While the explorationists are enjoying some success this week, the downstream end of town has been shaken with the news that the Epic Energy network will be sold off to the circling predators and also by Methanex’s decision to scrap their Burrup Peninsula methanol proposal.
Advisors have been appointed to oversee the sale of Epic’s pipeline network sale, while Methanex blamed the rising capital costs of the project for the demise of the already scaled down proposal. It joins Shell/Dow and Syntroleum as a scratched starter.
Looking further downstream, the Independent Grocers of Australia (IGA) group has finally joined the petrol retailing wars with a 4 cent per litre discount offer across its Queensland stores from the start of October.
Out on the streets, a US joint venture between by Isuzu Motors and Westport Innovations has created the world's first direct-injection monofuel diesel-cycle natural gas powered truck, which recently won two gold medals and a silver medal at the Michelin Challenge Bibendum in Sonoma, California. In similar news, Daimler Chrysler Malaysia also said it would be introducing natural gas-powered buses to Malaysia, with new buses expected to be plying the streets of Putrajaya, the administrative capital of the country, by early 2004.
US and Russian business relations are improving according to ChevronTexaco chairman Dave O'Reilly, speaking at last week’s U.S.-Russia Commercial Energy Summit.
Eight oil and gas companies have expressed interest in eight exploration blocks in Indonesia despite the blocks not being offered in an open tender, according to the government.
Amity Oil is set to spud the Adatepe-3 development well this weekend on the Adatepe Field, about 6km southeast of the Gocerler Gas Field in Turkey.
The Vietnamese government has promised PetroVietnam that tax breaks will be given to any bidders that win the rights to explore and develop ten offshore prospects to be auctioned off next year.
Carnarvon Petroleum has managed to reach an in principle agreement with its Huai Phai Prospect joint venture partner, Pacific Tiger Energy, on the drilling of the onshore target while fellow minnow Bounty Oil and Gas has begun its African campaign with the spudding of the Nyuni-1 petroleum exploration well, offshore Tanzania.
The president of the Islamic Academy of Sciences (IAS) has pushed for the adoption of renewable energy resources to replace rapidly running out fossil fuel reserves. According to Professor Dr Abdel Salam Majali, the present energy system no longer has a valid future.
A single company will operate all new domestic Indian gas pipelines, according to a draft policy paper released during the week by the Indian Petroleum Minister. GAIL (India) was expected to be the nominated agency, once the marketing arm is hived off and only the transporter arm remains.
On the exploration front, shareholders in Cooper Energy and Stuart Petroleum will be slightly jittery this weekend as they await the final drilling results from the Worrior-1 well in the Cooper/Eromanga
Basin. Initial reports are promising as are the initial results from another well, Eucalyptus-1. Cooper also recruited a legal heavyweight to its board with Minter Ellison partner, Laurie Shervington, joining as a non-executive director.
The Toobada-1 well had good shows but was deemed non-commercial. Meanwhile Lakes Oil has encountered some tough conditions following the spudding of its 100% owned Patties Pies South-1A well.
InterOil has updated its Moose-1 resource estimate for the limestone secondary target to 118 million stock tank barrels of oil (mmstbo) with a range from 50 to 290mmstbo as Apache continued its vigorous drilling activity offshore WA with the spudding of Cerberus-1 in permit WA-202- P in the Carnarvon Basin.
Neighbour Kalrez Energy has expanded its interest in the Cooper Basin, hoping to emulate a string of recent successes in the region, recently highlighted by the Worrior-1 find.
