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Supreme help sought
Fresh off a significant setback in its tilt with ExxonMobil for control of the rich Point Thomson oil and gas field, lawyers for the state are now asking for a break in the action while they seek an Alaska Supreme Court review of a key aspect of the case.
The move seemed to dampen recent public stat....
Good news at Badami?
While the company remains somewhat guarded about revealing results until it gleans more information from well logs, rumors of a significant hydrocarbon discovery from a well Savant Alaska completed drilling at Badami this winter appear to have a basis in truth.
When asked for results of the B1-38 w....
Mackenzie for the birds
The “entire” Mackenzie Gas Project could hang on whether the National Energy Board upholds a recommendation to protect a bird sanctuary on the Mackenzie Delta, Imperial Oil and its partners have told the federal regulator.
Responding to 176 recommendations contained in the findings of a Joint Review....
Greening of Oil - Latest from Mac Ackers
SPEAK SLOWLY, IN SIMPLE SENTENCES … On Feb. 1 Financial Times’ Energy Source blog ran an article that said natural gas producers “have started to contemplate exporting natural gas from the US.” The only actual producer quote supporting the reporter’s claim came from a 174-word statement by Russ Ford....
Oil Patch Insider: Conoco reportedly looking for another Chukchi partner
On Jan. 25 ConocoPhillips and Statoil USA announced a deal that gave Statoil a 25 percent working interest in 50 Conoco leases in the Chukchi Sea off the northern coast of Alaska. Three days later a Petroleum News source said Conoco was close to a deal with a second partner on the same acreage.
Alth....
RCA: We can’t rule on storage regulation
On Jan. 27 the Regulatory Commission of Alaska issued an order declining to rule that the commission would not regulate a natural gas storage facility that Cook Inlet Natural Gas Storage LLC plans to build in the Cannery Loop gas field on Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula. The order leaves open the question....
Alaska seeks intervention in Chukchi case
The State of Alaska is seeking permission from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to intervene in a lawsuit by environmental groups challenging the U.S. Department of the Interior’s approval of an exploration plan for the Chukchi Sea.
“OCS exploration and development will increase jobs and revenue fo....
Alberta value-added goal gets boost
Canadian Natural Resources, an emerging oil sands force, and privately held North West Upgrading have teamed up in one of the most surprising of all turnarounds in Alberta oil sands projects over recent weeks.
They have submitted a 50-50 joint-venture proposal to the Alberta government to build and....
ConocoPhillips earns $1.54B in 2009
Lower oil prices in the first three quarters of 2009 meant lower year-end earnings in Alaska for ConocoPhillips, despite increased profits in the fourth quarter of the year.
ConocoPhillips earned $1.54 billion in Alaska last year, a 33 percent decline from the $2.31 billion the company earned in the....
Oil sands gets government cleanup order
If not exactly the shot heard around the world, it certainly whistled across the bow of Canada’s oil sands sector as federal Environment Minister Jim Prentice admonished the industry to clean up its act.
Reportedly unhappy that oil sands proponents failed to make their case at the Copenhagen climate....
Competing agendas clash in AK permitting
Uncertainty may not be what businesses like, but uncertainty is probably what businesses will find, as various interest groups spar over competing agendas and opinions in the permitting of Alaska projects.
And at the Seminar Group’s Permitting Strategies in Alaska seminar, held in Anchorage on Jan.....
Eni onshore pipeline work on schedule
After slowing the pace of its Nikaitchuq project on Alaska’s North Slope last year, Eni Petroleum is on schedule for first production from the field’s onshore pad this December, and for first production from the field’s offshore drilling pad south of Spy Island in December of 2011.
Crude oil from N....
$500M reduction for initial open season
Alaska Pipeline Project partners TransCanada and ExxonMobil have filed their open season plan with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, making public an estimated cost range for building an Alaska natural gas pipeline as well as projected tariff rates for shipping on the project, which will go.... |
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Damaged tug Pathfinder towed to Seattle
The tugboat Pathfinder, badly damaged when it ran aground Dec. 23 in Prince William Sound, has left the Port of Valdez, a spokesman for Crowley Maritime Corp. told Petroleum News.
