Global Impact of North American Shale Gas Boom Forces Qatar to Shift Focus
The global impact of the US shale gas boom was in further evidence this week as Qatar Petroleum, along with its MOU partner, Centrica, made its first move into the North American E&P market in a $1 billion acquisition of Canadian assets from Suncor Energy. North America had been earmarked by Qatar as a guaranteed .. read more
Deals of the Week: Pengrowth Makes $1.9 billion Move for NAL Energy Corp
In what was the biggest E&P deal of the week, fellow Canadian intermediate producers Pengrowth Energy and NAL Energy, combined to form a company which will reportedly be worth $6.6 billion. The deal will see Pengrowth acquire NAL in an all-stock deal, that values NAL at an enterprise level of $1.9 billion including approximately $600 .. read more
Deals of the Week: Apache and Crescent Point Energy Play it Safe with Bolt-On Acquisitions
This week’s upstream M&A was dominated by two large bolt-on acquisitions by Apache and Crescent Point Energy, within North America. Although the deals lacked the sensationalism that comes from a company making a bold move into a new area, they both involved oil weighted producing assets with additional upside in areas that the companies have .. read more
Big Oil Shines Amidst Economic Gloom
The world’s largest oil and gas companies have been turning in impressive results in the third quarter despite the general economic gloom. The profit levels of the majors in particular offered a reminder of the heyday when oil was repeatedly trading at well above $100 per barrel and gas trading at sub $5 per mcf .. read more
BG–Cheniere LNG Deal a Gamechanger as Asian Gas Markets Open to US Producers
The entire gas producing world can see a major opportunity in Asia right now. Prices for imported gas have been soaring as the energy crisis persists in various countries across the continent. The United States, despite its huge shale gas reserves, has been unable to act on this opportunity because it does not currently have .. read more
Namibia – The Next Big Thing In West Africa?
West Africa has a mature, well developed oil and gas industry dating back over 50 years to the discovery of oil in the Niger Delta by Shell. Since then the region has never looked back; further finds followed across countries such as Cameroon, Ghana, Ivory Coast, and Mauritania, not to mention in OPEC heavyweights Nigeria .. read more
Deals of the Week: Dominion Petroleum Becomes Latest AIM Explorer to be Acquired
Dominion Petroleum became the latest small cap exploration company to be picked off this week by a larger peer. The share performance of pure exploration companies on AIM has been hit particularly hard by the drop in sentiment since April 2011 and even with a premium over the day prior price of 64%, investors who .. read more
Weekly Energy Round-Up: Mozambique Gas Block Hits 10TCF as Aminex Suffers Setback in Tanzania
Anadarko Optimistic for LNG Future in Mozambique The continuing exploration and appraisal campaign in the Offshore Area-1 block delivered further success following the completion of the Camarão well in the Rovuma Basin, Mozambique. This is the fifth major gas discovery to be drilled in the block, de-risking and adding to resources which operator Anadarko estimates .. read more
Who’s Who in South Sudan, Challenges Facing the New State
With its independence, the newly-formed Republic of South Sudan (South Sudan) became Africa’s sixth largest oil producer and Sub-Saharan Africa’s Second. They received 75 percent of the former state of Sudan’s oil production as their territory holds the majority of producing blocks and the lion’s share of the proved reserves. CNPC, Petronas and ONGC are .. read more
Latin America Leads Growth in Global Rig Activity
Oil and gas activity in Latin America is booming as 2011 gets into its stride according to a new analysis of rig count data by Evaluate Energy. Of the top 10 countries with the largest year-on-year increases in rig activity from April 2010-2011, Latin America boasts 5 of them: Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela .. read more