Transportation Minister Freddy Numberi, who also heads the national oil spill response team, said the government had demanded the company pay Rp 22 trillion in damages.

“Since they think this amount is too high, we have allowed them to verify the amount. We have asked them to verify this within one month,” Freddy said.

“We have the minutes from the meeting. There was no rejection. They must pay the compensation, because we have facts and evidence that our waters were polluted and many parties have suffered losses,” Freddy said.

Should the company refuse to yield to the demand, the government will file charges against the company in an international court.

Earlier this week, PTT EP president Anon Sirisaengtaksin said the company had received a letter from Indonesia requesting compensation for damage from the Montara oil spill.

“PTT EP found no verifiable evidence had been presented to support any claim,” the company said in a statement made available to The Jakarta Post on Friday.

Negotiators from Indonesia and the company met in Perth last week to discuss the spill, which Indonesia said had affected more than 70,000 square kilometers of ocean.

The company said it had worked with Australian authorities to monitor the environmental situation and that the oil slick had been limited to the immediate Montara area.

The company said it was researching the spill’s long-term effects, including the spread of oil from Montara into the Timor Sea, and would publish a report once its findings were complete.

PTT EP Australasia is a Bangkok-based oil and gas company operating in Australia and Asia. On Aug. 21, 2009, the company’s production facility, the Montara Well Head Platform, in West Atlas block, in the Timor Sea, exploded, leading to an estimated 400 barrels of oil being spilled every day. The spill entered Indonesian waters on Aug. 30, 2009.

As of Oct. 3, 2009, the oil spill had covered 16,420 square kilometers of Indonesian waters. PTT EP Australasia was only able to stop the spill more than two months later, on Nov. 3, 2009.

Last month, Freddy said Indonesia had asked PTT EP Australasia to pay around US$5 million in a down payment to repair environmental damage caused by the incident.

Two other oil and gas-related incidents occurred in Indonesian water recently. In early August,
South Korea’s Kodeco Energy had to shut down one of its oil and gas production facilities in the Java Sea after it was hit by a container ship. The operator estimated a production loss of 1,600 barrels of oil per day and 15 million standard cubic feet per day (mmscfd) caused by the incident.

Upstream oil and gas regulator BPMigas estimates repairs to the facility will take several weeks.

Last week, BPMigas reported that an explosion had occurred on the floating storage ship Gagasan Perak, which was collecting oil produced at the Sepanjang field in Kangean block. The block is operated by Kangean Energy Indonesia Ltd, a subsidiary of PT Energi Mega Persada (EMP).

EMP said the tanker contained the equivalent of 20,000 barrels of oil when the incident occurred. BPMigas said the operation of three production wells supplying oil to the tankers had been shut down.

Source

Despite encouraging signs of stabilization in a pair of business surveys released on Wednesday, analysts cautioned that the robust domestic economy would have to battle the headwinds of soft external demand, especially from the United States.

“This reconfirms our long-held view that China is moderating rather than melting down,” said Qu Hongbin, chief economist for China at HSBC.

He was commenting on a rise in the bank’s purchasing managers’ index (PMI) to a three-month high of 51.9 in August from 49.4 in July. A PMI produced by the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing (CFLP) also rose, to 51.7 from 51.2.

Investors cheered the news. MSCI’s index of Asia Pacific stocks outside Japan rose 1.9 percent .MIAPJ0000PUS, while metals prices got a lift in anticipation of stronger Chinese demand.

“After the run of weak data from the United States through August, the Chinese numbers were a breath of life for the start of the new month,” a metals dealer in Perth said. <MET/L>

The increase in the official PMI was close to the median forecast of 51.8 in a Reuters poll.

A figure above 50 denotes expansion; a reading below 50 indicates that business has contracted from the month before.

Both gauges had been trending lower — since January in the case of HSBC’s and since April for the CLFP’s. This had fanned concern that Beijing was overdoing its tightening and throttling an economy that has become a major driver of global growth.

