April 23, 2017

Petrotrin is reporting the spill of at least 20 barrels of oil from a storage tank on its Pointe a Pierre refinery facility.

In a statement on Sunday night, the company said that following the discovery of a leak at one of the storage tanks at the Pointe-a-Pierre Refinery, it activated its emergency response plan and initiated measures to contain and recover the leaked hydrocarbon material.

“Initial estimates at 8 p.m. indicate some 20 barrels of fuel oil would have escaped the Company's containment.  The regulatory agencies and the Ministry of Energy were informed of the incident”.  The cleanup was expected to continue overnight.

May 07, 2017

Amaricn President Donald Trump just signed an executive order aimed at expanding offshore oil and gas drilling in the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans — and maybe even in the Pacific Ocean. The move, which is expected to lead to litigation in the courts, is the latest attempt to dismantle President Barack Obama’s environmental legacy. Last month, Trump began the process to halt Obama’s cornerstone plan to curb greenhouse gas emissions. And on Wednesday, he signed another executive order that could expand oil and gas development on wilderness areas currently protected as national monuments.

Today’s executive order instructs the Department of the Interior to review locations for offshore oil and gas exploration and leasing that were put off limits by the Obama administration. That includes millions of acres in the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans that Obama withdrew permanently from drilling in December 2016. The order also asks for a review of marine monuments and sanctuaries created in the past 10 years, and prohibits the creation of new ones, according to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, who spoke to reporters about the order last night.

April 29, 2017

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Oil producers across the Middle East and North Africa (Mena) region have been continuing to spend heavily on oil, gas and petrochemicals’ production capacity despite the fall in oil prices since 2014.

About $294 billion of oil, gas and petrochemicals projects are in the pre-execution phase across the Mena region even as concerns about global oversupply continue to suppress oil prices, according to Meed Insight’s Mena Oil and Gas Report 2017.

Despite lower crude prices, the Mena region is continuing to spend heavily on oil infrastructure to maintain capacity and, in some countries, meet ambitious capacity expansion targets.

Gas spending is also set to increase as countries such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE study higher-cost sour gas and shale gas plans to meet rapidly-growing domestic demand.

The year 2016 saw average crude prices drop to a 13-year low as oil and gas producers in the Middle East and North Africa (Mena) region continued to face the impact of global oversupply.

The drop in crude revenues coincided with an eight-year low in the value of engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contracts awarded in the regional oil, gas and petrochemicals sectors.

Investment in the Mena hydrocarbons industries hit an eight-year low in 2016, dropping 34 per cent to $32.4 billion.

“The oil, gas and petrochemicals sectors will continue to be the backbone of economies across the Mena region,” said MEED Editorial Director, Richard Thompson. “With an estimated $294 billion-worth of projects in the pre-execution phase, the sector provides a wealth of opportunity for business from Saudi Arabia’s ambitious oil-to-chemicals complex to the re-emergence of the Iran oil industry following years of sanctions.”

February 16, 2017

India signed a deal with the United Arab Emirates on Wednesday that allows the Gulf OPEC country to fill half of an underground crude oil storage facility at Mangalore that is part of New Delhi's strategic reserve system.

New Delhi announced a series of pacts with the UAE ranging from defense, trade, maritime cooperation to energy after a meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Abu Dhabi's Crown Prince Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan.

UAE's Abu Dhabi National Oil Co [ADNOC.UL] will store about 6 million barrels of oil at Mangalore, taking up about half of the site's capacity, said Sunjay Sudhir, joint secretary for international cooperation at the Indian oil ministry.