Shell & Petronas Preparing Award for Iraq Oil Wells

Shell and Petronas are in the process of awarding a deal to drill new oil wells at Iraq's super giant Majnoon oil field which will include engineering, procurement and construction deal to build various production installations at the field.

Potential firms in the bidding lists are reportedly Halliburton, Weatherford International, and Petrofac which will be responsible to develop Majnoon to175,000 barrels a day by 2012.

The oil field is owned by Shell of 45%, Petronas 30%, and Iraq's state-run Missan Oil holding 25%.

Singapore Building Facility for LNG Import from Qatar

Singapore is building new import facility for liquified natural gas on Jurong Island which will receive LNG from Qatar in the country's plans to diversify its gas supply. The facility costs $1.5 billion is due to be completed in 2013 to store more than six million tonnes per annum.

Singapore currently depends on the piped LNG from Malaysia and Indonesia.

Singapore's Prime Minister is replying in response to Indonesian announcement of increasing the supply price.

The partnership with Qatar, the world's biggest natural gas producer is expected after Qatar Petroleum International bought into Petrochemical Corporation of Singapore last November.

ExxonMobil Enters Oil Recovery Enhancement Project with Petronas Malaysia

ExxonMobil has reportedly entering a joint venture project with Petronas Malaysia for a recovery of an oil field, Tapis expected to begin in 2013.

The project which is estimated at $1 billion is considered by many timely in concordance with Petronas's recent announcement of re-shifting its focus backs towards domestic exploration and production and away from its wide-reaching international portfolio. It will look at reviving the 1980s Tapis which is regarded as one of the best API grades in the world and was used extensively in the Asia-Pacific benchmark.

New LNG Plant in Australia's Queensland

Australia's recent four mega-projects involving LNG plants have seen second approval under the environmental prior to signing of the official project.

BG Group PLC's proposed liquefied natural gas project in Queensland is the second project to after Santos Ltd. (STO.AU) and Malaysia's Petroliam Nasional Bhd or Petronas, received the Queensland government approval last month.

Australia's new Prime Minister Julia Gillard, who was swarn in Thursday, extended an olive branch to furious resources companies by offering to negotiate a compromise on the tax, but there's no certainty she'll give much ground.

The third project is a joint venture between ConocoPhillips and Origin Energy Ltd. with the last one a standalone venture by Royal Dutch Shell PLC.

All projects are now waiting for tax reforms from the Australian federal governments.

Australia to have 100% Renewable Energy by 2020

Australia is on a path to rely on 100% on renewable energy sources by 2020. It was based on the research by Melbourne University’s Energy Research Institute through its Evironmental group Beyond Zero Emissions which was presented to the Australian Parliament.

The Zero Carbon Australia Stationary Energy report claims at a price of A$37bn ($32.4bn) a year Australia can totally replace fossil fuel baseload electricity using renewable energy technology that is already available today.

Technically, the strategy aims at a mix of 60% of energy from solar thermal with molten salt storage and 40% from wind power with possibility of advanced solar photovoltaic (PV) to hit grid parity between 2015-20.

US Energy Company Raising Money for First US Oil Sands Project

Earth Energy Resources Inc., a Canadian company has been granted a government's approval to launch the very first US oil sands project in a 62 acre pit in Uintah County, Utah.

The project would be able to produce 2,000 barrels of oil a day by extracting oil out of sands using a proprietary solvent. Earth Energy requires $35 million to fund the project.

Iran to Receive Gasoline from Reliance

Reliance is reportedly transporting gasoline into Iran through Petronas. This becomes a dispute as the Indian refiner has previously instructed traders not to transport its gasoline into Iran following President Barack Obama new push toward international sanctions against Iran.

Reliance has been seen to be prepared not to become a prime target for US legislators which may result into potential punitive measures by the United States.

Petronas would be the second firm after Kuwait’s fuel supplier IPG making deliveries into Iran. It is possible that Petronas through its subsidiary Petronas Trading Corporation (Petco) is selling Reliance gasoline cargo through another trader which may have excluded the additional clause.

Mergers & Acquisition: $11 Billion Deal between Schlumberger and Smith International

As expected by analysts what would be a continual strong year for mergers and acquisition activities in 2010 is beginning to unveil when a $11 Billion deal between Texas-based oilfield tech services giant Schlumberger Ltd and Smith International Inc.

The merged between the two companies is aimed for access of technical leap to develop unconventional gas plays focusing on shale gas is going to be produced. In financial terms, the merging will gives technical advantage in drilling and bring down the cost per horizontal well.

Oil Companies Venturing to Solar, Led by Chevron

With the expected upcoming government policy changes to force oil companies to curb greenhouse gas emissions, big oil companies are looking at emerging renewable technologies. Chevron’s latest one-megawatt concentrating solar photovoltaic project in New Mexico, is a testimony of the situation.

