Month: July 2007
Opec oil output to rise in July
Opec oil output to rise in July
(Reuters)
26 July 2007
LONDON — Opec oil output is expected to rise this month due to higher supply from members including Nigeria, Iraq and Angola, a consultant said yesterday.
Opec’s 10 members subject to output limits, all except Iraq and Angola, are set to pump 26.9 million barrels per day, up 100,000bpd from June, said Conrad Gerber, head of Petrologistics, which tracks tanker shipments.
The estimate, while showing rising supply in some Opec countries, indicates top exporter Saudi Arabia is keeping a cap on output in spite of a jump in oil prices towards a record high and consumer calls for more production.
“There’s no major opening of the taps,” Gerber said. “They fear that if they opened the taps, prices would slide.”
Nigeria is raising supply in July by about 100,000bpd to 2.12 million bpd, Gerber said. The increase reflects fewer disruptions to the country’s oil industry from militant attacks in the Niger Delta.
Iranian oil output is also on the increase — climbing by 50,000bpd to 3.95 million bpd.
Overall supply from the 12-member Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries is set to rise 300,000bpd to 30.7 million bpd, Petrologistics said, as Iraq and Angola pump more.
Iraqi output is on course to reach 2.08 million bpd, up from 1.94 million bpd in June, because the country is exporting some Kirkuk crude from its northern fields.
Storage tanks at the Turkish port of Ceyhan receive sporadic deliveries of Kirkuk by pipeline from Iraq’s northern oilfields. Iraq sold three million barrels for shipment in July, the first such sale since January.
ADMA-OPCO Abu Dhabi awards Dh1.4b Zakum works
ADMA-OPCO awards Dh1.4b Zakum works
BY A STAFF REPORTER Khaleej Times
26 July 2007
ABU DHABI — National Petroleum Construction Company (NPCC), jointly with Technip, won a contract valuing Dh1.4 billion from ADMA-OPCO, for the Zakum gas processing facilities in the offshore areas of Abu Dhabi.
The project consists of installing gas processing and compression facilities to increase the production capacity of the Zakum field, while maintaining the reservoir pressure.
The new gas compression platform will be connected to the existing lower Zakum platform by a bridge. It will have two gas turbine-driven centrifugal compression trains, a triefthylene glycol dehydration unit, an air cooling unit and vapor recovery system.
The facilities are scheduled to be operational January 2010.
Visit: http://www.adma-opco.com to know more about ADMA-OPCO.
Fertil Abu Dhabi launches $240m expansion programme
Fertil launches $240m expansion programme
BY HASEEB HAIDER – Khaleej Times
20 July 2007
ABU DHABI — Ruwais Fertilizer Industries (Fertil), a subsidiary of Adnoc Group, has launched an expansion programme valuing $240 million to add 50 per cent capacity to its Urea manufacturing facilities.
At a ceremony held at its headquarters in Abu Dhabi, Fertil signed two contracts for the Urea Plant Debottlenecking Project with Descon Engineering of Pakistan worth $177 million, while a contract was signed with M/s Urea Casale of Switzerland for providing the technology and licence for the Urea Plant modifications.
Mohammed Rashid Al Rashid, General Manager Fertil, speaking on the occasion said:” We have taken a strategic decision to convert our surplus liquid Ammonia into Urea, which is more convenient to store, handle and export.”
He said the Carbon dioxide required for this process will be recovered from the presently vented Reformer Flue Gases, resulting in annual reduction in Green House Gases emissions of approximately 100,000 tonnes of CO2, resulting in 20 per cent reductions. This is very much in line with the International Co2 sequestrations process, clean development mechanism and Kyoto protocol objective.
In addition, the conversion of 90,000 metric tonne per year (MTPD) of ammonia into urea will be supplie to the new Melamine plant and process off gases and carbamate return from the Melamine Plant as well.
