Oil Timeline
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Gulf Region oil company histories: http://www.virginia.edu/igpr/APAG/apagoilhistory.html
US Dept. of Energy Timeline: http://energy.gov/about/timeline1939-1950.htm
1815
Jul 9, The 1st US natural gas well was
discovered.
(MC, 7/9/02)
1855 Organic chemist Benjamin
Stillman laid the foundations for the Pennsylvania oil rush by his
discovery that petroleum could be distilled into lubricants and
kerosene for cooking and illumination. Suddenly there was a use for
the crude oil that seeped to the surface, annoying farmers by
ruining the land and polluting the water supply.
(HNPD, 10/4/98)
1859 Aug 27-28, The US oil
business was born in Titusville, Pa. Former army officer Colonel
Edwin L. Drake drilled the first oil well in Titusville, Pa.,
striking oil at 70 feet and setting off a wild scramble for wealth
similar to the California gold rush of 1849. The land belonged to
the Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company. Until that time, the company had
simply collected oil that seeped out of the ground. Drake's plan was
to produce it in large quantities for use in heating and
illumination. Overnight oil fields sprang up in Pennsylvania but
competition, disorganization and oversupply kept oil prices low. It
was not until John D. Rockefeller and the Standard Oil Company came
onto the scene in 1870 that the petroleum industry developed into a
vastly profitable, although much hated, monopoly.
(HFA, '96, p.36)(AP, 8/27/97)(HNPD, 10/4/98)(WSJ,
10/4/96, p.A9)(HNQ, 2//99)
1877 Oil was found in the Santa
Clara area of Los Angeles County. Chevron later traced its roots to
this discovery.
(SSFC, 4/13/08, p.C5)
1879 Sep 10, Pacific Coast Oil
Co. was founded in San Francisco by Lloyd Tevis, George Loomis and
Charles Felton. It eventually became ChevronTexaco.
(SFC, 10/20/04, p.C6)
1880 Nov 8, Edwin Drake
(b.1819), the man who drilled the first productive oil well (1859),
died penniless.
(www.todayinsci.com)
1880 The Pacific Coast Oil Co.
built its 1st refinery at Alameda Port.
(SFC, 10/20/04, p.C6)
1880 Oilmen in southern
California formed a company that grew to become Unocal.
(SFC, 4/5/05, p.C1)
1882 Jan 2, Because of
anti-monopoly laws, Standard Oil was organized as a trust. Attorney
Samuel Dodd of Standard Oil first had the idea of a trust. A board
of trustees was set up, and all the Standard properties were placed
in its hands.
(www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=51)
1882 The Standard Oil Trust
began and issued its first stock signed by John D. Rockefeller. The
trust was preceded by the Standard Oil Company. All pre-1920 stocks
were printed by the American Banknote Co. John D. Rockefeller by
this time had acquired 77 separate oil companies and controlled some
90 percent of the refinery and pipeline business in the country
through the Standard Oil Trust.
(Cont, 12/97, p.58)(HNQ, 1/23/00)
1885 Sep 5, The 1st gasoline
pump was delivered to a gasoline dealer in Ft. Wayne, Ind.
(MC, 9/5/01)
1890 The Royal Dutch Petroleum
Co. was founded.
(WSJ, 11/2/04, p.A14)
1899 The Los Angeles Oil
Exchange was established to handle the securities of oil companies
in southern California.
(SSFC, 1/25/04, p.I3)
1899 In California wildcatters
discovered oil along the Kern River in Bakersfield.
(SSFC, 4/13/08, p.C1)
1900 Standard Oil Co. acquired
Pacific Oil Co.
(SFC, 10/20/04, p.C6)
1901 English millionaire
William Knox D’Arcy arranged to pay £40,000 in cash and
company stock to the Shah of Tehran, Muzaffar al-Din, for the right
to drill for oil in western Persia. The deal included a pledge,
should commercial production begin, to pay the Persian government
16% of annual profits until 1961.
(ON, 8/08, p.1)
1902 The Pacific Coast Oil
refinery at Alameda Port, owned by Standard Oil, was replaced by the
Richmond refinery.
(SFC, 10/20/04, p.C6)
1902 The Texas Fuel Co. was
founded. It soon changed its name to the Texas Co. and eventually
became Texaco.
(SFC, 10/20/04, p.C6)
1904 Jan 19, A team of oil
drillers led by George Reynolds and funded by English millionaire
William Knox D’Arcy, struck oil at Chiah Surkh, Persia, but by March
the volume dwindled to an unprofitable trickle.
(ON, 8/08, p.2)
1904 Ida Tarbell (1857-1944),
journalist, published the 2-volume "History of the Standard Oil
Company." It revealed the illegal means used by John D. Rockefeller
to gain a monopoly and control oil prices and began as a series in
McClure's Magazine in 1902. This led to a federal investigation and
the 1911 order by the Supreme Court for the breakup of Standard Oil.
(WSJ, 12/15/98, p.B1)(WSJ, 9/13/99, p.R4)(HNQ,
6/22/00)
1906-1916 In Daly City, Ca., businesses made gas
out of oil at 731 Schwerin St.
(SFC, 3/2/09, p.B1)
1907 Britain and Russia carved
Iran into spheres of influence.
(WSJ, 4/2/07, p.A6)
1907 Royal Dutch combines its
oil operations with Shell Transport & Trading Co.
(WSJ, 11/2/04, p.A14)
1908 May 26, The first major
oil strike in the Middle East took place as engineers working for
British entrepreneur William Knox D'Arcy and led by George B.
Reynolds hit a gusher more than 1,100 feet below ground in
Masjid-i-Suleiman, Persia (Iran). The Concessions Syndicate Limited,
later the Anglo-Persian Oil Co., included the Burmah Oil Company of
Glasgow, Scotland, and the Persian oil project of William Knox
D'Arcy.
(WSJ, 9/13/99, p.R4)(WSJ, 4/2/07, p.A6)(AP,
5/26/08)(ON, 8/08, p.3)
1910 Production of Egyptian
crude oil was started in the Gulf of Suez.
(Econ, 7/17/10, SR p.9)
1911 May 15, The Supreme Court
ordered the dissolution of Standard Oil Company, ruling it was in
violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. The anti-trust suit led to
the dissolution of Standard Oil Co. of John D. Rockefeller. From its
remains 34 new companies were formed that included Exxon, Mobil,
Amoco, Chevron, Arco and Conoco. Rockefeller’s quarter interest in
the parent turned into a quarter interest in all the offspring.
(AP, 5/15/97)(WSJ, 5/8/98, p.W10)
1912 Standard Oil established
America’s first gas station in Cincinnati.
(F, 10/7/96, p.67)
1913 Dec 1, The first drive-in
automobile service station, built by Gulf Refining Co., opened in
Pittsburgh. [see Cincinnati in 1912]
(AP, 12/1/06)
1914 Venezuela’s 1st oil gusher
was drilled near Lake Maracibo.
(WSJ, 4/18/02, p.A9)
1914 The discovery of oil in
Venezuela prompted Royal Dutch/Shell to build an oil refinery on
Curacao.
(Econ, 6/19/04, p.72)
1923 The US established a
22-million-acre National Petroleum Reserve near Prudhoe Bay, Alaska.
(Econ, 12/11/04, p.28)(SFC, 1/22/05, p.A5)
1923 The Navajo Nation’s tribal
government was established following the discovery of oil on its
reservation so that the tribe could enter into leases with energy
companies.
(SFC, 11/14/11, p.D4)
1923 In South Dakota Gov.
William McMaster bought cut rate gas from a Chicago distributor and
began selling it at a state depot for 16 cents a gallon. Standard
Oil was charging 26.6 cents (equal to about $3.16 in 2008), which he
called “highway robbery.” Standard oil cut its price to 16.6 cents
and other states began to demand the same price. McMaster and
Standard eventually negotiated a price of 20 cents a gallon.
(WSJ, 3/31/08, p.B1)
1923 German researchers Franz
Fischer and Hans Tropsch, working at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute,
developed a process for converting coal to gas, which was then used
to make synthetic fuels.
(WSJ, 8/16/06,
p.A12)(www.encyclopedia.com/html/F/FischerT1.asp)
1926 Apr 7, In San Luis Obispo,
Ca., lightning sparked a 5-day oil fire killing 2 people. Over 6
million barrels of oil were burned. Final damages were estimated at
$15 million.
(SFC, 4/7/09, p.D8)
1927 Jun, Oil was discovered
near Kirkuk, Iraq, the 1st commercial find in any Arab country. BP
was a shareholder in the Iraqi Petroleum Company when it started
drilling Iraq's first oil well at Baba Gurgur just north of the
oil-rich province of Kirkuk.
(SSFC, 4/13/03, p.E1)(AP, 10/17/09)
1928 Mar 27, The U.S. accepted
the new oil-land laws enacted by Mexico, ending a long-standing
dispute between Mexico and the United States.
(HN, 3/27/98)
1928 Oct 25, An American group,
led by James A. Talbot of Richfield Oil, acquired control of the
American airplane business of Anthony H.G. Fokker.
(SFC, 10/24/03, p.E10)
1930 May 8, The Richfield Oil
Company tanker Richfield wrecked on the rocks off Point Reyes, Ca.,
with a cargo or 25,000 gallons of high-test gasoline.
(SFC, 5/6/05, p.F3)
1932 Jun 6, A US Federal gas
tax was enacted.
(MC, 6/6/02)
1932 Jul 9, John Paul Getty II,
US-British oil magnate, billionaire (Getty Oil), was born.
(MC, 7/9/02)
1932 May 31, Socal, formerly
Standard Oil of California, discovered oil in Bahrain. This was the
1st middle eastern oil discovered by an American firm.
(SFC, 10/20/04,
p.C6)(www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/199901/prelude.to.discovery.htm)
1932 Reza Shah revoked the
Anglo-Persian Co. oil monopoly.
(WSJ, 4/2/07, p.A6)
1933 May, Saudi Arabia gave
Standard Oil of California exclusive rights to explore for oil.
Socal formed the California Arabian Standard Oil Co. to drill for
oil in Saudi Arabia.
(www.chevron.com)(SFC, 10/20/04, p.C6)
1933 Petromex was formed during
the presidency of Abelardo L. Rodriguez.
(www.trinity.edu/jgonzal1/341f96g1.html)
1935 Jan 14, The oil pipeline
from Iraq to the Mediterranean went into use.
(MC, 1/14/02)
1936 Jan, Standard Oil of
California found some gas and oil at their 1st Saudi Arabia test
well, Damman No. 1.
(www.chevron.com)
1936 Mar 3, Standard Oil of
California struck oil at Damman No 7. Aramco made the first
commercial oil find in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. The English Arabist,
H. St. John Philby, orchestrated the Aramco concession in Saudi
Arabia.
(HN, 3/15/98)(WSJ, 3/8/99, p.A16)(SFEC, 6/27/99,
p.T3)(www.chevron.com)
1936 The Texas Co. joined
Standard Oil in Saudi Arabia. The joint venture eventually became
the Saudi oil giant Aramco.
(SFC, 10/20/04, p.C6)
1937 Jan 30, Mexico's Pres.
Lazaro Cardenas created the AGPN, "Administracion General del
Petroleo Nacional." The AGPN became a public organism that would
guide the Mexican oil industry. The creation of the AGPN constituted
the transformation of Petromex into a publicly driven firm.
(www.trinity.edu/jgonzal1/341f96g1.html)
1938 Mar 18, Mexican President
Lazaro Cardenas nationalized his country's petroleum reserves and
took control of foreign-owned oil facilities.
(WSJ, 3/20/96, p.A-1)(WSJ, 6/14/96, p.A15)(AP,
3/18/08)
1938 Mar 27, The U.S. stopped
buying Mexican silver in reprisal for the Mexican seizure of
American oil companies.
(HN, 3/27/98)
1938 Nov 24, Mexico seized oil
land adjacent to Texas.
(HN, 11/24/98)
1938 Hammond Chaffetz (d.2001
at 93) won a big price-fixing case against the oil industry. 30 oil
executives were convicted along with 16 major oil companies for
violating the Sherman Antitrust Act.
(SFC, 1/18/01, p.C2)
1938 Oil was found in Kuwait.
(SSFC, 4/13/03, p.E1)
1938 Inventor Earl Silas Tupper
left the Du Pont company in 1938 to form the Tupper Plastics
Company. The material called "Poly-T" used to create Tupperware was
developed from a black, putrid, rock-hard oil refining waste product
called polyethylene slag. He refined and purified the slag into a
higher quality plastic. He then turned his attention to replacing
the widely used glass and metal food containers with his waterproof
and airtight seal introduced in 1947.
(HNQ, 2/13/99)
1938-1992 Mobil Oil operated a fueling facility at
San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf during this period. In 2008 the
city sued Exxon-Mobil to force a cleanup of the site and pay damages
and attorney fees.
(WSJ, 6/20/08, p.B3)
1940 Jul, Avila Camacho was
elected president of Mexico. He agreed to compensate the
multi-nationals for their oil losses and a new market for Mexican
oil opened, i.e. the US.
(www.mexconnect.com)
1941 Dec 23, The 440-foot
tanker Montebello was sunk off the California coast near Cambria by
Japanese submarine I-21. The crew of 38 survived. In 1996 it was
found that the 4.1 million gallon cargo of crude oil appeared
intact.
(SFC, 11/30/96, p.A19)(SFC, 8/27/10, p.A12)
1942 Jul 22, Gasoline rationing
involving the use of coupons began along the Atlantic seaboard.
(AP, 7/22/99)
1943 Aug 1, Over 177 B-24
Liberator bombers attacked the German oil fields in Ploesti,
Romania, for a second time. Of 1,762 airmen on the mission, 532 were
killed, captured, interned or listed as missing in action. In 2007
Duane Schultz authored “Into the Fire: Ploesti” The Most Fateful
Mission of World War II.
(HN, 8/1/98)(WSJ, 11/13/07, p.D5)
1943 Two American oil firms
decided to expand their refinery in Bahrain and hired Bechtel.
Capacity was doubled to 65,000 barrels per day.
(SSFC, 5/4/03, p.A8)
1945 Aug 15, Gasoline and fuel
oil rationing ended in the United States.
(HN, 8/15/98)
1947 The first offshore oil rig
out of sight of land was set up by Kerr-McGee, Phillips Petroleum
and Stanolind Oil & Gas 10 miles off the Louisiana coast.
(WSJ, 9/13/99, p.R4)
1950 South Africa set up Sasol
as a state-owned company and authorized funds for the development of
a coal-to-liquids facility called Sasolburg.
(WSJ, 8/16/06, p.A12)
1950 An industrial explosion
exacerbated oil leakage into Newtown Creek, which separates Brooklyn
from Queens. The problem was ignored until the coast Guard
rediscovered it in 1978 and determined that oil was leaking from
nearby refineries and storage facilities. In 1990 ExxonMobil signed
a consent agreement with the state of NY to clean up the creek. In
2007 oil still floated on the water.
(Econ, 7/28/07, p.32)
1951 Mar 15, Persia
nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company.
(MC, 3/15/02)
1951 Jun 24, Persian army took
over nationalized oil installations.
(MC, 6/24/02)
1951 Sep 27, Persian troops
occupied oil refinery at Abadan.
(MC, 9/27/01)
1951 There was a struggle to
nationalize Iranian oil.
(SFEC, 4/13/97, BR p.4)
1951 Saudi Arabia put the
Ghawar oil field into production. It measured 20 miles wide and 175
miles long and was the largest oil field ever found.
(WSJ, 5/6/08, p.A15)
1952 Apr 23, Oil pipeline from
Kirkuk, Iraq, to Banias was completed.
(MC, 4/23/02)
1953 Mar, The US CIA’s Tehran
station reported that an Iranian general had approached the US
embassy for support in an army-led coup. Based on this information
Allen Dulles, director of the CIA, approved $1 million to be used to
help bring about the fall of Prime Minister Mossadegh. Pres.
Eisenhower gave the CIA the ok to overthrow the elected government
of PM Mohammad Mossadegh. Mossadegh had nationalized the
Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. after Britain refused to compromise and split
profits 50-50. In 2003 Stephen Kinzer authored "All the Shah's Men:
An American Coup and the Roots of the Middle East Terror."
(SFEC, 4/16/00, p.A18)(SSFC, 8/24/03, p.M6)
1953 Jul 14, The freighter
Jacob Luckenbach from SF rammed the Matson freighter Hawaiian Pilot
near Point Montara, 17 miles from the Golden Gate. The Luckenbach
sank while the Hawaiian Pilot limped to SF. Oil leaked from the
Luckenbach later killed numerous birds. In 2002 a $3.5 million plan
for cleanup was begun. A $19 million cleanup ended in Sep.
(Ind, 3/31/01, 5A)(SFC, 2/5/02, p.A15)(SFC,
5/8/02, p.A22)(SFC, 10/1/02, p.A13)
1953 Aug 19, Gen'l. Zahedi
ousted PM Mossadegh and became the Premier of Iran in a bloody coup
that left 300 dead. Britain and the US CIA under Allen Dulles
planned a secret mission to overthrow the government. PM Mossadeq
had sought to nationalize the Anglo-Persian Oil Co. The US
government made a formal apology for the coup in 2000. A 1954 CIA
description of the coup was made public in 2000. In 1979 Kermit
Roosevelt (d.2000) published “Countercoup: The Struggle for the
Control of Iran,” an account of his role in the coup.
(SFC, 11/20/53, p.A1)(SFC, 11/15/99, p.E6)(SFC,
5/29/97, p.A4)(WSJ, 3/20/00, p.A1)(SFEC, 4/16/00, p.A18)(SFEC,
6/11/00, p.D6)(WSJ, 4/2/07, p.A6)
1953 Italy founded ENIPower, a
state attempt to challenge the oil majors.
(Econ, 8/21/04, p.53)
1956 Mar 8, On the 2nd day of a
3-day regional conference of the Southern District Division of
Production, American Petroleum Institute, in San Antonio, Texas, M.
King Hubbert, a Shell geologist, predicted that US oil production
for the 48 states would peak (i.e., reach a maximum annual
extraction rate) in 1965 if the nation ultimately produced 150
billion barrels, and in 1969 if the nation ultimately produced 200
billion barrels. 1970 turned out to be the peak year, both for the
48 states and for the 50 states including Alaska.
(SSFC, 3/21/04, p.J3)(WSJ, 6/28/05, p.D8)
1956 In Nigeria Shell became
the first company to strike oil at Oloibiri (later Bayelsa state).
(AP, 6/1/06)
1957 Hondo Oil Co., led by
Robert O. Anderson (1917-2007), discovered the
quarter-billion-barrel Empire-Abo oilfield in southeast New Mexico.
(WSJ, 12/8/07, p.A7)
1959 China discovered huge oil
reserves in the northern basin of the Songhua and Liao Rivers. This
ended dependence on Soviet supplies. The area was named Daqing
(Great Happiness).
(WSJ, 3/1/00, p.A8)(Econ, 5/1/04, p.41)
1960 Sep 14, Iraq, Iran,
Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela formed OPEC. Fuad Rouhani
(1907-2004) of Iran served as its 1st secretary-general. In 1964 he
was succeeded by Abdul Rahman Bazzaz of Iraq.
(HN, 9/14/98)(WSJ, 7/28/03, p.A8)
1960 New discoveries of oil
peaked.
(WSJ, 6/28/05, p.D8)
1962 Abu Dhabi began exporting
the oil it just discovered off its shores.
(AP, 11/3/04)
1962 A gas fire in Algeria
called “The Devil’s Cigarette Lighter” had burned for 6 months until
it was put out by Texas firefighter Red Adair (1915-2004).
(Econ, 8/14/04, p.78)
1964-1992 Texaco dumped some 18 billion gallons of
toxic waste into open pits, estuaries and rivers and allegedly
polluted some 2.5 million acres of pristine rain forest. Texaco
merged with Chevron in 2001 and a suit over the toxic waste went to
trial in Ecuador in 2003.
(SFC, 5/1/03, A8)(SFC, 10/21/03, p.A3)
1965 Nov 9, A major power
failure hit the East Coast of the US. New York City experienced a
major blackout just after 5:30 PM. In the great Northeast blackout
several US states and parts of Canada were hit by a series of power
failures lasting up to 13 1/2 hours. Nine Northeastern states and
parts of Canada went dark in the worst power failure in history,
when a switch at a station near Niagara Falls failed.
(HFA, '96,p.42)(SFE,10/1/95, Z1, p.10)(AP,
11/9/97)(HN, 11/9/98)
1966 During a fishing retreat
Robert O. Anderson, head of Atlantic Refining Co., sealed a merger
deal with the head of Richfield Oil Corp., creating the
Atlantic-Richfield Co. (ARCO).
(WSJ, 12/8/07, p.A7)
1966 Oil discovered in Dubai
(UAR) provided cash for modernization projects such as the world’s
largest man-made harbor at Jebel Ali.
(Econ, 5/29/04, p.61)
1967 Dec 26, Atlantic Richfield
oil workers struck oil on Alaska’s North Slope at Prudhoe Bay.
(AH, 10/04, p.42)
1968 Mar 13, Atlantic Richfield
Company (ARCO) and Humble Oil and Refining Company (now Exxon
Company, U.S.A.) announced the discovery of oil on Alaska’s North
Slope (Prudhoe Bay). The oil companies soon began efforts to
construct a pipeline, but work was suspended due to environmental
concerns.
(AH, 2/05,
p.14)(www.alyeska-pipe.com/Pipelinefacts/Chronology.html)
1968 Oct 9, The new military
government of Peru seized the country's oil fields.
(AP, 10/9/08)
1969 Jul 24, Petroleos del Peru
(PETROPERU S.A.) was created (law No.17753) as a state-owned entity.
(http://tinyurl.com/554vke)
1969 Nov 5, Bolivia
nationalized its energy sector a 2nd time. Marcelo Quiroga Santa
Cruz, the Minister of Mines and Petroleum, nationalized the assets
and concessions of the Gulf Oil Company, under the administration of
General Alfredo Ovando Candia (1969-1970).
(http://countrystudies.us/bolivia/60.htm)(http://tinyurl.com/blqnw7)
1969 George B. Kaiser took over
Kaiser-Francis Oil Co., a small family oil firm founded in the 1940s
by his uncle and parents, Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany, who had
settled in Oklahoma. Operations at the time were limited to Kansas.
By 2004 the firm had over $600 million in revenues from oil and gas
production.
(WSJ, 7/23/04, p.A1)
1969 Atlantic Richfield Co.
(ARCO), led by Robert O. Anderson, merged with Sinclair Oil.
(WSJ, 12/8/07, p.A7)
1969 John Latsis (1910-2003),
Greek shipping magnate, established Petrola, the 1st export-oriented
oil refinery in Greece.
{Greece, Oil}
(SFC, 4/18/03, p.A24)
1970 Wang Jinxi (47), icon of
Chinese communism, died. Known as the “iron man,” he helped turn
Daqing into China’s biggest oil production center.
(Econ, 1/10/04, p.60)
1971 Jan 18, Two Standard Oil
tankers collided in the fog a quarter mile west of the Golden Gate
Bridge. The Arizona Standard ripped into the Oregon Standard and
caused the spill of some 1.9 million gallons of heavy bunker oil.
(SFEC, 2/23/96, Z1 p.5)
1971 Feb 3, OPEC decided to set
oil prices without consulting buyers.
(HN, 2/3/99)
1971 Feb 24, Algeria
nationalized French oil companies.
(www.nationsencyclopedia.com/Africa/Algeria-ENERGY-AND-POWER.html)
1971 Mar, Mexican fisherman
Rudesindo Cantarell took geologists of Petroleos Mexicanos to an
site where oil impacted his nets. The Cantarell field turned out to
be one of the largest offshore oil fields ever found. In 2006-2006
production fell 20% as the reserve declined.
(WSJ, 4/5/07, p.A1)
1971 Tesoro Corp. was listed on
the NYSE. Robert V. West Jr. (1921-2006), founder of the oil company
(1964), retired in San Antonio, Tx., in 1992.
(WSJ, 11/25/06, p.A6)
1971-1983 Stagflation, a period of rising
inflation, high oil prices and weak labor markets, marked the global
economy.
(Econ, 5/7/05,
p.13)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stagflation)
1972 Jun 1, Iraq nationalized
the Iraq Petroleum Company controlled by British, American, Dutch
and French oil companies.
(SFC, 9/24/02,
p.A10)(www.globalpolicy.org/security/oil/5873nation.htm)
1973 Mar 6, President Richard
Nixon imposed price controls on oil and gas.
(WSJ, 11/4/96, p.C1)(HN, 3/6/98)
1973 Oct 16, OPEC, the Arab
oil-producing nations, announced they would begin cutting back on
oil exports to Western nations and Japan. The next day, the five
Arab members of the OPEC committee were joined in Kuwait by the oil
ministers of Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Libya, and Syria. The result
was a total embargo that lasted until March 1974 and caused oil
prices to quadruple. During the OPEC oil embargo oil prices were
increased fourfold. Japan experienced its first oil crises with the
Middle East war. The US experienced a gasoline shortage.
(WSJ, 4/24/95, p.R-5) (WSJ, 6/19/96, Adv.
Supl)(www.harvardir.org/articles/1659/)(AP, 10/17/97)(WSJ, 7/28/03,
p.A8)(Jap. Enc., BLDM, p. 216)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R49)
1973 Oct 20, Arab oil-producing
nations banned oil exports to the United States, following the
outbreak of Arab-Israeli war.
(HN, 10/20/98)
1973 Nov 16, President Nixon
signed the Trans Alaska Pipeline Authorization Act into law. Oil
companies formed a consortium that gave British Petroleum 50.1%
control of the pipeline.
(www.alyeska-pipe.com/Pipelinefacts/Chronology.html)(AH, 10/04,
p.43)
1973 Nov 19, Saudi Arabia,
Libya and other Arab states proclaimed a total ban on oil exports to
the United States. Gasoline prices quadrupled from twenty-five cents
per gallon to over one dollar. The New York stock market took its
sharpest drop in 19 years.
(HN,
11/19/98)(www.bullnotbull.com/archive/market-01222006.html)
1973 Oil was discovered off the
coast of Louisiana at the underwater site called Eugene Island 330.
By 1989 production slowed to 4,000 barrels from a peak of 15,000 and
then suddenly increased and in 1999 produced 13,000 barrels a day.
Geologists were unable to account for the source of the oil.
(WSJ, 4/16/99, p.A1)
1973 The Arab oil embargo
doubled Brazil’s import bill with a year.
(Econ, 11/14/09, SR p.5)
1974 Jan 2, President Nixon
signed legislation requiring states to limit highway speeds to 55
mph. Federal speed limits were abolished in 1995. The legislation
was conceived by Claude Brinegar (1926-2009), Nixon’s secretary of
transportation.