But Zhang Liqun, a government researcher, said the official survey of 820 firms across China showed that market concerns of an abrupt slowdown were unfounded.

“The modest rise in August’s PMI shows that there will not be a deep correction in the Chinese economy,” Zhang said in a comment on behalf of the logistics federation, which compiles the index for the National Bureau of Statistics.

In a sign that Beijing may increase investment to ensure the recovery stays on track, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) urged speedy implementation of the country’s 4 trillion yuan ($585 billion) stimulus package that was announced nearly two years ago.

“We must accelerate the construction of projects as long as they are of sufficient quality, and put them in use as soon as possible,” the NDRC, a powerful agency, said.

ORDERS, INVENTORIES BODE WELL

Both surveys showed a decline in the stocks of finished goods even as orders improved, an indication that manufacturers will have to ramp up production to meet demand.

“The new orders to finished goods inventory PMI has been a good indicator of turning points in the cycle over the past two years,” Ben Simpfendorfer, an economist with Royal Bank of Scotland in Hong Kong, said.

“It suggests the current correction began in the middle of the first quarter and was tentatively signaling stabilization even before today’s sharp rise in the ratio,” he said in a reaction to the official PMI.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch agreed that the inventory and orders data boded well for a recovery in output in coming months.

With the government mounting a big push to build public housing, the bank reaffirmed its full-year GDP growth forecast of 10.1 percent, up from 9.1 percent in 2009.

But it said weakening growth in the United States and Japan would act as a drag on the economy and could prompt Beijing to slow the pace of the yuan’s rise.

According to HSBC’s survey, new export orders fell outright in August for the third month in a row.

Brian Jackson with Royal Bank of Canada in Hong Kong said it was too soon to celebrate the signs of stabilization.

“We expect China will have a relatively moderate slowdown over the second half of 2010, but weaker external demand from the United States and Europe still represent a significant downside risk in coming months,” he said in a note.

Several economists also expressed concern at a sharp rise in input prices in both surveys.

But He Yifeng, an economist with Hongyuan Securities in Beijing, said it was also evidence of stronger economic activity.

“As businesses see economic growth picking up, they will want to step up investment and this will increase demand for upstream products and push up prices of inputs such as iron ore,” he said.

Source

When business valuation service providers prepare reports, they usually include the conditions that exist at the local, regional, and national economy. Much of this information is obtained from the Beige Books that are published by the U.S. Federal Reserve Board. The information related to the United States is often taken from the reports of the industry associations and State governments.

Then the report of financial condition of the firm is provided. In these sections the profitability, cash flow, liquidity, and revenues of the company is compared to the other firms in the same industry. This enables people to understand the performance of the firm relative to similar firms. The financial statements of the company pertaining to different periods are also compared. This enables the owners and other interested parties to determine whether the company has grown or declined.

Business valuation service providers usually use one the three primary methods to evaluate firms: the income method, the asset based approach, and market approach. These methods are used because it often difficult to determine the value of privately-owned or closely-held businesses. However, when the values of these businesses are required, the business valuation services of experts who are capable of determining the market value of a particular company or firm are beneficial.

If you require business valuation services, it would be a good idea to opt for a service provider is familiar with the industry of the business.

Business Valuation Services

The 0.1 percent increase in outlays followed a revised 1 percent drop in May that was larger than previously estimated, figures from the Commerce Department showed today in Washington. Spending by federal agencies rose to a record.

Homebuilding and sales are falling after the expiration of a government tax credit that boosted builder sentiment and brought starts to the highest level in more than a year in April. Demand will now depend on the state of the labor market and foreclosures.

“Support to construction spending via new homes should continue to remain dampened in the coming months,” Maxwell Clarke, chief U.S. economist at IDEAglobal Inc. in New York, said in a note to clients before the report. “Ongoing difficulty of accessing capital for speculative commercial real estate ventures will continue to act as a deadweight in the overall construction measure.”