Fertil’s plant currently produces 1000 metric tonnes per day (MTPD) Topsoe designed Ammonia and 1500 metric per day (MTPD) Stamicarbon Urea plant. Since, Fertil’s establishment in 1983, the Urea production capacity was increased by 20 per cent. Of 2700 metric tonnes per day manufacturing capacity of urea, about 800 metric tonnes per day will be supplied to the Melamine plant and remaining 1900 metric tonnes per day of Urea production will be Granulated and exported.
The Granulation unit Technology Licence is provided by M/s Uhde Fertilizer Technology of Netherlands and the unit is designed for 2500 metric tonnes per day. The Carbon Dioxide Recovery technology and licence is provided by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries of Japan and the unit will have a capacity of 400 metric tonnes per day of Co2.
Speaking on the occasion, Shaikh Azhar Ali CEO and Managing Director of Descon Engineering said that the company has vast experience in the setting up Urea plants, after establishing the group’s own mega unit in Pakistan.
Visit : http://www.fertil.com to know more about FERTIL.
Visa to carry applicant’s photograph
27 July 2007
ABU DHABI — The Department of Naturalisation and Residency in the Ministry of Interior has ordered all the departments of naturalisation and residency in the country to fix the photograph of visa applicants on the visas themselves, stated Brigadier Mohammad Salim bin Oueidah Al Kheili, director general of the department.
According to a fresh guideline, instead of the black and white photocopy a colour photocopy of the applicant’s passport will have to be submitted along with the application for visa. The decision applies to all categories of visas.
The photo of the applicant will be taken from the colour photocopy of the passport and fixed on the visa by the naturalisation and residency departments in the country. The visa with the photo will be submitted at the airport at the time of the arrival of the applicant.
This decision has been implemented at the Abu Dhabi Naturalisation and Residency Department and will come into force immediately at other departments countrywide.
The decision is in line with the directives of Minister of Interior Lt-Gen. Shaikh Saif bin Zayed Al Nahyan to protect against manipulation and tampering of visas.
FOREST
Have you ever thought of living in a Forest – Athirappilly near Chalakudy in Trichur District Kerala is a nice place where you can plan if you have time. During the rainy season, it was looking more wilder – and this time too I couldn’t resist myself to skip this beauty.
Loyal member
Some people deserve to be mentioned for their dedication and loyalty. And we normally tend to give long service awards to such members to appreciate their efforts and support. I felt it should be the case for animals too. I am not an ardent fan or supporter of Maneka Gandhi’s animal protection movement where she conveninently close her eyes when it comes to matters related to rich and when it comes to middle class or poor where stray dogs attacking children and killing them in Bangalore – 6th such incident happened recently – and coming out with support for them and not allowing the authorities to take actions against. Result – bikers have to fear, small children and families – especially with infants have to fear for these dogs. As long as we do not react, everything is possible – in India and elsewhere.
Coming back to our Loyal Member, I happened to meet him at a friends house. I was very much impressed – 30 years + – he has been with them and still continuing his affection, support and loyalty. Look at his eyes, he has so many stories to tell you – and will pass on them to you through our Jaaju Jaaju section very soon.
Congrats man, may God bless you to have some more years of peaceful and dutiless life in this world.
90/10 secret
During my short stay, I had a chance to pass by a beach side on the coastal route – National Highway 17 passing through Trichur in Kerala. It was not a popular spot to attract tourist but had many fisherman folks living there. The heavy monsoon had taken its toll on the day I passed and almost all the boats and catamarans from the area were lined up neatly as they were unable to go out to the sea for fishing. It was beyond there means and many of them who had ventured out on that day had to return half way because of warning from Weather department and Coastal authorities. Even at these adverse situation, the fishermen projected a courageous and courteous smile and watched and joined the few who had come to watch the violent sea.
I include a forward from Vijayakumar, Dubai which is very apt when we think of how each situation we come across in life can be handled with poise, graise and determination. Enjoy reading the same:
90/10 secret – Understand and apply the 90/10 secret. It will change your life!
What is this secret?
10% of life is made up of what happens to you.
90% of life is decided by how you react.
What does this mean? We really have no control over 10% of what happens to us.