(AP, 1/2/98)(http://tinyurl.com/45ywak)(SFC,
3/18/09, p.B6)
1974 Feb 15, US gasoline
stations threatened to close because of federal fuel policies.
(HN, 2/15/98)
1974 Mar 17 Arab oil ministers,
with the exception of Libya, announced the end the oil embargo on
the US.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_oil_crisis)
1974 Nov 29, Haroldson L. Hunt
(b.1889), Texas oil man and multi-millionaire, died.
(www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKhuntHL.htm)
1974 Dec 24, An oil spill
polluted 1,600 square miles of scenic Inland Sea in Japan.
(HN, 12/24/98)
1974 Mobil Oil gained control
of Montgomery Ward.
(SFC, 12/29/00, p.A12)
1974 The US economy cooled,
prices climbed with much wealth transferred to the Arabs for oil.
(TMC, 1994, p.1974)
1974 Oil was discovered in
Chad.
(WSJ, 6/24/03, p.A9)
1974 In France the economy
slowed following the Arab oil embargo and the policy of recruiting
foreign labor ended.
(NG, 5/93, p.110)
1974 In France the Int'l.
Energy Agency was formed in Paris to coordinate oil sharing. The US
led the formation of the IEA in order to stockpile oil and help
offset supply shortages.
(WSJ, 9/13/99, p.R4)(WSJ, 7/28/03, p.A8)
1974 Petronas, Malaysia’s
national oil firm, was given exclusive rights to the nation’s
hydrocarbons. Until this year all of Malaysia’s oil was pumped by
foreigners.
(Econ, 10/10/09, p.69)
1975 Mar 6, OPEC held a meeting
in Algiers attended for the first time by its members’ top leaders.
Here the Algiers Accord between Baghdad and Teheran put an end to
their border dispute and brought all Iranian help to the Kurdish
rebellion to a halt. The United States abruptly withdrew its support
for the Kurds and the rebellion collapsed. Many thousands of Kurdish
fighters and their families were forced to flee to Iran to escape
the pursuing Iraqi army.
(http://mondediplo.com/2002/10/06timeline)(SFC,
11/19/07, p.A11)
1975 Mar 27, The 1st pipe of
the Alaska oil pipeline was laid at Tonsina River.
(www.alyeska-pipe.com/Pipelinefacts/Chronology.html)
1975 Nov 3, Queen Elizabeth
formally began the operation of the UK's first North Sea oil
pipeline at a ceremony in Scotland.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/november/3/newsid_2538000/2538155.stm)
1975 Nov 5, The scrapped
passenger ship Queen Elizabeth rolled over and disgorged several
tons of oil in Hong Kong.
(www.cunard.co.uk)
1975 Dec 22, The Energy Policy
and Conservation Act (EPCA) made it policy for the US to establish a
reserve up to one billion barrels (159 million m³) of
petroleum. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve was created to provide a
guaranteed domestic supply. The oil was put into salt domes on the
Gulf Coast near the Texas-Louisiana border. The storage capacity was
700 million barrels.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Petroleum_Reserve)(SFC,
11/14/01, p.A15)
1975 Anthony Sampson authored
"The Seven Sisters: The Great Oil Companies and the World They
Made."
(SSFC, 2/8/04, p.A31)
1975 In Brazil the military
government launched a "pro-alcohol" program as a source of fuel in
response to the first oil crisis which hit in 1973. The country at
the time was importing 80% of its fuel and suffered in its balance
of payments.
{Brazil, oil}
(WSJ, 6/27/97, p.A9A)
1975 Saudi Arabia began
nationalizing foreign oil assets with full compensation.
(WSJ, 10/4/01, p.A1)
1976 Jun 6, Jean Paul Getty
(b.1892), US oil magnate, billionaire, died. He left $1.2 billion as
an endowment for a museum and art activities around the world.
(SFC, 7/15/96,
p.D2)(http://wapedia.mobi/en/J._Paul_Getty)
1976 Dec 21, The
Liberian-registered tanker Argo Merchant ran aground near Nantucket
Island, spilling millions of gallons of oil into the North Atlantic.
(AP, 12/21/97)
1976 The Alaska Permanent Fund
was created after oil was discovered on the North Slope. Residents
of over a year received an annual dividend from the fund.
(SFC, 9/27/02, p.A7)
1976 The world’s last major oil
field, yielding over a million barrels a day, was found in Mexico.
(WSJ, 6/28/05, p.D8)
1977 May 31, The trans-Alaska
oil pipeline was completed after three years of work.
(AP, 5/31/97)
1977 Jul 13, A 25-hour power
blackout hit the New York City area and looters rampaged in the city
after lightning struck upstate power lines. Some 9 million people
were affected.
(TMC, 1994, p.1977)(AP, 7/13/97)(SFC, 8/15/03,
p.A7)
1977 Jun 20, The 1st oil of the
Alaska pipeline began to flow south 799 miles from Prudhoe Bay to
the port of Valdez. [see Jul 28]
(www.alyeska-pipe.com/pipelinefacts.html)
1977 Jun 28, The 1st Prudhoe
Bay oil of the Alaska pipeline reached the port of Valdez as
construction of the Trans-Alaskan pipeline was completed.
(www.alyeska-pipe.com/pipelinefacts.html)
1978 Mar 16, The Amoco-Cadiz
oil tanker spilled a record 1.6 million barrels of crude oil off the
coast of France.
(WSJ, 9/13/99,
p.R4)(www.cedre.fr/uk/spill/amoco/amoco.htm)
1978 Nov 9, The US Congress
enacted a Gas Policy Act as part of broader legislation known as the
National Energy Act (NEA).
(http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/uscode/15/60/3301)
1978 Chevron discovered oil in
Sudan and sank wells north of Bentiu.
(SFC, 6/13/01, p.D3)(WSJ, 10/22/03,
p.A4)(www.hrw.org/reports/2003/sudan1103/10.htm)
1978-1979 The Iranian revolution took place and
oil prices doubled.
(WSJ, 7/28/03, p.A8)
1979 May 11, SF passed an
odd-even gas sales plan in response to the gasoline crises.
(SFC, 5/7/04, p.F2)
1979 Jun 3, Ixtoc 1, an
exploratory oil well in the Gulf of Mexico, blew and spilled an
estimated 3.3 million barrels of oil by March 1980.
(SFC, 11/20/02, p.A14)(Econ, 5/8/10, p.69)
1979 Jun 26-1979 Jun 28, OPEC
raised oil prices an average of 15%, effective July 1.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1970-1979_world_oil_market_chronology)
1979 Jul 19, Two supertankers
collided off Tobago and spilled 260,000 tons of oil. It was the
worst oil spill to date with 88 million gallons spewed.
(WSJ, 1/11/99,
p.R49)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oil_spills)
1979 Nov 1, The tanker Burmah
Agate, spilled 10.7 million gallons of oil off Galveston Bay, Texas,
in US's worst oil spill disaster.
(http://tinyurl.com/2jwxd3)
1979 Nov 12, President Carter
announced an immediate halt to all imports of Iranian oil and
freezes Iranian assets in US. Executive Order 12170 halted oil
imports from Iran.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_hostage_crisis)
1979 Nigeria outlawed gas
flaring, to be phased out over 5 years. The law was not enforced and
in 2008 some 20 billion cubic meters of year were flared, out of a
global total of 150 billion.
(Econ, 4/5/08, p.50)
1979 South Africa privatized
Sasol, a coal-to-liquids facility, and listed it on the Johannesburg
Stock Exchange.
(WSJ, 8/16/06, p.A12)
1980 Jan 7, Some 60,000 US oil
refinery workers went on nationwide strike for the 1st time in 11
years. No major disruptions were reported in the walkout.
(SFC, 1/7/05, p.F6)
1980 Mar 27, The Alexander L.
Kielland, a North Sea Norwegian floating oil field platform,
capsized during a storm killing 123 workers. It was owned by the
Stavanger Drilling Company of Norway and was on hire to the US
company Phillips Petroleum at the time of the disaster.
(AP,
3/27/02)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_L._Kielland_%28platform%29)
1980 Sep 22, Iraq invaded Iran
following border skirmishes and a dispute over the Shatt al-Arab
waterway. This marked the beginning of a war that would last eight
years. Iraq invaded Iran striking refineries and an oil-loading
terminal on Kharg Island. The Iraqis used the political instability
in Iran to try to capture long-disputed territory. They attacked
across the Shatt al Arab River, a trunk of the great
Tigris-Euphrates river system.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/middle_east/newsid_806000/806268.stm
(AP, 9/22/97)(NG, 5/88, p.653,663)
1980 Dec, In Baiji, Iraq, Sadam
Hussein began construction of an oil refinery under the Jabal Makhul
mountains.
(SFC, 5/5/03, p.A12)
1980 French oil giant Total SA
leased an oil patch in southern Sudan the size of Pennsylvania. In
2005 the lease came under dispute as southern Sudan gained limited
autonomy and signed an oil deal with London-based White Nile Ltd.
(WSJ, 6/19/06,
p.A1)(www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article20234)
1981 Mexican crude oil peaked
at $38.50 a barrel.
(Econ, 3/6/04, p.77)
1982 May 2, A project to
produce oil from shale rock in Colorado's Roan Plateau collapsed due
to technical hurdles and falling oil prices.
(USAT, 3/5/04, p.6A)
1982 Mexico’s oil market
collapsed.
(WSJ, 8/22/97, p.A10)
1983 Fred J. Cook (1911-2003)
authored "The Great Energy Scam," an examination of the oil
companies.
(SFC, 5/5/03, p.B4)
1983 Trading began in NYC on
future delivery of light crude oil.
(SFC, 8/10/04, p.A1)
1984 Mar 19, The SS Mobil Oil
spilled 200,000 gallons of oil into the Columbia River near
Longview.
(http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/96596_timeline21.shtml)
1984 Jul 30, The tanker Alvenus
at Cameron, La., spilled 2.8 million gallons of oil.
(MC, 7/30/02)
1984 Aug 18, Triangle Oil Corp,
above-ground storage tank at Jacksonville Fla, spilled 2.5 m gallons
of oil and burned after lightning sparked a fire.
(MC, 8/18/02)
1984 Jan 6, Texaco offered $125
per share for Getty oil stock superceding the Pennzoil offer of
$112.50 per share. It became the biggest merger on record.
(SFC, 1/8/95, p.7)
1984 Mar 19, Mobil oil tanker
spilled 200,000 gallons into the Columbia River.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1984 Jul 30, The tanker Alvenus
at Cameron, La., spilled 2.8 million gallons of oil.
(MC, 7/30/02)
1984 Aug 18, Triangle Oil Corp,
above-ground storage tank at Jacksonville Fla, spilled 2.5 m gallons
of oil and burned after lightning sparked a fire.
(MC, 8/18/02)
1984 Sep 17, Oil heir Gordon P.
Getty, with a fortune of $4.1 billion dollars, was named the richest
person in the US. There were a dozen billionaires in the US at the
time.
(MC, 9/17/01)
1984 Oct 31, The oil tanker
Puerto Rican exploded in the Gulf of the Farallones off the coast of
San Francisco spilling 2 million gallons of oil as the ship caught
fire. A bomb was believed to have caused the blast 10 miles west of
the Golden Gate Bridge. The inferno left one man dead. On Nov 18 a
360-foot remnant of the 600-foot tanker was towed to San Francisco
Bay. There was no leakage of some 2.7 million gallons of lube oil in
the hold.
(http://216.7.174.234/sandcrabs/oil.asp)(SSFC,
11/15/09, DB p.46)
1984 Standard Oil of California
(Socal), under George M. Keller (1923-2008), purchased Gulf Oil and
its extensive operations in Nigeria and changed its name to Chevron.
(SFC, 11/19/98, p.A8)(SFC, 10/20/04, p.C6)(SFC,
10/18/08, p.B1)
1984 William Flanagan, head of
Arriba Ltd., signed a deal with Mexico’s Petroleum Worker’s Union
for at least 6 million barrels of slop oil. The union failed to
deliver and Flanagan won a suit in 1986. The judgement ballooned to
nearly $250 million in 2002 with still no settlement.
(WSJ, 2/20/02, p.A1)
1985 Aug 15, Iraqis staged an
air raid on Iran’s Kharg oil-island.
(MC, 8/15/02)
1985 California’s oil
production peaked at 423.9 million barrels.
(SSFC, 4/13/08, p.C5)
1986 Jun, In Mexico Gustavo
Petricioli Iturbe was named treasury secretary by Pres. Miguel de la
Madrid. The foreign debt was near $100 billion due to the collapse
of oil prices earlier in the decade.
(SFEC, 10/11/98, p.D10)
1986 Dr. Len Srnka patented an
electromagnetic method for locating oil deposits on behalf of Exxon
Oil Corp.
(WSJ, 8/17/04, p.A6)
1987 Mar 13, The president of
Ecuador announced his country had suspended payments on its foreign
debt after earthquakes killed hundreds of people and ruptured the
country's main oil pipeline. The quake destroyed nearly 25 miles of
oil pipeline.
(AP, 3/13/97)(SFC, 5/1/03, A8)
1987 Oct 19, U.S. Navy warships
disabled the 1st of 3 Iranian oil platforms in the Persian Gulf in
retaliation for an Iranian missile attack on a U.S.-flagged tanker
off Kuwait. [see Apr 18, 1988]
(AP, 10/19/97)(HN, 10/19/02)
1987 Oct 19, Black Monday, the
stock market crashed as the Dow Jones Industrial Average, amid
frenzied selling, plunged 508 points, 22.6%,-- its biggest-ever
one-day decline. The crash was preceded by legislation to block tax
deductions for debt incurred in corporate takeovers which were
fueling the market. It was also preceded by plunges in other
international markets. Hong Kong suffered a 46% decline in October.
(V.D.-H.K.p.253)(TMC, 1994, p.1987)(AP,
10/19/97)(SFC,10/27/97, p.B2)
1987 T. Boone Pickens, head of
Mesa Petroleum, published his autobiography “Boone.” In 2000 it was
updated under the title “The Luckiest Guy in the World.”
(WSJ, 9/10/08, p.A13)
1987 In Ecuador members of the
Tagaeri tribe killed Spanish Bishop Alejandro Lavaca and Colombian
nun Ines Arango with poison-tipped spears. The 2 had been dropped in
by an oil company helicopter to bring the word of god and discuss
the arrival of oil workers.
(SFC, 9/3/04, p.W2)
1987 Kuwait’s sovereign wealth
fund bought over 20% of British Petroleum, but the deal was
opposed by PM Margaret Thatcher. This forced the Kuwaitis so sell
over half their stake.
(Econ, 1/19/08, p.80)
1988 Jan 2, An Ashland Oil
Company tank collapsed at Floreffe near Elizabeth, Penn., sending
more than 700,000 gallons of diesel oil into the Monongahela River.
(AP, 1/2/98)
1988 Jan 4, Drinking water
began to dry up in Pittsburgh suburbs because of a massive diesel
oil spill two days earlier that fouled the Monongahela and Ohio
rivers.
(AP, 1/4/98)
1988 Apr 18, The United States
destroyed two more Iraqi oil platforms, after a mine in the Persian
Gulf injured 10 crewmen aboard a U.S. frigate. In 2003 a World Court
in a 14-2 decision ruled the US was wrong but doesn't need to pay
damages.
(AP, 11/7/03)
1988 Apr 23, A drain valve was
left open at the Shell Marsh in Martinez, Ca., and 10,000 barrels of
oil (432,000 gallons) poured in the marsh adjoining Peyton Slough.
Shell cleaned the mess and paid $20 million in penalties. The marsh
was purchased with part of the funds and turned into a regional
park.
(SFC, 4/21/98, p.A19-20)(SFC, 4/30/04, p.A17)
1988 May 4, A spectacular
explosion occurred at the Shell oil refinery in Norco, La., on the
Mississippi river just north of New Orleans. 8 people were killed
and over 40 injured.
(http://www.shellfacts.com/Chatterjee_review.html)
1988 Jul 6, A series of
explosions and fires destroyed the Piper Alpha North Sea oil
drilling platform. 167 North Sea oil workers were killed.
(AP, 7/6/98)(SFC, 8/9/04, p.B6)
1988 Basin Electric Power
Cooperative of Bismarck paid the US government $85 million for the
Dakota Gasification Co. of Beulah, which had begun as a $1.5 billion
public-private venture under the Carter administration to turn
reduce US dependence on Middle East oil.
(SFC, 10/15/03, p.A4)
1988 A memo from a Camp
Lejeune, NC, lawyer, Staff Judge Advocate A.P. Tokarz, to the base's
assistant facilities manager said the Marine Corps had known for
years that a fuel farm, built in 1941, was leaking 1,500 gallons a
month and had done nothing to stop it. "It's an indefensible waste
of money and a continuing potential threat to human health and the
environment.”
(AP, 2/18/10)
1989 A tanker ran aground near
Claymont, Del., spilling 300,000 gallons of heating oil into the
Delaware River.
(AP, 11/28/04)
1990 Jul 24, Iraq, accusing
Kuwait of conspiring to harm its economy through oil overproduction,
massed tens of thousands of troops and hundreds of tanks along the
Iraqi-Kuwaiti border. US warships in Persian Gulf were placed on
alert.
(AP, 7/24/00)(MC, 7/24/02)
1990 Aug 2, Iraq invaded
Kuwait, seizing control of the oil-rich emirate. The day came to be
known in Kuwait as “Black Thursday.” 330 Kuwaitis died during the
occupation and war. Sadam Hussein, leader of Iraq, took over Kuwait.
G. Bush led an inter-national coalition for sanctions and a demand
for withdrawal. The Iraqis were later driven out in Operation Desert
Storm.
(SFC, 9/4/96, p.A8)(TMC, 1994, p.1990)(AP,
8/2/97)(SFEC, 7/30/00, p.C18)
1990 Aug 7, President Bush
ordered U.S. troops and warplanes to Saudi Arabia to guard the
oil-rich desert kingdom against a possible invasion by Iraq. The US
Persian Gulf War began. Operation Desert Shield ended Feb 28, 1991.
It cost $8.1 billion and left 383 US casualties with 458 wounded.
(AP, 8/7/99)(WSJ, 9/22/99, p.A8)(MC, 8/7/02)
1990 Aug 18, A US frigate fired
warning shots across the bow of an Iraqi oil tanker in the Gulf of
Oman—apparently the first shots fired by the United States in the
Persian Gulf crisis.
(AP, 8/18/00)
1990 Sep 23, Iraq threatened to
destroy Middle East oil fields and attack Israel if other nations
tried to force it from Kuwait.
(AP, 9/23/00)
1990 Oct 3, Iraqi President
Saddam Hussein made his first known visit to Kuwait since his
country seized control of the oil-rich emirate.
(AP, 10/3/00)
1990 Oct 18, Iraq offered to
sell its oil to anyone—including the United States—for $21 a barrel,
the same price level that preceded the invasion of Kuwait.
(AP, 10/18/00)
1990 Dec 19, Iraq urged its
people to stockpile oil to avoid shortages should war break out, and
Saddam Hussein declared he was “ready to crush any attack.”
(AP, 12/19/00)
1990 The US Oil Pollution Act
(OPA) was passed. It required new tankers sailing through US waters
to have double hulls and that old tankers be fitted with double
hulls by 2015. It capped liability for economic damages at $75
million.
(SFC, 5/27/96, p.A11,15)(Econ, 5/22/10, p.68)
1990 Before the invasion of
Kuwait, Iraq was producing about 3.5 million barrels of oil per day.
(WSJ, 5/21/96, p.A-12)
1991 Jan 17, Crude oil futures
fell $10.56 following the release of strategic US crude oil
stockpiles coinciding with the start of the Persian Gulf War.
(WSJ, 8/23/08, p.B6)
1991 Jan 23, Iraqi forces in
Kuwait deliberately created a huge oil spill in the Persian Gulf.
(SFC, 2/24/98, p.A9)
1991 Jan 25, During the Gulf
War Iraq sabotaged Kuwait’s main supertanker loading pier, dumping
an estimated 460 million gallons of crude oil into the Persian Gulf.
Missiles fired from western Iraq struck in the Tel Aviv and Haifa
areas, killing one Israeli and injuring more than 40 others.
(AP, 1/25/01)(SFC, 11/20/02, p.A14)
1991 Mar 7, Iraq continued to
explode oil fields in Kuwait.
(www.parstimes.com/spaceimages/fires-kuwait-2.jpg)
1991 Aug 7, The five permanent
members of the UN Security Council agreed to authorize Iraq to sell
as much as $1.6 billion in oil over six months to pay for food,
humanitarian supplies and war reparations; however, Baghdad rejected
the resolution.
(AP, 8/7/01)
1991 Aug 15, The UN Security
Council, by a vote of 13-to-one, authorized Iraq to export
one-point-six billion dollars’ worth of oil in a tightly controlled
sale to pay for desperately needed food and medicine.
(AP, 8/15/01)
1991 Mexico shut down an oil
refinery in Mexico City. It was said to have belched out 7$ of the
city’s air pollution.
(Econ, 7/31/10, p.27)
1991-1993 Ecuador’s government overestimated
domestic crude oil demand and to boost its share of production from
Texaco operated wells. It then sold the oil on int’l. markets
depriving Texaco of profits. In 2011 Chevron, which acquired Texaco
in 2001, won a $96 million judgement against Ecuador.
(SFC, 9/1/11, p.D3)
1992 Daniel Yergin authored
“The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power.”
(SSFC, 4/13/03, p.E6)
1992 Texaco quit drilling in
Ecuador after nearly 30 years. It left behind a toxic dump of some
1.8 million gallons of spilled crude oil.
(SFC, 5/1/03, A8)
1993 Jun 16, The UN authorized
an arms and oil embargo against Haiti.
(www.un.org/News/ossg/haiti.htm)
1993 Shell Oil stopped pumping
oil in the Ogoni Province, but continued to use pipelines that pass
through it. The Ogonis are a 500,000-strong community in
southwestern Nigeria. They maintain that oil production has polluted
their land, destroying their livelihoods of fishing and farming.
Shell canceled several community development projects. It had
earlier agreed to spend $29 million per year on such projects. In
2011 a UN report said it could take 30 years and at least $1 billion
to rid the poisoned mangroves of a black carpet of crude.
(WSJ, 10/14/95, p.A-11)(WSJ, 11/15/95,
p.A-1)(WSJ, 12/15/95, p.A-16)(Econ, 8/13/11, p.46)
1994 Aug 11, A US federal jury
awarded $286.8 million to some 10,000 commercial fishermen for
losses as a result of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska.
(AP, 8/11/99)
1994 Mar 13, The oil tanker
Nassia collided with an empty cargo ship at the entrance of the
Bosporus. 27-29 people lost their lives. 9,000 tons of petroleum
spilled and 20,000 tons burned for four days long affecting the
marine environment.
(www.bosphorusstrait.com/the-bosporus-strait/incidents/)(AP,
4/27/11)
1995 Mar 1, The Bosnian Serb
government received a $60 million mortgage for the oil refinery in
Srpski Brod from a Liberian-owned company, Orbal Marketing Service
Ltd. [see Jan 1995] Delivery was made to the Bosnian Serbs in late
March of a supposed nuclear device of red mercury at the Gradiska
border. It was discovered to be a swindle.
(SFEC,12/14/97, p.A25)
1995 Mar 15, President Clinton
issued an executive order formally blocking a $1 billion contract
between Conoco and Iran to develop a huge offshore oil tract in the
Persian Gulf.
(AP, 3/15/00)
1995 Apr 14, The UN Security
Council (Resolution 986) gave permission to Iraq, still under
sanctions for its invasion of Kuwait, to sell $2 billion dollars'
worth of oil to buy food, medicine and other supplies. Iraq later
rejected the offer.
(AP, 4/14/00)(SFC, 9/24/02, p.A12)
1995 Oct 20, Tiger guerrillas
blew up two oil depots in Colombo, Sri Lanka.
(SFC, 7/24/96, p.A9)
1995 US lawmakers passed a
royalty relief bill to spur production in the Gulf of Mexico as oil
costs averaged $18.43 per barrel.
(SFC, 2/15/06, p.C3)
1995 Iran awarded a $1 billion
contract to the American oil firm Conoco, but US Pres. Clinton
scuttled the deal and subsequently banned US companies from most
forms of trading with Iran. He accused Tehran of continued support
for international terrorism. Iran then awarded the oil contract to
the French firm Total.
(SFC, 4/14/96, p.A14)
1995 Activists forced a
reversal of Royal Dutch Shell plans to sink the Brent Spar oil
platform.
(WSJ, 11/2/04, p.A14)
1995 A strong wind pushed a
tanker away from a refinery dock in West Deptford, N.J., snapping a
fuel line that spilled 40,000 gallons into the Delaware River.
(AP, 11/28/04)
1995 Equatorial Guinea's Zafiro
field, located northwest of Bioko Island, was discovered by
ExxonMobil and Ocean Energy (bought by Devon Energy in 2003). It
contains the majority of the country's oil reserves.
(www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/eqguinea.html)
1995-1998 The Yadana pipeline and offshore natural
gas production facilities were built by a consortium of Total,
Unocal and Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise.
(SFC, 4/29/08, p.D1)
1996 Feb 15, The Sea Empress
grounded off of Wales and spilled 18 million gallons (72,000 tons)
of oil.
(SFC, 11/20/02,
p.A14)(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/uk_news/55393.stm)
1996 May 16, UN and Iraqi
officials reached a tentative agreement to resume oil sales of $4
billion a year to buy food and medicine. The oil for food program
mandated that 13% of the UN resources go to northern Kurdish areas.
In 2004 it was reported that illicit trade agreements with neighbors
netted Iraq nearly $11 billion between 1990 and 2003. In 2004 the
estimate for illicit trade was raised to $21.3 billion. In 2008
Michael Soussan authored “Backstabbing for Beginners: My Crash
Course in International Diplomacy,” in which he tells of his 3-year
close-up experience in the UN’s Oil for Food program beginning in
1997.
(SFC, 5/16/96, p.A-9)(SFC, 9/3/01, p.A9)(SFC,
10/9/04, p.A15)(SFC, 11/16/04, p.A9)(WSJ, 11/14/08, p.A15)
1996 May 18, A 40 year
agreement was signed between Royal Dutch/Shell and Perupetro, Peru’s
state oil company. Royal Dutch will spend $2.7 bil to develop a
natural gas field.
(SFC, 5/18/96, p.D-6)
1996 Aug 23, It was reported
that British Petroleum signed a 3-year agreement with the defense
ministry of Columbia for $60 mil. for a battalion of soldiers to
protect expansion and construction of new drilling sites.
