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Castro’s revenge: The Cuban oil rush
Carolyn Whelan, Fortune
Seventy miles from Florida, a Cuban oil rush is underway – and U.S. companies can’t join in.
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Sometime later this year, less than 70 miles from Florida, a consortium of Spanish, Indian and Norwegian companies will likely start drilling for oil. It could mark the beginning of a Cuban oil rush – one that American oil companies won’t be able to join, despite their proximity to the action.
And that has some U.S. oil industry executives and lobbyists seething, especially since the American Association of Petroleum Geologists calls the offshore Cuban oil deposits a “significant find.”
U.S. oil companies can’t play in these waters, of course, barred as they are by sanctions prohibiting them from doing business with Cuba. But irked at the irony of sanctions designed to isolate Fidel Castro that isolate them instead, some in the oil industry are seeking to exempt U.S. oil companies from the 45-year-old embargo
(7 March 2007)
BPs Reserves are depleted, except in Russia
Carl Mortishead, The Times
BP suffered a one billion barrel decline in its oil and gas reserves last year, according to figures in its annual report, a loss only partially made up by its Russian arm, the joint venture TNK-BP which was the only oil province in which BP added substantial fuel to its tank.
Using SEC rules, which the company has adopted in preference to UK practice which it used last year, BP’s total oil and gas reserves fell from 14 billion to 13 billion barrels. However, its shares of barrels held by the Russian associate, TNK-BP rose from 3.9 billion to 4.5 billion.
Last year, BP added 329 million barrels to its proved reserves, excluding the Russian, but these barrels represented improved recovery from existing fields, rather than new discoveries. Most of the additions to BP’s reserves were in the UK, where it added barrels in the West of Shetlands oilfields, the US and in Angola. BP has an active exploration programme in Angola, one of the few oil provinces where Western companies are making big finds.
For BP, Russia remains its best exploration and production card and the company continues to benefit from its share in the Soviet dowry it inherited with its purchase of half of the assets of TNK-BP BP’s upstream record last year outside of Russia will be a concern for those worried by the lacklustre performance by Western oil majors in replacing barrels produced. According to SEC definitions, BP replaced just 34 per cent of the oil and gas it produced last year with new barrels. However, TNK—BP added added almost three times the number of barrels to its tank as it pumped out of the ground. ..
(7 Mar 2007)
Exxon plans 25 new projects in next three years
Reuters
Exxon Mobil Corp (NYSE:XOM – news) plans to start 25 new global projects in the next three years, adding about 1 million barrels of oil equivalent per day to its base volumes when they reach their peak, the world’s largest publicly traded oil company said on Wednesday.
The company said its current project inventory is expected to produce 24 billion oil-equivalent barrels over the life of the projects
(7 March 2007)
UPDATES: Related story from NY Times: Exxon Plans to Lift Output a Million Barrels a Day.
Contributor Matthew Fox writes:
Given that these twenty new projects will produce less than 2% of current world consumption, this article illustrates how marginal most new projects are becoming.
Russia, pumped
Shawn McCarthy, Globe and Mail
This city of 12 million has all the hallmarks of an oil-fired boomtown – traffic snarled at all hours of the day along roadways not built for three million cars, ubiquitous construction cranes hovering overhead, rampant consumerism in the luxury shops of the elite and the more prosaic housewares and electronic stores of the growing middle class.
Gone from the underpasses and Red Square itself are the legions of pensioners who just five years ago were begging and selling off family treasures to put food on the table. Flush with petro-rubles, the government of President Vladimir Putin cannot only pay their state pensions but has increased them.
(2 Mar 2007)
A summary of Russian petro-politics.
Stampede for Imperial Energy as Siberian reserves are confirmed
Steve Hawkes, The Times
Shares in oil explorer Imperial Energy soared nearly 40 per cent to a record peak yesterday as the minnow disclosed that it has 3.4 billion barrels of reserves in Russia, as predicted by The Times. Peter Levine, the chairman, added that 803 million barrels had been given a lucrative “2P” proven and probable tag, meaning a 50 per cent likelihood of recovery.
The “2P” figure is almost 150 per cent higher than the amount previously listed on Imperial’s books, and it is nearly double that held by Cairn Energy, the FTSE 100 explorer. Mr Levine said: “We have answered some people’s doubts.” Imperial had told investors to expect a “material” reserves upgrade in early March after a survey of 15 fields in West Siberia by American energy expert DeGolyer & MacNaughton. ..
Imperial’s market capitalisation is now £623 million, valuing Mr Levine’s 8 per cent stake at nearly £51 million. He told The Times that the biggest challenge now facing Imperial was to dampen expectation and bring the fields to production.
Imperial has previously forecast that output from its four biggest fields will have reached 25,000 barrels a day by the end of 2008. This is likely to be updated when the group moves to the main market in April. Mr Levine said: “This is the end of the beginning of the Imperial story. But we don’t want to get all cabaret, we have to build on this.”
(7 Mar 2007)
