HOUSTON, Nov. 17, 2009 --- ConocoPhillips announced today a delay in the planned upgrade of its 260,000 barrel-per-day Wilhelmshaven refinery in Germany. This action is consistent with the recent announcement that the company's capital budget for 2010 will be reduced from current levels to improve financial flexibility and better balance expenditures and resources.

"This is the right project for Wilhelmshaven but not now," said Willie Chiang, senior vice president, Refining, Marketing & Transportation. "We will re-evaluate this investment opportunity as market conditions warrant."

The project is intended to upgrade the Wilhelmshaven facility into a premier European refinery by significantly improving diesel output from the refinery while equipping it to process less expensive crude. Certain procurement and permitting activities currently in progress will be completed to allow a smooth restart of the project at the appropriate time.

Biodiesel is better than ever at harnessing the power of the sun and turning it into fuel. In fact, a study shows the fuel is returning more than four times the energy that it takes to make biodiesel.

Newly published research, from the University of Idaho and U.S. Department of Agriculture shows that for every one unit of fossil energy needed to produce biodiesel, the return is 4.56 units. This energy-in, energy-out ratio is energy balance.

Our research shows continued progress in the renewability of biodiesel production, said University of Idaho Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering Assistant Professor Dev Shrestha. Farmers, soybean processors and biodiesel producers are getting even better at using non-fossil resources and adopting other efficiencies that are leading to greater energy returns.

The latest report from the University of Idaho shows energy used to produce biodiesel from soy (including cultivating, harvesting, transporting, crushing, processing, and fuel transport) compared to the final energy gained from the renewable fuel is constantly moving toward greater energy efficiency.

In 1998 the energy balance was 3.2:1. Improvements in energy balance result from farming techniques that require less fuel and other inputs, more efficient soybean

crushing, and more efficient conversion to biodiesel. By 2015, the balance is projected to reach 5.44:1. Petroleum diesel has a negative energy balance and yields only 0.83 units of usable

energy per unit of fossil energy consumed.

VER FICHERO ELCAofSolybeanBiodiesel.PDF al final de esta página

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NOC megaprojects, not climate policies, will be closing your local refiner

TIM LLOYD WRIGHT, European Editor

Some 800,000 bpd (800 Mbpd) of refinery expansion capacity, which faded and disappeared from the radar of the OECD's energy forecasts last year, is now back. There was quite a fanfare over capacity reductions this time last year when two major refining projects were shelved and thereby fell way off the horizon of the International Energy Agency's (IEA's) mid-term reporting.

More bad news. Now, at a time of extreme economic stress for the European refining industry, it's sobering that, when the medium term report is published next month, these megaprojects will be back in the IEA analysis. If you're a European refiner, it has to leave you feeling glum. It will mean the possible closure of eight European refineries—or more. The crude oil that once made its way to Europe will now stay in the Middle East. Now, a large share of the 800 Mbpd of refined products will find its way to Europe instead. Saudi Aramco is building two refineries in the Kingdom, each with a capacity of 400 Mbpd in joint ventures with Total, at Jubail, and with ConocoPhillips, at Yanbu.

First to go. By the time you read this, one can only assume that the first of the refinery closures resulting from a meager short- and mid-term outlook will be a fait accompli. The Petroplus Teesside refinery has been undergoing an economic shutdown—these shutdowns are all the rage in Europe since April.

There've been some rumors that a trader like Vitol might take over the site and use its tank farm to play the contango market. But, as I write, there's little cheer for the 150 workers at Teesside, or for their local member of Parliament, Frank Cook, who is trying to keep the refinery open.

Teesside was my first newspatch in BBC local radio. So when I came across that newspaper's coverage of Frank Cook's efforts, I e-mailed him offering to share information.

"My fight's been for the jobs," Cook said when he called me back. He'd recently met with Petroplus and asked about Blackstone—the private equity operation with the highly paid CEO, who, in 2008 announced that they'd finance Petroplus acquisitions in the US. Once it was clear that neither of us really knew of any potential white knight for the site, there was a pause in which one so wanted to say, "It's too bad because it should really be kept open." But what can one really say? It's hard to shake off an idea that rescuing the site would be like laying a picnic below an oncoming avalanche.

Plan B. All I could think of saying was that, in the post-Copenhagen summit world, there may be a premium on hydrocarbon sites that are close to mature offshore reservoirs, where carbon dioxide (CO2) capture projects can be implemented first. So, that's what I said.

And the more I thought about it, the more I reflected that Teesside could be just the place to develop a low-emissions refinery with carbon storage. Teesside has a well-developed hydrogen network. There are plans to pump biohydrogen into that network from the gasification of forest woodchips. There are well-developed plans by Progressive Energy and Centrica to build a coal-fired integrated gasification combined cycle unit with carbon sequestration in the region, as well as, that could mean off-peak hydrogen too.

Furthermore, many excellent offshoots of the Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) era remain in the northeast of England. Synetix, now owned by Johnson Matthey, is an example of expertise that could be brought to bear on the challenges of Life Cycle Greenhouse Gas Reduction legislation.

And carbon sequestration isn't all pie in the sky, either. The British Geological Survey estimates that the UK can store some 60–150 billion tons of CO2 in strata below the North Sea that most countries lack. They estimate that it could be a profitable business, generating £2–4 billion/yr for the UK by 2030 and could sustain between 30,000 and 60,000 jobs.