1. We cannot stop the car from breaking down.
2. The plane may be arriving late, which throws our whole schedule off.
3. A driver may cut us off in traffic.
We have no control over this 10%. The other 90% is different. You determine the other 90% !!
How? ….By your reaction.
* You cannot control a red light, but you can control your reaction.
* Don’t let people fool you, YOU can control how you react! Let’s use an example….
You’re eating breakfast with your family. Your daughter knocks over a cup of coffee onto your business shirt. You have no control over what just happened. What happens next will be determined by how you react. You curse. You harshly scold your daughter for knocking the coffee cup over.She breaks down in tears. After scolding her, you turn to your spouse and criticize her for placing the cup too close to the edge of the table. A short verbal battle follows. You storm upstairs and change your shirt. Back downstairs you find your daughter has been busy crying, and so, is not able to finish breakfast and get ready for school.
She misses the bus. Your spouse must leave immediately for work. You rush to the car and drive your daughter to school. Because you are late, you drive 40 miles an hour in a 30 mph speed limit. After a 15 minute delay and throwing rs 200 to the Cop as fine…..
In the evening, you look forward to going home. When you arrive home you find small wedge in your relationship with your spouse and daughter.
Why?Because of how you reacted in the morning. Why did you have a bad day?
A) Did the coffee cause it?
B) Did your daughter cause it?
C) Did the Policeman cause it?
D) Did you cause it?
The answer is ” D “.
You had no control over what happened with the coffee. How you reacted in those 5 seconds is what caused your bad day. Here is what could have and should have happened:
” Coffee splashes over you. Your daughter is about to cry. You gently say “It’s OK honey, you just need to be more careful next time”. Grabbing a towel you rush upstairs. After grabbing a new shirt and your briefcase. You come back down in time look through the window and see your child getting on the bus. She turns and waves. You and your spouse kiss before you both go to work. You arrive 5 minutes early and cheerfully greet the
staff. Your boss comments on how good of day you are having.” Notice the difference.
Two different scenarios. Both started the same way but both ended differently.
Why? Because of how you REACTED !!!
You really do not have any control over 10% of what happens. The other 90% is determined by your reaction. Here are some ways to apply the 90/10 secret :
If someone says something negative about you, do not be a sponge. Let the attack roll off like water on glass. You don’t have to let the negative comment affect you!
React properly and it will not ruin your day. A wrong reaction could result in losing a friend, being fired, getting stressed out, etc.
How do you react if someone cuts you off in traffic? Do you lose your temper? Pound the steering wheel? (A friend of mine had the steering wheel fall off!) Do you curse? Does your blood pressure skyrocket? Do you try and bump them?
WHO CARES if you arrive ten seconds later at work? Why let the blue car ruin your drive. Remember the 90-10 principle, and do not worry about it!You are told! you lost your job. Why lose sleep or get irritated? It will work out. Use your “worrying” energy and time into finding another job.
The plane is late. It is going to mangle your schedule for the day. Why take out your frustration on the flight attendant? She has no control over what is going on. Use your time to study, get to know the other passenger, etc. Why get stressed out? It will just make things worse.
You now know the 90/10 secret. Apply it and you will be amazed at the results.
Remember :
“Minds are like parachutes, they function best when open”
$100 Oil May Be Months Away, Not Years, Say CIBC, Goldman
July 23 (Bloomberg) — The $100-a-barrel oil that Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said would prevail by 2009 may be only a few months away.
Jeffrey Currie, a London-based commodity analyst at the world’s biggest securities firm, says $95 crude is likely this year unless OPEC unexpectedly increases production, and declining inventories are raising the chances for $100 oil. Jeff Rubin at CIBC World Markets predicts $100 a barrel as soon as next year.
“We’re only a headline of significance away from $100 oil,” said John Kilduff, an analyst in the New York office of futures broker Man Financial Inc. “The unrelenting pressure of increased demand has left the market a coiled spring.” New disruptions of Nigerian or Iraqi supplies, or any military strike against Iran, might trigger the rise, Kilduff said in a July 20 interview.