Economists forecast construction spending would decline 0.5 percent, according to the medianof 52 projections in a Bloomberg News survey. Estimates ranged from a drop of 2.1 percent to a 0.5 percent gain.

Construction spending decreased 7.9 percent in the 12 months ended in June.

Private Construction

Private construction spending dropped 0.6 percent following a 1.4 percent decrease in May. Homebuilding outlays fell 0.8 percent. Private non-residential projects decreased 0.5 percent, reflecting declines in construction of factories, commercial dwellings and communications stations.

Spending on public construction increased 1.5 percent from the prior month, led by power, sewage and waste disposal and conservation plants. Federal building climbed 4.6 percent to $31.7 billion, the most on record.

New home sales reached a record low in May and were the second-lowest last month, according to Commerce Department data, reflecting diminishing demand after the government tax credit expired. June housing starts, reported July 20, fell 5 percent, after a 15 percent decline the prior month.

To qualify for the government tax credit of up to $8,000, purchasers had to sign a contract by April 30. While the government in July extended the deadline for closing on the contract to Sept. 30, from the original June 30, declines in housing starts and building permits suggest residential construction will continue to fall in coming months.

Single-Family Homes

Spending on single-family residential structures dropped 0.7 percent in June, the fist decline in a year, today’s report showed.

Employment gains are needed to boost demand and forestall foreclosures. Home seizuresjumped 38 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier, RealtyTrac Inc. said last month, putting lenders on pace to claim more than 1 million properties this year.

NVR Inc., based in Reston, Virginia, said last month the original June 30 closing deadline to qualify for the tax incentive resulted in a “surge in settlement activity” in the second quarter, with closings jumping 63 percent from the same time a year earlier. New orders fell six percent in the period.

The outlook for commercial projects is less dire should credit begin to flow as office vacancy rates ease. Office vacancies in U.S. central business areas fell in the second quarter from the prior three months, the first drop since 2007, commercial property broker Cushman & Wakefield Inc. said July 8.

In another signal that commercial construction may improve later this year, billings at U.S. architecture firms rose in June, the American Institute of Architects said July 21. Commercial building typically follows the building index by about six months.

Source

The $1.4-billion expansion project will add a 650-MW coal-burning power plant to International Power’s existing Coleto Creek Unit One at its power station in Goliad County. Michael Fields, director of expansion for International Power, says that after a six-month open-bid period, the company expects to sign the engineering, procurement and construction agreement early next year with the design-build joint-venture team of Zachry Industrial, San Antonio, Burns & McDonnell, Kansas City, Mo.; and Mitsubishi Power Systems, Lake Mary, Fla.

The South Texas Electric Cooperative, part owners in the project, say the expansion will provide electricity to 65 counties, create jobs and fuel economic growth.

When Coleto Creek’s 632-MW Unit One went into service in 1980, infrastructure for all coal delivery and handling and the cooling reservoir were sized for a second unit, Fields says.

Both units will use low-sulfur Powder River Basin coal from Wyoming. Unit Two, when completed, can be retrofitted with the latest carbon-capture technology when it becomes available. Until then, it will use “ultra-super critical technology” to efficiently reduce CO2 emissions, Fields says. “The nitrogen oxide burners inside the furnace will produce less NOx than conventional burners,” he says.

Fields says local support for the project is “tremendous,” noting that the city of Victoria passed a resolution supporting the project, while elected officials from Goliad “traveled to Austin and went in front of TCEQ commissioners.”

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality awarded an air permit for the new unit on May 3. But opponents, including the Lone Star Chapter of The Sierra Club, worry about air pollution. The Sierra Club has threatened to sue the Environmental Protection Agency in federal court if the agency does not force Texas to comply with the clean-air act. That may not be necessary, however, as a recently appointed regional EPA administrator is threatening to take over aspects of Texas air-quality permitting.

