Copyright (c) 2010 Petroleum News, All rights reserved. http://www.petroleumnews.com Petroleum News, providing coverage of Alaska and Canada. en-us Fri, 12 Mar 2010 12:06 PST http://www.petroleumnews.com/pntruncate/12833512.shtml ConocoPhillips' annual report usually arrives in the middle of the Alaska Legislative session, providing plenty of fodder for lawmakers arguing about the state's policy toward the oil industry. This year, though, the year-end filing is a complicated package. Alaska profits dropped, but less than in... http://www.petroleumnews.com/pntruncate/187784640.shtml Many Alaskans are skeptical the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act will deliver a natural gas pipeline, a poll prepared for the state Legislature shows. The Dittman Research poll put this question to Alaskans: 'How confident are you that former Gov. Palin's AGIA plan will be successful in getting a natur... http://www.petroleumnews.com/pntruncate/248230748.shtml State-run Korea Gas Corp. or Kogas, the world's largest importer of liquid natural gas, has given added impetus to Canada's hopes of exporting gas outside of North America by committing to spend US$1.1 billion over the next five years to explore and produce British Columbia shale gas. Already positi... http://www.petroleumnews.com/pntruncate/324323536.shtml HEADED TO ANTARCTICA ... By now you've heard our big news: Greening of Oil has launched an Antarctica expedition blog at www.greeningofoil.com/antarctica.aspx - in English AND Arabic. Qatari engineer Abdulla AlMisnad, who works for Shell, is joining polar explorer Robert Swan's 2041 team to the southe... http://www.petroleumnews.com/pntruncate/435787088.shtml It's OK; it's not OK. That's pretty much the range of what a handful of commenters told the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission about TransCanada's proposal for an open season for the Alaska Pipeline Project. TransCanada is proposing to build a natural gas pipeline to take Alaska North Slope gas t... http://www.petroleumnews.com/pntruncate/777465749.shtml An Alaska Railbelt power and gas utility task force has largely completed its review of proposed legislation to establish a Greater Railbelt Energy and Transmission Co., or GRETC, for the Alaska Railbelt and has come up with a set of recommendations to place before a committee of the Alaska Legislat... http://www.petroleumnews.com/pntruncate/825757126.shtml Not that it needed any more prodding, but the Alberta government has been told it needs to rework its royalty and tax policies, or risk losing investment to other energy hotspots in North America. Alberta's new royalty regime is 'hurting, especially with respect to conventional oil and gas investmen... http://www.petroleumnews.com/pntruncate/135996141.shtml The Regulatory Commission of Alaska has denied Enstar Natural Gas Co.'s request to recover $5.7 million related to an error in billing between 2002 and 2007 for gas delivered to a Fort Richardson laundry. The amount was included in Enstar's tariff on a provisional basis; RCA is now requiring Enstar... http://www.petroleumnews.com/pntruncate/743016020.shtml Turn your back for a minute these days and you're bound to miss some action in the Alberta oil sands. In the space of 48 hours, starting Feb. 24, the news came in a torrent. • Syncrude Canada pumped fresh life into a 200,000-barrel-per-day expansion of the world's largest synthetic crude operation,... http://www.petroleumnews.com/pntruncate/245668609.shtml Alaska North Slope crude oil production averaged 670,144 barrels per day in February, down 0.27 percent from a January average of 671,989 bpd. The largest per-barrel change was at Prudhoe Bay, which averaged 346,517 bpd in February, up 2.24 percent or 7,602 bpd from a January average of 338,915 bpd... http://www.petroleumnews.com/pntruncate/381836572.shtml Canadian shale gas development is set to breaks out of its British Columbia confines, propelled by expectations of blockbuster March land sales in Alberta and initial success from a test well in Quebec. The quiet stirrings of interest in the Devonian Duvernay play in northern Alberta could turn into... http://www.petroleumnews.com/pntruncate/591075220.shtml GMT Exploration, the big bidder at the state's Beaufort Sea lease sale on Feb. 24, is a newcomer to the North Slope, but the Denver-based independent is not completely new to Alaska. GMT Exploration is a subsidiary of GMT Capital Corp., a private investment firm founded in 1990 that manages several... http://www.petroleumnews.com/pntruncate/957806620.shtml The explosion in shale gas across North America may have some negative consequences for Western Canadian producers, who have dominated markets in Ontario for 50 years. The prospective flood of new gas from the Marcellus shale in Pennsylvania and West Virginia may find its way into Canada's most popu... http://www.petroleumnews.com/pntruncate/223140436.shtml Rumors of Pioneer Natural Resources mishandling fluids at its northern Alaska Oooguruk oil field stem from two complaints; one anonymous and the other from an employee. They were received by the company on Feb. 19 and Feb. 22. In response, Pioneer launched an internal investigation and informed