Higher prices will increase revenue for energy producers from Exxon Mobil Corp. to PetroChina Co., while eroding profit at airlines including EasyJet Plc and railroads such as Union Pacific Corp. The U.S. and other oil-importing nations risk accelerating inflation, while higher energy costs threaten to restrain growth.
Benchmark crude oil futures ended last week at $75.57 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, up 51 percent since mid-January and twice the level of early 2003. A record number of options have been sold that give the buyer the right to buy crude oil at $100. The contracts, covering 50 million barrels, only pay off should oil go above the target price.
Goldman’s View
Arjun Murti, a New York-based Goldman Sachs analyst who covers oil producers and refiners, roiled markets in March 2005 with a report saying prices could touch $105 a barrel during a “super spike” period because demand was stronger than anticipated. Price swings might also go as low as $50, Murti said at the time.
Currie, Goldman’s global head of commodities research in London, is predicting that oil prices will probably touch a record and stay at unprecedented levels for months or years. The all-time high for Nymex crude futures is $78.40 a barrel on July 14, 2006.
“Ultimately, the key to the outlook going forward is when Saudi Arabia will ramp up production,” he said in an interview. “If you have a situation in which inventories globally get drawn to critically low levels, the volatility in this market is likely to explode, which significantly increases the probability of $100 oil.” Oil might slip to $73.50 if OPEC were to start producing more now, he said.
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries is scheduled to next meet in September. No members have called for a gathering before then. A decision to raise output at that time would lead to greater supplies toward the end of the year.
Accelerating Demand
The failure of near-record fuel prices to restrain global oil demand growth is what concerns Rubin, chief strategist at the brokerage unit of Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce in Toronto.
“Prices have doubled, and demand is alive and well and accelerating,” he said in a July 18 interview. “The argument that rising prices would choke demand and bring increased output is falling to the wayside.”
A National Petroleum Council study led by former Exxon Mobil chairman Lee Raymond, released last week, predicted a growing gap between production and demand for oil and gas during the next two decades. As recently as 2005, Raymond said oil prices had probably peaked and dismissed the possibility that supply and demand could not be brought back into balance.
“There are questions about whether the oil industry can keep up with demand,” U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said last week, commenting on the Petroleum Council report.
Gasoline Sales Rise
Gasoline pump prices averaging more than $3 a gallon across the U.S., the consumer of 25 percent of the world’s oil, haven’t dented sales. Deliveries of gasoline were a record 9.23 million barrels a day in the first half of this year, according to a July 18 report from the American Petroleum Institute in Washington.
“It appears that high prices are acceptable to the American consumer,” said Robert Ebel, chairman of the energy program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “People want the house with a yard and white-picket fence so they are moving further and further out of the cities. They have to just get up earlier and drive further.”
Outside the U.S., demand increases are being led by India and China, where growing economies mean more cars and trucks and more factories that burn oil and gas.
Consumption between now and the end of the year will increase by 3.6 million barrels a day because of seasonal shifts. The rise is equal to the daily production of Kuwait and Oman combined, and it comes after OPEC twice in the past year cut production to support prices.
Rising Costs
The cost of finding and pumping oil is rising steadily, convincing analysts such as Rubin and Deutsche Bank AG chief energy economist Adam Sieminski that higher prices will last. Shortages of deepwater drilling ships and rigs has pushed daily rents to records, and the skilled workers needed to run rigs, weld pipes, pilot vessels, fix refineries and build oil-sands projects command ever-higher wages.
“Three years ago we were calling for $30 oil, then $35 and then $40 oil,” said New York-based Sieminski, who last week raised his forecast for the average price of oil in 2010 to $60 a barrel from $45.
“I’ve gotten tired of increasing these forecasts in $5 increments,” Sieminski said in an interview. “Something has happened. Costs have continued to escalate, and the geopolitical situation has gotten worse.”
The $60-a-barrel forecast for 2010 is 15 percent higher than the average analyst forecast, Sieminski said. The projection probably will turn out to be too low, he said.