The Sierra Club charges the TCEQ’s “flawed permitting program” allows proposed coal-fired powerplants to move forward with air-pollution permit limits that do not protect  public health and the environment as state and federal laws require. “TCEQ does not even require readily available air monitors on the stacks for pollutants,” says Eva Hernandez, organizer for the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign in Austin.

“The bottom line is it’s a dirty coal plant,’ Hernandez says. “We don’t need to invest in old technology.”

Scrubbers and other new technologies have only limited value: “Once the coal is burned and goes into coal-ash waste ponds, it can seep into any groundwater source, lake or stream,” Hernandez says. Utilities want to “grandfather” Texas coal plants before new federal standards go into law, she adds.

Hernandez says the Coleto Creek permit allows 1,461 tons per year of NOx emissions. “We are not meeting the federal clean-air emissions standards,” she says. Regulations will make coal-fired plants even more expensive to operate. Investing in a clean-energy such as solar and wind power, she says, would create three to four times as many jobs that can’t be outsourced. 

The $1.4-billion expansion project will add a 650-MW coal-burning power plant to International Power’s existing Coleto Creek Unit One at its power station in Goliad County. Michael Fields, director of expansion for International Power, says that after a six-month open-bid period, the company expects to sign the engineering, procurement and construction agreement early next year with the design-build joint-venture team of Zachry Industrial, San Antonio, Burns & McDonnell, Kansas City, Mo.; and Mitsubishi Power Systems, Lake Mary, Fla.

The South Texas Electric Cooperative, part owners in the project, say the expansion will provide electricity to 65 counties, create jobs and fuel economic growth.

When Coleto Creek’s 632-MW Unit One went into service in 1980, infrastructure for all coal delivery and handling and the cooling reservoir were sized for a second unit, Fields says.

Both units will use low-sulfur Powder River Basin coal from Wyoming. Unit Two, when completed, can be retrofitted with the latest carbon-capture technology when it becomes available. Until then, it will use “ultra-super critical technology” to efficiently reduce CO2 emissions, Fields says. “The nitrogen oxide burners inside the furnace will produce less NOx than conventional burners,” he says.

Fields says local support for the project is “tremendous,” noting that the city of Victoria passed a resolution supporting the project, while elected officials from Goliad “traveled to Austin and went in front of TCEQ commissioners.”

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality awarded an air permit for the new unit on May 3. But opponents, including the Lone Star Chapter of The Sierra Club, worry about air pollution. The Sierra Club has threatened to sue the Environmental Protection Agency in federal court if the agency does not force Texas to comply with the clean-air act. That may not be necessary, however, as a recently appointed regional EPA administrator is threatening to take over aspects of Texas air-quality permitting.

The Sierra Club charges the TCEQ’s “flawed permitting program” allows proposed coal-fired powerplants to move forward with air-pollution permit limits that do not protect  public health and the environment as state and federal laws require. “TCEQ does not even require readily available air monitors on the stacks for pollutants,” says Eva Hernandez, organizer for the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign in Austin.

“The bottom line is it’s a dirty coal plant,’ Hernandez says. “We don’t need to invest in old technology.”

Scrubbers and other new technologies have only limited value: “Once the coal is burned and goes into coal-ash waste ponds, it can seep into any groundwater source, lake or stream,” Hernandez says. Utilities want to “grandfather” Texas coal plants before new federal standards go into law, she adds.

Hernandez says the Coleto Creek permit allows 1,461 tons per year of NOx emissions. “We are not meeting the federal clean-air emissions standards,” she says. Regulations will make coal-fired plants even more expensive to operate. Investing in a clean-energy such as solar and wind power, she says, would create three to four times as many jobs that can’t be outsourced.

