China to build 30 offshore patrol boats

China plans to build 30 vessels for marine law enforcement in the next five years, according to official reports. “China’s fleet does not meet the standard of one vessel per 1,000 square-kilometres and there is a huge gap compared to other developed countries,” said Li Lixin, director of South China Sea Branch of State Oceanic Administration of China.

Safehaven Marine has delivered ‘Quinoa’ an Interceptor 48, 14.5-metre pilot vessel to the Port of Bordeaux, France. The Interceptor 48 is a completely new design based closely on Safehaven’s Interceptor 42, deep V pilot boat hull, and sized to bridge the gap between their 13-metre and 16.5-metre hull sizes.

US President Barack Obama has signed into law the “Coast Guard Authorisation Act of 2010″, which entails a piece of good news regarding shore leave in the US. The Act requires each facility to “provide a system for seamen assigned to a vessel at that facility, pilots and representatives of seamen’s welfare and labour organisations to board and depart the vessel through the facility in a timely manner at no cost to the individual.

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Woodside quarterly output drops

Oil and gas producer Woodside Petroleum says production fell 11 percent in the third quarter compared to the same time last year. The drop in production was mainly driven by the sale of its stake in the Otway Gas Project in Victoria to Origin Energy. Revenue from sales rose 15 per cent to $1.03 billion in the year to September as a result of improved commodity prices.

Turkey is considering starting oil and gas exploration off the northern coast of Cyprus, a senior Turkish Energy Ministry official said Thursday. The official said initial seismic research conducted in waters between Turkey’s southern Mediterranean port city of Mersin and Cyprus, 200 kilometers (124 miles) away, “has yielded certain data.”

The war of words between Cairn India and Oil and Natural Gas Corporation today saw the latter shooting another letter to Cairn. It the letter, the state-run company has sought details of Vedanta’s financial strength, technical capability and past experience in the field of oil and gas.

Jude    Maritime News    

More orders for Chinese Shipbuilding

International shipbroker, Clarksons, has announced that China has the largest orderbook in the world, totaling 189.8 million DWT as of August 1, 2010. The second closest, South Korea, comes in second at 159.3 million DWT, followed by Japan on 88.7 million DWT. As of June 1, 2010, there were 452 shipbuilding contracts placed globally of which China secured 44 percent.

Chinese shipbuilders are pessimistic about the industry’s future outlook, despite a buoyant first half in 2010 that saw incremental orders increase four times over the same period last year.

Other news in ship building..Damen Vinashin Shipyard in Haiphong has officially been launched following a signing ceremony on August 19 at the head offices of the Vietnam Shipbuilding Industry Group (Vinashin) in Hanoi. Song Cam Shipyard has been allocated by Vinashin to act as the local partner in the construction and operation of the new shipyard, which is a joint venture between Vinashin and Damen.

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Tanker explodes in Russia.

An oil tanker exploded on the Don River in the southern Russian region of Rostov on October 17, killing one person and injuring two others, news agencies reported. The blast occurred when the tanker was pumping oil from another ship at Bagayevskaya village, causing a fire on both vessels and sinking the tanker.

The big new cargo ship was designed and built at the company’s Tsu Shipyard, located on the shores of Ise Bay south west of Tokyo. The shipyard is one of five building yards operated by Universal and specialises in the construction of large-sized merchant ships and offshore structures including VLCC tankers, LPG/LNG carriers and FPSO vessels in addition to bulkers.

Moving on from one catastrophe to another.. A tanker carrying 6,000 tonnes of gasoline was being towed to safety following a collision with a cargo vessel in the English Channel. The 6,970-tonne ‘Uranus’ collided with the 179,000-tonne ‘Hanjin Rizhao’ about 96 kilometres west of the coast of Brittany in north-west France.

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Temasek Invests $400M In Brazil’s Odebrecht Oil & Gas

Singapore’s state investment company Temasek Holdings Pte. Ltd. invested $400 million in Brazil’s Odebrecht Oil and Gas, the latest move by the sovereign wealth fund to consolidate its position in the resources sector and expand in emerging markets. It is also Temasek’s first known major investment in Brazil since setting up an office in Sao Paulo in 2008.

At a time when they typically sag, gasoline prices are going up in California, a trend attributed to crude oil investors rather than energy industry conditions. Since Labor Day, pump prices have bumped up 10 cents a gallon, according to California Energy Commission reports. In Santa Rosa, the average price per gallon of regular gas was $3.17 on Tuesday, up 9 cents from a month ago, the AAA Fuel Gauge Report said.

Twin Disc Inc. reported a fiscal first-quarter profit Tuesday, turning around a year-ago loss, on the strength of sales to the oil and gas market. The Racine manufacturer of power transmission equipment posted net income of $2.66 million, or 24 cents a share, compared with a loss of $2.40 million, or 22 cents, a year earlier.

