Malaysian Researchers Looking at New Biofuel Technology

Malaysia University of Science and Technology (MUST) is developing new ways of using oil palm-related products to produce renewable fuels, in what is seen as a response to European Union concerns in food and environment-related carbon balance. 

The MUST university is collaborating with a German research organization, Fraunhofer to work on directly processing oil palm biomass into biodiesel, instead of bidiesel being produced from crude palm oil. However, the MUST-Fraunhofer research is focusing on making the fuel from non-CPO biomass. This is to alleviate the mass requirement for oil palm plantations where only 10% of the biomass comprises CPO (Crude Palm Oil) and the rest includes fibers, empty fruit bunches, shells, fronds and tree trunks. 

Much of the reasearch will be to turn non-CPO biomass into gas and liquefied gas for usage as gasoline and biodiesel which will see bigger commerical gassification plant in Malaysia from palm oil. MUST is in the hope that the technology to be developed for commercial use in 2-3 years.

The World's New Currency: Oil. And China is Piling Some

As the world economy is collapsing and the energy demand is skyrocketing nevermind the usual hiccups, China is taking advantage by stocking up on foreign oil offering $43 billion in loans to foreign oil companies in Brazil, Venezuela, and Russia to secure future oil supplies and energy.

The China's new strategy is seeing by analysts as a powerful move especially as the state-owned oil companies in Russia, Brazil, and Venezuela are in needs of financial support. Analysts predicting that China oil import will double in few years after the recession placing China's oil loans as a sign of both opportunism and confidence that the economy will recover from the worldwide recession soon. 

Dow Chemical & Rohm & Haas Completing Merger Dispute Deal

Dow Chemical Co. (DOW) ccompleted its dispute with Rohm & Haas Co. (ROH), agreeing to pay the $78 a share as originally established. Dow Rohm & Haas struck a $15.3 billion merger deal in July 2008. 

The legal battle started after Rohm & Haas sued Dow in January after the company stalled on the merger which Dow blamed due to the frozen credit markets. Dow, like other companies in the world faced threatening decline in its business due to the global recession. 

Several parties have agreed to help Dow to pay for its purchase of Rohm & Haas including a $3 billion in funding from Berkshire Hathaway and $1 billion from the Kuwait Investment Authority. 

Santos Seeking Indian Oil & Gas Joint Venture

Australia's third- biggest oil and gas producer, Santos Inc. is seeking partners to take stakes in two deepwater exploration permits off India's east coast. The Adelaide-based company owns 100 percent of the two licenses and in need to reduce risks as it proceeds towards drilling.

Santos during the bid to win the permit has committed itself as the operator for the permits to carry out seismic surveys and drilling of exploration wells. Santos anticipated of spending $70 million over eight years on exploration in India covering about 16,500 square kilometers establishing its root in India.

Exxon Australian LNG Welcomed PetroChina Accord

China's oil producer PetroChina Co will be signing an accord with Exxon Mobil Corp. targeted in the first half of this year to buy liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the Gorgon project in Australia under a term contract. 

The world's largest oil company, ExxonMobil owns 25% of the Western Australian Project with remaining stakes by Chevron Corp with 50 percent stake and Royal Dutch Shell Plc has 25 percent. Under the agreement, Exxon agreed to sell 2 million metric tons of LNG a year from the Gorgon project.

This will be on top of PetroChina's 2 million ton per year agreement with Shell in 2008 from the Gorgon project under Shell's portfolio.

Nitrogen Enriched Gasoline by Shell

Shell has unveiled its new nitrogen-enriched gasolines at Shell stations across the U.S codenamed Nitrogen Enriched Gasolines.

The new gasoline contains a unique cleaning system designed to purge carbon deposits in the engine. The new Nitrogen Enriched cleaning system protects and cleans up carbon deposit build-up on intake valves and fuel injectors.

It is believed that the usage of nitrogen as an active cleaning molecule in the new fuel significantly makes it more stable at higher temperatures in modern, tougher conditioned engines. The nitrogen increases the properties of resisting thermal breakdown better than conventional cleaning additives.

Petrochemical Industry Getting Worse: BASF

As the economy downturn is getting worse, most of the petrochemical companies are not seeing the bottom-out yet; or signs of recovery for their petrochemical business, at least not from BASF. As BASF CEO CEO Jurgen Hambrecht, put it, BASF is not expecting a growth for 2009, worse still is expected to shrink.

To date, as much as 25% of BASF operating units worldwide have been shut down or idling due to uneconomical route of production especially in North America and Asia Pacific. Most of BASF's units are to make coatings, performance plastics, electronics and intermediates which are taking toll due to significant dropped in automatives and construction business.

BASF is expecting that more operating units will be closed and possible of job cuts; especially for units not serving the crops, hygienes and oil & gas industry. The plastic business seems to be taking the strongest hit so far.