Fox Petroleum Invites SHI to Bid for India’s FSRU LNG Terminal Project
Fox Petroleum Ltd., the Indian unit of Fox Petroleum Group of Companies, invited South Korean shipyard Samsung Heavy Industries Co. Ltd. (SHI) to participate in an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) project for the floating storage regasification unit (FSRU) liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal in Karwar, Karnataka on India’s west coast. “Initial negotiations is in progress,” the company said in a recent press release. The move follows a proposal made in September 2014 by Fox Petroleum to the Government of Karnataka for the development of the FSRU LNG Terminal project at Karwar. The firm said the volume of LNG to be gasified for the project is around 7.2 million metric tons (350.7 billion cubic feet) per annum. Fox Petroleum FSRU LNG Terminal (FP-FLNGT), the manager of the project, will design, finance, insure, construct, test, commission, complete, operate, manage and maintain the dedicated floating/offshore LNG Terminal. The FSRU LNG Terminal would be financed on build, operate and transfer (BOT) basis. The development of the project in Karnataka, costing approximately $1 billion (INR 70 billion), could create up to 3,000 jobs. Fox Petroleum indicated that 90 percent of these vacancies were expected to be set aside for local youths. The company added that the FSRU would be equipped to process 1 billion cubic feet (Bcf) of gas per day, while the onshore plant will have a storage capacity of 11.66 million cubic feet (330,000 cubic meters). Turning to the project’s financing needs, Fox Petroleum said the total cost for constructing the FSRU is estimated as $563 million, while the onshore plant is projected to cost $495 million. The firm intends to provide an update June 25 on the shortlist of EPC contractors for the FSRU LNG terminal project in Karwar. India’s energy demand has grown sharply in recent years, with the country surpassing Japan as Asia’s second largest consumer in 2008, according to data released earlier this month by BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2016. Enos Slaughter Jersey
Gail likely to realign Tamil Nadu pipeline to connect LNG terminal in Kochi with Bengaluru
Gail, India’s largest natural gas pipeline operator, will likely agree to Tamil Nadu’s demand of realigning the proposed pipeline to connect Petronet’s LNG terminal in Kochi with Bengaluru along the national highway, an issue that has held up Rs 3,300-crore project for years. The state wants to avoid damage to farms and the dispute has reached Supreme Court. Protests from thousands of farmers delayed the project that was to be completed by early 2013. This has hurt GAIL and Petronet. The Kochi LNG terminal is ready for almost three years but barely operational. Gail has now agreed to join a panel set up by the state to consider an alternative route. Top Gail executives recently met Tamil Nadu officials for discussion. Industry sources said if the new route is aligned along the highway, it would be 20% longer and more costly but Gail wants to complete the project quickly. It is reluctant as building the pipeline along a highway needs thicker pipes. Larry Murphy Womens Jersey
Gazprom and Indian companies to collaborate on oil and gas projects
A working meeting between Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee, and Dharmendra Pradhan, Indian Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas, took place today at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum 2016. The parties discussed potential avenues for cooperation in the oil and gas sector. Particular attention was paid to the possibility of supplying LNG to India from Gazprom Group’s international portfolio, including under the existing contract with GAIL. In addition, the meeting participants addressed the prospects for collaboration between Gazprom and Indian companies in the field of oil and gas exploration and development, as well as scientific and technical cooperation. Background With 1.5 trillion cubic meters of natural gas in proven reserves, India ranks fourth among Asian countries (with China, Australia, and Indonesia in the top three) in terms of gas reserves. India’s Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas controls and regulates oil and natural gas production, processing and distribution, as well as oil and petroleum exports and imports. GAIL is India’s largest gas company focused on gas exploration, production, transmission and processing, marketing of gas derivatives, and gas-fired power generation. Between 2009 and 2016, Gazprom Group delivered 26 LNG cargoes to India totaling 1.7 million tons. In 2012, Gazprom Marketing & Trading Singapore, which is part of Gazprom Group, and GAIL signed a long-term Sales and Purchase Agreement for liquefied natural gas. The 20-year Agreement provides for LNG supplies in the amount of 2.5 million tons per year on a free-on-board basis, with potential for renewal. Marshall Faulk Jersey
