By J. Brock (FINN)
At 1930hrs LMT on Thursday, 21 February 2008 Light Sweet Crude was trading at $97.29 down $2.41 on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent Crude was trading at $95.84 down $2.58 on Londons ICE Futures Market.
ANALYSIS:
Weak economic data, fear of dropping demand and good inventories helped to bring the price of crude down today. Demand is a key reason why prices will go down and it is the key to keeping prices at reasonable levels. If you can afford to invest in alternative energy, do it and get some peace of mind.
SHARE PRICES AND THE MARKETS:
SHARE PRICES ON THE ALTERNATIVE INVESTMENT MARKET: Thursday, 21 February 2008.
TLW: 621.50 up 14.00, DES: 33.00 down 0.25, FOGL: 120.00 down 1.50, RKH: 52.00 unchanged, BOR: 54.25 up 0.25 PRE: 12.75 unchanged, GBP: 7.25 up 0.13, GPK: 426.00 unchanged, BLT 1646.00 up 43.00, RDSA: 1810.00 up 12.00 RDSB: 1782.00 up 17.00, RDSD: 39.21 unchanged (Trading in Euros)
New York Stock Exchange:
XOM: 86.12 down 1.38
THE MARKETS (21/02/08)
FTSE100: 5,932.20 up 38.63, FTSE250: 10, 181.70 up 57.32 SmallCap: 3,229.00 up 16.67
DJI: 12,284.30 down 142.96 NASDAQ: 2,299.78 down 27.32 S&P500: 1,342.53 down 17.50
INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENTS:
(Kyrgyzstan) Russian national oil company Gazprom will invest up to $300 million to explore oil and gas in the central Asian country and former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan.
http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7010101178
(Northwest Passage)
The United States and Canada should forget arguments over who owns the Northwest Passage and instead jointly manage Arctic waters, academics and former diplomats from both sides urge in a new report. http://www.cjob.com/news/index.aspx?dir=national&src=ext&rem=./n022074A.xml
(Beaufort Sea)
Royal Dutch Shell has offered to scale back its oil drilling plans in the Beaufort Sea in order to win the lifting of an injunction against the activity, but the move is unlikely to placate opponents of the plans.
http://www.reuters.com/article/OILINT/idUSN1931001920080220
(North Sea)
ConocoPhillips Skandinavia AS has completed drilling of the HP/HT wildcat well 2/4-20 in the North Sea, but no hydrocarbons were found, according to the company.
http://www.pennenergy.com/display_article/320704/9/PRARC/none/DRLCM/1/Ekofisk-wildcat-comes-up-dry/
(Titan)
Saturn's orange moon Titan has hundreds of times more liquid hydrocarbons than all the known oil and natural gas reserves on Earth, according to new data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft. The hydrocarbons rain from the sky, collecting in vast deposits that form lakes and dunes.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080220200045.htm
REGIONAL DEVELOPMENTS:
(Argentina)
The presidents of Argentina, Brazil and Bolivia will meet in Buenos Aires on Friday, February 22 to try to resolve the shortfall in Bolivian gas production in the face of rising Argentine and Brazilian demand.
http://www.oxan.com/worldnextweek/2008-02-21/LatinAmericangasshortfall.aspx
In a speech before Foreign Affairs Ministers attending the Summit of the Arab and South American Countries (ASPA), which is scheduled to end Thursday in Buenos Aires, Maduro asserted that Exxon Mobil "purports to be the owner of the assets of the Orinoco oil belt, to the extent of registering Venezuelan oil reserves as its own assets."
http://english.eluniversal.com/2008/02/21/en_eco_art_venezuelan-fm:-confl_21A1377079.shtml
Repsol YPF SA completed selling 15 percent in its Argentine unit YPF SA to local investor Enrique Eskenazi for $2.2 billion, helping Spain's largest oil company reduce its reliance on Latin America.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601085&sid=a7hXJ50q_wYA&refer=europe
(Argentina, Brazil and Bolivia)
Argentina may apply pressure on local units of Brazil's state oil company Petrobras in a battle to increase its share of Bolivian natural gas supplies and ease wintertime shortages, a newspaper reported on Thursday.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/oilRpt/idUKN2142500820080221
(Brazil)
Petrobras is the world's most sustainable oil/gas company according to the 5th annual oil/gas ranking by the sustainability research and rating firm Management & Excellence(M&E, Madrid & Sao Paulo).