Oil prices could triple in three months to more than $200 a barrel, given the right circumstances, according to Matthew Simmons, chairman of Simmons & Co., a Houston investment bank.
`Still Cheap’
“Oil is still cheap,” Simmons said. “In the 20th century, with a few exceptions, oil was almost free. The only exceptions were during 1973, 1979 and when Iraq invaded Kuwait.”
Prices rose in 1974 after an oil embargo that followed the Arab-Israeli war and from 1979 through 1981 after Iran cut oil exports. The average cost of oil used by U.S. refiners was $35.24 a barrel in 1981, according to the Energy Department, or $79.67 in today’s dollars.
While crude oil prices are approaching the records they set at this time last year, not everyone is convinced $100 crude will happen. From their peak, oil futures began a six-month slide. They got below $50 on Jan. 18 before rebounding.
“The risk parameters are somewhat different than a year ago, however the overall situation is similar,” said Tim Evans, an energy analyst at Citigroup Inc. in New York who correctly predicted a year ago that oil prices were at a peak. “We’ve priced in a shortage that is not evident yet.”
Pickens
A pullout from Iraq may be the event that pushes oil to $100 a barrel, according to Boone Pickens, the Dallas hedge fund manager who has joined Forbes Magazine’s list of billionaires because of his bullish bets on energy prices. Pickens predicted a year ago that $100 oil would probably occur by now. Today he is looking for $80 within six months, and he says growing chaos in Iraq would be a bad sign. “That could run prices pretty high,” he said.
Goldman Sachs’s Currie also notes similarities to a year ago, with global inventories at about the same level and U.S. government data showing an increasing bet on higher prices.
“At face value this market is strikingly similar to a year ago,” Currie said. “What is different? Supply is down a million barrels a day, demand is up a million barrels a day. The market is in a deficit.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Mark Shenk in New York at mshenk1@bloomberg.net .
Last Updated: July 22, 2007 19:10 EDT
Thanks to Nagesh Sreenivasan, Dubai for this info.
Burj Dubai – World’s new tallest building – Think Beyond Ordinary
Fast Facts:
– At level 110, Bur Dubai became the tallest structure in the Middle East and Europe in March 2007.
– At level 120, it set new global record for having more floors than any other building in the world in April.
– At level 141, it became the world’s tallest tower in July 2007.
– The tip of its spire will be seen up to 95 kimlometres away.
– A condensate collection system will collect 15 million gallons of condensed woater from the hot and humid air per year, for the tower’s gardens.
– The tower’s curtain wall will be equivalent to 17 soccer (American) or 25 football (British) fields.
Thanks to Madhu Rayirath, Bangalore for sending me these info.
The Sound of Rain
It was rain, rain and more rain wherever I went. Coming from 45+ degrees it was a great relief and enjoyment to see the rain continuously. As usual the small pond in my garden greeted us with a beautiful lotus flower.
Aided by the problems to logon to the net as per wish and plan, it became a real holiday and opportunity to explore the country side through the eyes of my camera. Enjoy some of the pictuers, rest of them – a huge collection will come to you in due course.
As I write to you these, I hear The sound of Rain – wish it rains here too.
Shy to come out
Due to the heavy rain and weather, the sun was very shy to come out.
No vision
It was really difficult to drive around.
Family Tree
When I saw this tree at Bangalore, I really thought about the family tree – the good old days where every one joins the father and mother or the elders and live together. Now a days, we are all too busy that no time for our own things – so where is the time for thinking about the near and dear!!!
Natures Canvas
With rain around, the sun set at Bangalore also portrayed a very scenic sky.
It was as if I brought the rain along with me from Kerala to Bangalore. The evening sky at Kemp Fort area with rain round the corner was similar to a painting which we all had seen and forgotten recently.
Ant & Snake homes
Bangalore is one place where you still get to see many ant and snake architectural houses or sculptures. The religious belief amongst the residence have retained at least some of them even though for a shorter period before they are demolished for construction purpose – either a posh villa or a high rise building.
More later
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