A second Crowley tug, the Pt. Thompson, took the 136-foot Pathfinder under tow and departed Valdez on the morning of Jan....
Utilities and state revise GRETC bill
One of the hotter issues facing Alaska lawmakers in the current legislative session is the question of whether and how to unify the operation of the six electricity utilities that supply power to consumers along the Alaska Railbelt, a question with major implications for future Railbelt power costs....
ANS production drops 2.4% in January
Alaska North Slope crude oil production averaged 671,989 barrels per day in January, down 2.44 percent from a December average of 688,765 bpd.
The average drop in barrels was 16,776, and the largest per-barrel decline was at the North Slope’s largest field, Prudhoe Bay, which averaged 338,915 bpd i....
Revenue responds to ACES tax concerns
Both oil industry investment and employment have increased since the introduction of both the state’s ACES production tax and the preceding form of the tax, known as PPT, said Alaska Commissioner of Revenue Patrick Galvin in a letter dated Jan. 21 to several members of the Alaska Legislature. Galvin....
FERC gives Alaska requested gas waiver
The State of Alaska has gotten FERC approval for a fix to an issue which could have caused it problems in shipping royalty gas on a proposed natural gas pipeline and could also, the state feared, have caused uncertainty in open seasons for the line.
Over objections by Denali and ConocoPhillips, the....
Upstream hope dampened by labor shortage
The forecasts span a broad range, but they all point in the same positive direction — toward a stronger year in the Canadian upstream than has originally been forecast.
Bolstered by strengthening natural gas prices and a growing belief that the Alberta government is on the verge of rolling back its....
COST pays the cost
A long-shot bet by one of Alberta’s biggest oil sands producers to lock up natural gas resources in the farthest reaches of the Canadian Arctic has turned sour.
In 2006, Canadian Oil Sands Trust emerged victorious from a heated bidding contest for Canada Southern Petroleum, whose primary asset was a....
Oil Patch Bits: ExxonMobil and the Harris Foundation in San Diego
ExxonMobil said Jan. 29 that former U.S. astronaut Bernard Harris gave students and teachers in San Diego a first-hand experience with the wonders of science, technology, engineering and mathematics when “The Dream Tour, presented by ExxonMobil” made its first stop of 2010 at Abraham Lincoln High Sc....
Oil Patch Bits: Crowley restructuring its Alaska operations
Crowley Maritime Corp. said Jan. 28 that it has restructured it petroleum distribution and contract services group, consolidating all Alaska operations under Craig Tornga, vice president. Tornga will remain in Anchorage, will continue reporting to Rocky Smith, senior vice president and general manag....
Oil Patch Bits: AAL provides medical oxygen to rescue teams in Haiti
American Air Liquide, a division of Air Liquide said Jan. 27 that it has been helping coordinate emergency assistance efforts with the United Nations Center for International Disaster to provide much-needed medical oxygen to the rescue teams in Haiti. Due to Air Liquide’s footprint and logistics str....
Persily to ‘deal in reality’ on gas line
Larry Persily, the Obama administration’s pick to become the new federal coordinator for Alaska natural gas transportation projects, said during a Feb. 2 confirmation hearing he’d do whatever he could to enhance chances for a gas pipeline.
“I pledge to devote my energy, my knowledge and ingenuity to....
CIPL to RCA: We’re nearly ‘non-profit’
Answering criticism of its steep tariff increase, Cook Inlet Pipe Line Co. is telling Alaska regulators its crude oil pipeline is “very small” and is operated on “nearly a non-profit basis.”
Those arguments might not wash with oil shippers, who have lodged objections to the carrier’s 259 percent rat....
State adopts ACES regs for lease expenses
The Alaska Department of Revenue has announced that it is adopting new regulations for the state’s ACES oil production tax, under title 15 chapter 55 of the Alaska administrative code. The new regulations, part of a series associated with the introduction of ACES, apply specifically to the standards.... |