Pertamina Collaborating with Petronas & Total for Natuna Project

Indonesian state oil and gas company PT Pertamina will be in collaboration with Malaysia’s Petronas and France’s Total SA for East Natuna project in Indonesia waters. This comes amids Pertamina inking agreement with ExxonMobil earlier.

Pertamina is looking for collaboration both for investment and technology provider such as one in regards to high CO2 content in the oil field.

Saudi Aramco to Increase Gulf Chemical Production to $80 Billion

Saudi Aramco in its statement says that they would want to increase the chemical production in the Gulf to $80 Billion by 2020. Saudi Aramco is targeting to increase from the current chemical industry from $40 billion to $50 billion in per-annum revenue.

The expected revenue is likely to come from Saudi's Wasit gas plant, expected to commission in 2013, UAE's Borouge, tripling capacity to 4.5 million tonnes per annum by the end of 2013, and nine new crackers and downstream plants in the Gulf by 2015.

Shell Expanding its Saudi Arabia Sadaf JV

Shell is conducting a study for its Saudi Arabia joint venture, Sadaf with SABIC for expansion of capacity under the provision of enough and reliable feedstock supply from its partner. The expansion will be looking specifically for additional capacity of polyurethanes (PU), polyols and alpha-olefins even though the Sadaf JV also produces ethylene, crude industrial ethanol, styrene, caustic soda, ethylene dichloride and methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE).

Saudi Aramco Launching New Petchem Products Through JVs

Saudi Aramco which has joint venture projects with Japan's Sumitomo Chemicals and Dow Chemicals is expected to introduce petchem products higher in the value chain including metallocene-based elastomers, glycol ethers, methyl methacrylate (MMA), polymethyl metaacrylate (PMMA), nylon and EP rubber. This comes as Phase II expansion of PetroRabigh is expected to commence which currently produces 1.3 million tonne per year of ethane cracker and 700,000 tonne per year of MEG.

Engen Petroleum Ltd Acquired Chevron Corp.'s assets in Africa

Malaysian Stateoil Petronas subsidiary, Engen Petroleum Ltd. has just reportedly completed acquisition of Chevron assets in Malawi, Zambia and the French territory of Reunion. Engen Petroleum which operates South Africa’s largest fuel retailer is also in stage of getting regulatory approval to buy Chevron’s assets in Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Tanzania and Mauritius in 2011.

India to Build New 450,000 tonne/year Ethylene Plant

India is building a new 450,000 tonne per year of ethylene plant in India's northern Uttar Pradesh state. The project which is owned by GAIL, will be using technology and engineering services from Shaw Group under EPCC.

PETRONAS & BASF Signing MoU for Joint Feasibility Study

BASF and PETRONAS has signed a Memorandum of Understanding to undertake a joint feasibility study for new complex producing specialty chemicals in Malaysia worth MYR 4 Billion. The partnership is said to leverage on the existing BASF-Petronas Chemicals joint venture plant in the Malaysian Pahang state.

Petronas and BASF will both evaluate the technical, commercial and economic viability of jointly owning and operating world-scale facilities for the production of specialty chemicals. The scope is said to include C4 based specialty chemical products including non-ionic surfactants, methanesulfonic acid and iso-nonanol.

PTT Acquired Canadian Shale Oil from Statoil

PTT Exploration & Production PLC, has recently acquired 40% stake in Kai Kos Dehseh oil sands project from Statoil worth US$4.3 billion of recoverable bitumen capable at extraction rate of 10,000 bpd of bitumen.

The acquisition means PTT is in a new playfield of breakthrough shale oil extraction which will allow the company to build technlogical capability in that shale oil area.

Shell Taking Over ExxonMobil for Qatar Petrochemical Complex

Shell is reportedly now discussing with Qatar Petroleum for the worldscale petrochemicals complex in Ras Laffan, Qatar after ExxonMobil was reportedly exiting its position for the co-development with Qatar state oil giant.

New $6 Billion Petrochemical Plant to be Build in Qatar by Total

French TOTAL is planning to build a $6 billion petrochemical plant in Qatar with the state oil company, Qatar Petroleum even without ExxonMobil’s participation. The products and capacity remain undisclosed for time being.