Source

The May statistics lifted the Dodge Index to 86 (2000=100), up from a revised 83 for April.  The Dodge Index reached its most recent low at 82 back in February 2009, and since then it has hovered in the range of 83 to 94.  “The recent pattern of construction starts indicates that activity has stabilized at a low level, with ups-and-downs on a monthly basis, but the transition to sustained expansion has yet to occur,” stated Robert A. Murray, vice president of economic affairs for McGraw-Hill Construction.  “The good news with the May statistics is that nonresidential building rebounded after a very depressed April.  However, the volume of nonresidential building remains quite low, and is likely to stay that way through 2010.  Much of this year’s upward movement is expected to come from public works construction, which lost momentum in May after earlier gains.”

Nonresidential building in May jumped 19% to $145.6 billion (annual rate), following a 21% decline in April.  The May pace for nonresidential building can still be characterized as weak by recent standards – 12% below the monthly average for 2009 and a full 39% below the monthly average for the peak year of 2007.  On the institutional side of the nonresidential market, educational facilities advanced 31% in May.  Large education-related buildings that reached groundbreaking in May included a $229 million medical research building for the U.S. Army in Maryland, a $122 million university laboratory and science building in Massachusetts, and a $100 million university performing arts center in Chicago IL.  Healthcare facilities continued to strengthen, advancing 2% in May with the boost coming from a $159 million medical center expansion in California.  Amusement-related work soared 62% in May, aided by the $80 million renovation and expansion of the Pauley Pavilion in Los Angeles CA and $75 million for the Fantasyland expansion at Disney World in Orlando FL.  As for the other institutional categories in May, church construction increased 11%, but reduced contracting was reported for public buildings (courthouses and detention facilities), down 3%; and transportation terminals, down 30%.

Several commercial categories in May registered large percentage gains, relative to very low levels in April.  Office construction in May surged 44%, helped by the start of a $200 million renovation project at the United Nations Conference Building in New York NY.  Stores and warehouses in May posted gains of 26% and 28%, respectively.  However, hotels showed further weakness in May, dropping 11%.  The manufacturing plant category in May advanced 33%, reflecting the lift coming from $96 million for a semiconductor solar technology plant in Tennessee and $95 million for a lithium battery manufacturing plant in Florida.

Residential building, at $133.0 billion (annual rate), increased 1% in May.  The multifamily side of the housing market grew 9%, as this structure type has now shown improved contracting for four straight months.  The largest multifamily projects reported as May starts were the apartment portions of two mixed-use projects in St. Louis MO, with the apartment portions valued at $90 million and $81 million, respectively.  Other large multifamily projects that reached groundbreaking in May included a $70 million apartment building in the Bronx NY, the $64 million apartment portion of a mixed-use building in Honolulu HI, and a $58 million senior living facility in Elmhurst IL.  Single family housing in May slipped 1%, losing momentum for the second straight month after trending upward from early 2009 through March of this year.  By geography, single family housing in May showed declines in the Midwest (down 13%) and the Northeast (down 3%), while the West was steady and modest gains were reported in the South Atlantic and South Central regions (each up 3%).  Murray noted, “The upward trend for single family housing at the national level seems to have paused for now, but it’s likely to resume later in 2010, helped by what’s expected to be the continuation of very low mortgage rates into the second half of this year.”

Nonbuilding construction in May dropped 8% to $127.7 billion (annual rate).  Highway and bridge construction retreated from strength earlier in the year, sliding 22% in May, but on a year-to-date basis it was still able to maintain a 15% gain for the first five months of 2010 relative to last year.  After very strong activity in April, two of the environmental public works categories fell back in May, with sewers sliding 13% while water supply systems plunged 51%.  River/harbor development was the one environmental public works category able to register growth in May, rising 29% with the support of several hurricane-reconstruction projects in the New Orleans LA area, including $238 million for the Chalmette Loop Levee.  The “other” public works category (including such diverse project types as site work, pipelines, and mass transit) also showed growth in May, jumping 64% with the lift coming from $1.1 billion related to work on the Kansas and Oklahoma portions of the Keystone oil pipeline project.  Electric utility construction in May retreated 14% from its heightened April volume, although the pace in May was still high by recent standards – up 22% compared to the monthly average for this category in 2009.  Large electric utility projects that reached the construction start stage in May included the following – an $820 million gas-fired power plant in Tennessee, a $360 million wind farm in Illinois, and a $195 million wind farm in Oklahoma.