Petronet picks Qatari producer Rasgas to supply cargo: Trade sources
India’s Petronet has picked Qatari liquefied natural gas (LNG) producerRasgas to deliver a single cargo in August or September, trade sources said. Rasgas clinched the deal at an estimated price of $5.10 per million British thermal units, the sources said. Jake Muzzin Womens Jersey
IndianOil, OIL and BPRL sign agreement with Rosneft
The Indian Consortium, led by Oil India Limited (OIL), along with, Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL) and Bharat PetroResources Limited (BPRL), a 100% subsidiary of Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL), signed definitive agreement to acquire upto 23.9% shares from Rosneft Oil Company (Rosneft), NOC of Russia in JSC Vankorneft, a company organised under the law of Russian Federation which is the owner of Vankor and North Vankor Field licenses. The acquisition is subject to relevant Board, Government and regulatory approvals and is expected to close by September 2016. The agreement was signed on 17 June 2016 during the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) held in St. Petersburg in the presence of Dharmendra Pradhan, Hon. Minister of State-Independent Charge, Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Government of India, and Alexander Novak, Minister of Energy, Russia, by B Ashok, Chairman, IndianOil; Biswajit Roy, Director (HR & BD), OIL; D Rajkumar, Managing Director, BPRL; and Igor I Sechin, President, Chairman of the Management Board, Vice-Chairman of Board of Directors of Rosneft. Presently Rosneft Oil Company holds 85% shares while ONGC Videsh Ltd (through its subsidiary) holds 15% shares in JSC Vankorneft. Vankor field, located in East Siberia, is Russia’s second largest field by production and accounts for around 4% of Russian production and currently producing oil at a level of approximately 422,000 bopd. It is the largest of the fields, discovered and commissioned in Russia during the last twenty five years and is located in the North of Eastern Siberia in Turukhansk District of the Krasnoyarsk Territory 142 km away from Igarka town. The recoverable resources of the Vankor field as of 01.01.2016 stood at 361 million tonnes of oil and condensate and 138 bcm of gas. With the closure of the Vankor deal, IndianOil’s equity oil portfolio will go up by 1.6 MMT per annum. The agreement takes forward the shared vision of the Hon’ble Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, and the Hon’ble President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, to strengthen the India-Russia partnership over the next decade, especially in the hydrocarbons sector. Commenting on the occasion, Dharmendra Pradhan, Hon. Minister of State-Independent Charge, Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas, Government of India, said, “The agreement will further strengthen the long-standing relationship between Indian PSUs and Rosneft, paving the way for an enriching journey together. The acquisitions also have significant strategic importance to India, both in terms of augmenting India’s energy security as well as enhancing India’s stature in the global political and economic arenas.” Marquis Haynes Jersey
Complaint against Essar forwarded to Home Ministry
Lawyer Suren Uppal alleges that Essar Group ordered its former security chief Albasit Khan to tap into its business rivals’ telephone conversations. Complaint into the alleged tapping of telephone conversations of some top industrialists and politicians by the Essar Group has been forwarded to Home Ministry for “appropriate action”. The complaint was made to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) by lawyer Suren Uppal alleging that the Essar Group had ordered its former security chief Albasit Khan to tap into its business rivals’ telephone conversations. “Complaint regarding Essar leaks has been forwarded to Home Ministry for appropriate action,” official sources said. The complaint includes call logs for purported conversations of Mukesh and Anil Ambani with Directors/ Promoters of the two companies and other senior officials as well as conversations that show how business rivals reach out to politicians to seek favours. The complaint also mentioned purported conversations of senior officials of the PMO including Ranjan Bhattacharya and Brajesh Mishra. Essar has denied any wrongdoing. T. J. Watt Authentic Jersey
Indian Oil Corp slashes oil import tender time by half
