The decision by the Federal Government to provide support for vital common use infrastructure for the region to the value of $35.4million was the carrot for the UK’s GTL Resources to greenlight its methanol proposal.
Off the coast, the Exmouth Basin got a further boost as BHPB and Apache Energy unveiled a 112 foot oil column in the Crosby-1 well. In the dry, Central Australian Cooper Basin, the Worrior-1 partners’ original estimates of 1.5 mmbo has been surpassed and may top 3 mmbo.
Not to overshadow the western area of the Cooper, Beach Petroleum looks to have kicked up the production of its now fully owned Kenmore-Bodalla oilfield to the east in the Eromanga Basin with the Kenmore-28 well, which may add upwards of 500 bopd to its 1200 bopd it currently produced from the field.
Australian minnow explorer, Global Petroleum, has stolen the march on a number of international peers many times its size after being asked by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), and the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Baghdad to rehabilitate the Chamchamal oilfield Iraqi Kurdistan. All they need to do is find a partner to do the work while they supervise from their Aussie desktops. We're told the biggest exploration risk is drilling unexploded cluster bombs, not dry holes.
In Asia this week, Petronas dampened the slavering appetites of companies wanting to join Malaysia's second oil consortium, saying they have to do so as a production-sharing contractor (PSC) with itself. The country's Energy, Communications and Multimedia Minister, Datuk Amar Leo Moggie, has also told the state-owned power utility - Tenaga Nasional Bhd - it dropped the ball during recent blackouts that hit five northern states and its reserve margin of power supply had to be fattened, whether it liked it or not.
Indonesia's Director General Oil and Gas, Iin Arifin Takhyan, has announced his government has called for bids on eight oil and gas exploration blocks. These blocks were selected by firms like ConocoPhillips and Genting Bhd as part of a new upstream policy that aims to boost oil and gas investment and bolster national reserves.
In other upstream manoeuvres, Hardman Resources purchased two Timor Sea permits, AC/R1 (100% equity) and AC/P26 (49.375% equity), from West Oil for $100,000.
If the Amity oil staff don't know the Turkish version of the Asian-derived Yin and Yang, they will now be searching their Lonely Planet phrasebooks, as they plugged the Yuksekkoy-1 duster while boosting their gas production after completing the Adatepe-3 well, 6km southeast of their Gocerler Gas Field.
Eastern Star Gas (ESG) has consolidated its gas resources in New South Wales after picking up 65% of the CBM rights which lay below its already 100% owned PEL 238 in NSW.
The United States has seen the future and it is powered by LNG. Well maybe not, but the booming interest in the clean fuel has resulted in more than 30 proposed LNG processing plants being planned for the U.S. Gulf Coast alone, following predictions of a 60% growth in demand in the next 20 years.
On the supply side, BP Migas, Indonesia's oil and gas policy agency, plans to meet a grouping of LNG buyers based in Japan's western coastal districts, the Western Buyer consortium, in November to hopefully seal a 13.5 million tonnes LNG contract.
Adding to the troubles El Paso is having in exiting its pipeline investments in Australia, the company is facing investigation in the United States over its treatment of power supply contracts with customers - the same style of creative accounting that brought down Enron.
Sparking up nonetheless, the Western Australian State Government has given approval for a new 260MW gas fired power station to be built at Kemerton early next year.
In takeover territory, Fusion Oil, minor partner in the Chinguetti oil discovery in Mauritania, is in play after Sterling Energy last week launched a £40m hostile takeover bid for the West Perth-based, AIM-listed company. The market is expecting a counter bid from one of as many as six white knights but as yet none has emerged.
Similarly, a motion to spill Czech-focussed Carpathian Resources board was defeated during the week in a show of confidence in the current management, which promptly set about satisfying some shareholders' concerns by appointing a new independent director in respected Perth lawyer and oil and gas fundraiser, John Hopkins.
Castigated in the WA courts, BP has been fined $6,000 and ordered to pay $23,000 in legal costs after being found guilty of deliberately flouting a new petrol pricing scheme designed to encourage more competition.
West Africa's development as the next global oil hub took another step forward with delivery of the first exports from Chad's $3.7 billion World Bank-backed oil pipeline to ports in Cameroon.
The Australian Pipeline Trust (APA) has described the ACCC decision on tariffs for the Moomba to Sydney Gas Pipeline as, 'a useful improvement on the previous draft determination, but still representing a fundamental difference of opinion in the method of determining the value of the asset'. A very polite way of saying they disagreed with the decision that slashed $220million from the value of its asset.
The vultures haven't had to circle the Epic carcass for too long before fighting for their share. They have now been invited to the feast by sale adviser UBS. Parties interested in the Dampier to Bunbury gas pipeline (DBNGP) received a four page flyer during the week outlining the sale process, along with a final bidding date of December 8.
In the land of the long (this week grey) cloud Westech Energy is about to spud its first appraisal well to test the small Surrey oil and gas discovery in onshore Taranaki.
Greymouth Petroleum may soon be back in the courts again - this time in a dispute with New Zealand Oil and Gas over gas payments and site access relating to the onshore Taranaki Ngatoro oil field.
Crown Minerals was putting on a brave face as Associate Energy Minister Harry Duynhoven announced New Zealand's first deepwater bidding round had attracted only one bid.
Christchurch-headquartered Orion New Zealand announced plans to spend $NZ30 million building three diesel-fired mini power stations, constructed in portable shipping containers, as part of the government's "reserve generation" plan.
And last, but not least, the other big news we ought to tell you (at the suggestion of one of your peer subscribers) is that last month over 110,000 of you logged in to the ERN site and only 30% were Antipodean. This is not 'hits' but real logins from paying subscribers, as you know we are a password protected site.
The world is watching. If you have a story to tell, please let us know.