The 2% decline for total construction starts on an unadjusted basis during the first five months of 2010 was the result of varied behavior by sector.  Residential building climbed 30%, with the comparison to the early months of 2009 when the improvement for single family housing was just beginning to take hold.  Nonbuilding construction year-to-date decreased 8%, with public works down 4% while electric utilities fell 28%.  Nonresidential building year-to-date dropped 16%, due to this performance by major segment – commercial building, down 32%; manufacturing building, down 63%; and institutional building, down 4%.  By geography, total construction in the first five months of 2010 showed this pattern relative to last year – the Northeast, up 8%; the South Central, no change; the West, down 1%; the South Atlantic, down 2%; and the Midwest, down 12%.

Source

The companies also agreed to jointly seek more opportunities in Brazil and elsewhere, Statoil Chief Executive Officer Helge Lund said today. “Both companies see many opportunities for value creation through increased recovery and exploration for additional resources in the decades to come.”

The Norwegian company said last year it was considering cutting its stake in Peregrino to reduce risk and raise funds to develop other projects. Chinese state-owned companies, including PetroChina Co., last year spent a record $32 billion on energy and mining acquisitions to meet rising resources demand in the world’s fastest-growing major economy.

Cnooc Ltd., China’s biggest offshore energy explorer, was also in the bidding process for the stake estimated to cost as much as $3 billion, people with knowledge of the process said on April 15. Sinochem, China’s biggest chemicals trader, last year agreed to buy Emerald Energy Plc to boost revenue from oil and gas operations by tapping wells in Syria and Colombia.

“This transaction will significantly increase Sinochem’s interests in the exploration and production business and consolidate our position as one of the leading global players in the oil and chemicals business,” Han Gensheng, president of Sinochem Corp., said in a statement. The company made its first oil and gas investment in 2003 and operates 12 such projects in the Middle East, Latin American and Asia, according to the statement.

‘Profited Well’

“Statoil has profited well,” said Trond Omdal, an analyst at Arctic Securities with a “buy” rating on the shares. The price works out to about $15.4 a barrel, compared with the $7.2 a barrel Statoil paid when it took full control in 2008, he said.

Statoil’s shares gained 0.9 kroner, or 0.7 percent, to close at 127.3 kroner on the Oslo exchange after earlier falling as much as3.5 percent.

The Stavanger-based company, which has operations in 40 countries, took control of the field in March 2008 after buying the remaining 50 percent from Anadarko Petroleum Corp. The field, 85 kilometers (53 miles) offshore Rio de Janeiro, has an estimated 460 million barrels of recoverable oil, spokeswoman Mari Dotterud said on Oct. 20.

‘Better Than Fair’

“The price looks very strong actually, it’s better than fair,” Oswald Clint, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein who has a “market perform” rating on Statoil shares, said by phone from London. “This was signaled for some time.”

Statoil will keep 60 percent ownership and remain the operator of the field, which is set to start production in early 2011. Brazil will continue to form a “key part” of the company’s international strategy, and Statoil will explore further opportunities in the region, it said.

This stake sale will reduce Statoil’s equity production guiding for 2012 by 40,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day to 2.06 million to 2.16 million, the company said. Equity output was 1.962 million barrels of oil equivalent a day in 2009, while booked reserves of oil and gas totaled 5.4 billion barrels.

The transaction is subject to government approvals in Brazil and China.