Indian Oil Corp (IOC) has cut by more than half the time it takes to finalise a crude oil import tender after the government gave flexibility to state refiners to devise their own crude import policies. IOC, the nation’s largest oil firm, used to take 26 hours to decide on a tender for import of crude oil from spot or current market. In April, after the Cabinet gave state-owned oil refiners freedom to devise their own crude import policies, the time has been shrunk to 12 hours, a senior company official said. Time for deciding on tenders for export of petroleum products or fuel has been cut to just 9 hours from previous 35 hours. “Earlier, we had a three-member committee comprising two company executives and one senior official of the ministry of petroleum and natural gas to decide on awarding tenders for import of crude oil from the spot market. “Now we have an internal committee which can take decisions quickly,” he said. The government gave flexibility to oil PSUs to help them secure cheaper oil cargoes in an oversupplied market. The new policy almost puts state-owned refiners on par with private firms like Reliance Industries and Essar Oil. “We now have greater flexibility but still to operate within the framework of (anti-corruption watchdog) CVC guidelines,” the official said. The previous policy limited purchases to a handful of companies, often leading to PSUs missing out on chance to grab cheap, distressed cargoes. Oil PSUs, on an average, import 70-80 per cent of their oil through annual supply deals, also called term contracts. The remaining is bought from the spot or current market through tenders. Term imports on official selling price of the exporter country and there is not much that can be done about it. Tyler Kroft Jersey
Essar Oil looks to double petrol pumps to 4,300 in 18 months
Essar Oil, India’s second largest private oil refiner, plans to nearly double its petrol pumps to 4,300 in next 18 months, a senior company executive said. “We have 2,225 petrol pumps now which we will increase to 4,300 in next 18 months,” Essar Oil’s CEO Retail Madhur Taneja said. The retail network expansion planned is on franchise model and will entail an investment of about Rs 25 billion by the pump owners. “We were the first private company to enter fuel retailing business when we in 2003 opened our first petrol station,” he said. The network was expanded to 1,400 outlets before the expansion was frozen in 2008-09 in view of private retailers being unable to compete with heavily subsidised public sector oil firms. After diesel price was deregulated or freed from government control in October 2014, the expansion was restarted and network has reached 2,225 now, he said. “We saw sales volume increase from 700,000 kilolitres in 2014-15 to 1.67 million kl in 2015-16 and we hope to continue to grow at over 100 per cent this year as well against an industry growth of 7-7.5 per cent,” he said. Essar Oil has a pan-India network now except for Jammu and Kashmir and the North East, he said. Its first petrol pump came up in Maharashtra about 13 years ago in 2003. Essar Oil was the first private company to enter petro product retailing in India at a time when the government was experimenting with the idea of deregulated oil pricing by freeing up the price of ATF. After a brief spell of deregulated product pricing, the diesel market was again regulated in 2004. The move posed challenges for private oil companies like Essar. Through the course of this regulation regime, Essar Oil, in a bid to keep its retail ambitions alive, provided financial support to its franchisees through various schemes, thus helping them in tiding over the difficult times, he said. This earned the company the dealers’ trust. In October 2014 when diesel prices were completely deregulated and private retailers were given a level playing field with their PSU counterparts, the company already had a network of about 1,400 retail outlets. Over the last two years, Essar Oil has been on a ramp-up drive to create a larger retail footprint across the length and breadth of the country. Many outlets in its existing network were revived and work began on launching new Essar Oil pumps. Essar Oil’s franchisee model entails giving the petrol pump operator a land lease rental for the land he brings for setting up the outlet. Also, he is paid an pre-agreed return on the investment made in setting up the outlet as well as commission on petrol and diesel sold, he said. Robert Alford Jersey
Old aussie oil fields spurned in cheap crude age