thre... http://www.petroleumnews.com/pntruncate/827279356.shtml An Australian company focused on innovative coal-based energy is buying the Cook Inlet acreage of a small independent and plans to drill an exploration well this year. Linc Energy (Alaska) Inc., the local subsidiary of an Australian exploration and production firm with assets in Australia, Vietnam a... http://www.petroleumnews.com/pntruncate/395526213.shtml Lawyers for ExxonMobil and other oil companies are urging the Alaska Supreme Court not to get involved just yet in the Point Thomson case. On March 1 the companies filed a 15-page brief opposing a Department of Natural Resources petition to the high court seeking review of a January ruling that went... http://www.petroleumnews.com/pntruncate/770854807.shtml The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on March 3 voted to advance Larry Persily's nomination as the new federal coordinator for Alaska natural gas transportation projects. 'Developing our natural gas resources is integral to Alaska's future,' said U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, the... http://www.petroleumnews.com/pntruncate/648516942.shtml Citing increased shipping and oil industry activity in Arctic seas, as sea ice recedes in the face of global warming, the U.S. Arctic Research Commission has published a white paper recommending additional U.S. federal funding for research into Arctic oil spill prevention and response. The commissio... http://www.petroleumnews.com/pntruncate/760297123.shtml There are a number of tax change bills in the Alaska Legislature and another is about to be added, but this one is perhaps more time sensitive than some others. Sen. Bert Stedman, R-Sitka, co-chair of the Senate Finance Committee, said Feb. 26 at a press conference that as a result of two weeks of... http://www.petroleumnews.com/pntruncate/386500487.shtml ExxonMobil said Feb. 18 that more than 55 local girls participated in the company's annual 'Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day.' The middle-school girls were given dowel sticks, index cards, marshmallows and rubber bands and challenged to build a catapult. The hope of the ExxonMobil employees at th... http://www.petroleumnews.com/pntruncate/68121710.shtml Rain for Rent said Feb. 25 that its HH-125c 4-inch pump is specifically designed to produce high flow and high discharge head for various applications such as dewatering mines and quarries. The HH-125c also functions as a force main sewer bypass pump and handles solids to 3-inch diameter. Capable of... http://www.petroleumnews.com/pntruncate/418533805.shtml NANA Management Services said Feb. 26 that it has once again been recognized as one of the top minority-owned businesses in the country. This is the second consecutive year that NMS has achieved this honor from Diversity Business.com in its annual 'Top 500 Diversity Owned Businesses in the U.S.' lis... http://www.petroleumnews.com/pntruncate/650786034.shtml In the latest step in its initiative to harness the swiftly moving tidal currents that sweep up and down Alaska's Cook Inlet, renewable energy firm Ocean Renewable Power Co. has applied to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for a license for a pilot tidal power system. In the summer or fall of... http://www.petroleumnews.com/pntruncate/480385620.shtml Tennessee-based Miller Energy Resources announced March 3 its Alaska subsidiary, Cook Inlet Energy, has completed 'the first of several major well reworks.' The West McArthur River Unit-5 well tested at a flow rate of 578 barrels of oil equivalent per day after a workover that included replacing the... http://www.petroleumnews.com/pntruncate/880554710.shtml BP Exploration (Alaska)'s 2009 balance sheet provides a pretty good example of how the progressive nature of Alaska production taxes impacts profits for a major oil company. BP earned $1.89 billion in Alaska in 2009, down around 3 percent from the $1.95 billion the company earned in 2008. Those some... http://www.petroleumnews.com/pntruncate/31426052.shtml Environmental groups are raising questions about ExxonMobil's Point Thomson project on Alaska's North Slope, arguing among other things that proposed drilling pads could be vulnerable to potential erosion along the Beaufort Sea coast. The groups also are concerned the development crowds the western... http://www.petroleumnews.com/pntruncate/682267266.shtml Besieged on one side by development proponents and on the other by the environmental lobby, it seems that nowadays the U.S. Department of the Interior has difficulty keeping anyone happy when it comes to the thorny questions of whether or how to open federal onshore and offshore lands for oil and ga... http://www.petroleumnews.com/pntruncate/98036904.shtml AND THE OSCAR DOESN'T GO TO ... We're talking Hollywood. Anything goes, right? But this one backfired. