Energy News  
ENERGY TECH
Asian firms tie energy future to Iraqi oil

Iran, Afghanistan, threaten Gulf security: Kuwaiti minister
Manama (AFP) Dec 12, 2009 - The Afghan war and the Iran nuclear crisis are among the threats to security in the Gulf region, Kuwaiti foreign minister and deputy prime minister Sheikh Muhammed Sabah al-Salem al-Sabah said Friday. Sheikh Muhammed was addressing delegations from more than 25 countries in the Gulf Cooperation Council at the opening of the sixth Manama Dialogue security conference in Bahrain. Threats to GCC security ran from "Afghanistan and neighbouring Pakistan, go through Iran's confrontation with the international community, to the reality of Palestine and the suffering of the Palestinian people, down the Horn of Africa, to the crisis in Yemen," he said. And in an implicit swipe at Iran, he spoke of "when people call for rebellion against the regime, challenging the government and calling for the overthrow of the government in place."

Gulf officials "should recognise the risks of abusing ideologies in the relations between states," he added. Iran has been accused by the West and various Gulf states of interfering in the affairs of its neighbors and attempting to foment instability. Sheikh Muhammed also discussed what he described as mid-term problems: the threat posed to Gulf countries by international economic downturns, and the risk of relying primarily on oil for revenue. And he added: "We must look closely at the demographic situation of our six GCC countries, and we will note that there are real demographic challenges in the mid- and long-term." These challenges included the projected 30 percent rise in the population of the GCC countries by 2020; the large percentage of young people; and the large number of foreign workers in the Gulf.

The consequently large remittances being sent out of the Gulf and the growing number of children of foreign workers in GCC countries also posed a problem, he added. "This generation has no other home than the GCC countries -- they were born, have lived and worked here, and they represent a great challenge in terms of absorption into society from a cultural and a social viewpoint," he said. The Manama Dialogue conference is sponsored by the International Institute for Strategic Studies. This year's conference, which lasts through Sunday, will focus on Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Iran.
By Prashant Rao
 Baghdad (Iraq) (AFP) Dec 13, 2009
 Asian firms Petronas and CNPC made aggressive bids to become major players in the international energy market by snatching up contracts for Iraq's oil fields at an auction over the weekend.

The Malaysian and Chinese companies, both massive state-owned firms but not yet household names worldwide, were part of consortiums that won four of the seven contracts handed out by the Iraqi government to develop its oil sector.

Their success in striking deals contrasted starkly with the absence of US firms from the bidding process -- only one bid on any of the 10 fields on offer in the two-day auction included an American company, and that was unsuccessful.

"The Chinese, it was clear from the beginning that they were going to be very aggressive," Ruba Husari, the Baghdad-based founder and editor of www.iraqoilforum.com told AFP. "They are the new majors of the 21st century."

She added: "Petronas is a national oil company which is acting like an international major."

Malaysia's Petronas was part of groups that won contracts on the Majnoon, Halfaya, Garraf and Badra oil fields, which have combined reserves of 17.65 billion barrels of crude, and could together produce some 2.7 million barrels of oil per day (bpd).

It was also part of an unsuccessful bid for the West Qurna-2 field, which on its own has proven reserves of 12.9 billion barrels of crude.

China's CNPC, meanwhile, was the biggest member of the successful consortium bidding for Halfaya. It has also already formally signed a deal, along with Britain's BP, to ramp up production at Iraq's biggest oil field, Rumaila.

Those two deals are in addition to a contract signed last year by CNPC to develop another Iraqi oil field, making it by some measures the biggest foreign energy firm operating in Iraq.

Two Indian companies, ONGC and Oil India, also registered to take part in the auction and participated in two bids overall, though both were unsuccessful.

Alex Munton, a Middle East analyst for research group Wood Mackenzie, said the difference between the Asian companies' push for contracts and more cautious attitude of Western oil majors had to do with their contrasting perceptions of what Iraq had to offer.

"What does Iraq mean for China's national oil companies? More than anything else, it means access to resources," he told AFP.

"The bigger issue of energy security comes into play for these national oil companies. For your majors, that's not how they look at it. They're running a business, the priority is delivering value for their shareholders.

"There's a different set of criteria that need to be considered with respect to judging whether these are projects worth investing in or not."

Among the Western firms that walked away with contracts from Iraq's two-day auction that concluded on Saturday were Anglo-Dutch giant Shell, which was the majority partner with Petronas on Majnoon, and France's Total, which has a 25-percent stake in Halfaya.

Aside from those two and Norway's StatoilHydro, which won a minority stake in the West Qurna-2 project, no American or west European companies struck deals with the Iraqi government.

Occidental Petroleum Corp was the only US firm to even participate in the bidding, with a failed offer for Halfaya.

They did, however, participate more readily in the first round of auctions in June -- Exxon Mobil is the majority partner in the West Qurna-1 project, and Occidental holds a minority stake in the Zubair field, both in south Iraq.

"The main thing is that the Asian companies, the state-run companies, they can operate with a loss," Husari said. "It's not a problem. That's not their priority.

"Their priority is to be here, to make sure they have supplies secured for 20 years to come. That's not something the majors can do," Husari said.

"The majors approach it from the point of view of economics, the national oil companies approach it from the point of view of strategy and politics," she explained.

Share This Article With Planet Earth
del.icio.usdel.icio.us DiggDigg RedditReddit
YahooMyWebYahooMyWeb GoogleGoogle FacebookFacebook



Related Links
 Powering The World in the 21st Century at Energy-Daily.com


Memory Foam Mattress Review
SPACE MEDIA NETWORK PROMOTIONS
 Solar Energy Solutions
Tempur-Pedic Mattress Comparison ...
Newsletters :: SpaceDaily :: SpaceWar :: TerraDaily :: Energy Daily
XML Feeds :: Space News :: Earth News :: War News :: Solar Energy News


ENERGY TECH
Top gas producers tackle global glut
 Doha, Qatar (UPI) Dec 11, 2009
The world's top natural gas producers meeting in the Gulf state of Qatar have agreed to strengthen their emergent organization and work together to push up tumbling prices caused by an unprecedented global gas glut. But there's still no sign that they will coalesce into a price-manipulating cartel with the market muscle of the 13-member Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries that ... read more






The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2009 - SpaceDaily. AFP and UPI Wire Stories are copyright Agence France-Presse and United Press International. ESA Portal Reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by SpaceDaily on any Web page published or hosted by SpaceDaily. Privacy Statement