They’re among the oldest oil fields in Australia still in production. Now they are proving superfluous to some of the world’s biggest producers that are purging high-cost assets to weather crude’s collapse. While the dozen or so depleted fields in the Gippsland Basin in southeast Australia are hardly any company’s crown jewels — combined they produce 19,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day — they once put Australia on the map for energy investors and still include the country’s largest single find, according to Exxon Mobil, which is now interested in selling them with its joint venture partner, BHP Billiton. Energy giants are shutting or selling aging fields from the North Sea to China as investing to maintain them makes less sense nearly two years into the biggest oil crash in a generation, with prices still more than 50% below the level of June 2014. The bust was exacerbated by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries’ Saudi Arabia-led strategy of trying to win market share from highercost producers. “Australia is a mature basin with a limited reserve base. This means high cost,” Amrita Sen, chief oil economist for Energy Aspects in London, said by e-mail. “In the current oil price environment with everyone focused on cost cutting, it makes sense for majors to divest while PE companies may pick it up for the short term.” Kingfish Field Among the fields being considered for sale is Kingfish, discovered in 1967 and still the largest find in the country’s history, according to Exxon’s Esso Australia unit. Esso and BHP are looking for parties with experience to capture the remaining potential of the assets, Esso said in a statement. BHP and Esso, which both have a 50% stake in the venture, drilled the first well in the region in 1965. Since then it has produced more than 4 billion barrels of oil and 8 trillion cubic feet of gas, according to Esso. The oil production amounts to about 44% of all of Australia’s oil production since 1965, according to data from BP. The country’s output has fallen by more than half since peaking in 2000. The operation “put Australia on the map for global oil and gas industry investors,” Exxon said in a presentation on the Australian Institute of Energy’s website. As of 2007, Gippsland fields had produced 90% of their initial oil reserves, according to a report on an Australian government website. Selling aging energy assets fits with BHP’s strategy to divest “non-core, late life assets,” the producer said in a statement. North Sea Royal Dutch Shell is in talks with potential buyers for some North Sea assets, people familiar with the matter said in May. Sinopec Shengli Oilfield Co., one of China’s major producers, said it would shut four of its least profitable fields to save as much as 130 million yuan ($19.9 million) in operating costs, according to a statement on its Weibo account this year. Joe Berger Jersey
Indian Oil Corp likely to bag 37.5% stake in proposed JV to manage ATF at airports
Indian Oil Corp (IOC) is likely to take the largest 37.5% stake in the proposed joint venture to manage fuelling facilities at all airports controlled by the Airports Authority of India (AAI), sources with direct knowledge of the matter said. Airports Authority of India is likely to have a quarter stake while Bharat Petroleum Corp (BPCL) and Hindustan Petroleum Corp (HPCL) will have 18.75% each in the joint venture that has been negotiated for long with the AAI and IndianOil locked in a keen contest for the larger stake. he idea of a common fuelling facility with joint ownership is to allow open access to all fuel suppliers for a fee without having to erect their own separate facilities. Reliance Industries (RIL) has also written to the government seeking equity in the venture and is awaiting a decision, sources said. In its communication, Reliance Industries has claimed that the oil ministry had earlier said private players would also have a role. Reliance Industries, Indian Oil Corp, HPCL and BPCL declined to comment on the matter. The proposed joint venture will oversee about one-third of aviation fuel business in India. The rest is at Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bengaluru, where either private airports solely or in separate joint ventures with state oil firms manage the fuelling facilities. Indian aviation market is poised to be the third-largest in the world by 2026. Domestic airlines, aided by low fuel prices that account for about 40% of their operating cost, carried nearly a quarter more passengers in the first four months of 2016 from a year ago. Domestic aviation turbine fuel (ATF) sales rose 9% to 6.2 million tonnes in 2015-16, encouraging oil giant BP to obtain permission to market jet fuel in India. Indian Oil Corp has long dominated the ATF business with storage and fuelling facility at all major airports. Its refineries located across the country offer it the flexibility needed to place fuels at airports easily and cheaply while its longstanding relationships with clients give it an edge in the market. It has more than 60% market share while private players such as RIL and Essar Oil account for about 5%. It is this dominance that made IndianOil a little reluctant to agree to the idea of a common infrastructure and led to long-drawn negotiations with AAI, which also wanted the largest share in the joint venture, according to sources. Ross Stripling Womens Jersey