January 13th, 2008:

By Ed Crooks In London and Isabel Gorst in Moscow
Published: January 13 2008 23:40 | Last updated: January 13 2008 23:40

Kazakhstan agreed a deal with an Eni-led consortium on Sunday night to develop the Kashagan oilfield.

The consortium – which includes ExxonMobil of the US, Royal Dutch Shell and Total of France – agreed to pay Kazakhstan $2.5bn-$4.5bn in compensation for the project’s late start.

It will also sell shares to KazMunaigas , so the Kazakhstan national oil company’s stake can be doubled to 16.8 per cent, equalling the holdings of the largest western members of the consortium. KMG will take a bigger role in running the project. read more

Sun Jan 13, 2008 11:05pm GMT

ASTANA, Jan 13 (Reuters) – Kazakhstan’s KazMunaiGas has finally reached a deal with an Eni-led (ENI.MI: Quote, Profile, Research) consortium over developing the giant Kashagan oil field which will nearly double its stake to equal that of the biggest investors in the project.

In a statement on Sunday, the Kazakh company said all of the companies in the consortium — which also includes ConocoPhillips (COP.N: Quote, Profile, Research) and Japan’s Inpex (1605.T: Quote, Profile, Research) — had agreed to the new terms. read more

By Angela Macdonald-Smith
January 14, 2008 07:40am

AUSTRALIA’S largest oil and gas producers lack growth opportunities to drive up share prices this year, according to brokers Credit Suisse.

Forecast earnings for Woodside Petroleum (wpl.ASX:Quote,News) and Santos (sto.ASX:Quote,News) do not support existing stock prices, while the premiums at which stocks are trading to valuations mostly preclude gains from mergers and acquisitions, the securities firm said.

Oil Search, Papua New Guinea’s biggest oil producer, is the best placed of the larger stocks for share price gains because of progress on a PNG liquefied natural gas venture. read more

By Nariman Gizitdinov and Lucian Kim

Jan. 14 (Bloomberg) — Eni SpA and partners failed to reach an agreement with the Kazakhstan government over stakeholdings in the Kashagan oil field, Eni Chief Executive Officer Paolo Scaroni said, adding he doesn’t expect to return to the central Asian nation “for a long time.”

“We haven’t reached an agreement yet,” Scaroni told Bloomberg News in an interview early today in Astana, the Kazakh capital, after a nine-hour meeting with Kazakh Prime Minister Karim Masimov and the chief executives of companies including Exxon Mobil Corp. and Royal Dutch Shell Plc. read more

Press Trust of India / Mumbai January 13, 2008 
 
Ispat Industries has tied up with Shell LNG to secure additional requirement of gas for ramping up its sponge iron production capacity.

LNG from Shell’s Gujarat terminal would be transported by GAIL India to meet Ispat’s requirement, market sources said.

The move, poised to have a positive impact on the company’s bottom-line, is expected to save about Rs 200-250 crore a year with higher captive sponge iron production through increased availability of gas from Shell. read more

January 13, 2008

Jatropha, remember it because the stuff will grow and flourish anywhere. Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), Daimler AG (DIA) and Bayer AG (BAY) are studying the use of the plant. Folks, this is huge. Why?

ADM is going to study the conversion into biodiesel, Daimler is going to study its interaction with car engines and Bayer is going to produce herbicides, insecticides and fungicides for Jatropha plants. Essentially we have farm to engine collarborative here.

Jatropha is resistant to drought and pests, and produces seeds containing up to 40% oil. When the seeds are crushed and processed, the resulting oil can be used in a standard diesel engine, while the residue can also be processed into biomass to power electricity plants. The best part is that because it is so hardy, it can be planted on lands that currently do not have agricultural uses (barren land), bypassing the “food vs fuel” debate. read more

Richard Wachman
Sunday January 13 2008

Bet on BG

BG has had a good run, taking its share price up from 649p at the beginning of 2007 to 1,036p on Friday. Investors have piled in on rumours of Chinese stake-building and possible bids from the likes of Shell, Exxon and BP. The company has also attracted interest as it controls 25 per cent of the Tupi oilfield offshore of Rio de Janeiro, where huge quantities of the black stuff were discovered at the end of last year. What has been missed, however, is the huge spread of BG’s operations elsewhere. It has operations in India, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Tunisia, Oman and Nigeria, as well as a big liquified natural gas business. Although the stock has soared, brokers expect it to go higher still. Deutsche Bank, for example, has increased its price target to 1,200p. read more

BY ERIC REGULY

GENEVA — Jean Claude Gandur is not building an oil company the normal way.

Most fledgling oil companies build reserves first, production second. Addax Petroleum, the company he founded in 1994, is doing it the other way around.

Most oil companies, especially those listed in North America, avoid war zones and political hot spots, or, once in them, are forced out (Talisman Energy’s flight from Sudan comes to mind). Not Toronto-listed Addax. It moves with alacrity into messy areas like Iraq and Western Africa and was on the verge of jumping into Iran a couple of years ago. Mr. Gandur dropped the Iran project after receiving agitated reactions from the company’s politically correct Bay Street underwriters. read more