–With assistance by William Bi in Beijing, Editors: Jonas Bergman, Raj Rajendran

Source

Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and China State Construction Engineering Corporation Limited (CSCEC) sealed the deal in Abuja on Thursday, an official statement said.

China is already the number one investor in Africa — ranging from oil in Algeria to mines in Zambia — and a senior NNPC official told AFP the new deal might be the biggest that China has made in the continent.

Nigeria is in turn Africa’s leading oil producer, but it has for more than a decade been importing refined petroleum products to meet local demand.

The two corporations will jointly seek financing and credits from the China Export & Credit Insurance Corporation and a consortium of Chinese banks for the projects in Nigeria, the NNPC statement said.

“NNPC aims to accelerate the construction of new refineries in Nigeria to stem the flood of imported refined products into the country, currently estimated at 10 billion dollars,” the statement said.

CSCEC wants to “expand its presence on the African continent and establish its footprint firmly in the Nigerian oil and gas landscape,” it added.

The new refineries are expected to add some 750,000 barrels per day capacity in Nigeria and position NNPC in the international trading of refined petroleum products, it said.

Nigeria’s four refineries — with total capacity of 445,000 barrels per day — are using less than 30 percent of their installed capacity, according to official figures. Corruption and poor maintenance have undermined their performance.

“We are very excited about the deal. We thought it is the biggest ever in Africa, although I do not have the details yet,” said the NNPC official who demanded anonymity.

President Goodluck Jonathan arrived Friday in Nigeria’s oil capital of Port Harcourt for an official visit to inaugurate gas and oil projects.

The construction of the new refineries “will reinforce the ongoing oil and gas reforms in Nigeria”, as envisaged in legislation which has been before the Nigerian parliament for almost a year and imminent deregulation of the downstream sector the country’s oil industry, the NNPC statement said.

Anglo-Dutch oil group Shell in February criticised the bill, saying mistakes in it, if passed into law, will take years to correct.

Shell’s vice president for Africa Ann Pickard has warned that the country could lose 50 billion dollars in investment in the next decade if the bill was passed in its current form.

Jonathan has promised to pursue government reforms of the oil sector to make it profitable and end corruption.

His nascent administration recently sacked some key oil industry officials and redeployed others as part of the promised reform.

He has promised to give new impetus to an unconditional amnesty granted last year to thousands of ex-militants in oil-rich Niger Delta in order to bring peace to the region.

The training of more than 20,000 militants who surrendered their arms under the amnest deal begins next month, officials said.

The president of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Olufemi Deru, told AFP the establishment of the new refineries in Nigeria “will provide jobs for thousands of Nigerians and give them technical knowledge.”

“It will save the country millions of dollars spent on importation of refined petroleum products as well as give the country a sense of national pride that Nigeria produces and refines its oil locally,” he stated.

Source

With the new $3 billion Perdido oil and natural gas platform, in a remote deep-water area of the Gulf of Mexico, Shell and its partners have effectively done both.

After more than a decade of work, they began last month pumping oil at the massive floating facility, which sits in nearly 8,000 feet of water and draws from wells that far below the sea floor, setting several records along the way.

A recent visit to Perdido, roughly 200 miles south of Houston, brings the scope of the achievement into focus.

It also offers a g

limpse of what could be ahead for the oil and gas industry as it presses farther into one of the last remaining U.S. regions where big quantities of crude oil are still being discovered.

“What we’re seeing here is the start of a new frontier in the Gulf of Mexico,” Bill Townsley, Shell’s Perdido venture leader, said as he stood aboard the hulking steel structure, staffed with 150 people, that he has dedicated the last three years of his life to building.

Indeed, Perdido could offer a template for rivals to follow in coming years as they develop fields of their own in an emerging deep-water area known as the Lower Tertiary trend. In recent years, more than a dozen big oil discoveries have been in made Lower Tertiary formations — deposited from 65 million to 35 million to 23 million years ago — in a 300-mile band on the outer edge of the U.S. Gulf between Texas and Louisiana.

