Bronco_Beerslug
07-12-2005, 07:35 AM
Incredible pic on CNBC today of Thunder Horse. It's a 6 billion dollar rig in the Gulf that was damaged by Dennis. It was scheduled to come on line the end of this year producing 250,000 barrels a day. Oil shooting up again today on news of an unpredented 5th tropical storm (Emily) this early in the year heading for the Gulf and the damage to Thunder Horse.
http://www.rds.co.uk/gallery/includes/full.asp?Path=TH%2Dsail%2Daway%2D4%2D8%2D2005%2D4% 2EJPG&fact=1.0&strpath=/gallery/BP_Thunderhorse/
http://www.rds.co.uk/gallery/includes/full.asp?Path=Thunder+Horse+going+through+Port+A+c hannel%2Ejpg&fact=1.0&strpath=/gallery/BP_Thunderhorse/
http://www.rds.co.uk/index2.asp?gallery=BP_Thunderhorse&menu=m-gallery
Bronco_Beerslug
07-12-2005, 07:24 PM
OK, finally found a pic.........
And this story says the platform is worth only 1 billion not the 6 billion that was orginally reported on CNBC earlier.
http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Components/Photos/050712/050712_thunderhorse_hmed_630a.hmedium.jpg
Updated: 7:50 p.m. ET July 12, 2005
NEW YORK - BP Plc. said Tuesday its Thunder Horse platform — the largest new oil facility planned in the Americas through 2007 — is listing 20 to 30 degrees after Hurricane Dennis, but it’s too early to tell whether initial output will be delayed.
BP spokesman Ronnie Chappell said a 10-ton winch that fell off the platform as it was being evacuated ahead of Hurricane Dennis last Thursday probably did not cause the tilt.
The $1 billion platform had been expected to eventually boost U.S. Gulf of Mexico oil output by nearly 17 percent.
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Chappell said it was too early to determine if inaugural oil and natural gas output, which had been expected later this year, would be delayed.
Its peak output was expected to be 250,000 barrels per day of oil and 200 million cubic feet of natural gas.
Thunder Horse is the biggest hope for a small recovery in crude production in the United States, where oil output has been falling since the 1970s. The gulf currently produces about 1.5 million barrels per day of oil, about 25 percent of total U.S. output.
“We don’t know what the cause is, there was no one aboard the platform when it occurred,” said Chappell. He said the winch that fell into the ocean was one of several being moved to the top of the platform to help it better weather Dennis.
“There’s no indication the winch struck any portion of platform,” said Chappell, who added that workers were aboard the platform for 36 hours after the equipment fell into the ocean.
Chappell said excess water in the platform’s ballast tanks could be the cause of the tilt, and not major structural damage.
Analysts said although the extent of the damage was unknown, it could delay the start of of production or be worse for the facility. BP owns 75 percent of Thunder Horse, with Exxon Mobil holding the rest.
The platform is self insured.
BP is also building the Atlantis platform in the Gulf of Mexico which is expected to produce 200,000 bpd of oil and 180 million cfd of gas after its start-up in the third quarter of 2006.
Chappell said Thunder Horse had appeared to stabilize on Monday afternoon.
The company was surveying the submerged part of the platform before putting a team of workers aboard and attempting to right it.
No other damage had been found at BP’s other operations in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico due to Hurricane Dennis and restaffing of facilities shut in as a precaution against the storm was going smoothly, Chappell said.
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8550990/
Bronco_Beerslug
07-12-2005, 07:36 PM
Anyone see potential problems with American companies building refineries in China?
Exxon, Aramco sign China refinery deal
Deal worth $3.5 billion with Sinopec China’s largest oil project
Updated: 12:04 p.m. ET July 8, 2005
FUZHOU - Exxon Mobil Corp., Saudi Aramco and top Asian refiner Sinopec signed a $3.5 billion deal on Friday to expand a refinery in south China, sealing what they called the country’s largest oil project.
The deal gives Exxon, the world’s top oil firm, and Middle Eastern giant Aramco a foothold in China’s insular 6.2 million barrel-a-day refining sector, now dominated by state giants Sinopec and PetroChina
China, the world’s number two oil consumer, is trying to raise its refining capacity to feed a racing economy that grew 9.4 percent in the first quarter after expanding 9.5 percent in 2004.
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Beijing also has to address surging imports, now exceeding 40 percent of its crude oil demand, prompting it to tie up with producing nations such as Saudi Arabia.
Capacity tripled
The agreement will triple the capacity of a refinery in Fujian province to 12 million tonnes per year — the equivalent of 230,000 barrels per day — and add an 800,000-tonnes-per-year ethylene cracker, the companies said in a statement.
Several downstream facilities would be built as part of the deal, including a 650,000-tonnes-per-year polyethylene plant, a 400,000-tonnes-per-year polypropylene unit and a 1 million-tonnes-per-year aromatics plant.
Polyethylene and polypropylene are commonly used to produce plastics, while aromatics are used as blending agents in the production of gasoline.
The agreement also gives the foreign partners access to China’s protected retail sector, where rivals such as Royal Dutch/Shell Group, BP and France’s Total are already active.
“The retail portion is an important part of the project,” Exxon chief executive Lee Raymond told reporters on the sidelines of the signing ceremony.
“This is an integrated project in the sense of refining, chemicals and marketing, which makes it unusual.”
Jostling for footholds
Global oil majors have been jostling to get a foothold in China’s fast-growing retail oil sector, the second largest in the world, by setting up refining, petrochemical and retail joint ventures with domestic partners.
They have also been anxious to invest in China’s refining industry, where capacity is set to expand by nearly 30 percent in the next five years.
Exxon has said it is eyeing another integrated refining complex in China’s wealthy southern Guangdong province while Aramco has said it was negotiating with Sinopec for a stake in a proposed $1.2 billion refinery in eastern China.
The Saudi giant already has a strong presence in Asia where it has stakes in refineries in Japan, South Korea and the Philippines.
http://tinyurl.com/822lr