American Sands Energy acquires pilot plant for water-free extraction process

American Sands Energy Corp., an oil sands exploration and development company operating in Utah, has completed the purchase of its pilot plant, used to demonstrate its water-free extraction of bitumen, or heavy oil, from leased oil sands deposits the firm intends to mine. The agreement with Elemax, Inc., included a combination of cash and stock to purchase the trailer-mounted mobile oil recovery system.

The pilot plant, which the company has successfully used to process up to 1 ton of oil sand per hour over multiple days, will be used by American Sands to evaluate other opportunities for hydrocarbon recovery projects, while the company moves toward initial production at its Sunnyside location.

Will Gibbs, chairman and CEO, said that the pilot plant “uses no water, consumes 60% less energy than traditional oil sands mining operations, requires no tailing ponds and produces no toxic byproducts.”

Gibbs added that, going forward, "In addition to the pilot plant being the engineering model for our initial planned 5,000 bpd plant in Utah, we also plan to work with industry partners around the world that can utilize our scalable technology to extract oil from solid materials such as oil sands, oil shale and other substances."

Providing useful resources, articles and writings on crude oil, other petroleum products, energy and gas. By Blockline and Associate Ltd Nigeria Ltd, online.

ROC farms in to PSC offshore Malaysia

Roc Oil Co. reported the farm in to a Production Sharing Contract (PSC), which includes three fields D35, D21 and J4, located offshore Malaysia in water depths of approximately 50 m.

The fields are currently 100% owned and operated by Petronas Carigali and ROC has farmed into a 50% participating interest. The fields are in production with a combined daily oil rate of approximately 10,000 bopd and gas sales of approximately 17 MMscfd gross working interest. ROC’s economic interest (50%) of the 2P reserves from the Fields is 8.7 MMboe.

Roc Oil Co’s CEO Alan Linn said: “The farm in is an excellent fit for our business and in line with our Asian development strategy, we expect the fields to become cornerstone development assets within our growing regional portfolio. The fields, particularly D35, contain material in place oil and gas volumes, and overall field recovery is expected to benefit significantly from the introduction of secondary and tertiary recovery technologies. The fields provide a portfolio of immediately bookable reserves plus contingent and prospective resources, which combined materially add to and extend the reserves and resources life of ROC.

"The farm in agreement includes amendments to the existing PSC, effective from January 1, 2014, until December 2034.The PSC terms are designed for field redevelopment and enhanced oil recovery (EOR) to commercially encourage progressive incremental oil development over the full life of the PSC. ROC’s experience in the redevelopment of the Zhao Dong fields, offshore Bohai Bay, China, is a good analogy for the redevelopment potential of the fields.

"Since 2006, ROC has doubled the recoverable reserves in Zhao Dong with a combination of reservoir development optimisation, facilities debottlenecking, capacity enhancement and the introduction of low cost drilling for production and injection wells designed to maximise recovery from compartmentalised reservoirs. Petronas Carigali and ROC will work together to unlock the Fields’ redevelopment potential and our track record has been key in bringing this significant redevelopment opportunity to ROC.”

Providing useful resources, articles and writings on crude oil, other petroleum products, energy and gas. By Blockline and Associate Ltd Nigeria Ltd, online.

Gazprom Neft selects contractor for Badra oil field

Gazprom Neft, operator of the Badra oilfield development project, has appointed a contractor to lay the pipeline connecting the field to the power station in Zubaidiah, Wasit Province. The tender was won by Pakistani company Techno Engineering Services (Pvt.) Ltd.

In line with the contract, Techno Engineering Services will produce the designs, supply the equipment and materials, and carry out construction of the pipeline. The pipeline - which will be nearly 100-km long and have a daily capacity of 4.4 million cubic meters (circa 1.6 Bcm per year) - is scheduled to begin operations in 2015.

Under Gazprom Neft’s contract with the Iraqi government for the development of the Badra oil field, investors are to be compensated for costs related to infrastructure construction.

Gas supply from the Badra oil field will enhance the Zubaidiah power station’s daily power output and provide a 24-hour power supply to the city of Kut, which currently has electricity supplied for only 16 hours per day. Some of the extracted gas will be used to provide electricity to the Badra oil fields themselves.

In March, Gazprom Neft completed testing on a second well at Badra. The laying and testing of the oil pipeline to the Gharraf oilfield was completed in February, connecting the section to Iraq’s main pipeline system. The construction of the first phase of a central gathering station point with a capacity of 60,000 bpd is nearing completion. Work has also started on a gas treatment plant with the capacity to process 1.5 Bcm per year.

Providing useful resources, articles and writings on crude oil, other petroleum products, energy and gas. By Blockline and Associate Ltd Nigeria Ltd, online.

Inpex to make Australia focus of $44 bn exploration plan

Inpex plans to spend $44 bn on exploration and development to double its production by early next decade, investing a significant amount in Australia.

Inpex, developing the $34 bn Ichthys LNG project in northern Australia, already has stakes in 10 exploration blocks surrounding the Ichthys field, President Toshiaki Kitamura said in notes for a speech he’s scheduled to give at a conference in Perth. The LNG will be produced in the Northern Territory capital of Darwin.

“I fully expect we will discover resources to supply the Ichthys LNG plant in Darwin well into the future,” he said. The investment goal is over five years through 2016, he said.

The Ichthys LNG project, one of seven under construction in Australia to meet rising Asian demand for the fuel, is expected to generate total revenue of more than $232 bn, Kitamura said. The developments are forecast to make the country the world’s largest exporter of LNG.

Disagreement between LNG buyers and sellers about how the gas should be priced and future supply and demand could delay the expansion of the LNG industry in a “worst-case scenario,” Kitamura said. Buyers should consider becoming the sellers’ partners in the development of the gas fields as one way to align their views on the market, the Inpex president said.

Providing useful resources, articles and writings on crude oil, other petroleum products, energy and gas. By Blockline and Associate Ltd Nigeria Ltd, online.