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences didn't play ball by delivering the goods on Oscar night. In what might have taken the prize for Manipulation, a coalition of 50-odd nongovernmental,... http://www.petroleumnews.com/pntruncate/902646819.shtml Proponents of the Mackenzie Gas Project have waited the best part of a decade for a regulatory agency to streamline processing of their application. But Canada's National Energy Board has done what the partners, the wider industry and some government leaders have repeatedly urged. The federal regula... http://www.petroleumnews.com/pntruncate/309424947.shtml Chevron is narrowing its focus at its White Hills prospect on the North Slope. According to state land records, the state terminated 41 leases in White Hills on Feb. 1 because Chevron, through its subsidiary Union Oil Company of California, decided to stop paying rental fees on the acreage. The leas... http://www.petroleumnews.com/pntruncate/65893384.shtml The push to exploit Alberta's oil sands is in full swing, with two startup companies rolling out project plans. Athabasca Oil Sands Corp., which recently sold 60 percent stakes in two of its leases to PetroChina, and Grizzly Oil Sands have their sights set on commercial production by 2015. AOSC has... http://www.petroleumnews.com/pntruncate/672501319.shtml On Feb. 25, after 19 days of drilling, a coiled tubing sidetrack from the MPL-36 well in the BP-operated Milne Point field on Alaska's North Slope reached a measured depth of 22,462 feet. BP thinks this is a world record for a coiled tubing well, Sean McLaughlin, BP coiled tubing drilling engineer,... http://www.petroleumnews.com/pntruncate/371304023.shtml Mark Foster of MAFA will be presenting a talk on 'The economics of subsidization: health care reform and Alaska energy markets,' at the Anchorage Chapter of the International Association of Energy Economics on March 17 at noon at the BP Energy Center. Foster will compare the economics of expanded he... http://www.petroleumnews.com/pntruncate/53968239.shtml Coalbed methane, once tagged as a vital new source of gas in Canada, has gone quiet, drowned out by the clatter surrounding shale gas. And Calgary-based consulting firm Ziff Energy Group believes coalbed methane volumes will remain flat as activity is diverted to British Columbia's Montney and Horn... http://www.petroleumnews.com/pntruncate/394799217.shtml A promise to reduce red tape facing Canada's major energy projects - one that spans the four years since the government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper was elected - now seems destined for action. The federal budget released March 4 included a commitment to shift responsibility for environmental re... http://www.petroleumnews.com/pntruncate/365139317.shtml In November the Regulatory Commission of Alaska approved a new supply of gas for Enstar Natural Gas Co. from Anchor Point Energy's North Fork gas field in the southern Kenai Peninsula. And state right-of-way applications have now appeared for the two pipelines needed to deliver gas from the field. T... http://www.petroleumnews.com/pntruncate/483079537.shtml The U.S. Senate unanimously confirmed Larry Persily March 10 as Alaska natural gas transportation project federal coordinator. U.S. Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska, recommended Persily to the Obama administration for the post. The senator said in a statement after the March 10 confirmation vote: 'Larry... http://www.petroleumnews.com/pntruncate/802861472.shtml Baker Hughes Inc. said March 5 that the worldwide rig count for February was 2,982 (2,632 onshore and 350 offshore), up 209 from 2,773 in January and up 229 from 2,753 in February 2009. The U.S. rig count for February was 1,350, up 83 from 1,267 in January and up 30 from 1,320 in February 2009. The... http://www.petroleumnews.com/pntruncate/438125821.shtml Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar announced March 4 that the Department of the Interior has selected the University of Alaska to host an Alaska regional climate science center. The University of Alaska center is the first of eight regional centers that Interior is setting up across the United St... http://www.petroleumnews.com/pntruncate/787212074.shtml Denali - which delayed the date of its submittal of a FERC application for an Alaska gas pipeline project by more than a year last summer - has now moved that date back again. The company said in its report to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on January activities that the company is now ta... http://www.petroleumnews.com/pntruncate/520761836.shtml The Canadian independent TG World Energy Corp. is giving up its stake in a North Slope exploration well after judging initial production test results unsatisfactory. A production test of the Kuparuk C-1 sandstone at the Sak River No. 1-A exploration well on March 5 and 6 'recovered water and a mino... http://www.petroleumnews.com/pntruncate/967732854.shtml Offshore areas of the Norwegian Arctic will only be opened up to oil and gas activities if coastal residents can be persuaded there are benefits for them, the chairman of a local oil company told the Arctic Frontiers conference in Tromso Jan. 26. Johann Petter Barlindhaug of North Energy said workin... http://www.petroleumnews.com/pntruncate/770289540.shtml The Norwegian government has expanded the areas available for oil and gas exploration activities in the Barents Sea and Norwegian Sea in its announcement of the Awards in Predefined Areas 