Islamic State militants launched a rocket strike against an Iraqi refinery causing its shut-down, Reuters has reported, citing officials from the facility. In a statement on the terrorist group’s official channel, IS took responsibility for the attack, which caused a fire at a fuel storage tank, which has been put under control. “We completely shut down production units to avoid extensive damage that could result,” one of the Reuters sources said. The Siniya refinery, located in Northern Iraq, has a daily processing capacity of 300,000 bpd. Operations at the facility…
Read MoreMonth: November 2020
U.S. To Blacklist Chinese Oil Giant Due To Military Ties
The United States government is set to add Chinese state oil company CNOOC to a blacklist of companies with ties to the Chinese military, Reuters has reported, citing sources and a document. The move is the latest escalation in the U.S-Chinese trade spat and comes less than two months before the administration changes. So far, the Department of Defense has designated 31 Chinese companies from various industries as either owned or controlled by the country’s military. Earlier this month, Reuters reported the DoD will add another four. CNOOC and a…
Read MoreVenezuela’s Oil Crisis Is An Environmental Time Bomb
The international media think tanks and government agencies have discussed at length the near failure of Venezuela, once Latin America’s most stable and developed nation, and the emergence of this century’s second-worst humanitarian crisis. The country’s implosion can be blamed upon a variety of factors, the key being the socialist Maduro regime’s gross mismanagement of its economic engine, Venezuela’s oil industry. While the economic, political, and humanitarian fallout from what can only be described as the world’s worst peacetime economic crisis is widely recognized, the environmental consequences have long been…
Read Moreowards competitive gas market 2.0
ISLAMABAD: Competition and privatisation are the buzz words for economic growth and modernisation. Privatisation has had a chequered history in Pakistan. Lack of a developed private sector has prevented privatisation and vice versa. The elite, bureaucracy and their cronies and relatives have found relatively well-paid jobs in the public sector and have been opposing privatisation. Competition has been hijacked by collusive business mafia creating fear among people and policymakers of markets and competition. On the other hand, the regulated and control regime is bursting at its seams due to growth…
Read MoreADNOC awards $519 million contract expanding world’s largest 3D seismic survey
The Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) awarded a contract worth up to $519 million (AED1.9 billion) to further expand the scope of the world’s largest combined three-dimensional (3D) onshore and offshore seismic survey, which is currently taking place in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi. The expansion underscores the important role seismic surveying plays in enabling ADNOC to identify and explore new hydrocarbon resources as highlighted by the recent major discoveries of recoverable unconventional oil resources and conventional oil reserves announced by Abu Dhabi’s Supreme Petroleum Council (SPC) earlier this…
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