Oil and gas
January 21st, 2009 at 05:31am
Under China Oil+ Middle East+ OPEC+ Oil Price 2009+ Oil and gas+ Oil politics+ Russian Oil & Gas
By signing the gas agreement between Russia and Ukraine the oil price fell back sharply. The price of a barrel of U.S. light crude oil now hovers around 34 dollars, a decrease of over 7 percent with earlier this week.
In December 2008, crude oil prices fell for the first time since the summer of 2004 under the 40 dollar per barrel barrier. In July 2008, oil prices showed a record of more than 147 dollars a barrel.
The oil price now strongly react on the developments in the Middle East and the gas conflict between Russia and Ukraine. According to the Ukrainian Prime Minister Julia Timosjenko Russian gas will continue to flow to Ukraine and other European customers as from yesterday.
Credit Crisis & Oil demand
The oil price falls due a weakening oil demand. After 25 years of growth, the demand for oil in 2008 decreased by 0.3 percent. The International Energy Agency (IEA) has estimated that the worldwide oil demand in 2009 will fall further, probably by 0.6 percent.
For 2009, the IEA expects we will see a bottom in the oil demand, lowering with 940,000 barrels of crude oil per day to 85.3 million in total. “It’s the biggest change in our estimate over the last couple of years,” said David Fyfe of the IEA chief marketing officer.
In earlier reports, the institute published a growth for 2009 in oil demand after the losses of 2008, this mainly based upon the increasing demand of the emerging economies. But, these estimates are now showing that the Chinese oil demand will grow with just 90,000 barrels a day, which is the lowest increase in eight years time.
By Oilism.com
January 7th, 2009 at 05:43am
Under Oil Price 2009+ Oil and gas+ Oil business+ Oil politics+ Russian Oil & Gas
KIEV – On Wednesday Russia shut down all gas deliveries intended for the European market through the pipelines in the Ukraine because of the gas conflict between Kiev and Moscow.
This is said by the Ukrainian national gas company Naftogaz. About 80 percent of Russian natural gas that is destined for Europe passes through pipelines in Ukraine.
Czech Republic
The Czech Republic is without any Russian gas. Local news agency CTK reported Wednesday all supplies of Russian gas are interrupted. Gas company RWE Transgas has taken steps to increase imports from Norway to help people who are trapped without gas.
Austria & Romania
Austria also announced Wednesday that all gas supplies from Russia are stopped. Futher more Romania reported not receiving any more gas from Russia since Wednesday. Tuesday, the gas supplies to Romania were already down by 75 percent.
Supplies
Gazprom chief executive Alexei Miller said Tuesday that if the Ukraine does not pass the gas to Europe, there is no point supplying this country with gas. Kiev and Moscow are arguing over an unpaid gas bill and the gas prices in general. Three years ago, Russia turned off the gas tap to Ukraine due a similar dispute.
Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko asked Russia in a letter to President Dmitri Medvedev to resume gas deliveries to European countries immediately.
Criticism EU summit on Russian oil conflict
José Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission, thinks it is unacceptable that Russia stopped supplying oil & gas to Western Europe. Barroso said this today after consultations with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who joined in the criticism against Russia.
Especially German and Polish refineries are the victims of the oil conflict. Russia closed yesterday by the oil Belarus to these countries. In a package of proposals from the European Commission, which will be presented tomorrow, has been clear that the EU should take action to reduce the reliance on Russia as an energy supplier. Half of the oil in Europe comes from Russia. According to a report, the European economy will crash sooner or later when the energy policies are not drastically changed. Barroso askes for joint energy policy in Europe.
By Oilism.com
January 2nd, 2008 at 07:09am
Under Oil Drilling+ Oil Rig+ Oil and gas+ Oil business+ Oil company+ Oil fields
Oil explorers expect to aim more for deepwater rigs this year as shortages caused crude oil prices to triple in the world’s second-biggest market for the oil rigs. This is the tightest oil rig market not seen in a lot of years. Stated by an U.N. Executive at Oil & Natural Gas, who has spent 31 years in oil exploration.
A boom in exploration in India,the fourth-biggest Asian economy, has tripled oil rig usage over the past four years, adding to a global shortage and causing delays in tapping natural gas off the Indian east coast. Transocean, the world’s largest offshore drilling company, may raise oil rig prices further after India completes the biggest auction of offshore blocks this month.
“Most of the oil rigs in Asia are from India”, said Tony Regan, a consultant in Singapore at Nexant, a U.S.chemicals, oil and gas consultant. “The demand for oil rigs will continue in response to the new exploration rounds”. India intends to offer 55 exploration areas this month and announces a new round for more rigs in March especially to serve the hydrocarbons plants in India.
Oil explorers have drilled less than half of the 218 wells agreed under exploration licenses awarded by the government since 2000, underscoring the need for more rigs. The area covered by the licenses is the size of Texas USA. India is deploying 31 floating rigs, some able to drill holes as deep as 9,100 meters, or 30,000 feet and to 85 rigs for the United States as of November. The Asia- Pacific region accounts for 108, or 31 percent of the world’s offshore oil rigs. Explorers worldwide were using 92 percent of the offshore oil rigs deployed. The rig utilization rate in South Asia was 97.6 percent. Oil Rig rents have tripled since 2005 for new oil rig contracts stretching up to 2012 as explorers seek to decrease the delay between discovery and development and refinery to take advantage of current high oil prices.