(SFC, 8/23/96, p.A20)
1996 Nov, The Canadian firm
Hurricane Hydrocarbons Ltd. (later known as PetroKazakhstan Inc. of
Calgary) won the bidding in the country’s first oilfield
privatization. For $120 million it acquired a field producing 50,000
barrels a day with reserves of 340 million barrels. The deal was
accompanied by an array of social obligations. It later faced
problems with the Kazakh government over fuel pricing and
environmental rules.
(WSJ, 11/18/97, p.A1)(WSJ, 6/1/05, p.A11)
1996 A West Coast power
blackout affected 4 million people.
(SFC, 8/15/03, p.A7)
1996 California started using
its own unique fuel blends to combat air pollution. No other state
adopted the standards. A premium for the special blends resulted and
became larger as the number of state refineries shrunk.
(SFC, 9/24/09, p.A12)
1996 Bolivia passed a
hydrocarbons law that paved the way for privatizations.
(Econ, 9/13/03, p.34)
1996 The Argentine oil firm
Compania General de Combustibles (CGC) received a contract to drill
for oil Sarayaca, Ecuador, home to some 2,000 Quichua Indians.
Natives fended off oil drilling well into 2004.
(SFC, 8/13/04, p.W1)
1997 A US federal judge allowed
a lawsuit to proceed against Unocal, accusing the oil company of
complicity in human rights abuses on the Yadana project in Myanmar.
The decision opened the door to suing US corporations on their
behaviour pverseas.
(SFC, 4/29/08, p.D1)
1998 Mar, Saudi Arabia,
Venezuela and Mexico began talking to reduce oil output. They
pledged to take 2-3% of the world’s oil production off the market in
what came to be called the Riyadh Pact.
(WSJ, 6/23/98, p.A1)
1998 Aug 14, In China flooding
in Daqing broke a levee protecting the nation’s largest oil field.
155 0f 20,000 wells were closed as 200,000 people fought the flood.
(SFC, 8/15/98, p.A10)
1998 May 29, Two activists were
killed by the Nigerian Mobile Police on Chevron’s Parabe oil
production platform. The police were flown in on Chevron helicopters
following 4 days of protests. In 2009 a federal judge upheld a San
Francisco jury’s verdict that cleared Chevron of wrongdoing in the
shootings.
(SFC, 11/19/98, p.A8,9)(SFC, 3/5/09, p.C1)
1998 Texaco completed a $40
million oil cleanup in Ecuador. The Ecuadoran government,
PetroEcuador and 5 municipalities released the company from all
liabilities and obligations related to its oil operations. A
class-action suit against ChevronTexaco opened in 2003.
(SFC, 10/21/03, p.A3)(Econ, 5/16/09, p.42)
1999 Dec 12, The Erika, a
Maltese registered oil tanker, broke in two during a storm off the
coast of Brest, France, with 8 million gallons of diesel oil. Half
the ship was towed to deeper waters and 3 million gallons were
spilled. In 2008 a French court found Total SA guilty of maritime
pollution and fined it the maximum penalty of $560,000. It also
ordered Total and three other defendants to pay total damages of
$285 million.
(SFC, 12/13/99, p.A13)(WSJ, 12/13/99, p.A1)(SFC,
11/20/02, p.A14)(AP, 1/16/08)
1999 British North Sea oil
production peaked at 4.5 million barrels per day with Britain as the
world’s 6th biggest producer of oil and gas. By 2007 Britain dropped
to 12th biggest.
(Econ, 7/14/07, p.59)(Econ, 3/8/08, p.65)
2000 Feb 5, An oil pipeline
began leaking and released some 25,000 gallons below the surface of
a frozen pond in the John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge in
southwest Philadelphia.
(SFC, 2/7/00, p.A10)
2000 Mar 28, Nine of 11 OPEC
nations voted to raise oil production by a total of 1.45 million
barrels a day.
(SFC, 3/29/00, p.A1)
2000 May 15, A consortium of
Western oil companies found a large oil reserve in the northern
Caspian Sea off the coast of Kazakhstan. The 480-sq. mile Kashagan
field was estimated at 8 to 50 billion barrels of oil. In 2007 it
was reported that the Kashagan field contained some 12-billion
barrels of oil.
(SFC, 5/16/00, p.A14)(Econ, 11/17/07, p.43)
2000 Sep 27, OPEC’s top leaders
gathered in Caracas for a 2-day meeting. OPEC speakers called on
Western countries to reduce taxes levied on oil to ease prices.
(SFC, 9/27/00, p.A1)(SFC, 9/28/00, p.A1)
2000 Oct 13, Chevron announced
plans to acquire Texaco in a deal valued at $37 billion. Chevron and
Texaco agreed to merge on Oct 15 for $35 billion in stock and $7.5
billion in debt.
(SFC, 10/14/00, p.A1)(SFC, 10/16/00, p.A1)
2001 Mar 26, In Kazakhstan the
Caspian Pipeline Consortium began pumping crude oil from the Tengiz
field to Novorossiysk, Russia’s Black Sea port. The 990-mile
Tengiz-Novorossiysk oil pipeline was owned by Kazakhstan, Russia,
Oman and 8 oil companies. Chevron held 15% in the 12-partner
consortium.
(WSJ, 2/26/01, p.A14)(SFC, 3/27/01, p.C4)
2001 cApr 5, Presidents Robert
Kocharian of Armenia and Heydar Aliyev of Azerbaijan met in Key
West, Fla., for negotiations on Nagorno-Karabakh. A new $2.7 billion
oil pipeline from Baku to Ceyhan, Turkey, was expected to pass just
north of the area. Halliburton Co., was a finalist in engineering
bids for the line and Vice President Chaney was the former chief
executive of Halliburton. National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice
formerly served on the Board of Directors for Chevron, a player in
the pipeline bid.
(SFC, 4/4/01, p.A10)
2001 Jul 17, In Moscow Russia
and China agreed to plan a $1.7 billion pipeline for oil from
Siberia to northeastern China.
(SFC, 7/18/01, p.C4)
2001 Aug 20, Four oil companies
(Chevron, Shell, Texaco and Unocal) agreed to clean up MTBE
contamination in California caused by leaking storage tanks. 4
others (ARCO, Exxon, Mobil and Tosco) declined to settle the suit.
(SFC, 8/21/01, p.A3)
2001 Sep 7, The Utah Attorney
General approved the merger of Chevron and Texaco.
(SFC, 10/20/04,
p.C6)(http://attorneygeneral.utah.gov/PrRel/prsept72001.htm)
2001 Dec, Oscar Wyatt (81),
chairman of Coastal Corp., agreed to a surcharge of about $200,000
to be paid to bank account in Jordan controlled by officials of
Iraq’s State Oil Marketing Organization. This was in violation of
the UN’s oil-for-food program. Wyatt was arrested in 2005 at his
home in Houston. In 2007 Wyatt was sentenced to over a year in jail
after admitting approval of the surcharge.
(SFC, 10/22/05, p.A3)(WSJ, 11/28/07, p.B10)
2001-2003 Cuba ran up an oil debt to Venezuela of
some $752 million.
(WSJ, 2/2/04, p.A1)
2002 Feb, Royal Dutch/Shell
executives were advised that there were huge shortfalls in proven
oil and natural-gas reserves. The information was not made public
for 2 years.
(SFC, 2/09/04, p.A1)
2002 Jul 19, In Abiteye,
Nigeria, unarmed women occupying at least four ChevronTexaco
facilities took two hostages in a bid to meet with oil executives.
(AP, 7/20/02)
2002 Aug 5, Shell Oil agreed to
pay $28 million to the Tahoe Public Utility District to help cleanup
contamination from the gasoline additive MTBE.
(SFC, 8/5/02, p.A17)
2002 The US Geological Survey
estimated there may be 1.9 trillion cubic feet of gas in the
Marcellus Shale of Pennsylvania. In 2008 Prof. Terry Engelder of
Pennsylvania State Univ. estimated the amount at 168 trillion cubic
feet. US consumption in 2007 was 23.05 trillion.
(WSJ, 4/2/08, p.A2)
2002 World oil production
reached nearly 67 million barrels per day.
(SSFC, 3/21/04, p.J3)
2002 China announced a $5.25
billion East-West natural gas project. A Western consortium backed
out in 2004.
(WSJ, 8/4/04, p.A11)
2003 Jan 17, Iraq and Russia
signed three oil agreements for exploration and development of oil
fields in southern and western Iraq.
(AP, 1/17/03)
2003 Jan 29, Belgium said oil
leaking from the sunken cargo ship Tricolor (Dec 14) is washing up
on the Belgian coastline, damaging wildlife and beaches.
(AP, 1/30/03)
2003 Feb 8, Tens of thousands
of Venezuelans marched in support of 9,000 oil workers fired for
leading a two-month strike against President Hugo Chavez that
battered the economy of this oil-dependent nation.
(AP, 2/8/03)
2003 Feb 15, Nigerian oil
workers launched an indefinite strike that could shut down crude
exports in the world’s 6th largest oil exporter.
(AP, 2/15/03)
2003 Feb 21, An explosion
rocked a Mobil oil refinery on the edge of Staten Island and 2
workers were killed.
(AP, 2/21/03)
2003 Feb 21, It was reported
that Iraq had recently begun shipping large quantities of oil
through its Khor al Amaya port.
(WSJ, 2/21/03, p.A1)
2003 Feb 24, Dan Rather
interviewed Saddam Hussein via satellite and Hussein proposed a live
debate with Pres. Bush. Hussein said he would rather die than leave
his country and that he would not destroy its wealth by setting fire
to its oil wells in the event of a U.S.-led invasion.
(SFC, 2/25/03, A10)(AP, 2/26/03)
2003 Feb 25, In Nigeria cars
and buses ground to a halt in Africa’s leading oil-producing nation,
gripped by its worst fuel shortage since military rule ended four
years ago. Nigeria, with a population of 120 million people,
consumes 300,000 barrels of crude oil daily. Panic buying followed a
recent strike.
(AP, 2/25/03)
2003 Feb 26, In Guatemala
striking teachers seized a pumping station on the nation’s only oil
pipeline to press their demands for a hefty wage increase and better
schools. About 60,000 of the country’s 80,000 teachers are striking
to demand a near-doubling of salaries that now range from about $190
to $390 per month. They also seek improved school buildings, more
books and better school lunches.
(AP, 2/27/03)
2003 Mar 8, In India separatist
rebels in northeastern Assam state shot and killed three laborers,
ignited a huge fire by launching mortars at an oil refinery and used
explosives to damage a pipeline.
(AP, 3/8/03)
2003 Mar 18, In Yemen a man
shot 4 Hunt Oil company workers. He killed 3 and shot himself dead.
(SFC, 3/19/03, p.A5)
2003 Mar 19, Boatloads of
Nigerian troops headed into the oil-rich Niger Delta on to put down
days of ethnic violence that has left dozens dead and disrupted
multinational oil operations.
(AP, 3/20/03)(SFC, 3/21/03, p.A9)
2003 Mar 20, The US-led ground
war in Iraq began. US Sec. of State Rumsfeld warned that the attack
in Iraq would be “of a force and scope and scale that is beyond what
has been seen before.” A “shock and awe” strategy was planned based
on a 1996 “rapid dominance” strategy. The US seized $1.74 billion in
frozen Iraqi assets and declared it would be used for humanitarian
purposes. Iraq set fire to at least 10 oil wells.
(AP, 3/20/03)(SFC, 3/20/03, p.W1)(SFC, 3/21/03,
p.W11)(WSJ, 3/21/03, p.A1)
2003 Mar 22, In Nigeria ethnic
militants threatened to blow up 11 multinational oil installations
they claimed to have captured in retaliation for military raids.
(AP, 3/22/03)
2003 Mar 27, EU governments
agreed to ban single-hulled oil tankers carrying heavy fuel in an
attempt to reduce the risk of slicks.
(AP, 3/27/03)
2003 Mar, Oil flow from Iraq to
Syria ceased with the US invasion. It had reached 130,000 barrels a
day providing both countries over $10 million a month in profits.
(SFC, 4/11/03, p.A18)
2003 Apr 1, In Nigeria the
12-day rampage by Ijaw extremists has cut the normal oil output of 2
million barrels a day by 40 percent. Nigeria is the fifth-biggest
supplier of US oil imports.
(AP, 4/1/03)
2003 Apr 3, The Venezuela
government fired 828 more employees from the state oil monopoly for
participating in a two-month strike to oust Pres. Chavez.
(AP, 4/4/03)
2003 Apr 10, In the 22nd day of
Operation Iraqi Freedom US and Kurdish troops seized oil-rich Kirkuk
without a fight and held a second city within their grasp as
opposition forces crumbled in northern Iraq. Looting in Baghdad
prompted orders for US Marines to crack down on thieves.
(AP, 4/10/03)(SFC, 4/11/03, p.A1)
2003 Aug 14, A Greek oil tanker
that ran aground Jul 27 off the port city of Karachi broke apart,
but officials said the worst was over and rich fishing grounds
nearby were not threatened. The ship carried 378,000 to 450,000
gallons. It leaked an estimated 12,000 metric tons.
(AP, 8/14/03)(SFC, 8/15/03, p.A3)
2003 Aug, British Petroleum
bought half of Russia’s Tyumen Oil Co. for $6.75 billion. TNK-BP was
originally formed from the assets of TNK (Tyumen Oil Co), Onako,
Sidanco and the majority of BP’s Russian assets.
(Econ, 5/22/04, Survey
p.11)(http://tinyurl.com/4lfczjv)
2003 Oct 12, In Bolivia
violence erupted at El Alto when the military tried to break a
blockade against gas trucks bound for Chile. The death toll grew to
59 after 4 days of clashes at El Alto.
(http://bolivia.indymedia.org/es/2003/10/3225.shtml)
(SFC, 10/15/03, p.A11)(Econ, 10/18/03, p.38)
2003 Oct 22, It was reported
that pirated fuel from Iraq totaled some 2,000 tons for a daily loss
of $250,000.
(SFC, 10/22/03, p.A1)
2003 Dec 5, A tractor in Tracy,
Ca., punctured a Chevron oil pipeline and over 21,000 gallons of oil
leaked out. Officials said the leak could exceed 40,000 gallons.
(SFC, 12/6/03, p.A17)
2003 Dec 30, The Russian Tax
Ministry slapped a $3.3 billion bill for back taxes, fines and other
penalties on the oil giant Yukos.
(SFC, 12/31/03, p.B6)
2003 Dec, George B. Kaiser,
head of Kaiser-Francis Oil, took over the LNG business of El Paso
Oil. This included the Energy Bridge technology for pumping natural
gas from new, specially-built off-shore vessels.
(WSJ, 7/23/04, p.A1)
2003 Oil insiders began to
consider that some 180 billion barrels of oil, trapped in the tar
sands of Alberta, were economically viable.
(Econ, 6/28/03, p.75)
2003 James Giffen, a US oil
consultant, was indicted in the US under the 1977 Foreign Corrupt
Practices Act. He was charged with accepting bribes from US
companies to gain access to Kazakhstan’s Tengiz oil field. Giffen
claimed he was working as a US intelligence asset.
(WSJ, 5/12/08, p.A6)
2004 Jan 9, Royal Dutch/Shell
announced that it overstated its proven reserves and planned to
slash estimates by 20%.
(WSJ, 4/20/04, p.A12)
2004 Jan 31, China’s
oil-refining boss signed a deal to buy crude oil from Gabon. Pres.
Hu Jintao visited Gabon the next day.
(Econ, 2/7/04, p.45)
2004 Feb 10, OPEC met in
Algiers and agreed to reduce its official production by 1 million
barrels-a-day beginning Apr 1. Current production was 24.5 million.
(WSJ, 2/11/04, p.A1)
2004 Feb 19, A Japanese
consortium announced it will develop an Iranian oil field with
reserves of up to 26 billion barrels. The deal was opposed by the
United States because of fears the money could go to nuclear
proliferation.
(AP, 2/19/04)
2004 Mar 3, Royal Dutch/Shell
announced the resignations of CEO Sir Philip Watts and Walter van de
Vijver, head of exploration and production.
(WSJ, 4/20/04, p.A12)
2004 Mar 22, Oil giant Royal
Dutch/Shell said it plans to streamline its operations in Nigeria.
An estimated 1,500 people, or about 30 percent of its work force of
about 5,000, will be laid off.
(AP, 3/22/04)
2004 Mar 23, A Unocal
helicopter with 10 on board went missing in the Gulf of Mexico. The
Coast Guard found 4 bodies.
(WSJ, 3/25/04, p.A1)
2004 Mar 31, OPEC voted to cut
oil production by 4.1%.
(SFC, 4/1/04, p.C1)
2004 Apr 29, Cleanup crews
arrived at Suisun Marsh in the SF Bay area to tackle an estimated
60,000 gallon diesel fuel spill from a pipeline operated by Kinder
Morgan Energy Partners of Houston, Texas. The amount of spill was
later raised to 85,000 gallons.
(SFC, 4/30/04, p.A1)(SSFC, 5/30/04, p.B5)
2004 May 4, Oil prices for June
delivery rose to $38.98 a barrel.
(WSJ, 5/5/04, p.A1)
2004 May 10, Saudi oil
ministers called on OPEC to pump more oil.
(SFC, 5/11/04, p.A1)
2004 May 11, Oil for June
delivery rose to 40.06 per barrel, the highest price in 13 years.
(SFC, 5/12/04, p.A1)
2004 May 15, In Jordan a
three-day World Economic Forum began. Augusto Lopez-Claros, chief
economist and director of the Global Competitiveness Program in the
World Economic Forum, said "oil will remain a source of instability
in the world, and perhaps in the short-term it is the most
significant factor."
(AP, 5/14/04)(AP, 5/15/04)
2004 May 17, China and
Kazakhstan agreed to build a 744-mile crude oil pipeline to send an
initial 10 million tons of Kazakh oil to Xinjiang by 2006.
(WSJ, 6/17/04, p.A16)
2004 Jun 3, In Beirut, Lebanon,
OPEC leaders agreed to raise their output ceiling by 2.5 million
barrels a day.
(WSJ, 6/4/04, p.A2)
2004 Jul 2, A Norwegian strike
began targeting the oil exploration sector. It incidentally affected
two mobile production units, the Petrojarl I, which ceased
operations in early September, and the Petrojarl Varg.
(AP, 10/13/04)
2004 Jul 4, It was reported
that Libya's state-owned Tam Oil Co has bought the Niger unit of US
oil major ExxonMobil Corp, in the first such deal following an end
to US sanctions on Tripoli.
(AP, 7/4/04)
2004 Aug 9, Oil prices for
September delivery of light crude hit a record high of $44.98 since
trading began in NYC in 1983.
(SFC, 8/10/04, p.A1)
2004 Aug 18, Indian shares slid
as oil prices surged to a new high of $47 a barrel, threatening
domestic demand and growth in Asia's fourth-largest economy.
(AP, 8/18/04)
2004 Aug 30, Mexico’s state oil
company said it believes that vast untapped oil reserves lie in the
deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
(WSJ, 8/31/04, p.A10)
2004 Sep 14, Hurricane Ivan
whipped western Cuba with 160 mph winds. The hurricane knocked some
25 million barrels of oil off world markets by causing undersea
mudslides in the Gulf of Mexico.
(AP, 9/14/04)(WSJ, 10/27/04, p.A1)
2004 Sep 29, In a deal paving
the way for future joint ventures, U.S. oil giant ConocoPhillips has
won an auction with a bid of nearly $2 billion US for the Russian
government's 7.6 per cent stake in Russia's Lukoil - the world's No.
2 oil company by reserves.
(AP, 9/29/04)
2004 Sep, Construction began on
a 620-mile pipeline to take oil from eastern Kazakhstan into China’s
western Xinjiang region.
(Econ, 11/13/04, p.46)
2004 Oct 5, Light crude oil for
November closed at a record $51.09 per barrel.
(SFC, 10/6/04, p.C1)
2004 Oct 6, Light crude oil for
November closed in NYC at a record $52.02 per barrel.
(SFC, 10/6/04, p.C1)
2004 Oct 7, Light crude oil for
November closed in NYC at a record $52.67 per barrel.
(WSJ, 10/8/04, p.C1)
2004 Oct 11, Light crude oil
for November closed in NYC at a record $53.64 per barrel.
(SFC, 10/12/04, p.E12)
2004 Oct 14, Light crude oil
for November closed in NYC at a record $54.76 per barrel.
(SFC, 10/15/04, p.C1)
2004 Nov 25, In Singapore China
Aviation Oil (Singapore) filed for bankruptcy protection following
an estimated loss of $550 million from a series of bets on oil
prices.
(WSJ, 12/6/04, p.A1)
2004 Nov 26, A
Cyprus-registered tanker spilled 30,000 gallons of crude oil into
the Delaware River between Philadelphia and southern New Jersey,
creating a 20-mile-long slick that killed dozens of birds and
threatened other wildlife.
(AP, 11/28/04)
2004 Dec 5, In Nigeria hundreds
of protesters besieged two oil platforms run by Royal Dutch/Shell
Group Cos. and ChevronTexaco Corp. in the southern oil region,
shutting down production of 90,000 barrels of oil a day.
(AP, 12/6/04)
2004 Dec 7, The
German-registered MSC Ilona was punctured during a collision night
with the Panama-registered Hyundai Advance near the mouth of the
Pearl River, northwest of Hong Kong. The collision of the container
ships caused a huge oil spill and cleanup effort.
(AP, 12/9/04)
2004 Dec 10, OPEC agreed to
reduce output by one million barrels a day in hopes of staving off
further price declines without triggering a new buying frenzy.
(AP, 12/10/04)
2004 Dec 19, Russia's
little-known BaikalFinansGroup bought Yuganskneftegaz, the core
production unit of oil giant Yukos, at auction for $9.3 billion US.
(AP, 12/19/04)(Econ, 1/1/05, p.49)
2004 Dec 25, President Fidel
Castro said a 100-million-barrel crude oil deposit had been
discovered off Cuba by Canadian firms. Cuba imports about half the
petroleum it needs.
(AP, 12/25/04)
2004 Dec 28, Albania, Bulgaria
and Macedonia gave political support to a $1.2 billion private
trans-Balkan pipeline that will allow Russian and Caspian crude oil
to avoid Turkish waters.
(WSJ, 12/29/04, p.A7)
2004 Dec 30, Russia said it
would form a new state oil company base on the core operations of
Yukos and that it would offer a minority stake to China.
(WSJ, 12/31/04, p.A1)
2004 The new Iraqi government
priced local petrol at one American cent per liter. The policy
caused severe shortages as large amounts leaked over to the black
market where prices were significantly higher.
(Econ, 12/18/04, p.64)
2004 David Goodstein authored
"Out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil."
(SSFC, 2/22/04, p.M6)
2004 Michael T. Klare authored
“Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America’s Growing
Dependency on Imported Petroleum.”
(SSFC, 9/11/04, p.M1)
2004 Stephen and Donna Leeb
authored “The Oil Factor” and claimed that the price of oil will
soar above $100 per barrel by the end of the decade.
2004 Amory Lovins, head of the
Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI), authored “Winning the Oil Endgame.”
Lovins offered a plan for reducing US oil use by 50% by 2025, and
ending foreign oil dependency based on a study funded by the
Pentagon.
(www.amazon.com/Winning-Oil-Endgame-Amory-Lovins/dp/1881071103)
(Econ, 3/20/04,
p.62)(www.financialsense.com/fsu/posts/dancy/reviews/030904.html)
2004 Peter R. Odell authored
“Why Carbon Fuels Will Dominate the 21st Century’s Global Energy
Economy.
(Econ, 10/9/04, p.77)
2004 Matthew Yeomans authored
“Oil: Anatomy of an Industry.”
(SSFC, 9/11/04, p.M1)
2005 Jan 12, Nigeria made
public plans to build a second $6-billion liquefied natural gas
(LNG) plant in the southwestern state of Ondo.
(AFP, 1/13/05)
2005 Jan 21, The US Bureau of
Land Management (BLM) posted a decision to open thousands of acres
on Alaska’s North Slope for exploratory oil drilling.
(SFC, 1/22/05, p.A5)
2005 Jan 29, Libya granted its
first oil exploration licenses in over four decades, awarding 15
permits to foreign companies, with US companies taking the lion's
share. PM Shukri Ghanem said Libya has opted for a policy of open
communication with total transparence."
(AP, 1/29/05)
2005 Jan 30, OPEC warned that
oil prices, already hovering near $50 a barrel, would remain high
through the spring, even as the cartel decided to keep its
production ceiling at 27 million barrels a day.
(AP, 1/30/05)
2005 Feb 1, China lent Russia
$6 billion to help finance the nationalization of OAO Yukos. The
loan was in effect a forward payment for some 48 million metric tons
of crude oil.
(WSJ, 2/2/05, p.A2)
2005 Feb 1, Venezuela’s Pres.
Chavez said he intends to sell his country’s interests in 8 US oil
refineries.
(WSJ, 2/2/05, p.A2)
2005 Feb 15, It was reported
that major energy firms had committed $20 billion to build a new
gas-to-liquids (GTL) plant in Qatar to develop the huge natural gas
reserves there.
(WSJ, 2/15/05, p.A1)
2005 Mar 4, President Hugo
Chavez said Venezuela wants to supply crude oil to India, Asia's
third-biggest consumer, under a long-term agreement.
(AP, 3/4/05)
2005 Mar 11, Crude oil futures
prices climbed over $54 a barrel after the Int’l. Energy Agency
estimated global petroleum demand would grow faster than previously
expected in 2005.
(AP, 3/13/05)
2005 Mar 12, Algeria's minister
for energy and mines said OPEC has reached its production limit, and
trying to stretch output by one million barrels per day isn't likely
to lower oil prices.
(AP, 3/12/05)
2005 Mar 12, Turkish
authorities closed the Bosphorus Strait to maritime traffic after a
roll-on-roll-off (ro-ro) vessel carrying 7 tanker trucks loaded with
138 tons of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) sank in the narrow
waterway, which separates the European and Asian sides of Istanbul.
(AP, 3/13/05)
2005 Mar 23, In Texas City,
Texas, an explosion at BP's 1,200-acre plant near Houston killed 15
and injured 170 others. BP later acknowledged faulty equipment at
the plant. In 2009 oil giant BP was hit with a record
52-million-pound fine for safety violations at the Texas refinery.
(AP, 3/24/05)(SFC, 3/25/05, p.A4)(WSJ, 7/27/05,
p.A1)(AFP, 10/30/09)(Econ, 5/8/10, p.68)
2005 Apr 1, Oil prices closed
on Nymex at a record $57.27 per barrel sending the DJIA down 99
points to 10,404.
(SFC, 4/2/05, p.A1)
2005 Apr 4, Oil prices hit an
intraday high of $58.28 per barrel.
