable oil between Piers Delta and Pier Papa on the Old Navy Base in Charleston. Contractors will also be replacing saturated absorbent boom with new absorbent boom to facilitate collections efforts. To date, more than 700 gallons of oil has been recovered using skimmers, absorbent pads and boom. The spill still remains a mystery but more than 100 people from 10 different federal, state and local agencies are aggressively working to clean up the oil spill. Presently, over $225,000 has been spent on the recovery effort and the ceiling for the clean up was raised from $500,000 to $750,000 today.