It would be an irony if carbon efficiency saved the mid-sized European refiner. After all, the Middle East may be on the right end of an equation that is moving millions of barrels a day of oil refining from the oil majors into the hands of national oil companies (NOCs). But, the Middle East is poor-to-disastrous at carbon efficiency, and almost as antagonistic to climate change mitigation as the American Petroleum Institute (API).

Institute behavior. I mention the latter, because, in the recent affair of the "Energy Citizens" memo and the so-called "Astroturf" rallies, this institute is entering more deeply into a field very foreign to the European understanding of what an institute is for. An exposé, published in the Financial Times, depicts this organization exhorting its members to bus their employees to "grassroots" demonstrations, coordinated by professional event organizers, in an attempt to influence—derail even—a US legislative response to climate change.

Funded partly by European companies like Siemens, BP and Shell, this institute is positioning itself a long way from the institutes that huddle around Parliament Square in London, such as IChemE, IMechE and the Energy Institute, or their counterpart at Rueil-Malmaison, the Institut Français du Pétrole.

"An institute is there to be studiously objective in exercising its members' professional expertise to establish the truth and the best way forward for the community. It should not lobby for narrow interests—it should lobby for its professional opinion, which should be derived from objective evidence and logical analysis," one IMechE Fellow told me. HP

The author

The author is HP's European Editor. He has been active as a reporter and conference chair in the European downstream industry since 1997, before which he was a feature writer and reporter for the UK broadsheet press and BBC radio. Mr. Wright lives in Sweden and is the founder of a local climate and sustainability initiative

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EUROPEAN AUTUM GAS CONFERENCE. EAGC.

www.theeagc.com.

Have you registered for the European Autumn Gas Conference? With just 6 weeks to go,

now is the ideal time to confirm your participation at this prestigious annual gas

industry event.

Delegates from 15 countries have already registered to attend the conference, taking

place in Bilbao, Basque Country, 24-25 November.

This year's event, with the theme 'Independence and Interconnection in European

Gas', will feature over 50 speakers from some of the world's major gas companies.

Delegates will learn about strategic issues affecting the future of the European gas

industry and enjoy unrivalled networking opportunities over two informative days.

Visit http://www.theeagc.com to register, see who else is attending and to view the

latest conference programme.

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2009

"For studies of the structure and function of the ribosome"

http://nobelprize.org/

Repsol discover Venezuelan gas

Published on 17/09/2009

Repsol informed Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez its latest gas find in the Gulf of Venezuela may be among the largest in the world.

Antonio Brufau, the chairman of Repsol, met with Chavez in Madrid to discuss activity and developments in the Gulf of Venezuela.

Repsol is the operator of the Pearl 1 well with a 50% stake in a consortium with Italian energy giant Eni. The reservoir is situated west of Venezuela in waters.

Repsol says the field could hold as much as 230,000 cubic metres of gas, or enough to satisfy the gas demand for Spain for more than five years.

Chevron finds major gas discovery in Bangladesh

Published on 24/09/2009

US major Chevron has made the biggest discovery in Bangladesh in at least a decade, AFP reported citing a government official.

Chevron has told authorities its Bibiyana gas field in Sylhet, northeastern Bangladesh, contains 6.6 trillion cubic feet (186 billion cubic meters) of gas, up from its original size of 3.4 trillion cubic feet, Muktadir Ali, chairman of state-owned Petrobangla said.

“Out of the amount, some 4.4 trillion cubic feet (tcf) is recoverable. It’s the biggest new gas finding in at least a decade,” said Ali, whose company shares production with Chevron.

A Chevron spokesman in Bangladesh said the company had submitted its latest reserve figure to Petrobangla recently but wouldn’t comment on exact figures.

Bangladesh has been facing an acute shortage of gas since 2008, resulting in production cuts in hundreds of factories.

“The new findings mean we can now scale up gas production within a year and our gas reserve would last a few more years than originally thought,” Ali said.

The country has proven recoverable gas reserves in the Bay of Bengal of more than 15 tcf, but some 60% of the amount has already been used.

Petrobangla had said gas reserves in the South Asian country will start declining from 2012 and dry up by 2014-15 at present consumption rates if there were no new discoveries.

The figure was released nearly a month after the country awarded three offshore exploration blocks to companies to search for oil and gas in the disputed waters of the Bay of Bengal.

The government granted two blocks to the US energy giant ConocoPhillips (COP) and another to Irish company Tullow despite ownership claims on some of the territories by neighboring India and Myanmar.

Experts have forecast major reserves of gas in the Bangladesh waters of the Bay of Bengal, after huge discoveries were made in the Myanmar and Indian areas of the bay.

Bangladesh needs urgently to locate new sources of energy as the government forecasts the nation’s current gas reserves will run out by 2014-15 at present consumption rates.

Furthermore, the reserve could encompass an area of 20 square kilometres and may be more than 230 metres thick.

Repsol says the discovery is the largest gas find in Venezuela and one of the largest in the world.

It follows the announcement of a substantial find off the coast of Brazil, which Repsol says may hold “tens of thousands” of barrels of oil equivalent.