(SFC, 4/5/05, p.C1)
2005 Apr 4, Chevron announced
plans to purchase Unocal Corp. for $18.4 billion. Chevron’s eventual
acquisition of Unocal included a stake in the Yadana project in
Myanmar, in which Unocal invested in the 1990s along with France’s
Total, Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise and the petroleum Authority of
Thailand. Total with a 31% stake operated the project. The Yadana
project brought in an estimated $969 million to the government
undercutting international sanctions to isolate the regime.
(SFC, 4/5/05, p.A1)(SFC, 10/4/07, p.A10)(SFC,
4/29/08, p.D3)
2005 Apr 8, ChevronTexaco Corp.
said it has awarded a $1.7 billion contract to build Nigeria's third
natural gas-to-liquids plant to a consortium including Halliburton
Co. subsidiary KBR.
(AP, 4/8/05)
2005 Apr 29, In Canada oil
companies stopped all engineering work on a natural gas pipeline
from the Arctic ocean to the oil sands of Alberta, due to high
compensation demands by the Deh Cho First Nation native Indian tribe
in Fort Simpson, Northwest Territories. The Deh Cho also sought a
new autonomous government and complete ownership of subsurface
rights within their 81,000 square mile claim, an area about the size
of Nebraska.
(SFC, 5/23/05, p.A1)
2005 Apr, Unocal agreed to
settle a lawsuit, for an undisclosed sum, concerning human rights
abuses on the Yadana project in Myanmar.
(SFC, 4/29/08, p.D1)
2005 May 5, It was reported
that Wolverine Gas & Oil of Grand Rapids, Mich., had snapped up
leasing rights to a half-million acres in central Utah and estimated
yields up to a billion or more barrels of oil.
(SFC, 5/5/05, p.C3)
2005 May 17, In Bolivia a
measure increasing taxes on foreign oil companies became law. It
slapped a 32% production tax on top of royalties of 18% paid by
producers of natural gas and oil. The president and thousands of
street protesters wanted the industry nationalized.
(AP, 5/18/05)(Econ, 5/21/05, p.42)
2005 May 17, In Vietnam an
international consortium led by French group Technip signed a
1.5-billion-dollar deal to build Vietnam's first oil refinery.
(AP, 5/17/05)
2005 Jun 15, OPEC agreed to
increase its production quota by half a million barrels a day in an
effort to cool high crude oil costs that have dampened the global
economy.
(AP, 6/15/05)
2005 Jun 17, Crude oil prices
for July delivery hit a record high closing at $58.47 a barrel.
(AP, 6/18/05)(SFC, 6/18/05, p.C1)
2005 Jun 24, Crude oil, at
close to $60 a barrel, caused widespread selling on global equity
markets, as shares in transport and automobile companies fell
sharply.
(AP, 6/24/05)
2005 Jun 25, Gujarat's chief
minister said Gujarat Petroleum Corp (GSPC) has made the India’s
biggest gas discovery 20 trillion cubic feet, worth $50 billion off
the southeast coast.
(AP, 6/26/05)
2005 Jun 28, China said it will
begin filling its strategic oil reserve by the end of the year.
(WSJ, 6/29/05, p.A13)
2005 Jun 30, Justice Minister
Yuri Chaika said that Russia was seeking to have assets of the
beleaguered Yukos oil company seized overseas and had asked
Netherlands and Lithuania for help.
(AP, 6/30/05)
2005 Jul 6, Crude oil for
August delivery rose $1.69 to settle at a record $61.28 per barrel.
(SFC, 7/7/05, p.C1)
2005 Jul 8, In China Exxon
Mobil Corp., Saudi Aramco and top Asian refiner Sinopec signed a
$3.5 billion deal to expand a refinery in south China, sealing what
they called the country's largest oil project.
(Reuters, 7/8/05)
2005 Oct 21, Oscar Wyatt (81),
former chairman of Coastal Corp., was arrested at his home in
Houston for paying millions in kickbacks to the government of Saddam
Hussein in exchange for rights to buy discounted Iraqi oil under the
UN’s oil-for-food program. 2 Swiss associates were also indicted. In
2007 Wyatt was sentenced to over a year in jail after admitting that
he agreed to a surcharge of about $200,000 to be paid to bank
account in Jordan controlled by officials of Iraq’s State Oil
Marketing Organization in Dec 2001.
(SFC, 10/22/05, p.A3)(WSJ, 11/28/07, p.B10)
2005 Oct 27, The 18-month
Independent Inquiry Committee under former US Federal Reserve
chairman Paul Volcker issued a final 623-page report on corruption
in the UN oil-for-food program. It claimed that between 1997 and
2003 the Iraqi government sold $64 billion of oil to 248 companies
and bought $34.5 billion worth of humanitarian goods. The report
accused more than 2,200 companies from some 40 countries of
colluding with Saddam's regime to bilk the humanitarian program in
Iraq of $1.8 billion.
(AP, 10/27/05)(Econ, 10/29/05, p.28)(AP, 1/26/08)
2005 Nov-2005 Dec, In San
Francisco between 39,488 and 53,988 gallons of diesel fuel leaked
over 4 weeks from an underground storage tank at the John Muir Motor
Coach yard at 1095 Indiana St. Muni workers had disabled an alarm
system that would have warned of the leak. In 2009 the US EPA sought
a $250,000 settlement for the leak which allowed fuel to enter a
storm drain leading the SF Bay.
(SFC, 11/3/09, p.C1)
2005 Dec 11, In Britain a huge
inferno followed explosions at the Buncefield oil depot. 43 people
were injured. In 2009 a court said French oil giant Total must pay
bills valued at more than 750 million pounds for people whose homes
and businesses were damaged in the fire. In 2010 five companies were
ordered to pay fines and costs of more than £9 million (13.8
million dollars, 10.6 million euros).
(http://tinyurl.com/chwzwb)(AFP, 3/20/09)(AFP,
7/16/10)
2005 Matthew R. Simmons
authored “Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil shock and the
World Economy.”
(WSJ, 6/28/05, p.D8)
2005 Members of the “peak-oil
movement” believed that by about this time humanity will have
extracted about half the oil that it would ever get.
(WSJ, 9/21/04, p.A1)
2005 Kerr-McGee installed its
Constitution platform 300km southwest of New Orleans. The $600
million structure was moored to the ocean floor 1,500 meters below
the surface.
(Econ, 3/6/10, TQ p.15)
2005 A syndicate called China
Int’l. Fund or China Sonangol, created by a man named Sam Pa (aka Xu
Jinghua), signed contracts giving the company the right to export
Angolan oil and act as a middleman between Sonangol and
Sinopec. The company operated out of Hong Kong. By 2009 the company
had bought the JPMorgan Chase building at 23 Wall Street, NYC.
Newbright Int’l., a core company of the syndicate, was 70%
controlled by Veronica Fung.
(Econ, 8/13/11, p.21)
2006 Mar 2, An oil spill in
Alaska curtailed Prudhoe Bay production. At least 265,000 gallons
spilled onto the tundra from a British Petroleum (BP) line handling
100,000 barrels per day. The spill of 5,000 barrels was the largest
in the field’s 29-year history. In 2011 a $25 million settlement was
reached with a BP subsidiary for the spill.
(WSJ, 3/3/06, p.A1)(SFC, 3/11/06, p.A4)(SSFC,
8/13/06, p.A18)(SFC, 5/4/11, p.A6)
2006 Jul 7, Oil hit a fresh
record high of $75.78 a barrel, boosted by strong demand in the US
and global tension ranging from Iran's nuclear work to North Korea's
missile tests.
(Reuters, 7/7/06)
2006 Aug 1, Cabinda, a 7,000
sq-km province of Angola located on the western coast just north of
the CongoDRC, signed the “Memorandum of Understanding for Peace in
Cabinda” with the government of Angola, granting it “a special
statute” and greater autonomy. In 2007 the province pumped over half
of Angola’s 1.7 million barrels per day oil production.
(Econ, 1/5/08, Angola p.8)
2006 Oct 15, Algerian Energy
Minister Chehib Khelil said that the Organization of Petroleum
Exporting Countries will announce a 1 million barrel a day cut in
crude production during a meeting in Qatar.
(AP, 10/15/06)
2006 Dec 12, Russia's Gazprom
closed in on half of Royal Dutch Shell's $22 billion Sakhalin-2
energy project while Shell denied it had buckled under Kremlin
pressure and warned Moscow the world was watching.
(AP, 12/12/06)(WSJ, 12/12/06, p.A3)
2006 Dec 21, Royal Dutch Shell
and its partners agreed to hand over 50% plus one share of the
Sakhalin II oil and gas project to OAO Gazprom, the Russian
state-controlled energy firm, for $7.45 billion. Shell and its
partners have already put $12 billion into the project, which was
about 80% complete.
(WSJ, 12/22/06, p.A3)
2006 In South Africa an
investigation was commissioned by the government into the UN
oil-for-food program in Iraq. The probe was ordered by president
Thabo Mbeki, into what has become known in the country as "Oilgate,"
to look at allegations of kickbacks sourced by senior members of the
ruling party from the State Oil Marketing Organization of Iraq
(SOMO).
(AFP, 12/7/11)
2007 May 29, Libya said it will
sign a 900 million dollar exploration deal with energy giant BP,
which plans to return to the north African country after a 33 year
absence.
(AP, 5/29/07)
2007 Jun 6, Los Angeles based
Colony Capital LLC, private investment firm, said it has agreed to
buy a controlling stake in Libyan state-owned Tamoil in a deal that
valued the Italy-based refiner at 4 billion euros ($5.4 billion),
double earlier estimates. Colony, founded in 1991 by Thomas Barrack,
focuses on real estate-related assets, securities, and operating
companies. In March, 2008, the deal was reported to be off.
(Reuters, 6/6/07)(Reuters, 3/3/08)
2007 Jun 22, British energy
group BP, facing pressure from the Kremlin, said that it had agreed
to sell its stakes in a Siberian gas field and company to Russian
gas giant Gazprom for up to 900 million dollars (669 million euros).
(AP, 6/22/07)(WSJ, 6/22/07, p.A3)
2007 Sep 12, Exxon Mobil Corp.
said in a filing with the SEC that it had filed a request with the
Int’l. Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes for arbitration
over compensation from the Venezuelan government for seized oil
production assets.
(WSJ, 9/14/07, p.A9)
2007 Sep 28, The United States
announced it would spend up to $25 million to pay for 50,000 tons of
heavy fuel oil for North Korea as part of an agreement to dismantle
the North’s nuclear program.
(AP, 9/28/08)
2007 Oct 10, Ministers from
Azerbaijan, Georgia, Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine signed a deal to
build an oil pipeline linking the Black and Baltic seas.
(WSJ, 10/11/07, p.A18)
2007 Oct 16, Oil prices reached
another record high closing at 87.61 per barrel in the NY Mercantile
Exchange.
(SFC, 10/17/07, p.C1)
2007 Oct 23, At least 21 oil
workers were killed when a drilling rig hit an oil platform in
stormy weather, spilling gas and oil into the Gulf of Mexico. Pemex
said the workers who died included four Pemex employees, seven
employees of the subcontractor company that operated the rig, at
least one rescue boat crew member, and six others who worked for
other companies. On Dec 16 Pemex announced that the well was finally
capped. Roughly 420 barrels of oil per day had spilled from the
damaged platform since the accident.
(AP, 10/25/07)(AP, 12/16/07)
2007 Oct 29,
Oil prices closed at a record $93.53 per barrel on the NY
Mercantile Exchange.
(SFC, 10/30/07, p.C2)
2007 Nov 6, Crude oil prices
hit a record highs at $97.10 and closed at a record $96.70 per
barrel on the NY Mercantile Exchange.
(SFC, 11/7/07, p.C2)
2007 Nov 5, In Yemen
unidentified saboteurs bombed an oil pipeline in Marib province. The
attack halted the flow of oil and added to concerns in the world oil
markets about adequate supplies for heating fuel.
(AP, 11/8/07)
2007 Nov 7, The Cosco Busan, a
65,131 ton Greek-owned container ship leased by Hanjin Shipping of
South Korea, hit a protective shield at the base of a tower of the
Bay Bridge. The Bridge was not damaged, but the ship suffered a gash
and spilled 58,000 gallons of bunker fuel oil into the SF Bay. By
the end of the month estimated bird deaths due to the oil topped
20,000. The cleanup cost was later estimated at some $61 million. A
year later federal authorities still held 6 Chinese crew members for
their testimony. In July, 2009, Cosco Busan Capt. John Cota (61) was
sentenced to 10 months in prison, becoming the first ship’s pilot in
US history to be sent to prison for an accident. On August 13, 2009,
Fleet Management Ltd. of Hong Kong pleaded guilty to charges of
water pollution and falsifying documents and agreed to pay $10
million in fines. On Dec 4, 2011, a settlement was reached to pay
120 SF Bay Area commercial fishermen $3.6 million.
(SFC, 11/8/07, p.A1)(SFC, 11/27/07, p.A1)(SFC,
12/19/07, p.A1)(WSJ, 11/5/08, p.A2)(SFC, 7/18/09, p.C1)(SFC,
8/14/09, p.D1)(SFC, 1/5/11, p.C3)
2007 Nov 8, Brazil’s Petrobras
reported the discovery of a large oil reserve with as much as 8
billion barrels of crude in a field called Tupi. This represented
about 3 months worth of current world supply, with estimated use at
86 million barrels a day. The oil was sitting between 5.3 and 7km
below sea level.
(WSJ, 11/9/07, p.A12)(Econ, 8/30/08, p.36)
2007 Nov 8, In Yemen tribesmen
attacked an oil installation and then clashed with government
troops, leaving 12 people dead. It was the second attack on the
country's oil industry this week.
(AP, 11/8/07)
2007 Nov 10, Iranian state
television reported that Iran and Pakistan have reached a deal to
build a multi-billion-dollar pipeline to transport natural gas
between the two countries.
(AP, 11/11/07)
2007 Nov 11, A severe storm
broke the Volganeft-139, a small Russian oil tanker, in two in the
Strait of Kerch, spilling at least 560,000 gallons of fuel into the
strait between the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea. A Russian official
said it was an "environmental disaster." 8 seamen were left missing.
Two freighters nearby also sank under 18-foot waves in storm. As
many as 10 ships sank or ran aground in the area.
(AP, 11/11/07)(Reuters, 11/12/07)(SFC, 11/12/07,
p.A15)
2007 Nov 12, Alexander
Tkachyov, governor of Russia’s Krasnodar region, said more than
30,000 birds and countless fish have been killed in an "ecological
catastrophe" wrought by thousands of tons of oil from a tanker that
broke apart in a heavy storm near the Black Sea. 3 bodies washed
ashore and 20 sailors remained missing after the sinking of at least
11 ships.
(AP, 11/12/07)(SFC, 11/13/07, p.A10)
2007 Nov 14, Chevron agreed to
pay $30 million to settle charges that it made illegal kickbacks to
Iraq for oil purchased in 2001 and 2002 under the UN oil-for-food
program.
(SFC, 11/15/07, p.C1)
2007 Nov 20, Crude-oil futures
surged to a record high settling at $98.03 a barrel on the NY
Mercantile Exchange.
(WSJ, 11/21/07, p.C8)
2007 Nov 27, Russia’s Gazprom
made clear its interest in buying a half share of TNK-BP and any
large UK power company that may come up for sale, while repeating
its warning that wholesale gas prices could rise sharply in Europe
next year.
(www.guardian.co.uk/business/2007/nov/28/bp.oil)
2007 Dec 2, Robert O. Anderson
(b.1917), oil man and creator of the Atlantic Richfield Co. (1966),
died in Roswell, NM.
(WSJ, 12/8/07, p.A7)
2007 Dec 4, French oil group
Total said it had signed a deal to invest about 1.5 billion dollars
in a new 3.0-billion-dollar (2.0 billion euros) petrochemical plant
in Algeria.
(AFP, 12/4/07)
2007 Dec 10, Petro-Canada,
Canada's third largest oil and gas company, signed a $7 billion deal
with Libya's state-run National Oil Corp. to invest in exploration
in the North African nation.
(AP, 12/10/07)
2007 US federal officials
alleged that $84 million held in Swiss bank accounts stem from
bribes paid by US companies to Kazakhstan’s president and other top
officials for access to energy reserves. The money was frozen as an
investigation continued.
(WSJ, 5/12/08, p.A6)
2007 Italian Oil company ENI
SpA bought Burren Energy PLC, a small independent company that
operates an oil field in Turkmenistan. ENI from that point on was
denied entry visas by Turkmenistan, which was annoyed at not being
consulted in the deal.
(WSJ, 4/23/08, p.B8)
2007 Syria’s oil exports were
expected to almost cease by this time.
(SFEC, 1/25/98, p.A18)
2008 Jan 2, Oil futures hit an
intraday high of $100 per barrel and closed at a record $99.62.
(WSJ, 1/3/08, p.A1)
2008 Jan 4, The Zambian
government awarded a 1.2 billion dollar crude oil deal to a Kuwait
firm to supply over 1.4 million tons of oil to the southern African
nation.
(AP, 1/5/08)
2008 Feb 4, Secretary-General
Ban Ki-moon said the UN has transferred $161 million from the
defunct oil-for-food program to a development program for Iraq.
(AP, 2/4/08)
2008 Feb 7, Libya’s National
Oil Corp and Indonesia signed a deal for the north African state to
supply the world's most populous Muslim nation with crude oil for
the next 20 years.
(AFP, 2/7/08)
2008 Feb 10, President Hugo
Chavez threatened to cut off oil sales to the United States in an
"economic war" if Exxon Mobil Corp. wins court judgments to seize
billions of dollars in Venezuelan assets.
(AP, 2/10/08)
2008 Feb 17, Iran inaugurated
its first stock exchange for oil products and petrochemicals, in a
bid to become a major player in the global downstream industry.
(AFP, 2/17/08)
2008 Feb 28, In Ecuador a
landslide caused some 4,000 barrels of oil to spill from its main
pipeline contaminating Coca River.
(www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/03/02/america/LA-FIN-Ecuador-Pipeline.php)
2008 Mar 10, Crude oil futures
moved to another all-time high as April delivery for light, sweet
crude rose to $107.90 per barrel.
(WSJ, 3/11/08, p.C7)
2008 Mar 16, In France a pipe
ruptured while a tanker was being loaded at a Total refinery. Some
3,000 barrels of fuel oil leaked in and along the Loire River.
(AP, 3/18/08)
2008 Apr 8, In Mexico Pres.
Calderon said he would ease some bureaucratic barriers, and allow
Pemex to pay outside contractors a "bonus," not a percentage cut,
for oil found in deep-water reserves.
(AP, 4/9/08)
2008 Apr 14, Algeria, the
world’s 4th largest gas exporter, said it will and stop signing long
term gas contracts and switch to shorter term ones.
(WSJ, 4/15/08, p.A14)
2008 Apr 14, In Brazil a top
energy official said a deep-water exploration area could contain as
much as 33 billion barrels of oil, an amount that would nearly
triple Brazil's reserves and make the offshore bloc the world's
third-largest known oil reserve.
(AP, 4/14/08)
2008 Apr 17, The May contract
for light sweet crude oil hit a trading record of $115.54 as the
dollar fell to a new low against the euro.
(AP, 4/18/08)
2008 Apr 17, Russian President
Vladimir Putin wrapped up his two-day visit with Libyan leader
Moammar Gadhafi by writing off $4.5 billion in Libyan debts in
exchange for multibillion-dollar deals for Russian companies.
(AP, 4/17/08)
2008 Apr 21,
A rebel group from Nigeria's oil producing Niger Delta said it
attacked two major oil pipelines there in what it called a message
to the United States to stop supporting "injustice" in the troubled
region.
(AP, 4/21/08)
2008 Apr 21, Pirates in the
Gulf of Aden fired on a Japanese oil tanker, unleashing hundreds of
gallons of fuel into the sea. The attack took place 170 miles off
the coast of Yemen while the 150,000-ton tanker was heading to Saudi
Arabia.
(AP, 4/21/08)
2008 Apr 21, Crude oil futures
settled at a record $117.48 per barrel.
(WSJ, 4/21/08, p.A1)
2008 Apr 22, Anglo-Dutch oil
group Shell reported output loss of 169,000 barrels per day
following the sabotage of its key supply pipelines in southern
Nigeria.
(AP, 4/22/08)
2008 Apr 27, Hundreds of
workers at Scotland's only oil refinery began a 48-hour strike. This
forced BP PLC to shut a pipeline system that delivers almost a third
of Britain's North Sea oil.
(AP, 4/27/08)
2008 Apr 28, In Washington
truck drivers honked horns, waved placards and shouted through
bullhorns at the Capitol to protest rising fuel prices they say are
hurting their livelihood.
(AP, 4/29/08)
2008 Apr 29, Workers returned
to the Grangemouth refinery in central Scotland after a 48-hour
strike that forced the closure of a major North Sea pipeline system.
(AP, 4/29/08)
2008 Apr 30, Syncrude Canada's
operations were under investigation by environmental regulators
after as many as 500 birds landed in the waste water in the oil
sands region of northern Alberta.
(Reuters, 5/1/08)
2008 May 1, It was reported
that Iran has stopped using dollars for oil deals as it seeks to
reduce reliance on the US.
(WSJ, 5/1/08, p.A1)
2008 May 3, Rebels in Nigeria's
oil-rich Niger Delta blew up three oil wells operated by Royal Dutch
Shell, their fifth attack in recent weeks against the petroleum
industry.
(AP, 5/3/08)
2008 May 5, Oil futures hit a
trading record of $120.36 before closing at a record $119.97.
(SFC, 5/6/08, p.D1)
2008 May 7, Oil closed at a
record high with light, sweet crude settling at $123.53 per barrel
on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
(SFC, 5/8/08, p.C5)
2008 May 9, A newly disclosed
set of documents that Colombia's government says were recovered on
March 1 from a slain rebel's computers indicate senior Venezuelan
officials tried to help arm Colombia's main guerrilla army. The
price of crude rose above US$126 a barrel for the first time as
investors questioned whether a Wall Street Journal report regarding
the documents could lead to a confrontation between Washington and
Venezuela.
(AP, 5/10/08)
2008 May 10, Oil major Royal
Dutch Shell said it was losing the equivalent of 30,000 barrels of
crude oil per day because of recent attacks against its
installations in Nigeria.
(AP, 5/10/08)
2008 May 9, Oil closed at a
record high with light, sweet crude settling at $125.96 per barrel
on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
(WSJ, 5/10/08, p.B4)
2008 May 14, US federal
prosecutors said Willbros Group Inc., a Houston-based oil services
company, agreed to pay $32.3 million in criminal and civil penalties
to settle charges that it bribed officials in Nigeria and Ecuador to
get contracts between 2003-2005.
(WSJ, 5/15/08, p.B2)
2008 May 16, Under pressure
from Congress the US Energy Dept. said it would temporarily suspend
filling the US strategic oil stocks. Oil futures rose to a record
$126.29 on the NY Mercantile Exchange. Pres. Bush signed a bill to
stop the filling on May 19.
(SFC, 5/17/08, p.C1)(WSJ, 5/20/08, p.A1)
2008 May 21, Hundreds of French
fishermen clashed with police in Paris and severely disrupted
cross-Channel traffic as they stepped up a 10-day-old protest
against soaring fuel costs.
(AFP, 5/21/08)
2008 May 21, In Indonesia
thousands of students took to the streets across the country to
protest the government's plan to raise fuel prices.
(AP, 5/21/08)
2008 May 21, American Airlines
said it will remove 75 of 954 aircraft in its fleet and start
charging some domestic passengers $15 to check a suitcase due to
rising fuel costs. Oil futures closed at a record $133.17.
(SFC, 5/22/08, p.C1)(WSJ, 5/22/08, p.A1)
2008 May 26, Rebels from
Nigeria's oil-producing Niger Delta said they had blown up a Royal
Dutch Shell pipeline and killed 11 soldiers in a firefight, but the
army denied losing any men.
(Reuters, 5/26/08)
2008 Jun 3, A Cabinet minister
said Malaysia will remove price controls on gasoline and diesel,
allowing stations to sell fuel at world market prices in an attempt
to reduce the government's ballooning subsidy bill.
(AP, 6/3/08)
2008 Jun 4, An undetermined
amount of fuel oil was released after the Greece-registered Syros
slammed against the Malta-registered Sea Bird near Montevideo,
Uruguay.
(AP, 6/5/08)
2008 Jun 6, Crude oil settled
up $10.75 at a record $138.54 on the NY Mercantile Exchange.
(WSJ, 6/7/08, p.A1)
2008 Jun 8, G8 leaders meeting
in Japan pledged to fight skyrocketing energy prices by increasing
efficiency and accelerating investment in new technologies, while
urging producers to expand production.
(AP, 6/8/08)
2008 Jun 10, XTO Energy said it
will buy closely held Hunt Petroleum for $4.19 billion.
(WSJ, 6/11/08, p.B1)
2008 Jun 11, In Thailand
thousands of truckers went on a half-day strike demanding government
help against rising fuel prices, the latest in a series of protests
that have swept across Asia and Europe.
(Reuters, 6/11/08)
2008 Jun 18, In Belgium
hundreds of farmers, truckers and taxi drivers blocked roads in and
around Brussels on the eve of an EU summit to push leaders for help
coping with skyrocketing fuel prices.
(AP, 6/18/08)
2008 Jun 19, China’s government
raised its base price for gasoline by 17% and 18% for diesel in an
effort to diminish the nation’s appetite for fuel.
(WSJ, 6/19/08, p.A1)
2008 Jun 19, Nigeria's most
prominent militant group claimed responsibility for an attack on
Shell's main offshore oilfield and said it had kidnapped a US oil
worker. The attack shut down a tenth of the country's oil output in
a rare attack on a deepwater facility. The Movement for the
Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) said US captain Jack Stone
from oil services company Tidex was freed in the afternoon.
(AFP, 6/19/08)(Reuters, 6/19/08)
2008 Jun 25, The US Supreme
Court overturned the $2.5 billion in punitive damages that Exxon
Mobil Corp had been ordered to pay for the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil
spill off Alaska. Punitive damages were reduced to $507.5 million.
(AP, 6/25/08)(Econ, 5/22/10, p.68)
2008 Jun 26, Cuts in Haitian
gasoline subsidies pushed the price of fuel to $6.14 a gallon,
further burdening the people as the government redirected money to
other programs.
(AP, 6/27/08)
2008 Jun 30, Crude oil futures
hit a record intraday high of $143.67 before closing at $140.
(WSJ, 7/1/08, p.C16)
2008 Jul 9, In Peru tens of
thousands of union workers took to the streets across the country to
protest rising food and fuel prices they blame on the free market
policies of President Alan Garcia.
