Insights

Total joins Kuwait Petroleum Corp. (KPC) represented by its wholly-owned subsidiaries Kuwait Petroleum International (KPI) and Petrochemicals Industries Co. (PIC) in the Joined Venture with Sinopec for this $9 billion “Refinery” and “Petrochemical” complex at Zhanjiang, in China’s southern Guangdong province. In fact Total took the opportunity to substitute Shell which had pulled out of […]

TAQA, the Abu Dhabi National Energy Company, UAE, has announced to increase capital expenditures from $1.9 billion in 2011 to $2.2 billion in 2012. These investments will go to expend on going projects in Western Canada, North Sea, Netherlands, Morocco and Ghana.  TAQA’s Oil & Gas operations are located in North America, UK and the […]

Definition: The “Naphtha” or “Naphtha petroleum” is the common name given to the “Aliphatic hydrocarbons“.  Comment: The “Naphtha” results from the distillation of the oil in the refinery. But since there are hundreds of different petroleum crude oil worldwide with its own unique composition, there are as many “Naphtha“. Each refinery produces its own “Naphtha” with their own […]

Qatar Petrochemical Company (Qapco) awarded the Taiwanese CTCI two EPC contracts for the expansion and up-grade of its ethylene production facility in Mesaieed Industrial City. Phase 1 will include the installation of new furnaces and an ethylene storage tank with the latest technologies to meet the state-of-art of the environmental requirements. The contract for this […]

ExxonMobil and the Turkish local company TPAO are in discussion to explore the shale gas in Turkey. ExxonMobil is investigating the potential development of Trakya field located in the west of Turkey. According to a survey made in April 2011 by Advanced Resources International (ARI) for the American government about the shale gas fields in […]

Definition: A “cracker” breaks down large molecules from oil and natural gas into smaller ones. An ethylene “cracker” produces base petrochemical “building blocks” which are the first stage in the chemicals manufacturing chain. Comments: Natural gas companies have to remove Natural Gas Liquids (NGLs) from methane to make it “pipeline quality.” NGLs are made up of ethane, […]

Shell continues to progress plans to build a proposed world-scale petrochemical complex in the Appalachia region, USA, which could upgrade locally-produced ethane from Marcellus shale gas production.  Shell Appalachia is headquartered in Warrendale, PA, USA, and has 185 employees located in Pennsylvania, with approximately 50 employees located in Tioga County.  With the acquisition of East Resources, […]

After benchmarking the USA who should become a net gas exporter in 2012 for the first time in their history, China has learnt the lesson very fast and decided to develop their reserves of shale gas on fast track to reduce their energy dependency.  The fact is that China hosts 19% of the global reserves of shale […]

Definition: “Shale gas” is the name given to natural gas accumulation is locked in tiny bubble-like pockets within layered sedimentary rock such as shale.  Comment: “Shale gas” is usually found in compact, low-permeability rocks deep beneath the surface. Reserves of this gas are very substantial and well distributed over the globe: they are estimated to represent […]

 Today the Marcellus Shale gas field in USA is considered with its 500 trillion cuf gas reserves as the second biggest gas field in the World after… the North field in Offshore Qatar. Many companies are operating in this field covering  the states of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia, USA. Among the key […]