Daily Oil Rig Costs
An offshore rig cost an average of $137,509 a day in December, compared with a worldwide average of $99,382 in January 2006. The number of rigs earning at least $300,000 a day in 2006 rose to 29. Offshore jack-up rig hiring rates have risen to as much as $200,000 a day from $40,000 a day in 2002-3. Reliance is paying $320,000 a day until August 2008 to rent the Deepwater Frontier rig, more than twice what the rig’s owner, Transocean, charged an earlier client, according to Transocean. The rent is set to rise to $477,000 a day, if Reliance extends the contract in 2008 for another three years. The increase in rig rentals has doubled the costs and delayed development at Reliance’s biggest gas discovery in the Krishna Godavari Basin. Two of Transocean’s rigs will arrive late.
Transocean, whose oil rig helped make the first Indian offshore discovery in 1974 at Mumbai High, has increased its work force in India to about 1,700 on 10 rigs, or 15 percent of the global total, from 25 workers in 2001. The company, based in Houston, plans to add three oil rigs in India the upcoming year. Transocean, the world’s largest offshore drilling contractor with 82 units, made $296 million, or 10.2 percent, of total sales from India, according to its 2005 annual report. Revenue from India more than doubled since 2003, the fastest among Transocean’s main markets. Shares of Transocean climbed 16.07 percent last year compared with a 13.61 percent increase in the Standard and Poor’s 500 Index. Transocean shares closed at $80.89 Friday, trading at a multiple of 38 times.
Oil Companies in India are entering the rig business because of the scramble for oil rigs worldwide, fueled by a boom in offshore exploration in the Gulf of Mexico and off China, West Africa and Brazil.
By Oilism.com
December 28th, 2007 at 07:41pm
Under Oil Fun+ Oil Theory+ Oil and gas
Do you know you only need 42 gallons of crude oil to get 44 gallons of petroleum heating oil in return, $$$. All this without adding anything else to it even natural gasses and other secondary oil refinery products excluded. Is it true? How on earth is this possible?
First the following about the oil refinery process
If you boil crude oil around 550 degrees Celsius inside a distillation tower the basic parts of the crude oil, steams and condensate. This gassy substance sticks to the walls of the distillation tower. Within this distillation process at different heights in the tower, different products are condensing and sticking to the tower walls.
Thicker oil products are at the bottom and lighter oil products such as gasoline and thinner are at the surface of the oil tank. In the end of the refinery process 42 gallons of crude oil is converted to over thousands of m3 natural gas, which eventually re condenses into a fluid substance again. Finally, when the complete process is done, 44 gallons of various petroleum products are sticking on the walls of the distillation tower ready to be sold for by approximately 55 gallon a barrel. An other funny detail is that only 42 gals of crude oil is allowed for each barrel, this because of the risks of expansion, gas forming and other transport problems. Ok right! A ratio of 1:1,04761 to convert Crude to Petroleum.. but how??!
This oil secret is simple;
When the natural gas steams out of the boiling crude oil mass in the tower, new gas forms appear from the basic parts that are boiling and steaming from the first part of this story. The new gasses contain new elements which weren’t existing in the oil substance before the heating process. But however these gasses also will condensate into a liquid fluid oil product, on top of the volume of crude oil your started. We can be prood on our Oil Companies for being so clever.
By Oilism.com
December 28th, 2007 at 03:27pm
Under Oil+ Oil Spill+ Oil and gas
Major oil spills shave occurred in the oil industry since many years and some have had devastating effects on the environment, local climate and habitat of animals. Oil spills are the accidental release of oil in environment due human activity on oil riggs and containerships. This oil cargo can be of different types including crude oil, natural gases, refined petroleum or any other type of petroleum product. Sometimes it is also releases by natural geologic seeps in the sea floors. Most oil spills occurre due to large oil carrying tankers on sea but there have been also cases of oil disasters on land. Like the confrontation in Nigeria with rebels which has led to closing down refinery stations because several oil pipelines were on fire.
Environment studies have proved that effect of oil spill can be more than it is expected to be in some places. Petrochemical products can harm the marine life in the oceans as well as degrade the air quality in the atmosphere. Some variants of oil are highly toxic which can create a huge dent in the ecosystem once they are faced to the open air. The oil is thought to be evaporating quickly once they are opened in air but some types are less volatile and remain for longer period of time in the air. These types gasses are serious threats as they posses longer effect in the ecosystem. Moreover if the oil spill is not cleared and cleaned in short time of period then it mixes up with pebble and sandy beaches and pose danger even to human society living around the sea shores.
Many countries have spent million of dollars in cleaning their sea shores due to the accidental fault of oil tankers. The major oil spills in history are mostly found in middle east countries like in Gulf War oil spill which occurred in Persian Gulf in the year January 23, 1991, Nowruz oil field in Persian Gulf in the year February 1983 and more in recent times. This oil spills effect a large number of area which has to be cleared by a army of people. Many different methods including skimming, Bioremediation, Burning, etc are used to clear the oil spill but that really fails in times when the operation is not started in quick response of oil spill.
Update: Gulf of Mexico oil rig disaster 2010:
Experts have warned that the Gulf of Mexico oil rig disaster caused by BP could develop into one of the worst spills in US history if the well is not sealed quick. Currently there are about 5,000 barrels, or 200,000 gallons, spewing every day into the Gulf of Mexico. This Massive Oil Spill reaches Louisiana Shore any moment depending on wind and stream.
5 Largest oil rig spills
- Gulf War oil spill
Location: Persian Gulf
Date: January 23, 1991
volume spilled: 136,000 – 1,500,000 tonnes
- Ixtoc oil well
Date: June 3, 1979- March 23, 1980
volume spilled 454,000 – 480,000 tonnes
- Atlantic Empress / Aegean Captain
Location: Trinidad and Tobago
Date: July 19, 1979
Volume spilled: 287,000
- Fergana Valley
Location: Uzbekistan
Date: March 2, 1992
Volume spilled: 285,000 tonnes
- Nowruz oil field
Location: Persian Gulf
Date: February 1983
Volume spilled: 260,000 tonnes
By Oilism.com
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