(AP, 7/9/08)
2008 Jul 10, Nigeria's main
militant group said it would resume attacks in the country's
oil-rich river delta region because of Britain's recent pledge to
back the government in the conflict there. UN special envoy Ibrahim
Gambari resigned as chairman of a planned peace summit for the
oil-rich Niger Delta following opposition from regional leaders.
(AP, 7/10/08)(AFP, 7/10/08)
2008 Jul 10, Iraq's Oil
Ministry said that it is close to signing contracts to build two new
oil refineries in southern Iraq. Turkey's PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan
became the first Turkish leader to visit Iraq in nearly 20 years.
(AP, 7/10/08)
2008 Jul 11, Oil prices touched
$147 a barrel before beginning a decline.
(Econ, 8/9/08, p.70)
2008 Jul 12, President Hugo
Chavez said that he is expanding his Venezuela's Petrocaribe
oil-supply pact to include Guatemala.
(AP, 7/13/08)
2008 Jul 13, Algeria’s
government newspaper El Moudjhaid said a consortium of British-based
oil services company Petrofac and Indonesian engineering company
IKPT provisionally won a contract to build an LNG plant in western
Mediterranean port of Arzew.
(AP, 7/13/08)
2008 Jul 13, Iranian state TV
said the country is exploring a newly discovered oil field believed
to contain more than 1 billion barrels of crude oil.
(AP, 7/13/08)
2008 Jul 15, Fishermen across
Japan went on a massive one-day strike to protest skyrocketing fuel
prices, the latest blow to the country's foundering fishing
industry.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2008 Jul 15, The EU agreed to
an emergency aid package for its fishing industry to cope with fuel
prices.
(WSJ, 7/17/08, p.A8)
2008 Jul 17, Nigerian villagers
blew up a key crude oil supply pipeline operated by Agip, the
Nigerian subsidiary of Italian group Eni, cutting production.
(AFP, 7/17/08)
2008 Jul 23, In Louisiana an
oil tanker and an oil barge collided near New Orleans creating a
12-mile oil slick and closing almost 100 miles of the Mississippi
River. Over 400,000 gallons of fuel spilled into the river.
(SFC, 7/24/08, p.A3)(SFC, 7/25/08, p.A2)
2008 Jul 23, Nigeria's main
militant group threatened to destroy the nation's major oil
pipelines within 30 days to counter allegations it had struck a $12
million deal with the government to protect them.
(AP, 7/23/08)
2008 Jul 23, Venezuela signed
over three more oil fields to a joint venture with Belarus, with
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez declaring that the two nations were
strongly united in their resistance to "US imperialism" and
Washington's "lackeys."
(AP, 7/23/08)
2008 Jul 24, Ten insurgents and
two Cameroonian soldiers were killed in a rebel attack in the
oil-rich Bakassi peninsula. The rebels, who call themselves the
Niger Delta Defense and Security Council, oppose Cameroon's
ownership of the West African peninsula, which is also claimed by
Nigeria.
(AP, 7/25/08)
2008 Jul 27, Mexico City
residents voted against the president's proposal to give private
companies a bigger role in the country's state-run oil industry in a
nonbinding referendum.
(AP, 7/28/08)
2008 Jul 31, Exxon Mobil Corp.
reported second-quarter earnings of $11.68 billion, the biggest
quarterly profit ever by any US corporation, but the results were
well short of Wall Street expectations and its shares fell.
(AP, 7/31/08)
2008 Aug 4, A Nigerian
presidential panel on oil and gas sector reform recommended that the
state oil company be transformed into an "independent limited
liability company."
(AFP, 8/4/08)
2008 Aug 5, The US General
Accounting Office predicted Iraq could finish the year with as much
as a $79 billion cumulative budget surplus due to the influx of oil
revenues. The GAO estimated that Iraqi oil revenues from 2005
through the end of this year will amount to at least $156 billion.
(AP, 8/7/08)
2008 Aug 5, In Turkey an oil
pipeline that has allowed the West to tap the rich fields of
Azerbaijan, bypassing Iran and Russia, was set on fire. A Kurdish
rebel organization later admitted sabotaging the pipeline.
(AP, 8/7/08)
2008 Aug 12, Nigerian militants
claimed they had destroyed a pipeline supplying gas to a key oil
refinery in southern Rivers state.
(AFP, 8/12/08)
2008 Aug 27, China and Iraq
signed a $3 billion deal revising a prewar agreement for China's
biggest oil company to help develop the Ahdab oil field. On Sep 2
Iraq’s Cabinet approved the deal with China National Petroleum Corp.
(AP, 8/28/08)(AP, 9/2/08)
2008 Sep 2, South Africa
planned to sign an energy agreement with oil-rich Venezuela as
President Hugo Chavez arrived on his first state visit. Political,
trade and economic relations were on the agenda with President Thabo
Mbeki.
(AFP, 9/2/08)
2008 Sep 4, In Moscow officials
said BP PLC and its billionaire Russian partners in the joint
venture TNK-BP have agreed on a deal that forces out its embattled
CEO and signals an end to a bitter struggle for control of the
Russian-British company.
(AP, 9/4/08)
2008 Sep 9, The Iraqi oil
ministry said Anglo-Dutch energy giant Royal Dutch Shell has agreed
to a gas joint venture with Iraq worth up to four billion dollars,
becoming the first Western oil major to gain access to the
violence-wracked country's vast energy reserves.
(AP, 9/9/08)
2008 Sep 9, OPEC ministers
decided to scale back production by some 520,000 barrels a day in
the face of falling oil prices and slowing demand. Hours earlier
Russia proposed extensive cooperation with OPEC.
(WSJ, 9/10/08, p.A7)
2008 Sep 9, Serbian lawmakers
ratified a pre-membership agreement with the EU and an oil and gas
deal with Russia after months of heated debate over the direction of
the country's policies.
(AP, 9/9/08)
2008 Sep 10, An internal
government report said US Interior Department employees in Denver
and Washington, who oversaw oil drilling on federal lands, had sex
and used illegal drugs with workers at energy companies where they
were conducting official business.
(AP, 9/11/08)
2008 Sep 11, James Ashley
Nasmyth (b.1918), English oil journalist, died. In 1979 he launched
Argus Telex, the first daily oil market report.
(www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article4827314.ece)(WSJ,
9/27/08, p.A16)
2008 Sep 15, Oil prices plunged
to a seven-month low as the Gulf Coast energy infrastructure
appeared relatively unharmed after Hurricane Ike and traders bet
that Lehman Brothers' bankruptcy could ignite a massive liquidation
of commodities. Oil closed at $95.71, its first close below $100
since March 4.
(AP, 9/15/08)(WSJ, 9/16/08, p.A12)
2008 Sep 16, In Nigeria
militants destroyed the Orubiri flow station operated by the Shell
Petroleum Development Company in Rivers state. The next day MEND
said it killed all the soldiers on guard at the facility and took
their weapons.
(AFP, 9/17/08)
2008 Sep 17, Armed Nigerian
militants, who have declared an "oil war" in the restive south of
the country, claimed to have blown up a major pipeline in their
latest attack on oil installations in the region. A spokesman for
Nigeria's state oil company said that militant attacks are now
cutting the country's daily oil production by about 1 million
barrels a day, 40 percent of what the country produced before the
militant campaign began three years ago.
(AP, 9/17/08)
2008 Sep 18, MEND militants in
southern Nigeria, as part of their "oil war," claimed to have
destroyed a major oil pipeline belonging to Royal Dutch Shell in the
fifth attack on the company in less than a week.
(AP, 9/19/08)
2008 Sep 19, Nigerian militants
destroyed another major oil pipeline in the Niger Delta after a week
of the most intense attacks against Africa's biggest oil and gas
industry for years.
(Reuters, 9/20/08)
2008 Sep 21, In southern
Nigeria MEND declared a ceasefire following a week of attacks on oil
industry targets.
(AFP, 9/21/08)
2008 Sep 22, The price of oil
jumped $16.37 to $120.92 per barrel, its biggest single-day gain
ever, as the dollar posted its worst single-day percentage drop.
During this final day for the October contract, oil had soared to as
high as $130 per barrel.
(SFC, 9/23/08, p.D1)(WSJ, 9/23/08, p.C2)(Econ,
9/27/08, p.90)
2008 Sep 22, Iraq and Royal
Dutch Shell PLC signed a deal to establish a joint venture that will
tap natural gas in southern Iraq. A mortar round apparently aimed at
an Iraqi military base missed its target and slammed into a house in
northwestern Baghdad, killing one man and wounding four others. A
car bomb struck a mainly Shiite area in central Baghdad. Police said
two men and a woman were killed and seven people wounded.
(AP, 9/22/08)
2008 Sep 23, Venezuelan
President Hugo Chavez arrived in China to hold talks with his
counterpart Hu Jintao and sign a deal for combat aircraft in a visit
likely to irk the US. Chavez said Venezuela and China agreed to
jointly build 2 oil refineries, one in each country.
(AP, 9/23/08)(WSJ, 9/24/08, p.A25)
2008 Sep 29, The US House of
Representatives rejected the Bush administration’s $700 billion
emergency rescue plan. Democrats voted 140 to 90 in favor, while
Republicans voted 133-65 against the plan. The Dow Jones industrial
average lost 777.68 points, its biggest single-day fall ever, easily
beating the 684 points it lost on the first day of trading after the
Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Crude oil futures closed down
$10.52 in their biggest decline since Jan 17, 1991, when the US
opened strategic oil reserves during the first Gulf war.
(AP, 9/29/08)(SFC, 9/30/08, p.A1)(WSJ, 9/30/08,
p.C8)(Econ, 10/4/08, p.30)
2008 Oct 5, Abu Dhabi’s
Mubadala Development Co. and Texas-based ConocoPhillips said they
have signed a deal with Kazakhstan’s national oil company to drill
in a potentially lucrative region in the Caspian Sea.
(SFC, 10/6/08, p.D1)
2008 Oct 9, The Libyan oil
company Tamoil said the Libyan government has again decided to halt
oil deliveries to Switzerland.
(AFP, 10/9/08)
2008 Oct 10, Global stocks dove
head first to five-year lows at the end of a brutal week as even the
traditional safe-havens of gold and government bonds suffered as
fear-stricken investors sought refuge in cash. The DJIA fell 128 to
close at 8451.19 in its most volatile day ever. Oil on the NY
mercantile Exchange fell over 10% to close at $77.70 a barrel, its
lowest level in over a year.
(Reuters, 10/10/08)(SFC, 10/11/08, p.C1)
2008 Oct 10, The Libyan news
agency JANA said Libya will withdraw $7 billion of assets in Swiss
banks, cut economic ties with Switzerland and stop supplying it with
oil to protest against poor treatment of Libyan diplomats and
businessmen.
(AP, 10/10/08)
2008 Oct 13, Iraq's oil
minister met 34 oil company representatives in London to set out the
ground rules for foreign multinationals' first bite at the country's
enormous energy reserves since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.
(AP, 10/13/08)
2008 Oct 15, The Shell
Anglo-Dutch group said a Nigerian court has ordered it to hand over
land around its giant Bonny oil terminal to the local population, a
key demand of armed rebels in the volatile region. Shell said ruling
was given some months ago but we have appealed.
(AFP, 10/15/08)
2008 Oct 17, George M Keller
(b.1923), former head of Standard Oil of California (1981-1988),
died at his home in Palo Alto, Ca. He oversaw the 1984 merger with
Gulf Oil to form Chevron Corp.
(SFC, 10/18/08, p.B1)
2008 Oct 24, OPEC said at an
emergency meeting that it will slash oil production by 1.5 million
barrels to stem the "dramatic collapse" of oil prices, but crude
prices plunged 7 percent anyway as financial markets spiraled
downward across the globe.
(AP, 10/24/08)
2008 Oct 31, Petrofac evacuated
56 non-essential workers from the North Sea Heather Alpha oil rig
after a reports of 10-20 ton oil spill.
(AP, 10/31/08)
2008 Oct 31, Brazil's state-run
oil company signed an agreement to explore for oil in deep Caribbean
waters north of Cuba that officials in Havana say could contain 20
billion barrels of crude.
(AP, 10/31/08)
2008 Nov 7, An environmentalist
group and four Nigerians filed suit against Royal Dutch Shell PLC in
the Netherlands, claiming the company was negligent in cleaning up
oil spills in Nigeria.
(AP, 11/7/08)
2008 Nov 10, Iraq and China
signed the final agreement on a $3 billion deal to develop the Ahdab
oil field south of Baghdad over a 22 year-period.
(AP, 11/11/08)
2008 Nov 14, In Nigeria 22
Filipinos were arrested by a joint army-navy patrol on the Warri
River with the vessel MT Akuada laden with its cargo of 12,500
metric tons of crude oil. On Feb 20, 2009, 13 Filipinos were
sentenced to five years each or a fine of one million naira (6,800
dollars) for stealing crude oil from the Niger delta.
(AFP, 2/21/09)
2008 Nov 15, Gunmen hijacked a
freighter with 23 crew off the coast of Somalia. The crew of the
Japanese-owned Chemstar Venus consisted of five South Koreans and 18
Filipinos. Somali pirates hijacked the Sirius Star, a newly
commissioned supertanker, more than 450 nautical miles southeast of
Mombasa, Kenya, along with its 25-member crew. The ship, owned by
Saudi oil company Aramco, was capable of carrying about 2 million
barrels of oil.
(AP, 11/16/08)(AP, 11/17/08)
2008 Nov 20, US oil group
Chevron suspended export contracts on much of its Nigerian
production after a militant attack on a key pipeline. Chevron said
it was declaring "force majeure" until December 31 following the Nov
14 attack on the pipeline which carries supplies to its Escravos
terminal in the Niger Delta.
(AFP, 11/20/08)
2008 Nov 20, Vietnam's
president Nguyen Minh Triet was set to meet Venezuelan leader Hugo
Chavez, during the first visit by a head of state from the communist
nation here, mainly focused on oil and gas ties.
(AP, 11/20/08)
2008 Dec 1, A federal jury in
SF cleared Chevron Corp. of responsibility for any human rights
abuses during a violent protest on a company oil platform in Nigeria
a decade ago.
(AP, 12/2/08)
2008 Dec 17, OPEC, meeting in
Algeria, said it is cutting 2.2 million barrels a day from its
output, the largest ever at one time, to stem crude prices that have
plummeted over 70% from summer highs of nearly $150. Members among
the 13-nation organization were officially producing a daily 29.045
million barrels in September.
(AP, 12/17/08)
2008 Dec 26, China National
Offshore Oil Corp., the country's largest offshore oil and gas
producer, signed four oil cooperation agreements with Taiwan's CPC
Corp.
(AP, 12/26/08)
2008 Dec 30, Libya asked oil
companies to slash production by 270,000 barrels per day from Jan.
1, the latest such reduction by an OPEC member as the producer group
struggles to boost faltering oil prices.
(AP, 12/30/08)
2008 Dec 30, Russia's natural
gas company Gazprom said it will stop energy shipments to Ukraine
and sharply raise the price for future deliveries if it doesn't pay
a $2 billion debt by New Year's Eve.
(AP, 12/30/08)
2008 Dec 31, In Iraq Oil
Minister Hussein al-Shahristani kicked off the country's second
postwar bidding round, naming 11 oil and gas fields or groups of
fields as eligible for development proposals. 8 people were killed
in four bombings in the north. At least 314 US soldiers died in
2008, down from 904 in 2007.
(AP, 12/31/08)(AP, 1/1/09)
2008 Dec, Tanganyika Oil was
acquired by a subsidiary of China Petroleum & Chemical Corp.
(Sinopec) for $2 billion.
(Econ, 6/27/09, p.72)
2008 Royal Dutch Shell set up
its 22,000 ton Perdido spar off the coast of Texas and chained it to
the seabed 2,400 meters below the surface. The platform had been
constructed in Finland.
(Econ, 3/6/10, TQ p.15)
2008 BP bypassed its private
Russian partners and negotiated a deal with Gazprom, Russia’s state
controlled gas company.
(Econ, 2/5/11, p.73)
2009 Jan 2, Ukraine sought
support in European capitals a day after Russia cut off gas supplies
and hardened its stance on prices. The cutoff came after Ukraine
made a $1.5 billion overdue payment, but Russia demanded another
$600 million, including $450 million penalties for the late payment
for gas shipped in November and December. The two sides also have
not agreed on prices for 2009. Russia accused Ukraine of stealing
gas destined for the rest of Europe.
(AP, 1/2/09)(Reuters, 1/2/09)
2009 Jan 4, Gunmen hijacked a
vessel and 9 crewmen belonging to French oil services group Bourbon
off Nigeria's Niger Delta as it traveled toward a Royal Dutch Shell
offshore oilfield. The 9 crewmen: five Nigerians, two Ghanaians, one
Cameroonian and one Indonesian aboard. were released on Dec 7.
(Reuters, 1/4/09)(AP, 1/6/09)(AP, 1/7/09)
2009 Jan 5, Former US
Representative Joseph P. Kennedy said Citgo Petroleum, the US
refiner owned by the Venezuelan government, planned to stop
deliveries to his Boston-based nonprofit, Citizens’ Energy, due to
falling oil prices.
(WSJ, 1/6/09, p.A7)
2009 Jan 6, In southern Nigeria
armed men robbed an offshore oil platform operated by a subsidiary
of US oil giant ExxonMobile although the attack did not disrupt oil
production.
(AFP, 1/7/09)
2009 Jan 7, Venezuela's Citgo
Petroleum Corp. announced its fuel oil aid program would continue,
just two days after its partner nonprofit group, Boston-based
Citizens Energy, said Citgo had halted the free fuel shipments due
to the world economic crisis.
(AP, 1/8/09)
2009 Jan 9, In India some
55,000 white collar workers at state-run oil companies called off a
three-day strike, after causing a severe fuel shortage in India.
(AP, 1/9/09)
2009 Jan 9, Somali pirates
released the MV Sirius Star, an oil-laden Saudi supertanker seized
on Nov 15, after receiving a $3 million ransom.
(AP, 1/9/09)
2009 Jan 11, Two Nigerian
soldiers were killed and one wounded in an attack by unidentified
gunmen in the restive oil-rich Niger Delta. Police said the attack
might be connected with the police seizure of a vessel, the Sandra
Valleta, which was carrying stolen crude oil.
(AFP, 1/12/09)
2009 Jan 18, Dubai said it has
reached a deal with Nigeria to invest in the African nation's
conflict-ravaged oil industry and other sectors of the economy.
(AP, 1/18/09)
2009 Jan 18, Russia and Ukraine
announced a deal to end the bitter dispute that has blocked Russian
natural gas from Europe following talks between Russian PM Vladimir
Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Yulia Tymoshenko. Under the
terms, Ukraine will pay 20 percent less than the European "market
price" price for gas this year, which Russia says is $450 per 1,000
cubic meters. That's more than twice as much as the $179.50 Ukraine
paid in 2008.
(AP, 1/18/09)
2009 Jan 19, Russia and Ukraine
signed a deal that restores natural gas shipments to Ukraine and
paves the way for an end to the nearly two-week cutoff of most
Russian gas to a freezing Europe.
(AP, 1/19/09)
2009 Jan 21, In Nigeria the
best-known militant group in the Niger Delta said one of its allies
carried out an attack on a tanker in southern Nigeria in which one
Romanian crewman was taken hostage. He was soon released. The MT
Meredith, loaded with 4,000 tons of diesel, was attacked by gunmen
in speedboats and sustained "massive damage" during the attack.
(AFP, 1/21/09)(AFP, 1/22/09)
2009 Jan 30, Exxon Mobil Corp.
reported a profit of $45.2 billion for 2008, breaking its own record
for a US company, even as its fourth-quarter earnings fell 33
percent from a year ago.
(AP, 1/30/09)
2009 Jan, The Tamar gas field
was discovered off the coast of Israel. It was the largest gas find
this year.
(Econ, 11/13/10,
p.54)(www.offshore-technology.com/projects/tamar-field/)
2009 Feb 5, A nongovernment
organization said the corrupt elite of Cambodia, one of the world's
most impoverished nations, has laid the groundwork for siphoning off
vast profits from a coming boom in mining and oil exploitation.
(AP, 2/5/09)
2009 Feb 5, In Nigeria a
private security official said unidentified gunmen have attacked an
oil-industry vessel off the coast of Nigeria and killed its captain.
(AP, 2/5/09)
2009 Feb 10, A tanker burst
into flames after colliding with a container ship in a shipping
channel off the coast of Dubai. The Maltese-flagged tanker, Kashmir,
was carrying about 30,000 tons of oil condensate.
(AP, 2/10/09)
2009 Feb 13, Oil giant Royal
Dutch Shell said it has declared force majeure on shipments from its
main Nigerian terminal because of increased attacks by insurgents on
key facilities. Force Majeure (French for "superior force") is a
common clause in contracts which essentially frees both parties from
liability or obligation when an extraordinary event or circumstance
beyond the control of the parties.
(AP,
2/13/09)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force_majeure)
2009 Feb 14, Irish authorities
learned about an oil spill through surveillance carried out by the
European Maritime Safety Agency in Lisbon, Portugal. Irish military
aircraft flew over the area and saw the Russian aircraft carrier
Admiral Kuznetsov, a Russian oil tanker, and a Russian oceangoing
tug near the slick. this was the biggest oil spill in the waters
around Ireland in the last ten years.
(AP, 2/17/09)
2009 Feb 17, In southern
Nigeria gunmen attacked two oil facilities operated by Royal Dutch
Shell. A local militant leader claimed responsibility for the attack
in a letter and threatened further violence. A Nigerian appeal court
sacked the governor of the southwestern state of Ekiti after
complaints of vote irregularities and ordered a fresh poll within
three months.
(AP, 2/17/09)(AFP, 2/18/09)
2009 Feb 18, In Nigeria gunmen
in a midnight raid attacked a compound housing ExxonMobil staff in
the Niger Delta but were repulsed after a fierce battle with
Nigerian troops.
(AFP, 2/18/09)
2009 Feb 24, South Korea signed
a $3.55 billion deal with Iraq to help rebuild the war-ravaged
country in return for oil and gas. The deal was inked by South
Korean President Lee Myung-bak and his Iraqi counterpart Jalal
Talabani.
(AP, 2/24/09)
2009 Feb 25, US Interior Sec.
Ken Salazar scrapped leases, created under the Bush administration,
on federal land for oil-shale development in Colorado, Utah and
Wyoming.
(AP, 2/26/09)
2009 Mar 23, Suncor Energy Inc,
Canada's No.2 oil company, agreed to buy rival Petro-Canada for
about C$18.43 billion ($14.86 billion) to expand its oil sand
reserves and create the country's biggest energy group.
(Reuters, 3/23/09)
2009 Apr 8, In China visiting
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said the world's center of gravity
has moved to Beijing, as he focused on boosting Chinese oil
purchases.
(AP, 4/8/09)
2009 Apr 8, Nigeria President
Umaru Yar'Adua dismissed top managers across the board of the state
Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC).
(AFP, 4/8/09)
2009 Apr 12, In Nigeria fire
broke out on the Trans-Niger Pipeline. All the feeder flowstations
outside Ogoniland (in Rivers State) adjoining it were shut down to
allow for repairs.
(AP, 4/13/09)
2009 Apr 13, In southern
Nigeria gunmen riding in 18 boats attacked a military houseboat
outside an oil facility, commandeering a naval vessel and killing
one sailor.
(AP, 4/13/09)
2009 Apr 21, In Nigeria
officials said a strike by petrol truck drivers has caused a
scarcity of fuel in the commercial capital Lagos, leading to long
queues at petrol stations. The strike began at the weekend following
a dispute between the tanker drivers and officials of the Lagos
state traffic management authority LASMA. Gunmen in Nigeria attacked
an oil tanker off the coast of the Niger Delta, kidnapping the
ship's captain and an engineer. The Turkish vessel Ilena Mercan,
chartered by French oil company Total, was attacked on its way to
Onne port in Nigeria's southeastern Rivers state.
(AFP, 4/21/09)(Reuters, 4/21/09)
2009 Apr 20, Nigerian pirates
attacked the Aleyna Mercan ship about 50 nautical miles off Onne
port, near the oil city of Port Harcourt. The vessel was delivering
equipment to French oil group Total. On April 22 the kidnappers
released the Turkish captain and the chief engineer.
(AFP, 4/23/09)
2009 Apr 23, Iran's official
news agency says Tehran has reached an agreement with Iraq to build
a pipeline that will feed Iraqi crude to an Iranian refinery.
(AP, 4/23/09)
2009 May 8, Venezuela’s
National Guard began occupying dozens of oil rigs, docks and boats
operated by private contractors, both local and foreign, hired by
PDVSA, the state oil company. It appeared that PDVSA had run out of
cash.
(Econ, 5/16/09, p.44)
2009 May 13, Nigerian MEND
rebels hijacked an oil industry ship and held 15 foreign sailors
hostage. They demanded that all oil workers leave the southern Niger
Delta by May 16.
(AP, 5/14/09)
2009 May 17, Jordan and Royal
Dutch Shell PLC signed a concessionary agreement to explore for oil
in the country's vast oil shale deposits.
(AP, 5/17/09)
2009 May 19, China and Brazil
signed a raft of agreements in Beijing including a $10 billion loan
for the South American country's state energy company and a deal to
send oil to China amid stronger ties between the two developing
world giants.
(AP, 5/19/09)
2009 May 25, In Nigeria
militants sabotaged major crude pipelines in the chaotic oil region,
further trimming crude production as the military widened an
operation to uproot the fighters. Chevron in Nigeria reported a
100,000 barrel-per-day oil output cut after a militant attack the
day before on one of its pipelines in the southern Delta state. The
militants said they had released three Filipino hostages seized this
month.
(AP, 5/25/09)(AFP, 5/25/09)
2009 Jun 5, Indians in Peru's
Amazon, protesting government moves to develop oil, gas and other
resources on their lands, battled police in an area called Curva del
Diablo, or "Devil's Curve." Authorities and Indian leaders reported
the death of 11 police and 25 protesters.
(AP, 6/5/09)
2009 Jun 8, Royal Dutch Shell
agreed In NYC to a $15.5 million settlement to end a lawsuit
alleging that the oil giant was complicit in the executions of
activist Ken Saro-Wiwa and other civilians by Nigeria's former
military regime.
(AP, 6/8/09)
2009 Jun 9, In Nigeria MEND
(Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta) set a pumping
station of US oil giant Chevron on fire.
(AFP, 6/10/09)
2009 Jun 12, In Nigeria MEND
rebels breached Chevron’s Makaraba-Utonana-Abiteye pipeline and
started a fire at the Makaraba Jacket 5 facility in Delta State.
MEND also released a British oil sector worker who had been held for
nine months.
(AFP, 6/13/09)
2009 Jun 13, Algeria's national
oil company Sonatrach announced it had awarded a 79.3-billion-dinar
(1.11-billion-dollar, 793-million-euro) contract to the Canadian
engineering firm SNC-Lavalin to build natural gas processing
facilities.