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Ukraine to develop oil, gas fields in Venezuela

Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych says his country will develop oil and gas fields in energy-rich Venezuela. Speaking after a meeting with Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez Monday, Yanukovych said such projects will be a top priority for the two countries. There were no other details. Yanukovych also said Ukraine will soon begin to transport Venezuelan oil to Belarus via an oil pipeline, but again, there was no elaboration.

Crude prices are expected to trade sideways this week on the rebounding dollar, better-than-expected economic data releases and OPEC’s move of $100 a barrel of oil. Natural gas is expected to trade lower on higher inventory data and bearish technical indicators. A rebounding dollar will likely push crude prices lower this week.

Strong crude prices will drive an increase in drilling across Canada next year, with oil wells outpacing natural gas for a second year running, according to industry observers. Oil well licences outstripped gas this year for the first time since 1997 as sinking natural gas prices discouraged drilling, analysts noted Monday.

Jude    Maritime News, News     Crude prices, drilling across Canada, higher oil prices, Hugo Chavez, natural gas, oil and gas fields, oil pipeline, OPEC, OPEC members, Strong crude prices, top oil consumers, Ukraine, Ukrainian President, venezuela, Venezuelan oil, Viktor Yanukovych

Israel drills for Gas.

Oil companies in Israel, led by Texas-based Noble Energy Inc. this week are expected to start drilling one of the world’s most promising natural-gas prospects of recent years, according to executives.

In a rare display of out-of-the-box thinking from a public sector company, flagship explorer ONGC is pumping in nearly Rs 16,000 crore, or $4 billion, into deploying some innovative technological measures to arrest the ageing of Mumbai High oil and gas fields, its crown jewel.

Jude    Maritime News     exploratory drilling, explorer ONGC, Israel's northern coast, Leviathan prospect, Mumbai high drilling, natural gas prospects, Noble Energy Inc., oil bearing sub layers, oil companies, Pumping oil, Seismic surveys

Oil drilling = Earthquakes ??

The crude oil we drill for the world over is, for the most part, stored in tiny pores within rock up to only about three miles deep in the Earth’s hugely dense crust. At such depths, the oil there is under fairly high pressure. When it is removed, other liquids—usually water—move in to take its place, equalizing the pressure in the process. Sometimes oil extractors pump water into one side of an oil field to push oil toward wells on the other side, and the water replaces the oil accordingly.

ONGC has notified oil and gas discoveries in its pre-NELP blocks. The company has reported oil find in its pre-NELP on land block in Cauvery Basin and gas discovery in its shallow offshore block in Krishna Godavari Basin. In a statement issued here on Friday, the company said that the two discoveries have been notified to Directorate General of Hydrocarbon after the previous board meeting held on September 22.

Also making waves today is…An exploration company that is conducting seismic examinations in the Dayton region to search for possible oil and natural gas deposits, although a state geologist said western Ohio hasn’t been productive for such efforts. Workers from West Bay Exploration Co. are sending sound waves into the ground to gather images of the underground along public right-of-ways in Montgomery and Preble counties.

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Samsung Heavy Secures Order for 10 Container Ships

Samsung Heavy Industries won an order from Taiwan’s Evergreen Group to build ten 8,000 TEU container vessels, the shipbuilder said Wednesday.
The US$1.03 billion deal follows an order placed by Evergreen in early July also for ten container vessels of the same size. “This is the first time that we’ve received orders for 20 vessels from the same customer in the same year,” a Samsung spokesperson said.

Japan-based NYK Line is building a new slurry tanker for shipments of New Zealand iron sands to China and Japan. NYK and New Zealand Steel Mining Ltd the local face of BlueScope, the former BHP conglomerate which controls the Glenbrook steel mill — have agreed to extend their current contract for an additional 15 years for the transport of iron sand from New Zealand to China and Japan, NYK said in a statement.

Three vessels built by Armstrong Marine and fitted with SeaFury SF26 drives were launched in the United States. The ‘Nanuq’ is a 11.5-metre by 4.8-metre welded aluminium catamaran launched April 2010 and operates as a whale watching vessel off the west coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia in Canada. She is licensed to carry 33 passengers weighs 13 tons and operates at 34 knots.

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The economic power of oil and gas

In the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon well blow-out, the debate now centers on the oil and gas sector’s future role in the Gulf of Mexico. While the focus has been on environmental impact and technical challenges, and on the effects on local fishing and tourist industries, less attention has been paid to the considerable economic significance of the entire oil and gas sector.

Appro is expanding its supercomputing hardware portfolio with offerings targeting the high-frequency trading space of the oil and gas market. On Oct.12, Appro unveiled the dual-socket HF1 server, which includes over clocked Intel Xeon 5600 “Westmere” processors and a liquid-cooling system that is designed to create the kind of high-power, low-latency environment that traders need for their rapid transactions.

Crude for November delivery fell 32 cents, or 0.4%, to settle at $82.69 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract had traded as high as $84.12 earlier and swung between small gains and losses for most of the session.

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