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/02-21-2008/0004759911&EDATE=
(Colombia)
Ecopetrol, the Colombian state oil company, will spend $17.5 billion on capital investments through 2015 to more than double oil and gas output.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/energy/5558840.html
(Ecuador)
Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa on Thursday travels to Lago Agrio, Amazonian province of Sucumbios, to witness the first operations by a Venezuelan drilling rig in Guanta Sureño well.
http://www.plenglish.com/article.asp?ID=%7B09FB944B-ABE9-489C-A15F-3F42D5519AEB%7D)&language=EN
Ecuador will ask the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to form a team of lawyers to support Venezuela in its legal dispute against Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM), Mining and Oil Minister Galo Chiriboga told Dow Jones Newswires Wednesday.
http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/djf500/200802201608DOWJONESDJONLINE000799_FORTUNE5.htm
(Ecuador and Venezuela)
Ecuador and Venezuela continued to tighten their economic ties Thursday, when Venezuelan state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela, or PdVSA, put into operation the first of what will likely be several drilling rigs.
http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/djf500/200802211339DOWJONESDJONLINE000976_FORTUNE5.htm
LOCAL DEVELOPMENTS:
DIRECTOR OF MINERAL RESOURCES REPORT FOR 21 FEBRUARY 2008
By Phyl Rendell
Borders & Southern Petroleum 3D Seismic Survey
Borders & Southern Petroleums 3D seismic survey was completed on 13 February 2008. PGSs survey vessel Ocean Explorer came to Stanley for a final crew change on the weekend of 16 February and will shortly leave the area along with their chase boat Amber G. The survey took a total of 108 days to complete and the data obtained covers an area of 1492km². A Marine Mammal Observer on board the vessel reported 102 separate marine mammal sightings including one of 2 Blue Whales on the 19 January. Seismic Data interpretation ongoing.
Desire Petroleum and Rockhopper Exploration have been working on seismic data interpretation. Rockhopper Exploration now has a large 3D data set covering their northern blocks and report that following processing, interpretation work is revealing potentially encouraging hydrocarbon indicators.
Desire Petroleum has well site survey data having utilised the Wavefield vessel Bergen Surveyor, to acquire the data in December. Desire Petroleum is now a step closer to being ready for drilling when rig availability improves. BHP Billiton took over operatorship of Falkland Oil & Gas Ltds licences in the South Falkland Basin on 1 January. BHP now report on exploration progress to the Falkland Islands Government. A visit to the Islands by a team of BHP representatives is proving difficult to organise due to flight availability and all the key players being free to travel on a given date. Unlike our other licensees, BHP has a multiple exploration programme world wide and their staff need to be available to work on a number of projects. BHP will however be represented at a Joint Operators Meeting to be held on 7 March at BGS in Edinburgh and FIG will have a separate meeting with them on 6 March.
Environment Impact Assessment Activities
Rockhopper Exploration, Desire Petroleum and BHP Billiton are actively preparing EIAs for their licensed areas in preparation for drilling.
Oil Meeting and Marketing Events
A Joint Operators Meeting (JOM) has been arranged at the British Geological Survey offices in Edinburgh on 7 March. The Director will attend and will also meet with individual companies to get an update on their programmes of work.
The American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG) convention is to be held in San Antonio, Texas from 20 to 23 April. FIG will have a stand in the exhibition hall in order to promote the Falklands as an oil exploration area. It will also be an opportunity to meet other oil companies and follow up on any business with BHP Billiton who operate the Falkland licences from their Houston office. Falkland Gold & Minerals Ltd cease exploration activity FGML are in the process of closing down their operations at Goose Green. The company has met all its obligations and has supplied FIG with an excellent geological data set. FIG will continue to have a dialogue with FGML until the expiry of their licence in 2009.
The core from drilling activities will be retained by FGML at Goose Green until the end of the year. It has considerable scientific interest and it is proposed that some of the geologically significant material will be preserved long term for research purposes. Dr. Phil Stone from BGS visited the Islands at the end of January to advise FIG on FGMLs data reporting and the future of the core that would have specific interest to future research.
Director of Minerals & Agriculture 21 February 2008 LOCAL LINKS: http://www.fogl.com http://www.desireplc.co.uk http://www.bordersandsouthern.com http://www.rockhopperexploration.co.uk.