(AFP, 6/13/09)
2009 Jun 15, Nigerian Petroleum
Development Company (NPDC) and China's state oil firm SIPEC said
they have discovered crude oil in Niger Delta region.
(AFP, 6/15/09)
2009 Jun 17, Royal Dutch Shell
said it had deferred shipments of crude oil from its Nigerian
Forcados exports terminal for two months due to delays in repairing
a key pipeline damaged by vandals.
(AFP, 6/17/09)
2009 Jun 18, Nigeria's main
militant group said it had destroyed a major crude oil pipeline
belonging to Royal Dutch Shell as it fights a campaign against
foreign oil companies.
(AFP, 6/18/09)
2009 Jun 19, Nigeria's main
militant group said it had destroyed a major pipeline supplying
crude oil to Italian oil group Agip's Brass exports terminal.
(AFP, 6/19/09)
2009 Jun 21, Nigeria's main
militant group said it had attacked a Shell offshore facility, the
third attack against the Anglo-Dutch company's facilities in Nigeria
in one day. The company denied the incident, saying the alleged
incident was part of the attack on two other Shell oil pipelines in
southern Rivers state earlier in the day.
(AFP, 6/21/09)
2009 Jun 25, Nigerian rebels
said that they carried out a pre-dawn attack against Royal Dutch
Shell facilities in a warning to Russia not to invest in the
country's oil and gas industry. Later in the day the main militant
group blew up a well-head in a Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L) oil field
in Delta state, hours after President Umaru Yar'Adua announced an
amnesty offer for gunmen.
(AFP, 6/25/09)(Reuters, 6/26/09)
2009 Jun 30, Iraq's
long-awaited licensing round to develop some of its massive oil
reserves stumbled as oil and gas companies dug in their heals,
demanding more money for their efforts than the government was
willing to pay. Iraq celebrated National Sovereignty Day, a new
public holiday, following the withdrawal of US forces from its
cities. An explosion in Kirkuk killed at least 30 people.
(AP, 6/30/09)(SFC, 7/1/09, p.A2)(AP, 7/2/09)
2009 Jul 1, The Indian
government announced a rise in petrol and diesel fuel prices, saying
its hand had been forced by the increase in global crude oil prices.
(AFP, 7/1/09)
2009 Jul 1, Iraq's government
approved a BP-led consortium's offer to develop a giant southern oil
field near Basra, moving forward with the only deal struck during a
disappointing international oil auction. On Oct 16 the Iraqi
government approved the deal by BP and its Chinese partner CNPC to
develop the 17.8 billion barrel Rumaila field, the 2nd largest in
the Middle East. A bombing in Kirkuk killed at least 30 people.
(AP, 7/1/09)(AP, 7/2/09)(AP, 10/17/09)(Econ,
12/4/10, p.58)
2009 Jul 3, Algeria, Niger and
Nigeria signed an accord to build a 10-billion-dollar trans-Saharan
gas pipeline linking vast reserves in Nigeria to Europe.
(AFP, 7/3/09)
2009 Jul 4, Nigeria's rebel
group MEND threatened to thwart a 10-billion-dollar trans-Saharan
gas pipeline linking vast reserves in Nigeria to Europe. The army
vowed to protect the project. Rebels Sichem Peace oil tanker
and its six crew members. The ship and crew were freed July 21 after
spending 18 days in captivity in the Niger Delta.
(AFP, 7/4/09)(AP, 7/22/09)
2009 Jul 5, Nigerian rebels
announced they had launched a fresh attack on an oil facility run by
the Anglo-Dutch group Shell in the restive Niger Delta. The
militants destroyed a Chevron oil pipeline junction in the latest
attack on Nigeria's key money earner since the government offered an
amnesty.
(AP, 7/5/09)(AFP, 7/6/09)
2009 Jul 8, Nigerian MEND
militants said they blew up two key oil pipelines as they stepped up
attacks in response to a government amnesty offer.
(AFP, 7/8/09)
2009 Jul 10, Nigerian militants
claimed to have blown up for a second time a recently repaired oil
pipeline operated by US petroleum giant Chevron.
(AP, 7/11/09)
2009 Jul 12, Nigerian rebels
took their battle with the government into the country's main city,
targeting an oil tanker loading facility in Lagos harbor in an
unprecedented attack there.
(AFP, 7/13/09)
2009 Jul 22, An international
arbitration panel awarded the Sudanese government control over
almost all major oil reserves in a disputed region of Sudan that
erupted into violence last year between state forces and former
southern rebels.
(AP, 7/22/09)
2009 Jul 29, Cuban state media
said Russia and Cuba have signed agreements to search for oil in the
Gulf of Mexico. Moscow extended the island $150 million in credit
for construction materials and farm machinery.
(AP, 7/29/09)
2009 Aug 9, US Secretary of
State Hillary Rodham Clinton arrived in oil-rich Angola to
underscore America's presence in one of sub-Saharan Africa's largest
energy producers where America is competing with China for
resources.
(AP, 8/9/09)
2009 Aug 11, The US Homeland
Security department was scheduled to return $2.4 million to Mexico's
tax administration, the first batch of money seized during a
binational investigation into smuggled oil that authorities expect
to lead to more arrests and seizures. So far this year, oil theft
was up 10 percent, and confirmed in 19 states, up from 13 in 2008.
(AP, 8/11/09)
2009 Aug 17, In Russia powerful
explosion took place during repair work at the Sayano-Shushinskaya
hydroelectric plant in southern Siberia. The death toll soon reached
69 with 6 still missing and feared dead after an engine room was
suddenly flooded. The accident produced an oil spill and the slick
that floated down the Yenisei River.
(AP, 8/17/09)(AP, 8/18/09)(AP, 8/21/09)(AP,
8/23/09)
2009 Aug 20, Angola and South
Africa signed a number of trade agreements including cooperation in
the oil sector, following major bilateral talks aimed at
strengthening economic relations.
(AFP, 8/20/09)
2009 Aug 21, A massive oil and
gas leak forced the evacuation of an oil rig off Australia's
northwest coast. PTTEP Australasia, a branch of Thai-owned PTT
Exploration and Production Co. Ltd., said about 40 barrels of oil
had been discharged in the initial incident, and it was still
attempting to bring the leak under control at the rig, owned by
Norway's Seadrill. After 2 days PTTEP said plugging the leak will
take weeks. Government officials said there was little threat of
environmental damage. By the end of October an estimated 400 barrels
a day of oil continued leaking from the fissure off the Australian
coast. PTTEP Australasia has failed repeatedly to stop the leak but
said it is still trying.
(AFP, 8/22/09)(AP, 8/23/09)(AP, 10/30/09)
2009 Aug 24, Bangladesh awarded
three offshore blocks to two global energy companies to explore for
gas in the Bay of Bengal. The US-based ConocoPhillips and Ireland's
Tullow Oil could start exploration work by early next year.
(AP, 8/25/09)
2009 Aug 29, Britain’s Cairn
Energy began pumping crude from a vast oilfield in the Indian desert
state of Rajasthan that is set to increase the country's crude
output by 20 percent.
(AFP, 8/29/09)
2009 Sep 2, BP announced the
discovery of oil at its new Tiber Prospect oil reserve in the Gulf
of Mexico. It later estimated the reserve held between 4 and 6
billion barrels of oil. Its Deepwater Horizon rig had drilled down 7
miles to reach the oil.
(http://tinyurl.com/mhnujo)(SSFC, 9/6/09, p.E4)
2009 Sep 6, In Iran Venezuela’s
President Hugo Chavez sealed an agreement to export 20,000 barrels
per day of gasoline to Iran. The deal would give Tehran a cushion if
the West carries out threats of fuel sanctions over Iran's nuclear
program. The two countries also agreed to set up a bank together to
help finance joint projects.
(AP, 9/7/09)
2009 Sep 7, UK-based
Global Witness said they had found serious discrepancies in reports
of Sudan's oil revenues which could mean Khartoum's government was
underpaying its strife torn south by hundreds of millions of
dollars.
(Reuters, 9/7/09)
2009 Sep 14, In Australia
energy giants Chevron, Shell and ExxonMobil agreed to develop the
massive Gorgon field, giving the final go-ahead to a liquefied
natural gas (LNG) project worth hundreds of billions of dollars.
(AP, 9/14/09)
2009 Sep 17, Spanish oil major
Repsol YPF said it had discovered oil off the coast of Sierra Leone,
its first find in the west African nation, along with its
Australian, American and British partners.
(AFP, 9/17/09)
2009 Sep 18, Canada-based oil
producer Verenex Energy Inc. agreed to be sold to the Libyan
Investment Authority for about $314.1 million Canadian ($293.7
million) in cash, after a better deal with a Chinese firm fell
through.
(AP, 9/20/09)
2009 Sep 27, In Venezuela Pres.
Hugo Chavez proposed that South American and African nations unite
to create a cross-continental mining corporation to keep control of
their resources. Chavez made diplomatic inroads in Africa at a
summit of South American and African leaders where he offered
Venezuela's help in oil projects, mining and financial assistance.
Venezuela signed agreements to work together on oil projects with
South Africa, Mauritania, Niger, Sudan and Cape Verde.
(Reuters, 9/27/09)(AP, 9/28/09)
2009 Oct 9, Stephen Pechenik
(78), the president of a San Antonio company, pleaded guilty to
charges that he conspired to receive and sell petroleum stolen from
Mexico's oil giant, Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex. He was the 4th
Texas oil executive to plead guilty to felony charges of conspiring
to receive and sell stolen petroleum condensate. Much of the Mexican
oil rustling was traced to the Zetas, a criminal group founded by
former military commandos.
(SFC, 12/15/09,
p.A26)(http://tinyurl.com/yjs42ms)
2009 Oct 19, Energy group
Chevron announced a new natural gas discovery off Western Australia
that will help support the massive Gorgon liquefied natural gas
(LNG) project.
(AFP, 10/19/09)
2009 Oct 19, Nigeria reported
plans to offer inhabitants of its oil-producing Niger Delta region
10% of oil and gas ventures in a bid to end a rebellion that has
hampered output for years.
(AFP, 10/19/09)
2009 Oct 23, In Puerto Rico an
earthshaking explosion at the Caribbean Petroleum Corp. in the
suburb of Bayamon, just west of the capital of San Juan, led to the
evacuation of more than 1,500 people. Authorities wee concerned
about those downwind of the fire.
(AP, 10/25/09)
2009 Oct 24, In China a Belgian
cargo vessel leaked oil into waters at the Caofeidian port in
northeastern Hebei province, after a Chinese ship crashed into it at
a refueling dock.
(AP, 10/25/09)
2009 Oct 25, Energy giant BP
signed a deal with Jordan to explore for natural gas reserves in the
Risheh field near the border with Iraq in an investment that could
reach billions of dollars.
(AFP, 10/25/09)
2009 Oct 29, In India a huge
fire at an oil depot near Jaipur killed at least six people and
injured 150. Officials said it would be allowed to burn out as
firefighters had little hope of dousing it. The blaze was visible
from over 25km (16 miles) away.
(AP, 10/30/09)
2009 Oct 30, In the San
Francisco Bay the tanker Dubai Star began leaking fuel oil after a
tank overflowed during refueling. Coast Guard officials later
estimated that some 400-800 gallons of toxic oil leaked into the SF
Bay killing at least 37 birds along the Alameda coastline.
(SFC, 10/31/09, p.A1)(SFC, 11/3/09, p.C3)(SFC,
11/17/09, p.C2)
2009 Oct 30, Indonesian
officials and fishermen said thousands of dead fish and clumps of
oil have been found drifting near the coastline more than two months
after an Australian underwater well began leaking in the Timor Sea
on Aug 21.
(AP, 10/30/09)
2009 Nov 1, PTTEP Australasia
attempted to plug a leaking well of the West Atlas drilling rig when
a fire then broke out on the rig. The operation to stem the leak has
involved the Thai-based operator towing the West Triton rig from
Singapore, which took five weeks, to drill down some 2.6km under the
seabed to the source of the emissions. The leak has dumped thousands
of barrels of oil into the Timor Sea since it began on August 21.
The blaze was brought under control on Nov 3 when experts managed to
plug the leak that has spewed tons of crude over the past 10 weeks.
(AP, 11/1/09)(AFP, 11/2/09)(AP, 11/3/09)
2009 Nov 5, A consortium
grouping US and European oil giants Exxon Mobil Corp. and Royal
Dutch Shell PLC signed a $50 billion deal to develop one of Iraq's
most prized oil fields, as the OPEC nation looks to revamp its
battered energy sector. The deal to develop the 8.6 billion West
Qurna Stage 1 field is the third such agreement in less than a week
between a foreign oil consortium and Iraq, which sorely needs
foreign company expertise and funding to revive an oil sector
hammered by years of neglect, sanctions and, most recently sabotage.
(AP, 11/5/09)
2009 Nov 29, Somali pirates
seized the Greece-flagged Maran Centaurus, a tanker carrying more
about $150 million of crude oil from Saudi Arabia to the US, in the
waters off East Africa.
(AP, 11/30/09)(AP, 12/4/09)
2009 Dec 1, Pirates off Oman
attacked the oil tanker, Sikinos. Using flares and hoses, the crew
of the Greek oil tanker fought off the pirate attack in the Arabian
Sea.
(AP, 12/1/09)
2009 Dec 11, Iraq struck deals
with consortiums led by Anglo-Dutch and Chinese giants Shell and
CNPC over massive southern oil fields, as part of a two-day auction
that seeks to dramatically boost the country's crude output.
(AP, 12/11/09)
2009 Dec 12, Iraq sold Russian
firm Lukoil rights to the West Qurna-2 oil field, one of the world's
biggest untapped oil fields, on the 2nd day of an auction. Lukoil
will work with junior partner StatoilHydro of Norway.
(AP, 12/12/09)
2009 Dec 14, Exxon Mobil Corp.
said it will buy XTO Energy Inc in an all-stock transaction valued
at about $30 billion, in a bid that thrusts the oil giant to the
forefront of North America's fast-growing natural gas industry.
(AP, 12/14/09)
2009 Dec 17, Iranian forces
took control of Well 4, a southern Iraqi oil well on a disputed
section of the border in Maysan province. Well 4 lies in the Fauqa
Field, part of a cluster of fields Iraq unsuccessfully put up for
auction to oil majors in June. The field has estimated reserves of
1.55 million barrels. There have been a number of meetings in recent
years aimed at reaching agreement on border fields, so far without
success.
(AFP, 12/18/09)(AP, 12/19/09)
2009 Dec 19, Iraqi troops
massed near an oil well on the border in a standoff with Iranian
forces that seized control of the site in a sudden flare up of
tension between the two uneasy neighbors.
(AP, 12/19/09)
2009 Dec 19, Nigerian militants
said they had carried out their first attack on an oil pipeline
since an amnesty offer because the absence of Pres. Yar'Adua was
delaying peace talks. A truck carrying bags of cement crushed and
killed at least 55 people when the driver lost control and ran into
a crowd on a road in Dekina, in central Kogi state.
(Reuters, 12/19/09)(AFP, 12/20/09)
2009 Dec 20, Iraqi oil workers
returned to the disputed oil well No. 4 in southern Iraq that was
seized by Iranian forces Dec 17. Baghdad also confirmed that Iranian
troops left the well.
(AP, 12/20/09)
2009 Dec 21, In Alaska an oil
spill was discovered coming from a 6-inch pipeline in the Prudhoe
Bay oil field.
(SFC, 12/23/09, p.A8)
2009 Dec 28, Slovakia said that
Russia had warned it might halt oil supplies through Ukraine to
three European Union countries over a price dispute.
(AFP, 12/28/09)
2009 Dec 30, An unknown amount
of oil poured from a China National Petroleum Corp. pipeline into
the Wei River in Shaanxi province following a construction accident.
The pipeline links the capitals of northwest Gansu province and
central Henan province. Shaanxi TV later said 20 miles (33 km) along
the Wei were polluted by the leak, estimated at 40,000 gallons.
(AP, 1/2/10)
2009 Dec 30, An Iraqi official
said the Angolan national oil company Sonangol has signed
preliminary deals to develop two small oil fields in northern Iraq.
(AP, 12/30/09)
2009 Bryan Burrough authored
“The Big Rich: The Rise and Fall of the Greatest Texas Oil
Fortunes.” It entered on H.L Hunt, Sid Richardson, Clint Murchinson
and Hugh Roy Cullen, known as the Big Four of Texas oil.
(WSJ, 2/4/09, p.A11)
2009 Peter Maas authored “Crude
World: The Violent Twilight of Oil.”
(SSFC, 10/4/09, Books p.F3)
2010 Jan 8, In Nigeria a
crude-oil pipeline operated by Chevron was attacked by unknown
gunmen in the Niger Delta region.
(AFP, 1/9/10)
2010 Jan 12, Texas-based Apache
Corp. said it made its sixth oil and gas discovery in the Faghur
Basin play in Egypt's far Western Desert near the Libyan border.
(AP, 1/12/10)
2010 Jan 13, The head of
Algeria's national oil corporation Sonatrach was suspended from his
job and ordered to appear before investigators probing corruption.
Mohamed Meziane was replaced in his job by vice-president Abdelhafid
Feghouli.
(AFP, 1/15/10)
2010 Jan 23, In Texas an
800-foot oil tanker and towing vessel collided spilling oil in the
southeast port of Port Arthur. The spill, estimated at 462,000
gallons, was contained to a 2-mile area along the Sabine Neches
Waterway.
(AP, 1/24/10)(SSFC, 1/24/10, p.A10)(SFC, 1/26/10,
p.A8)
2010 Jan, Angola at this time
produced about 1.9 million barrels of oil per day. Its reserves were
estimated at 13 billion barrels.
(Econ, 1/30/10, p.55)
2010 Feb 4, Dubai's government,
under pressure to repay billions of dollars in debt, said it has
discovered a new offshore oil field, the first such find by the
city-state in decades.
(AP, 2/4/10)
2010 Feb 16, Argentina’s Pres.
Cristina Fernandez issued a decree seeking to control all shipping
to and from the Falkland Islands, escalating her fight with Britain
over drilling for oil and gas in the South Atlantic.
(SFC, 2/17/10, p.A2)
2010 Feb 22, Latin American and
Caribbean nations backed Argentina's claim of sovereignty to the
Falkland Islands in a growing dispute with Britain over plans to
drill for oil off the islands in the Atlantic. British exploration
company Desire Petroleum PLC said it started drilling for oil about
62 miles north of the disputed islands.
(AP, 2/23/10)(SFC, 2/23/10, p.A2)
2010 Feb 23, In Italy an oil
spill began and spread south down the Lambro to Piacenza and Cremona
overnight, despite efforts to contain it. By the next day if reached
the Po River, with officials warning of an ecological disaster as
they scrambled to contain the sludge before it contaminated Italy's
longest and most important river. Milan regional officials said the
cause was certainly sabotage at a former refinery turned oil depot,
since the cisterns were opened and the oil allowed to flow unimpeded
into the Lambro River near Monza.
(AP, 2/24/10)
2010 Feb 24, French oil giant
Total said it is to invest seven billion dollars (5.16 billion
euros) in Nigerian oil and gas exploration and production over the
next four to five years.
(AFP, 2/24/10)
2010 Mar 2, In southeast New
Mexico two employees at a Navajo oil refinery were killed and two
others critically injured after a storage tank exploded into flames.
(AP, 3/2/10)
2010 Mar 2, In Nigeria planted
explosives in the Niger Delta damaged the Kokori oil flow station
operated by Royal Dutch Shell PLC, marking the latest attack in a
region supposedly brought under control by a government amnesty
program.
(AP, 3/3/10)
2010 Mar 8, In Australia Royal
Dutch Shell and PetroChina joined forces for a 2.96 billion US
dollar bid for Australia's Arrow Energy, hoping for a bigger slice
of the country's booming liquefied natural gas (LNG) sector.
(AP, 3/8/10)
2010 Mar 16, Pakistan and Iran
signed a $7.6 billion deal in Turkey paving the way for the
construction of a much-delayed pipeline pumping Iranian natural gas
to the energy-starved South Asian country.
(AP, 3/17/10)
2010 Mar 19, A Nigerian armed
rebel group claimed to have blown up an oil facility in the restive
oil-producing Niger Delta region and threatened to step up attacks
in coming days.
(AFP, 3/19/10)
2010 Mar 24, Australia and
China signed a multibillion dollar natural gas deal, pushing ahead
with business as the trial of four employees of mining giant Rio
Tinto ended in Shanghai with a verdict still to be announced.
(AP, 3/24/10)
2010 Mar 30, Chevron said the
Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague has ruled in favor of
its claim against Ecuador related to past operations of its Texaco
unit. The tribunal ruled that Ecuador’s courts delayed rulings on a
contract dispute and awarded Chevron about $700 million as of Dec
22, 2006. A separate case over a $27 billion pollution claim
remained pending.
(SFC, 3/31/10, p.A2)
2010 Mar 31, President Barack
Obama announced an expansive new policy that could put oil and
natural gas platforms in waters along the southern Atlantic
coastline, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and part of Alaska.
(AP, 3/31/10)
2010 Apr 2, In Washington state
an explosion at a Tesoro Corp. refinery killed 4 people in
Anacortes, about 70 miles north of Seattle.
(SFC, 4/3/10, p.A5)
2010 Apr 6, Louisiana
authorities said a pipeline has spilled some 18,000 gallons of crude
oil into a canal in the Delta National Wildlife Refuge about 60
miles southeast of New Orleans.
(SFC, 4/7/10, p.A8)
2010 Apr 19, Algeria's Energy
Minister Chakib Khelil said 11 major natural gas exporting countries
have decided to work towards a long term plan to index prices with
oil.
(AFP, 4/20/10)
2010 Apr 20, An explosion and
fire damaged an oil rig and critically injured 7 people off the
coast of Louisiana leaving 11 workers missing in the Gulf of Mexico.
The Deepwater Horizon rig sank 2 days later. Officials feared as
much as 336,000 gallons of crude oil a day could be rising from the
sea floor nearly 5,000 feet below. On April 23 no oil appeared to be
leaking from the well head at the ocean floor, nor was any leaking
at the water's surface. On April 25 it was reported that some 1000
barrels per day were leaking from 2 conduit sources related to the
sunken oil rig. An internal investigation later said the deadly
blowout was triggered by a bubble of methane gas that escaped from
the well and shot up the drill column, expanding quickly as it burst
through several seals and barriers before exploding. In June it was
reported that BP had been trying to seal cracks in the Macondo well
more than 2 months before the explosion.
(AFP, 4/21/10)(AFP, 4/23/10)(AP, 4/25/10)(AP,
5/8/10)(SFC, 6/18/10, p.A13)
2010 Apr 21, The presidents of
Ukraine and Russia agreed to extend the stay of Russia's Black Sea
Fleet in the Ukrainian port of Sevastopol to 2042 after the existing
lease expires in 2017. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said that
Kiev will receive large discounts on gas shipments in return for
certainty over the base's future, $100 for every 1,000 cubic meters
of gas or 30 percent if the benchmark price falls below $330.
(AP, 4/21/10)(SFC, 4/22/10, p.A2)
2010 Apr 26, The oil spill off
the coast of Louisiana, due to April 20 sinking of the Deepwater
Horizon oil rig, extended over some 1,800 square miles. Robot
submarines were in use to close valves atop the well. Officials said
engineers have begun constructing a giant dome to place over the
leaking oil well.
(SFC, 4/27/10, p.A6)(AFP, 4/27/10)
2010 Apr 28, Coast Guard Rear
Adm. Mary Landry was emphatic at a hastily called news conference
that a new leak was discharging 5,000 barrels a day of sweet crude,
not the 1,000 barrels officials had estimated for days since the
Deepwater Horizons drilling rig exploded and sank 50 miles off the
Louisiana Coast. Shrimpers in Louisiana filed a class-action lawsuit
against oil giant BP Plc and owners of the drilling platform that
exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, as claims for economic losses
anticipated from the disaster began to mount.
(AP, 4/29/10)(Reuters, 4/29/10)
2010 Apr 30, Oil from a leaking
well in the Gulf of Mexico began washing ashore in the southern US
state of Louisiana, threatening an ecological disaster.
(AP, 4/30/10)
2010 Apr 30, A Nigerian court
sentenced six Ghanaians and a Nigerian to 8 years in prison each
after they were found guilty of stealing 4,000 tons of oil products.
Rebels in the restive Niger Delta claimed to have blown up a Shell
pipeline in the creeks of the southern oil producing region and
threatened further attacks.
(AFP, 4/30/10)
2010 May 1, The worst US oil
spill in decades reached into precious shoreline habitat along the
Gulf Coast as documents emerged showing British Petroleum downplayed
the possibility of a catastrophic accident at the offshore rig that
exploded.
(AP, 5/1/10)
2010 May 1, Nigeria's navy
seized a Greek-flagged vessel carrying more than 80 tons of stolen
crude oil and arrested its crew in a crackdown on a multi-million
dollar smuggling racket.
(AFP, 5/5/10)
2010 May 3, Energy giant BP
vowed to pay "all necessary and appropriate clean-up costs" from the
US oil pollution disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Oil has been
spewing into the Gulf of Mexico since a deepwater oil rig operated
by BP exploded and sank on April 20 killing 11 men.
(AP, 5/3/10)
2010 May 3, Egypt's oil
ministry said it has signed a memorandum of understanding in Beijing
with two Chinese companies to build a $2 billion refinery that would
be its largest such plant.
(AP, 5/3/10)
2010 May 4, British Petroleum
said efforts to contain a giant oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico are
costing nearly four million pounds a day. Winds pushed a giant slick
towards fragile wetlands on the US coast as efforts intensified to
bottle up a ruptured oil well causing the growing environmental
disaster.
(AFP, 5/4/10)
2010 May 4, Royal Dutch Shell
said it spilled nearly 14,000 tons of oil into the creeks of the
Niger Delta in 2009 and blamed thieves and militants for the
environmental damage.
(SFC, 5/5/10, p.A2)
2010 May 5, The US Coast Guard
said BP PLC has managed to cap one of three leaks at a deepwater oil
well, but the work is not expected to reduce the overall flow of oil
into the Gulf of Mexico. The well has been spewing at least 210,000
gallons per day since an April 20 explosion at a rig 50 miles off
Louisiana.
(AP, 5/5/10)
2010 May 7, Anglo-Dutch oil
giant Shell said it had deferred crude shipments from its Bonny
Light terminal in the Niger Delta for two months due to a fire that
has hampered production.
(AFP, 5/7/10)
2010 May 8, BP’s first attempt
to divert a major crude spill was foiled and it could be at least a
day before another attempt at putting a lid on the well could be
made. Meanwhile, thick blobs of tar washed up on Alabama's white
sand beaches, yet another sign the spill was worsening.