Shell’s Perdido — which in Spanish means “lost” — is the first to achieve commercial production there, but Lower Tertiary fields are also being developed by BP, Chevron Corp. and others and are expected to help reverse years of oil and gas output declines in the well-plowed offshore region.

Perdido alone is capable of producing 100,000 barrels of oil and 200 million cubic feet of natural gas per day — enough to meet the energy needs for over 2 million households for a year.

Though not at that level of production yet, getting to this point hasn’t been easy. Shell, with partners Chevron Corp. and BP, has done the equivalent of moving mountains to bring the project online.

To make the project feasible, Shell, the lead operator, and partners devised an elaborate plan for tying in three distinct fields — called Great White, Silver Tip and Tobago — and handling their production through a single platform. Doing it, however, would require drilling at least 35 wells, some as far as seven miles from the platform and all extremely costly.

“When we came at them with 35 wells, people’s heads exploded,” Townsley said.  >more

Increased productivity could help the industry achieve even more!

Which industry sector has grown the fastest two years in a row?

While many might think no sector grew during the recession, the real answer is “construction”.

The sector grew more than 20 per cent in 2008 and growth continued at double-digit levels during the economic downturn last year. While we might usually think about financial services or electronics as engines of growth, construction has actually been more dynamic.

The importance of construction in the total economy has also risen. Construction grew from 3.7 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2005 to 5.1 per cent in 2008, and its share likely grew further last year.

The outlook seems rosy, too, as Senior Minister of State (National Development) Grace Fu indicated last month when she said that “we expect to see a sustained level of construction demand over the next two to three years”.

The impact of the construction industry goes well beyond its share of GDP. Employment Situation report data from the fourth quarter of last year shows that the 385,200 workers in the sector accounted for about 12.8 per cent of the workers in Singapore.

The Ministry of Manpower raised the “dependency ratio” for construction in 2007 to allow seven foreign workers for every Singaporean, so a significant percentage of these workers are foreigners.

In comparison, construction accounted for about 7 per cent of GDP in Australia and 9 per cent of the workforce. In the United States, it is about 5.5 per cent of both GDP and employment.

Even as its role in the economy grows, efficiency and productivity are key issues for the construction industry. More than a decade ago, then-Minister for Manpower Lee Boon Yang said that “the Singapore construction industry also faces certain unique challenges which require prompt resolution. These include negative productivity growth, poor safety records, labour-intensive construction methods, and a host of social problems related to the industry”. The Construction 21 study was designed to promote improvements.

While there has been a focus on green buildings and lower usage of energy in new buildings in recent years, industry efficiency still appears to be an issue. As Singapore International Chamber of Commerce chief Phillip Overmyer said recently in an interview with MediaCorp: “The way we build buildings in Singapore is not at all like the way high-end countries build buildings. Japan, Australia and America and other countries use completely different technologies that don’t employ nearly as much foreign labour”.

Now, there may be greater impetus for change. The Economic Strategies Committee (ESC) recently said that “we must shift to achieving GDP growth by expanding productivity rather than the labour force”. The construction industry was specifically mentioned, with the ESC commenting that “in construction, productivity levels are half that of the US and one-third that of Japan”.

The impact of construction also goes beyond just efficiency or GDP and touches other goals, such as targets to reduce carbon emissions. As Singapore Institute of International Affairs research associate Natasha Hamilton-Hart has said: “While we do not know what the total carbon emissions for the construction industry are, we do know that cement production is a highly greenhouse gas-polluting industry”.

If Singapore wants to achieve a 16 per cent reduction in carbon emissions growth, construction has a role to play.

Construction’s high growth rate and increasing share of GDP thus seem to create a conundrum. On the one hand, simply slowing construction could negatively affect economic growth. On the other, increasing productivity may require far-reaching longer-term changes in industry practices and investments in technology.

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