Chevron will be utilizing technology from Concentrix Solar, whose CPV solar system will be used in the facility at Chevron Mining’s molybdenum mine in Questa, New Mexico expected to begin construction in spring 2010

Mergers & Acquisition (M&A) for 2010 Outlook - Oil & Gas

It is a sign of recovery for the oil and gas outlook where merger’s & acquisition (M&A) value in Upstream oil and gas industry is estimated at $46 billion for the year of 2010. In 2009, this value was catapulted to $153 billion.

In 2009, most of the buyers for the M&A came from National Oil Companies representing 50% of all deals greater than $1 billion in 2009 and similar trend is forecasted for 2010. International oil companies like ExxonMobil however, took the unconventional route with assets acquisition of $41 billion purchase of U.S. independent XTO Energy. China lead the M&A game in 2009 with similar prospect expected for 2010.

It is expected for 2010 that M&A activities will revolve around risk management for current portfolio balancing; venturing into new projects with shared risks and for better management of current resources.

New Technologies Create Oil Industry Boom in North Dakota

Recent technology advancement in drilling techniques has enable bigger oil wells to be developed with faster drilling and lower costs. Such things have turned North Dakota massive oil reserve to be economically able to be tapped.

The two miles underground Bakken Shale deposit has been known and tapped on occasion for decades. This year however is entirely new since technological improvements made it extremely economically and quickly becoming United State's fastest-growing oil-producing areas.

In 2009 alone the oil production has jumped to 80 million barrels, a figure that will be fast growing in 2010 especially since the Bakken Shale could contain up to 4.3 billion barrels of recoverable oil.

Malaysia’s Proton Lubricant Business Reaching 2 Million Litres Mark

Malaysia's PETRONAS and Proton Holdings Bhd, the national car company are in collaborations to grow its lubricant business.

It is expected that the collaboration will amount up to two million litres in the next two to three years.

The two companies under the agreement gives Petronas the exclusive rights as Proton partner for all its domestic and global original equipment manufacturered (OEM) lubricants and functional fluids. Petronas in turn will support Proton to produce lubricants that cater specifically to its specific requirements.

Burma Military Jinta Privatising Oil and Gas

Burma’s military government, widely known as Junta is planning to privatize Burma's 50 million oil reserve industry.

This following rumours that a meeting between petrol and diesel business and the government was held in Naypyitaw.

The Junta government had earlier reduced its subsidy for petrol in the country.

Sibur Holdings to Build Worldscale Polypropylene Plant

Russian's petrochemical group of companies, Sibur Holding is planning for a worldscale polypropylene plant which will also become the biggest polypropylene complex in Russia.

The plant will utilize German's technology company, Linde for building the PP plant. The polypropylene plant will have a nameplate capacity of 500,000 tpa capacity.

The PP chemical plant will be located in Tobolsk in the Tyumen region, Russia.

Shell Opening Up Chemical Plants in Qatar

Shell, together with Qatar Petroleum is planning for chemical plants project in Qatar. The two companies already have a gas-to-liquid (GTL) project at Ras Laffan producing 120,000 barrels per day of natural gas liquids and 140,000 barrels per day of GTL derivatives.

The chemical project was announced informally by Ben van Beurden, Shell Chemicals' executive vice president duringf the 4th Gulf Petrochemicals and Chemicals Association (GPCA) summit.

Timor-Leste Inviting Petronas to Develop Oil Field

Timor-Leste's government will invite Malaysia's Petroliam Nasional Bhd (Petronas) instead of Australian energy firm Woodside Petroleum and partners for the development of offshore Greater Sunrise gas field. The decision is expected due to Woodside's earlier plan for development of Greater Sunrise gas filed without an onshore plant for gas liquefaction.

The Timor-Lester ministry has advised that in order to benefit the country and the people by having a pipeline to East Timor instead of going to straight to other areas such as Darwin.

The decision is also believed due to good relations between Timor-Lester and Petronas and its previous experience in the oil sector and LNG plant.

Rule of Thumb: How to Design a Pressure Vessel

When you work at a chemical plant, there is a great likelihood that you will need to know basic design of process equipment. Regardless whether you work in an operation, or technical service, or design office, and project office, this basic knowledge is required so that you can quickly make sense of the numbers and any peculiarity.

Let’s say you are an operation guy, an operating engineer, you see your process gets upset in the production

Where would a chemical engineer be working?

After you finish your chemical engineering course and get that degree, nothing else matters.

What matters afterwards would be how you apply the knowledge that you have gained, nobody will really ask you the very fundamental of things, but rather you would be required to solve simple problems.

There are tonnes of options for a chemical engineering graduate to go to, but in reality, in can be broken