(AP, 5/9/10)
2010 May 11, The Obama
administration announced plans to reorganize the Mineral Management
Services, the federal Interior Dept. agency that regulates offshore
drilling.
(SFC, 5/12/10, p.A4)
2010 May 13, In Abuja, Nigeria,
the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and China State
Construction Engineering Corporation Limited (CSCEC) sealed a $23
billion deal to build three refineries and a petrochemical complex.
(AFP, 5/14/10)
2010 May 13, The Venezuelan
government said the Aban Pearl offshore natural gas platform has
sunk into the sea, and 95 workers have been safely rescued.
(AP, 5/13/10)
2010 May 15, Oil leaking from
the ruptured well pipe in the Gulf of Mexico washed ashore in two
new locations, as BP’s latest attempt to contain the spill faltered.
Experts warned that the spill may be growing more than ten times
faster than previous Coast Guard estimates of 5,000 barrels (210,000
gallons) a day.
(AFP, 5/15/10)
2010 May 16, Oil from a
blown-out well is forming huge underwater plumes as much as 10 miles
long below the visible slick in the Gulf of Mexico, scientists said
as BP wrestled for a third day with its latest contraption for
slowing the nearly month-old gusher.
(AP, 5/16/10)
2010 May 17, BP said it was
siphoning more than one-fifth of the oil that has been spewing into
the Gulf for almost a month, as worries escalated that the ooze may
reach a major ocean current that could carry it through the Florida
Keys and up the East Coast. The US Coast Guard said 20 tar balls
have been found off Key West, Fla., but the agency stopped short of
saying whether they came from a massive oil spill in the Gulf of
Mexico.
(AP, 5/17/10)(AP, 5/18/10)
2010 May 18, A discovery of tar
balls on Florida's Key West fanned fears that a massive Gulf of
Mexico oil spill was spreading through ocean currents, as energy
giant BP Plc worked to capture more of the crude leaking from its
gushing deep-water well.
(Reuters, 5/18/10)
2010 May 19, Royal Dutch Shell
PLC announced it will spend more than $2 billion to sharply reduce
the burning off of natural gas at its oil wells in Nigeria, gases
that when burned contribute to global warming and sicken people
living nearby.
(AP, 5/19/10)
2010 May 20, BP conceded that
more oil than it estimated is gushing into the Gulf of Mexico as
heavy crude washed into Louisiana's wetlands for the first time,
feeding worries and uncertainty about the massive monthlong spill.
(AP, 5/20/10)
2010 May 23, The US government
threatened to remove BP from efforts to seal a blown-out oil well in
the Gulf of Mexico if it doesn't do enough to stop the leak, though
it acknowledged only the company and the oil industry have the
needed know-how. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said the state is not
waiting for federal approval to begin building sand barriers to
protect the coastline from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
(AP, 5/23/10)
2010 May 25, The US EPA barred
Texas from issuing an operating permit to a refinery on Corpus
Christi and said it would do the same to dozens in other cases in
which it believes the state is violating the Clean Air Act.
(SFC, 5/26/10, p.A4)
2010 May 25, In Alaska several
thousand barrels of crude spilled from the trans-Alaska pipeline and
overflowed a storage tank. The spill was in a containment area with
an impermeable liner.
(SFC, 5/27/10, p.A8)
2010 May 25, In the Singapore
Strait emergency teams scrambled to contain thousands of tons of
crude oil that spilled into waters near one of the world's busiest
ports after two ships collided. Singapore's Maritime and Port
Authority (MPA) said in its latest update that 5,000 tons of crude
had leaked from the Malaysian-registered tanker MT Bunga Kelana 3.
(AFP, 5/25/10)
2010 May 27, BP Plc wrestled to
plug its gushing deepwater Gulf of Mexico well in the latest attempt
to control the source of a catastrophic five-week-old oil spill.
Pres. Obama extended a moratorium on new deepwater oil drilling and
ordered floating rigs to stop work on 33 exploratory wells. The
government gave the go-ahead for an ambitious plan to construct
several barrier islands to reduce the amount of oil from the giant
Gulf of Mexico spill from coming ashore. Officials raised estimates
of the spill from 210,000 to at least half a million gallons a day.
(Reuters, 5/27/10)(AFP, 5/28/10)(SFC, 5/28/10,
p.A8)
2010 May 28, BP made progress
toward plugging its Gulf of Mexico oil spill with mud but said it
won't know for two more days if the fix will really work.
(AP, 5/28/10)
2010 May 29, The worst oil
spill in US history hit its 40th day with Gulf residents clinging to
the tenuous hope that BP's complicated "top kill" operation will
plug the gushing well.
(Reuters, 5/29/10)
2010 May 29, A fire at an
Iranian oil well at the Naft Shahr border region near the Iraq
border killed three people and injured 10 more.
(Reuters, 5/29/10)
2010 May 30, With BP declaring
failure in its latest attempt to plug the uncontrolled gusher
feeding the worst oil spill in US history, the company is turning to
yet another mix of risky undersea robot maneuvers and long shot odds
to keep crude from flowing into the Gulf. White House energy czar
Carol Browner said oil might keep leaking into the Gulf of Mexico
for months until relief wells are completed.
(AP, 5/30/10)
2010 May 30, Algeria's
President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, amid a growing corruption scandal,
fired the CEO and all top managers at Sonatrach, the state-owned oil
firm that dominates the North African country's economy.
(AP, 5/31/10)
2010 Jun 2, BP Plc forged ahead
with its latest effort to curb the flow of oil spewing into the Gulf
of Mexico as the British energy giant's shares fell anew as the US
government launched criminal and civil probes into the disaster.
(Reuters, 6/2/10)
2010 Jun 3, BP sliced off a
pipe with giant shears in the latest bid to curtail the worst spill
in US history, but the cut was jagged and placing a cap over the
gusher will now be more challenging. BP's top executive acknowledged
the global oil giant was unprepared to fight a catastrophic
deepwater oil spill as engineers were forced yet again to
reconfigure plans for executing their latest gambit to control the
Gulf of Mexico gusher. Robots a mile beneath the Gulf positioned a
cap over the main pipe on the leaking well Thursday night and an
inverted funnel-like system, wrapped in hoses and more sophisticated
than previous devices, started pumping oil and gas to a tanker on
the surface. A very rough estimate of current collection was
estimated at about 42,000 gallons a day. An estimated 500,000 to 1
million gallons of crude was believed to be leaking daily. The
federal government slapped BP with a $69 million bill to cover
initial costs of responding to the oil spill.
(AP, 6/3/10)(AP, 6/4/10)(AP, 6/4/10)
2010 Jun 5, President Barack
Obama on his 3rd visit to Louisiana said that he will stand with
Gulf Coast residents "until they are made whole" from the oil spill
catastrophe.
(AP, 6/5/10)
2010 Jun 7, A natural gas
explosion in northern Texas killed one member of a crew installing
utility poles. Authorities the next day were trying to determine if
the gas line had been marked before digging started.
(AP, 6/8/10)
2010 Jun 7, Turkey and
Azerbaijan signed a long-awaited deal on the transit of gas to
Europe seen as crucial to plans to reduce the continent's dependence
on Russian gas.
(AFP, 6/7/10)
2010 Jun 8, A report by the
European Coalition on Oil in Sudan (ECOS) charged that a consortium
led by Swedish Lundin Petroleum is partly to blame for war
crimes committed in Sudan between 1997 and 2003.
(AFP, 6/8/10)
2010 Jun 10, BP shares fell in
London as US politicians pressed the British oil company to halt its
dividend payments and fork out greater compensation for American
workers and companies devastated by the massive Gulf of Mexico oil
spill.
(AP, 6/10/10)
2010 Jun 11, In Salt Lake City
an underground pipeline broke sending oil into a creek that
ultimately flows into the Great Salt Lake. The pipeline was shut off
the next day as the 21,000 gallon spill coated some 300 birds at
area creeks. Chevron said it would pay for cleanup.
(SFC, 6/14/10, p.A6)
2010 Jun 11, A Credit Suisse
analyst, briefed by BP’s Chief of Staff, said in a research note
that BP expects the total bill for the clean up of the Gulf of
Mexico oil spill to be $3-6 billion.
(Reuters, 6/11/10)
2010 Jun 12, Yemeni tribesmen
blew up an oil pipeline outside the provincial capital, Marib, after
the government recently bombed the area in retaliation for an attack
on a military convoy.
(AP, 6/12/10)
2010 Jun 14, US authorities
gave BP permission to start burning oil and gas piped up from its
broken seafloor well as part of a pledge to more than triple how
much crude it stops from spewing into the Gulf of Mexico.
(AP, 6/15/10)
2010 Jun 15, Iran signed
contracts worth 21 billion dollars with local firms to develop six
gas fields, some of them awarded to the elite Revolutionary Guards.
(AFP, 6/15/10)
2010 Jun 16, BP under pressure
from Pres. Obama agreed to set aside $20 billion in a spill recovery
escrow program to compensate Gulf Coast fishermen and others who
have lost work and wages from the 8-week old massive oil spill.
(SFC, 6/17/10, p.A8)
2010 Jun 17, European Union
leaders agreed tighter sanctions against Iran, including measures to
block oil and gas investment and curtail its refining and natural
gas capability.
(Reuters, 6/17/10)
2010 Jun 17, Royal Dutch Shell
PLC warned Nigeria that $40 billion of planned investments in the
oil-rich nation could be in jeopardy if lawmakers pass a proposed
bill to overhaul the petroleum industry. Government officials say
the bill would allow more oil money to return to Nigeria's
people. The bill also would require the government-run Nigerian
National Petroleum Corp., which partners with all foreign oil firms,
to seek profits like a private business and not rely on government
subsidies.
(AP, 6/17/10)
2010 Jun 17, Russia PM Putin
agreed to support a $1 billion joint US-Russian venture to drill for
oil in the Black Sea. San Ramon, Ca., based Chevron and Russia’s
state-owned Rosneft signed the agreement to develop the Val Shatsky
deposit, which could contain up to 860 million tons of crude.
(SFC, 6/18/10, p.D3)
2010 Jun 21, The US White
House slapped BP with a new 51-million-dollar bill, the third sent
to the British energy giant and its partners for government expenses
incurred in efforts to halt the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. BP
revealed it has so far spent two billion dollars on the Gulf of
Mexico oil spill, after an internal BP document suggested the gusher
might be spewing far faster than initially feared.
(AFP, 6/21/10)
2010 Jun 21, Egypt's government
confirmed that oil has leaked from one of several rigs operating off
the coast of the Red Sea resort Hurghada and has polluted about 100
miles (160 km) of coastline including tourist beach resorts. The
government has kept quiet about the leak for days.
(AP, 6/21/10)
2010 Jun 21, Russia started
cutting most natural gas supplies to ex-Soviet neighbor Belarus over
what it claims is a debt of nearly $200 million, threatening to
rekindle political disputes in the region over energy policy.
(AP, 6/21/10)
2010 Jun 22, In New Orleans US
District Judge Martin Feldman struck down the Obama administration’s
6-month ban on deep-water drilling.
(SFC, 6/23/10, p.A6)
2010 Jun 22, Belarussian
President Alexander Lukashenko ordered the shutdown of transit of
Russian gas to Europe, escalating a new "gas war" after Moscow
slashed supplies to Minsk in a debt dispute. Belarus said Gazprom
owes it 217 million dollars in transit fees.
(AFP, 6/22/10)
2010 Jun 23, Embattled BP CEO
Tony Hayward handed over the handling of the Gulf of Mexico oil
spill to Bob Dudley (54), an American executive brought up in
Mississippi, one of the states affected by the disaster. BP
reinstalled an oil containment system sucking up crude from a
ruptured pipe in the Gulf of Mexico, which had been removed
following a collision with a robotic submarine.
(AP, 6/23/10)(AFP, 6/24/10)
2010 Jun 23, Lithuania said its
Russian gas supplies, which transit through Belarus, had been cut by
30 percent as a result of Russia's energy dispute with Belarus.
(AP, 6/23/10)
2010 Jun 23, Venezuela said it
will nationalize a fleet of oil rigs belonging to US company
Helmerich and Payne. The 11 drilling rigs have been idled for months
following a dispute over $49 million in pending payments by the
state oil company PDVSA. On June 26 the oil minister said Venezuela
will pay Helmerich and Payne for the fleet of seized oil rigs,
warning that five drills at a Chevron venture were also at risk of
nationalization.
(Reuters, 6/24/10)(Reuters, 6/26/10)
2010 Jun 25, In Venezuela it
was reported that fish and birds covered with tar-like oil are
washing up on the eastern shores of Lake Maracaibo, angering
fishermen who fear their livelihood is at stake because of the
country's state-run oil company.
(AP, 6/26/10)
2010 Jul 3, In the Gulf of
Mexico a Taiwanese converted tanker, dubbed "A Whale" and billed as
the world's largest oil skimmer, arrived from Portugal in the Gulf
of Mexico for testing. Officials hoped it would scrub 21 million
gallons of oil-tainted seawater per day. The US Coast Guard later
said it was too big to maneuver around the smaller patches and
ribbons of oil.
(AP, 7/03/10)(SSFC, 7/4/10, p.A8)(AP, 7/17/10)
2010 Jul 5, BP's costs
for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill climbed nearly half a billion
dollars in the past week, raising the oil giant's tab to just over
$3 billion for work on cleaning and capping the gusher and payouts
to individuals, businesses and governments. Tar balls from the Gulf
oil spill found on a Texas beach were the first evidence that
gushing crude from the Deepwater Horizon well has reached all the
Gulf states.
(AP, 7/6/10)
2010 Jul 6, In New Orleans,
Louisiana, oil from the ruptured well was reported to be seeping
into Lake Pontchartrain, threatening another environmental disaster
for the huge body of water that was rescued from pollution in 1990s.
(AP, 7/6/10)
2010 Jul 7, An Associated Press
investigation showed that more than 27,000 abandoned oil and gas
wells lurked in the hard rock beneath the Gulf of Mexico, an
environmental minefield that has been ignored for decades.
(AP, 7/7/10)
2010 Jul 7, Royal Dutch Shell
said it has begun production at a major project in Nigeria that
should eventually provide up to 70,000 barrels of oil per day and
help boost electricity for the power-starved nation.
(AFP, 7/8/10)
2010 Jul 10, In the Gulf of
Mexico hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil were allowed to spew
into the fouled waters while BP engineers prepared to install a new
containment system they hope will catch it all in the coming days.
(AP, 7/11/10)
2010 Jul 12, BP Engineers
worked to replace a cap over a gushing oil well in the Gulf of
Mexico after reporting good progress in attempts to contain the
worst environmental disaster in US history. Expected to take between
four and seven days, the round-the-clock work began at midday on
July 10 when the old, less efficient cap was ripped off a fractured
pipe a mile down on the sea floor by robotic submarines.
(AFP, 7/12/10)
2010 Jul 12, A Canada Steamship
Lines vessel ran aground near the Cote Sainte-Catherine canal lock
south of Montreal. The Montreal Gazette newspaper said the accident
punctured the ship's fuel tank, leaking between 50 and 200 tons of
oil into the surrounding waters.
(Reuters, 7/13/10)
2010 Jul 13, After securing a
new, tight-fitting cap on top of the leaking well in the Gulf of
Mexico, BP prepared to begin tests to see if it will hold and stop
fresh oil from polluting the waters for the first time in nearly
three months.
(AP, 7/13/10)
2010 Jul 13, Iraqi Oil Minister
Hussain al-Shahristani said the cabinet had decided to summon
representatives of the Kurdish regional government to discuss oil
smuggling to Iran and "to put an end to it, as it harms Iraq's
national and economic interests." Reports about the oil smuggling
surfaced just over a week after the US imposed new sanctions barring
the export of refined fuels to Iran.
(AP, 7/13/10)
2010 Jul 13, Kazakhstan’s
cabinet approved a crude-oil export tax of $20 per metric ton.
Chevron, based in San Ramon, Ca., owns 50% of Tengiz Chevroil, which
operates the biggest field in Kazakhstan.
(SFC, 7/14/10, p.D2)
2010 Jul 13, In Nigeria the
junior finance minister said the country’s corruption-ridden giant
state oil firm NNPC is insolvent with debts of five billion dollars.
(AFP, 7/13/10)
2010 Jul 14, After days of
progress on the Gulf of Mexico oil leak, BP said that delays have
temporarily stopped work beneath the water on both a stopgap
solution and a permanent fix to the gusher.
(AP, 7/14/10)
2010 Jul 15, BP finally stopped
oil from spewing into the sea, for the first time since an April 20
explosion on the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon oil rig killed 11
workers and unleashed the spill 5,000 feet beneath the water's
surface.
(AP, 7/16/10)
2010 Jul 15, French oil firm
Total SA said it has signed a deal to acquire Chevron Corp.'s stake
in an offshore oil block near Nigeria's coastline.
(AP, 7/15/10)
2010 Jul 19, The US federal
government allowed BP to keep the cap shut tight on its busted Gulf
of Mexico oil well for another day despite a seep in the sea floor
after the company promised to watch closely for signs of new leaks
underground, settling for the moment a rift between BP and the
government.
(AP, 7/19/10)
2010 Jul 19, One of China's
biggest ports, Dalian, shut down after an pipeline explosion
triggered a major offshore oil spill, forcing a refinery to cut
processing and importers to divert cargoes elsewhere. The government
later said 1,500 tons of oil were spilled. Others later estimated as
much as 60-90 thousand tons.
(Reuters, 7/19/10)(SFC, 7/31/10, p.A4)
2010 Jul 19, Egypt signed a
significant agreement with BP to develop 2 offshore gas fields in
the largest deal for the beleaguered oil giant since its drilling
rig disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.
(AFP, 7/19/10)
2010 Jul 21, China's largest
reported oil spill had more than doubled, closing beaches on the
Yellow Sea and prompting an environmental official to warn the
sticky black crude posed a "severe threat" to sea life and water
quality. The oil was spread over 165 square miles (430 square km) of
water five days since a pipeline at a busy northeastern port
exploded.
(AP, 7/21/10)
2010 Jul 23, Work to
permanently choke off BP's broken oil well stalled as Tropical Storm
Bonnie raced toward the Gulf of Mexico and dozens of ships evacuated
the area.
(AP, 7/23/10)
2010 Jul 25, Ships and workers
moved back into BP Plc's Gulf of Mexico oil spill site as seas
calmed, and BP could begin pumping mud into the blown-out well later
this week in a bid to plug the gusher.
(Reuters, 7/25/10)
2010 Jul 25, Iran's official
news agency said an explosion at a petrochemical factory at tis
Kharg island oil terminal has killed four people.
(AP, 7/25/10)
2010 Jul 26, In Michigan an oil
pipeline leaked over 800,000 gallons into Talmadge Creek and flowed
to the Kalamazoo River coating fish and birds in Battle Creek and
Emmet Township. The US government estimated the leak at over 1
million gallons.
(SFC, 7/28/10, p.A4)(SFC, 7/30/10, p.A7)
2010 Jul 27, An audit by the US
Special Investigator for Iraq Reconstruction said the US Defense
Department is unable to properly account for over 95 percent of $9.1
billion in Iraqi oil money tapped by the US for rebuilding the war
ravaged nation.
(AP, 7/27/10)
2010 Jul 27, BP said its
much-criticized CEO Tony Hayward will be replaced by American Robert
Dudley on Oct. 1, as it reported a record quarterly loss and set
aside $32.2 billion to cover costs of the devastating Gulf of Mexico
oil spill.
(AP, 7/27/10)
2010 Jul 29, The X Prize
foundation offered up a new $1.4 million prize for anyone who can
come up with a faster way to clean oil spills from the ocean.
(Econ, 8/7/10, p.79)
2010 Jul 31, A senior Iranian
official said China has invested around 40 billion dollars in the
Islamic republic's oil and gas sector.
(AFP, 7/31/10)
2010 Aug 2, The US government
said BP's ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico gushed an estimated
4.9 million barrels of oil, making it the largest accidental oil
spill of all time.
(AFP, 8/3/10)
2010 Aug 3, British oil giant
BP said it will sell its Colombian business for a total of 1.9
billion dollars (1.4 billion euros) to national oil company
Ecopetrol and Talisman of Canada.
(AFP, 8/3/10)
2010 Aug 4, BP PLC reached what
it called a significant milestone overnight when mud that was forced
down the well held back the flow of crude. A government report said
much of the spilled oil is gone, though what's left is still at
least quadruple the amount that poured from the Exxon Valdez.
(AP, 8/4/10)
2010 Aug 9, BP made its first
deposit, $3 billion, into the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster fund,
while top executives were summoned to the White House to pledge
their long-term commitment to restoring the region.
(AFP, 8/9/10)
2010 Aug 11, Turkey said it
will support petrol sales by Turkish companies to Iran, despite US
sanctions that aim to squeeze the Islamic Republic's fuel imports.
(Reuters, 8/11/10)
2010 Aug 15, In Nigeria Royal
Dutch Shell PLC warned that thieves in the oil-rich and restive
southern delta are increasingly targeting the company's crude
pipelines, including at least three incidents of sabotage this month
alone.
(AP, 8/15/10)
2010 Aug 16, The US Interior
Dept. announced new rules for offshore drilling.
(SFC, 8/17/10, p.A4)
2010 Aug 17, American oil
company Anadarko said it has discovered offshore oil deposits in
northern Mozambique, but it is unclear if the find will prove
commercially viable.
(AFP, 8/17/10)
2010 Aug 18, Shell in Nigeria
said it has warned it may not meet contractual obligations on Bonny
Light crude, after oil thieves sabotaged two pipelines in the
country's south.
(AFP, 8/18/10)
2010 Aug 22, Thousands of fish
turned up dead at the mouth of Mississippi River, prompting
authorities to check whether oil was the cause of mass death. Crabs,
sting rays, eel, drum, speckled trout and red fish were among the
species that turned up dead.
(AFP, 8/24/10)
2010 Aug 25, Cosan, Brazil’s
biggest sugar and ethanol producer, signed a $12 billion joint
venture with Royal Dutch Shell, the world’s largest energy company.
(Econ, 9/4/10,
p.41)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Dutch_Shell)
2010 Aug, Cairn Energy, a
British petrochemicals company, announced the discovery of
worthwhile oil deposits off the coast of Greenland. Its licensed
acreage was estimated to hold some 4 billion barrels of oil.
(Econ, 8/28/10, p.43)
2010 Sep 1, In western India
wave after wave of tar balls floated ashore on the renowned Goa
beaches after a ship dumped tons of waste oil, about three days
after officials believe a ship dumped burnt oil at sea.
(AP, 9/1/10)
2010 Sep 3, BP Plc successfully
replaced a failed blowout preventer from atop its ruptured Gulf of
Mexico oil well.
(Reuters, 9/4/10)
2010 Sep 3, Brazil's state-run
oil company Petrobras unveiled a huge share offering which could
raise 64 billion dollars to help finance new exploration projects in
the country.
(AFP, 9/3/10)
2010 Sep 8, BP issued a report
on the causes of the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe and listed the
unfolding of the tragedy in 4 acts, each containing several errors.
(Econ, 9/11/10, p.74)
2010 Sep 9, A senior southern
Sudan official said northern Sudan has resolved an angry dispute
with the south by returning the payment of crucial oil revenues to
hard currency.
(AFP, 9/9/10)
2010 Sep 10, A US federal
appeals court in San Francisco upheld a jury verdict clearing the
Chevron Corp. of alleged human rights abuses during a violent 1998
protest on a company oil platform in Nigeria.
(AP, 9/11/10)
2010 Sep 11, In southern Egypt
a barge leaked some 100 tons of gasoline into the Nile River.
Captain Yasser Hussein told police that low water levels caused the
boat to tilt and partially submerge allowing the fuel to leak.
(AP, 9/12/10)
2010 Sep 13, US EPA officials
said that a leak in an oil pipeline in Reomeoville, Illinois, has
stopped. The volume spilled in the Chicago suburb was unknown. The
pipeline was owned by Enbridge Energy Partners.
(SFC, 9/14/10, p.A4)
2010 Sep 15, The United States
ordered oil and gas firms to permanently plug nearly 3,500 unused
wells and dismantle hundreds of idle platforms in the Gulf of
Mexico, in a bid to shore up industry safety after the disastrous BP
spill.
(AFP, 9/15/10)
2010 Sep 15, Russia and Norway
ended a 40-year dispute in signing an Arctic border treaty which
opens the door to offshore oil and gas exploration. President Dmitry
Medvedev and Norway's PM Jens Stoltenberg presided over the signing
in Murmansk.
(AP, 9/15/10)
2010 Sep 17, Chevron Corp.
rejected new estimates of damages in the jungles of Ecuador that
rose to a range of $40 to $90 billion. The suit stemmed from
operations by Texaco from 1972-1990 when it managed a drilling
consortium. Chevron bought Texaco in 2001.
(SFC, 9/18/10, p.D3)
2010 Sep 19, US officials
finally declared BP's broken well in the Gulf of Mexico
"dead", following a successful “bottom kill,” five months after a
deadly oil rig blast sparked one of the costliest and largest
environmental disasters ever.
(AFP, 9/20/10)(SFC, 9/20/10, p.A16)
2010 Sep 19, Iraq signed a deal
with Turkey to extend for 15 years the use of the main pipeline
linking its northern oilfields to the Mediterranean port of Ceyhan.
3 car bombs tore through Baghdad and the former insurgent stronghold
of Fallujah, killing at least 36 people. Al-Qaida's front group in
Iraq later claimed responsibility for the two Baghdad bombings that
killed at least 31 people at a government security agency and what
it called an "evil" mobile phone provider.
(AFP, 9/19/10)(AP, 9/19/10)(AP, 9/24/10)
2010 Sep 20, Libya's daily Oea
newspaper reported that Douglas O'Reilly, a Canadian man, was
detained after meeting a US diplomat suspected of being a CIA agent.
He was detained on suspicion of spying on a planned BP offshore
drilling project. O'Reilly claimed to be an archaeologist seeking to
warn of the BP project's potential impact on archaeological sites.
O'Reilly was given freedom to leave Libya on Sep 22.
(AP, 9/21/10)(AP, 9/22/10)
2010 Sep 21, Greenpeace said
that its activists have climbed aboard a Chevron-operated ship to
protest drilling operations in the deep waters off Britain's
Shetland Islands.
(AP, 9/21/10)
2010 Sep 23, Brazilian
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva officially launched the sale of
new shares in the state-run oil company Petrobras seen as the
world's biggest capitalization, worth 67 billion dollars. This
raised the government’s stake from 40% to 48%.
