Vedanta Ltd., the Indian subsidiary of Vedanta Resources of London, dominated block awards in India’s first open-access licensing round. The company, the oil and gas operations of which comprise Cairn India’s assets, received 41 of the 55 awards by the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons. Source: News

Gro Gunleiksrud Haatvedt has joined Neptune Energy, London, as vice-president and group head of exploration. Source: News

Light, sweet crude oil prices fell on the New York market Aug. 28 pending the weekly US government inventory report, scheduled for release on Aug. 29. The American Petroleum Institute said its own data showed US crude supplies rose 38,000 bbl for the week ended Aug. 24. Separately, a Wall Street Journal survey of analysts and […]

Trinidad and Tobago’s state-owned Petrotrin plans to end the company’s refining operations at its 165,000-b/d Pointe-a-Pierre refinery. The company’s management made the announcement in an Aug. 28 meeting of the company’s board and its employee representative unions, Petrotrin said in a release. Source: News

Freedom Oil & Gas Ltd., Houston, is moving to a single-rig, continuous drilling program on its Eagle Ford shale acreage in Dimmit County, Tex., following successful testing of its acreage position. Freedom holds 100% working interest—75% revenue interest—on its acreage in the condensate window of the Eagle Ford, on which it has drilled 6 wells. […]

Esso Deepwater Gippsland Pty. Ltd. has started drilling the first well in a two-well drilling program in offshore permit Vic/P70 in Bass Strait off Victoria. The first wildcat is called Baldfish-1. The second will be Hairtail-1. They lie in water depths ranging 350-700 m—some of the deepest water drilled in the Gippsland basin. Source: News

The government of Gambia has granted approval for the farmout by FAR Ltd., Perth, of two offshore exploration blocks to Malaysian state firm Petronas. Petronas will take a 40% interest in contiguous offshore petroleum licences A2 and A5 in return for funding 80% of the exploration well costs of the forthcoming Samo-1 wildcat on Block […]

Equinor and its partners in Gullfaks and Snorre oil fields in the Norwegian North Sea are considering the use of floating wind turbines to supply electrical power to the platforms. Source: News

Equinor has let separate contracts to John Wood Group PLC for strategic modification projects to be implemented at subsidiary Equinor Refining Norway AS’s 9.3 million-tonne/year in Mongstad, Norway, near Bergen. Source: News

HPCL-Mittal Energy has let two contracts to a consortium of Maire Tecnimont subsidiaries to provide engineering, procurement, construction, and commissioning services for implementation of two petrochemical units to be located adjacent to HMEL’s 9 million-tonne/year Guru Gobind Singh refinery at Village Phullokhari, about 35 km from Bathinda in India’s northern state of Punjab. Source: […]