Sydney-based pipeline combine APA Group has signed a nonbinding heads of agreement with Cooper Energy Ltd., Adelaide, to negotiate APA’s acquisition, upgrade, and operation of the Orbost natural gas processing plant in east Gippsland. The plant is associated with Cooper’s development of offshore Sole gas field in Bass Strait. Source: News
ONGC to proceed on five development projects
India’s Oil & Natural Gas Corp. plans five development projects with a total estimated cost of $1.1 billion. Four are off the west coast and one is in the western state of Gujarat. Source: News
BOEM offers 1.09 million acres in potential Cook Inlet lease sale
The US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is planning to offer 1.09 million acres in Cook Inlet off Alaska’s south-central coast in Lease Sale 244, scheduled for June. Source: News
EPP lets contract for Texas Gulf Coast isobutane unit
Enterprise Products Partners LP (EPP), Houston, has let a contract to Honeywell UOP LLC, Des Plaines, Ill., to provide technology, design services, and equipment for a grassroots isobutane dehydrogenation (iBDH) unit to be built at subsidiary Enterprise Products Operating LLC’s operations in Mont Belvieu, Tex. Source: News
India okays HPCL for Mumbai refinery expansion
India has granted Hindustan Petroleum Corp. Ltd. (HPCL) environmental clearance to proceed with a project to modernize and expand its 7.5-million tonne/year Mumbai refinery in Maharashtra State. Source: News
Watching Government: 'Talking to, not past, each other'
Construction may have resumed on the final segment of the Dakota Access crude oil pipeline (DAPL), but the mistrust and antagonism that were revealed during months of protests there won’t be going away any time soon, testimony by witnesses at a Feb. 15 US House Energy and Commerce Committee revealed. Source: News
Global market recovery gaining momentum,CSIS forum speakers say
Recovery seems to be gathering momentum in global oil and gas markets, driven more by improved production practices and technology than by gradually rising prices, speakers said during a Feb. 16 discussion at the Center for Strategic & International Studies. Source: News
Energy trade subtexts
Hope that the US will become a net export of energy within 10 years comes with subtexts important to American thinking about the Middle East. Temptation is strong to calibrate worry about that turbulent region to the US balance of energy trade. It must be resisted. Source: News
Energy and cybersecurity
During the US Senate Energy and Natural Resource Committee’s hearing last month on the nomination of Rick Perry to be energy secretary, the former Texas governor pledged his support for—and protection of—the Department of Energy and its energy-research efforts (OGJ Online, Jan. 30, 2017). Source: News
Perenco acquiring Gabon stakes from Total
Perenco, London, has agreed to acquire varying interests in oil and gas fields in Gabon from units of Total SA and to become operator of most of them. Source: News