2010, the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy said in a release Feb. 19. An additional 20 blocks are now available... http://www.petroleumnews.com/pntruncate/703039555.shtml Seismic surveys do have an effect on fish, the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate has concluded after commissioning the Institute of Marine Research to conduct one of the largest-ever research projects on this issue. The research took place in summer 2009 off the district of Vesteralen in northwestern... http://www.petroleumnews.com/pntruncate/235335248.shtml Talisman Energy appears to be looking to leave Alaska. The Calgary-based independent, which operates in Alaska through its subsidiary FEX, wants to sell its interest in leases in northern Alaska, according to a financial filing posted by Canadian securities regulators March 8. In the filing, Talisma... http://www.petroleumnews.com/pntruncate/202600638.shtml Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell has requested that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reconsider its Feb. 5 denial of a permit request by ConocoPhillips Alaska for development of CD-5, the company's oil prospect which lies west of the Alpine field in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. The governor said... http://www.petroleumnews.com/pntruncate/190296006.shtml In the conflict between the United States and Canada over who owns a pie-shaped wedge of the Beaufort Sea off the Alaska-Yukon coast, it appears that what lies to the north of the wedge is the biggest wild card of all. The dispute over the New Jersey-sized slice of ocean directly northeast of Alask... http://www.petroleumnews.com/pntruncate/530752510.shtml In what some critics see as biting the hand that feeds British Columbia revenues, the provincial government plans to divert spending in its key resource departments - energy, mines and forestry - by C$320 million over the next three years to support health care and education programs. It's a swift r... http://www.petroleumnews.com/pntruncate/276545543.shtml The 2010 Rural Energy Conference will be held April 27-29 at the Westmark Conference Center in Fairbanks, conference organizers - the Alaska Energy Authority and the Alaska Center for Energy and Power at the University of Alaska Fairbanks - said March 9. This year's conference theme is 'New Energy... http://www.petroleumnews.com/pntruncate/697116083.shtml In response to comments on its open season plan, TransCanada and ExxonMobil, sponsors of the Alaska Pipeline Project, the APP parties, have addressed 'certain discrete procedural issues raised by ConocoPhillips and BP,' and also responded to a request by the State of Alaska for clarification of stan... http://www.petroleumnews.com/pntruncate/739867547.shtml BP has nearly completed the construction of a $100 million facility on the Milne Point S-Pad on Alaska's North Slope to test ways of producing heavy oil from the Ugnu formation a few thousand feet below the pad. The tests should start in May, company spokesman Steve Rinehart told Petroleum News Marc... http://www.petroleumnews.com/pntruncate/604802837.shtml The Alaska Senate's Finance Committee started hearings March 9 on Senate Bill 305, a bill which would separate oil from gas for purposes of calculating the state's oil and gas production tax. The bill was one of a pair introduced in the Senate, and Sen. Bert Stedman, R-Sitka, the committee's co-cha... http://www.petroleumnews.com/pntruncate/279971450.shtml The Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation is proposing to issue a new air quality control permit to the North Slope Borough for the power utility in the village of Nuiqsut. The 'minor permit' would cover not only four diesel-fired generators, but also two generators fired with natural gas.... http://www.petroleumnews.com/pntruncate/203445505.shtml Progress on a proposed Alaska hydroelectric project near Moose Pass north of Seward appears to be slowing down, at least for now. The project developer, Kenai Hydro LLC, told the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in a Feb. 8 filing the company is 'suspending major activities to consider how best... http://www.petroleumnews.com/pntruncate/833570173.shtml Stoel Rives LLP said March 3 that it was pleased to announce that S. Lane Tucker has joined as a partner in the firm's Anchorage office. Tucker will focus her practice on government contracting and construction law matters, including Contract Disputes Act, False Claims Act and bid protest litigation... http://www.petroleumnews.com/pntruncate/12665253.shtml Crowley Maritime Corp. said March 4 that it has moved to a new 70,000-square-foot warehouse at JAXPORT's Dames Point location, minutes from the company's headquarters. With this move, the company has doubled its north Florida warehouse space. This new location, at 3700 Port Jacksonville Parkway, has... http://www.petroleumnews.com/pntruncate/409407783.shtml ExxonMobil said March 8 that it has introduced a new feature that will allow customers to download ExxonMobil service station locations to their GPS devices. This feature is downloadable from the ExxonMobil station locator Web site and is compatible with the leading consumer GPS devices, including G...