Petronas places main reserves outside Malaysia; Russian Rosneft expand production in 2010; Nigeria set to increase exports and new technology could save millions in pipeline costs.
Malaysian oil producer, Petronas made it's reserves intentions clear after recently winning four out of five bids for Iraq's latest petroleum licencing round.
Petronas' Chairman and President, Tan Sri Mohd Hassan Marican, believed the wins would boost the organisation's global reputation and place the majority of Petronas' reserves outside Malaysia.
The scale of the success appeared to have even surprised Petronas itself and Hassan did not rule out expansion in other parts of the world if financial and human resources allowed.
Russian producer, Rosneft also announced expansion plans with a 4.4% targeted increase in crude oil and gas condensate production in 2010. The increase is mainly supported by the successful Vankor field. A substantial volume of refinery upgrading will also be undertaken by the company. Rosneft also approved its 2009 preliminary results which showed a 2.4% increase in production over the previous year.
Nigeria has revealed plans to increase crude export volumes in February 2010 by 1.7% per day over January targets. A key supplier of light, sweet crude to the US, the country anticipates shipping around 55 million barrels a day across its 14 main crude grades. The news continues the upward trend in output and export after a downturn during 2009 as a result of rebel attacks.
Finally, there are potential cost savings for land and deep-sea pipeline operators thanks to innovative technology from Save the World's Air Inc. The company claims its Advanced Oil Technology (AOT) could save up to $20/barrel on pipeline transported oil by reducing viscosity without using additives. The technology uses electro-magnetic pulses, and tests conducted at Temple University in the US estimated energy cost for the technology to be around 0.01KW-h/barrel or about $0.002.