(AP, 9/24/10)(Econ, 10/2/10, p.31)
2010 Sep 24, European coastal
nations agreed to review rules for offshore drilling, but said each
country should decide individually on how to improve safety oil rig
safety to avoid disasters like the Gulf of Mexico spill.
(AP, 9/24/10)
2010 Oct 1, European oil majors
resisted pressure from the US to stop all business with Iran, in
spite of Washington's drive to isolate Tehran over a nuclear program
the West suspects is aimed at making bombs.
(Reuters, 10/1/10)
2010 Oct 1, Spanish energy
giant Repsol announced the sale of 40 percent of its Brazilian
affiliate to China's Sinopec for 7.1 billion dollars, securing
funding for the development of oil fields in Brazil.
(AP, 10/1/10)
2010 Oct 1, Pirates off the
coast of Nigeria's southern delta kidnapped two foreign sailors from
the MV Eckhardt tanker. A naval spokesman later suggested the crew
worked in the black market trade of stolen crude from the region.
(AP, 10/3/10)
2010 Oct 6, Documents were
released in which the national oil spill commission's staff
described "not an incidental public relations problem" by the White
House in the wake of the April 20 accident. The report said, the
administration made erroneous early estimates of the spill's size,
and President Barack Obama's senior energy adviser went on national
TV and mischaracterized a government analysis by saying it showed
most of the oil was "gone." The analysis actually said it could
still be there. The explosion in the Gulf of Mexico killed 11
workers, spewed 206 million gallons of oil from the damaged oil
well, and sank the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig.
(AP, 10/7/10)
2010 Oct 10, Norwegian oil firm
Statoil is expanding further its shale gas operations in the United
States, saying it has created a joint venture with Canada's Talisman
to acquire acreage on the Eagle Ford prospect in Texas for $1.325
billion.
(Reuters, 10/10/10)
2010 Oct 12, The Obama
administration lifted the deep-water drilling ban in the Gulf of
Mexico. Actual resumption was still weeks to months away.
(SFC, 10/13/10, p.A6)
2010 Oct 15, Russia agreed to
help build Venezuela's first nuclear power plant and buy $1.6
billion of oil assets, reinforcing ties with President Hugo Chavez,
who shares Moscow's opposition to US global dominance.
(Reuters, 10/15/10)
2010 Oct 16, In Belarus
visiting Pres. Chavez of Venezuela promised that Belarusian
refineries, the backbone of the country's economy, would see no oil
shortages for the next 200 years.
(AP, 10/16/10)
2010 Oct 19, In Iran
Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez held talks with leaders expected
to focus on boosting cooperation between the countries' oil, gas and
petrochemical industries.
(AP, 10/19/10)
2010 Oct 20, Venezuelan
President Hugo Chavez left Iran after signing 11 deals focused on
energy cooperation between the two major oil producers who are foes
of the United States.
(AFP, 10/20/10)
2010 Oct 22, In Canada Alberta
Provincial Court Judge Ken Tjosvold found Syncrude, one of Canada's
largest oil sands producers, guilty in the deaths of the 1,600 ducks
in a toxic waste pond last June. Syncrude accepted the C$3 million
sentencing proposal.
(Reuters, 10/22/10)
2010 Oct 24, A quarter of
French petrol stations were short on fuel as refinery strikes over
pension reform continued to drain supply, and one official said
several holiday spots were likely to be particularly hard-hit.
(Reuters, 10/24/10)
2010 Oct 26, A Southern Sudan
official said that northern Sudan leaders are holding an oil-rich
region "hostage" in negotiations being held before a January
independence referendum.
(AP, 10/26/10)
2010 Oct 28, A White House
panel said that Halliburton Co. used flawed cement in BP Plc's
doomed Gulf of Mexico well, which could have contributed to the
blowout that sparked the worst offshore oil spill in US history.
Halliburton had run a series of tests that showed the material was
unstable in the weeks before the April 20 explosion on the Deepwater
Horizon rig. An interim report BP issued in September said
Halliburton used an "unstable" cement mixture that allowed
hydrocarbons to flow up the drill pipe and onto the floor of the
rig, where they ignited.
(Reuters, 10/29/10)
2010 Oct 29, In Nigeria Italian
oil firm Eni SpA said a pipeline carrying some of its crude out of
Nigeria's oil-rich southern delta has erupted after an "act of
sabotage."
(AP, 10/29/10)
2010 Nov 1, Britain's BG Group
announced it will spend 15 billion US dollars on a liquefied natural
gas (LNG) project in Australia, an investment Canberra hailed as a
boost for the national economy.
(AFP, 11/1/10)
2010 Nov 1, ExxonMobil in
Nigeria announced the discovery of rich gas condensate off the West
African country's coast as the government seeks to boost gas supply
to help solve electricity shortages.
(AFP, 11/1/10)
2010 Nov 2, BP lifted its
estimate of the likely cost of its Gulf of Mexico oil spill to $40
billion, denting profits, but its underlying performance beat all
expectations on higher refining margins and a lower tax rate.
(Reuters, 11/2/10)
2010 Nov 9, Chevron Corp. said
it will buy Atlas Energy for $4.3 billion giving it a big stake in
natural gas from underground shale formations.
(SFC, 11/10/10, p.D1)
2010 Nov 22, Venezuela's oil
minister, Rafael Ramirez, said that the latest exploratory drilling
has confirmed "extraordinary results": about 15 trillion cubic feet
of gas under the sea floor in a place where experts once thought
there was only a fraction of that amount. An event launched a
separate $17 billion oil project involving Italy’s Eni SpA and state
oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA, or PDVSA.
(AP, 11/23/10)
2010 Nov 23, A BP executive,
James Patrick Black (58), helping to guide recovery from the Gulf of
Mexico oil spill died with two others when a small plane crashed in
waters off the Florida Panhandle.
(AP, 11/24/10)
2010 Nov 24, Australia said
that a Thai-owned oil firm's "widespread and systematic
shortcomings" caused the worst offshore drilling accident in the
country's history, which created a massive oil slick. Thousands of
barrels of oil gushed into the sea from a damaged well after a blow
out on the West Atlas rig on August 21, 2009, prompting the
evacuation of workers.
(AFP, 11/24/10)
2010 Nov 28, BP said it has
agreed to sell its 60 percent stake in Pan American Energy to
Argentina-based oil and gas firm Bridas Corporation, as part of
asset sales to pay for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
(AFP, 11/28/10)
2010 Nov 28, Iran's Pres.
Ahmadinejad and Turkmen Pres. Berdymukhamedov inaugurated the last
section of the Sarakhs-Tehran pipeline to export Turkmen gas to
northeast Iran.
(AFP, 11/28/10)
2010 Nov 29, Nigerian union
leaders ordered their tanker drivers to halt the supply of petrol
nationwide for 7 days in protest at alleged maltreatment and killing
of their members by the military.
(AFP, 11/30/10)
2010 Dec 1, President Barack
Obama reversed a March decision to expand offshore oil exploration
to the Atlantic Ocean and eastern Gulf of Mexico, but said deepwater
drilling could continue in the part of the Gulf hit by the BP
disaster.
(AFP, 12/1/10)
2010 Dec 2, Nigeria's
anti-corruption police said they planned to file charges against
former Vice President Dick Cheney in a $180 million bribery case
involving a former unit of oil services firm Halliburton.
(Reuters, 12/2/10)
2010 Dec 2, ExxonMobil said
management staff in Nigeria have begun an indefinite strike after
dozens of local employees were sacked, but that oil production has
not been affected. A military taskforce (JTF) comprising the
army, navy and air force began raiding three camps which are
believed to belong to a notorious gang leader in Delta state. The
next day local residents said several civilians were killed and
scores displaced during the raids against armed gangs in the Niger
Delta. At least 9 people were reported killed and houses were found
burned after the military raids. Activists and witnesses said as
many as 150 people were killed around the village of Ayakoromo.
(AFP, 12/2/10)(Reuters, 12/3/10)(AFP,
12/4/10)(SFC, 12/4/10, p.A3)
2010 Dec 4, In Jamaica an oil
spill was discovered in Kingston Harbor. Authorities were still
investigating a Nov 22 spill in the capital's harbor, the
7th-largest natural harbor in the world.
(AP, 12/5/10)
2010 Dec 6, In Nigeria's Niger
Delta a militant faction said it had ruptured an oil pipeline in
response to what it said was the killing of innocent civilians
during a military offensive last week.
(Reuters, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 11, Turkmenistan
signed broad agreements with Afghanistan, India and Pakistan at a
summit in its capital Ashgabat on the 1,700-km (1,050-mile) TAPI
pipeline. Afghanistan the next day said it will deploy up to 7,000
troops to secure the major transnational gas pipeline, slated to run
through some of the most dangerous parts of the war-torn country.
(AFP, 12/12/10)
2010 Dec 13, A classified US
document, dated Feb 26, 2010, released by WikiLeaks said Venezuela’s
government sold China oil for as little as $5 a barrel and was upset
that China apparently profited by selling the fuel to other
countries. Another embassy report on Sept. 23, 2009, said Venezuela
has been manipulating its oil price index. Other cables indicated
significant problems at PDVSA.
(AP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 14, A Nigerian
official said Nigeria has negotiated a 250 million dollar settlement
deal that would see it drop charges against US ex-vice president
Dick Cheney and others over a bribery scandal.
(AFP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 15, The US filed suit
for the first time against BP and eight other companies for
uncounted billions of dollars in damages from a massive oil spill in
the Gulf of Mexico, the worst in US history.
(AFP, 12/15/10)
2010 Dec 15, British-based
explorer Tullow Oil PLC led a consortium and started producing
55,000 barrels per day from rigs off Ghana's Atlantic Ocean coast in
the Jubilee Field, which was discovered three years ago and holds an
estimated 1.8 billion barrels of oil.
(AP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 17, Nigerian NDLF
militants attacked three pipelines operated by the US oil giant
Chevron and Italian firm Agip in the key oil producing state of
Delta.
(AFP, 12/18/10)
2010 Dec 17, Nigeria dropped
charges against US ex-vice president Dick Cheney and others over a
bribery scandal allegedly involving Halliburton after a settlement
of 250 million dollars.
(AFP, 12/17/10)
2010 Dec 19, In Mexico a
massive oil pipeline explosion lay waste to parts of in San Martin
Texmelucan, incinerating people, cars, houses and trees as gushing
crude turned streets into flaming rivers. At least 29 people were
killed, 14 of them children. Authorities blamed oil thieves after
investigators found a hole in the pipeline and equipment for
extracting crude. On Jan 10 a police officer died of his injuries
bringing the death toll to 30.
(AP, 12/19/10)(AP, 12/22/10)(AP, 1/10/11)
2010 Dec 22, Afghan officials
said Iran has banned fuel exports to Afghanistan, stranding about
3,000 fuel trucks at the border and driving up wholesale prices for
the refined products ahead of what many Afghans fear will be a
blistery winter in their oil-poor nation.
(AP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 22, Nigeria’s state
oil firm said it has shut down three of its four refineries because
of sabotage of pipelines leading to them. It called on the military
to increase security.
(AFP, 12/22/10)
2010 Dec 29, A payments dispute
between India and Iran escalated after Tehran refused to sell oil to
India under New Delhi's prohibitive new rules. Last week, the
Reserve Bank of India said deals with Iran must be settled outside
the Asian Clearing Union (ACU) system, used by central banks of
member nations to settle bilateral trades.
(Reuters, 12/30/10)
2010 Dec 30, Brazil's state-run
Petrobras confirmed that oil fields recently discovered offshore
contained 8.3 billion barrels of recoverable crude and gas, and said
the biggest field was being renamed "Lula."
(AFP, 12/30/10)
2010 Tom Bower, English
historian, authored “Oil, Money, Politics and Power in the 21st
Century.”
(SSFC, 5/30/10, p.F8)
2011 Jan 5, A US panel spread
blame for the deadly Gulf of Mexico oil spill beyond BP to
Halliburton and Transocean, accusing all three of "systemic"
management failures that could happen again. A full report was due
in a week.
(AFP, 1/6/11)
2011 Jan 7, In southern
Afghanistan a Taliban suicide bomber in Spin Boldak
assassinated a police commander named Ramazan and killed 16 others
at a public bath. Criminal investigation police chief Farid Ahmad
was killed in a drive-by shooting in Kandahar. Hundreds of Afghans
demonstrated outside the Iranian Embassy in Kabul to protest Iran's
blocking of thousands of fuel trucks at the border with Afghanistan,
a step that has sent domestic fuel prices soaring as the country's
harsh winter sets in.
(AFP, 1/7/11)
2011 Jan 10, North
Carolina-based Duke Energy announced that it would buy Progress
Energy for $13.7 billion.
(Econ, 2/12/11, p.39)
2011 Jan 12, Yemen's president
suspended his oil minister and the head of the national oil company
over a fuel shortage that has forced people to queue at petrol
stations.
(AFP, 1/12/11)
2011 Jan 13, In eastern
Afghanistan a bomb in a marketplace killed a child outside a music
cassette shop in Jalalabad. The Afghan fuel ministry said that Iran
currently was allowing 1,000 tons of fuel to enter Afghanistan at
three border crossings each day, compared with 3,000 to 4,000 tons
daily before the trucks were blocked.
(AP, 1/13/11)
2011 Jan 14, BP and Russian
state-run firm Rosneft unveiled an agreement to swap shares and
launch a joint venture to exploit the Arctic's vast untouched energy
resources. BP’s share in Rosneft would increase to 10.8% and Rosneft
would get 5% of BP.
(AFP, 1/15/11)(Econ, 1/22/11, p.74)
2011 Jan 18, In western India a
major fire on the outskirts of Mumbai burned nearly 10,500 gallons
(40,000 liters) of lubricant oil at a depot of state-owned Indian
Oil Corporation.
(AP, 1/18/11)
2011 Jan 18, Iran’s
semi-official Mehr news agency said that the ration of gasoline
costing just 1,000 rials per liter (about 10 US cents, or $0.38 per
US gallon) would be zero from the next Iranian month, which starts
on January 21.
(Reuters, 1/18/11)
2011 Jan 26, Environmental
groups accused Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell of destroying lives and
the environment in the Niger Delta, and urged Dutch MPs to intervene
as the company defended its record.
(AFP, 1/26/11)
2011 Feb 1, According to the
"Keystone XL Assessment," a new study commissioned by the US
Department of Energy, a proposed pipeline from Canada's oil sands to
refineries along the Gulf of Mexico would help "essentially
eliminate" US oil imports from the Middle East in a decade or two.
(Reuters, 2/1/11)
2011 Feb 1, Chevron Corp. filed
a racketeering lawsuit against a team of lawyers, who have been
fighting the company over oil field pollution in Ecuador, for
conspiring to extort up to $113 billion relating to an 18-year-old
lawsuit.
(SFC, 2/2/11, p.D1)
2011 Feb 1, BP reported its
first annual loss ($4.9 billion) since 1992, as a result of the Gulf
of Mexico oil spill disaster, and outlined plans to shift its focus
away from the United States. BP also announced it is resuming
dividend payouts for the first time since the Gulf of Mexico well
disaster.
(AP, 2/1/11)(Econ, 2/5/11, p.73)
2011 Feb 5, Unknown saboteurs
attacked an Egyptian pipeline supplying gas to Jordan, forcing
authorities to switch off gas supply from a twin pipeline to Israel.
Egypt supplies about 40 percent of Israel's natural gas. The attack
came after Israel expressed concern that its natural gas supplies
from Egypt could be threatened if a new regime takes power in Cairo.
(AFP, 2/5/11)
2011 Feb 8, Iran's oil
ministry's reported that daily oil output rose by around 100,000
barrels with the opening of the second phase of Darkhovin field in
the southeast of the country.
(AFP, 2/8/11)
2011 Feb 9, Pirates seized the
Irene SL, a Greek-flagged supertanker, off the coast of Oman bound
for the US carrying a crew of 25 and a load of more than 1.9 million
barrels of oil.
(AFP, 2/9/11)
2011 Feb 10, The US computer
security firm McAfee Inc said in a report that hackers working in
China over the last 2-4 years broke into the computer systems of 6
European and US energy companies to steal bidding plans and other
critical proprietary information.
(Reuters, 2/10/11)(SFC, 2/25/11, p.D5)
2011 Feb 10, PetroChina said it
is purchasing half of a prolific shale gas project from Canada's
Encana Corp for C$5.4 billion ($5.4 billion), marking the largest
Chinese investment yet in a foreign natural gas asset.
(Reuters, 2/10/11)
2011 Feb 10, Tullow Oil
announced a new discovery off Ghana, raising the possibility of
further potential off the West African nation which only recently
began large-scale production.
(AFP, 2/10/11)
2011 Feb 14, An Ecuadorean
judge ruled that Chevron Corp. was responsible for oil contamination
in a wide swath of Ecuador's northern jungle. The plaintiffs'
attorney says the company was fined $8 billion. The company said
that it would appeal, and called the judge's decision "illegitimate
and unenforceable."
(AP, 2/14/11)
2011 Feb 17, Chevron and a US
aid agency announced a $50 million plan aimed at improving
conditions in Nigeria's main oil-producing region, where pollution
and poverty have led to years of unrest.
(AFP, 2/17/11)
2011 Feb 21, British energy
giant BP and India's Reliance Industries announced a massive
investment deal which could be worth up to $20 billion with later
investment in key Indian oil and gas assets.
(AFP, 2/21/11)
2011 Feb 21, Spreading unrest
in Libya shut down 6 percent of oil output in Africa's No.3 producer
and prompted a host of energy firms to pull out international staff,
sending oil prices to above $105 a barrel. Al Jazeera television
said military aircraft fired live ammunition at crowds of
anti-government protesters in Tripoli.
(Reuters, 2/21/11)
2011 Feb 24, In Libya forces
loyal to Muammar Gaddafi launched a counter-attack, fighting fierce
gun battles with rebels who have threatened the Libyan leader by
seizing important towns close to the capital. A doctor at a mosque
in Zawiya said 10 people were killed. Key Libyan oil and oil product
terminals to the east of the capital were in the hands of rebels.
(AP, 2/24/11)(Reuters, 2/24/11)
2011 Feb 26, In Iraq gunmen
before dawn attacked the Baiji Refinery, Iraq's largest oil
refinery, killing one engineer and forcing a shutdown that
threatened to exacerbate acute electricity shortages that have
prompted violent protests. The bodies of three protesters turned up
in Kirkuk. Police said all three took part in a Feb 25
demonstration. They were shot in the head and their hands bound.
(AP, 2/26/11)(SSFC, 2/27/11, p.A8)(AP, 3/8/11)
2011 Feb 27, Joule Unlimited, a
Massachusetts biotechnology company, said it has invented a
genetically-engineered organism that it says simply secretes diesel
fuel or ethanol wherever it finds sunlight, water and carbon
dioxide.
(AP, 2/28/11)
2011 Mar 1, Pakistan hiked oil
prices by 9.9%, a move that threatens the stability of the fragile,
US-allied civilian government at a time of economic turmoil in the
impoverished country.
(AP, 3/1/11)
2011 Mar 7, A US federal judge
extended his temporary order banning collection of an $18 billion
judgment by the courts in Ecuador against Chevron, saying the oil
company could face irreparable harm because it appeared that lawyers
for Ecuadoreans who sued over rainforest contamination were going to
try to quickly collect the award.
(AP, 3/7/11)
2011 Mar 8, Trading sources
said Libyan oil trade has been paralyzed as banks decline to clear
payments in dollars due to US sanctions. An official with a
subsidiary of Libya's national oil company said that production has
dropped by about 90 percent.
(Reuters, 3/8/11)(AP, 3/8/11)
2011 Mar 11, Norway rejected
oil drilling in ecologically sensitive waters just above the Arctic
circle, partly because of worries over a disaster like the Gulf of
Mexico oil spill.
(AP, 3/11/11)
2011 Mar 13, Libyan rebels
abandoned Brega, another key town under heavy shelling from
advancing government forces, as international backing grew only
slowly for a no-fly zone over the country. In Benghazi, 240km east
of Brega, all mobile telephone services were suddenly cut for an
unknown reason. State television said Libya has asked foreign firms
to resume oil exports, saying its ports are safe despite a deadly
month-long conflict. Libya's de facto oil minister said the
country's crude production has fallen "drastically" and that he has
reached out to Italian oil giant Eni SpA for help in extinguishing a
blaze at Ras Lanouf.
(AFP, 3/13/11)(AP, 3/13/11)
2011 Mar 16, The
Malta-registered MS Olivia was grounded on Nightingale Island in the
Tristan da Cunha chain. All 22 crew were rescued by 17th March. The
ship broke in two and some 20,000 penguins became coated in oil.
There was a risk rats from the ship could come ashore and eat the
chicks and eggs of native seabirds.
(AP, 3/22/11)(www.tristandc.com/newsmsoliva.php)
2011 Mar 25, Croatia arrested
Bojan Milkovic, head of the INA, the country’s national oil company,
on corruption charges.
(Econ, 4/23/11, p.56)(http://tinyurl.com/3tnzyqm)
2011 Mar 30, President Barack
Obama set an ambitious goal to cut US oil imports by a third over 10
years, focusing on a source of anxiety for Americans as high
gasoline prices threaten economic recovery.
(Reuters, 3/30/11)
2011 Mar 30, A new study in the
journal Conservation Letters by an American and Canadian research
team suggested that the discovery of more than 100 dead dolphins on
Gulf of Mexico shores likely reflects only a small fraction of the
total killed by the BP oil spill last year.
(AFP, 3/30/11)
2011 Mar 30, Libya's government
warned that it would sue any international company that concluded
energy deals with rebels who control some of the country's oil
infrastructure. Rebels retreated from the key Libyan oil port of Ras
Lanouf along the coastal road leading to the capital Tripoli after
they came under heavy shelling from ground forces loyal to leader
Moammar Gadhafi.
(Reuters, 3/30/11)(AP, 3/30/11)
2011 Apr 1, A Libyan rebel
official said a plan to sell rebel-held oil to buy weapons and other
supplies has been reached with Qatar.
(AP, 4/1/11)
2011 Apr 1, Norway announced an
oil find some 120 miles north of its mainland in the Barents Sea.
The Skrugard find was believed to contain some 500 million barrels
of oil.
(SFC, 5/2/11, p.D2)(http://tinyurl.com/44ljesw)
2011 Apr 16, A Qatari
state-controlled gas producer said it has agreed to send Japan more
than 60 extra tanker shipments of liquefied natural gas to help
power the Asian nation in the wake of its tsunami disaster.
(AP, 4/16/11)
2011 Apr 20, BP marked the
first anniversary of the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill by suing
its business partners for billions of dollars, as Gulf residents
held somber vigils and relatives flew over the waters where 11 oil
rig workers died.
(AP, 4/21/11)
2011 Apr 25, Chinese oil
refining giant Sinopec said it has demoted Lu Guangyu, a top
executive, who bought 1.6 million yuan (148,463 pounds) of wine and
spirits after details of the purchase leaked onto the Internet and
sparked an uproar over extravagance at the state-owned firm.
(Reuters, 4/25/11)
2011 Apr 27, In Egypt masked
gunmen blew up a natural gas terminal near the border with Israel,
sending flames shooting into the air in the early hours of the
morning and forcing the shutdown of the country's gas export
pipeline to Israel and Jordan. Suspicion immediately fell on Sinai
Bedouins angered by what they see as the neglect of their areas by
the central government or Muslim militants opposed to the export of
natural gas to Israel.
(AP, 4/27/11)
2011 Apr 28, France based Total
SA announced plans to buy a 60% stake in SunPower Corp. of San Jose,
Ca.
(SFC, 4/29/11, p.D1)
2011 May 9, In Libya NATO
planes pounded government weapons depots southeast of the town of
Zintan, in a sign of widening conflict in the Western Mountains
region as rebels battled to unseat Muammar Gaddafi. Rebels were
reported to have found a way to access badly needed cash, selling
oil worth $100 million paid for through a Qatari bank in US dollars.
(Reuters, 5/9/11)
2011 May 11, The French
government imposed a moratorium on fracking, the blasting of
fissures in subterranean rock and pumping in water and sand to
extract shale gas.
(Econ, 6/25/11, p.79)
2011 May 14, President Barack
Obama, under pressure from Republicans and the public to bring down
gasoline prices, announced new measures to expand domestic oil
production in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico.
(Reuters, 5/14/11)
2011 May 20, BP said that it
had recovered more than $1.0 billion in costs linked to last year's
devastating Gulf of Mexico oil spill from a US subsidiary of
Japanese trading house Mitsui & Co. MOEX USA Corporation held a
10-percent stake in the Macondo well project.
(AP, 5/20/11)
2011 May 20, Iranian news
reported that the state constitutional watchdog body has ruled that
the president cannot serve as the country's caretaker oil minister.
(AP, 5/20/11)
2011 May 21, Russia's oil
pipeline monopoly said it would appeal a court ruling ordering it to
release board meeting minutes, saying an anti-corruption blogger
wanted the information as part of a conspiracy against Russia.
(Reuters, 5/21/11)
2011 May 24, In Nigeria a fire
engulfed a pipeline belonging to a subsidiary of state-owned oil
company Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation in the town of
Amukpe.
(AP, 5/25/11)
2011 May 25, In Venezuela
red-clad oil workers rallied to denounce "imperialist" US sanctions
over its Iran ties, but the rising anger seemed unlikely to sink the
OPEC member's huge oil trade with the United States.
(Reuters, 5/25/11)
2011 May 31, In northeastern
Japan an oil spill and a small explosion caused limited damage, but
no further radiation leaks. TEPCO said damage to a gas cylinder
caused a loud noise outside a reactor building at the Fukushima
nuclear plant as rubble was being cleared away.
(AP, 5/31/11)(Reuters, 5/31/11)
2011 Jun 2, In Britain an
explosion at a Chevron oil refinery in Pembroke, Wales, killed four
contractors.
(SFC, 6/3/11, p.A2)
2011 Jun 4, Greenpeace said 18
of its members have climbed a 53,000-ton oil rig in the Arctic
waters off Greenland to protest deepwater drilling by a Scottish oil
company there. The activists demanded Cairn Energy release a plan
for how to manage a potential oil spill.
(AP, 6/4/11)
2011 Jun 8, At meetings in
Vienna, Austria, OPEC failed to come to an agreement to boost oil
production, as a majority of the members voted not to do so. The
vote disappointed western nations, which had hoped an increase in
production would help to lower high oil prices.
(AFP, 6/8/11)
2011 Jun 23, The Paris-based
International Energy Agency (IEA) said 28 countries have agreed to
release 60 million barrels of crude to the market to offset
disruptions prompted by Libya's war. The countries will make 2
million barrels a day available from their emergency stocks over a
period of 30 days.
(AP, 6/23/11)
2011 Jun 24, India’s government
announced a hike in the price of some petroleum products, increasing
inflationary pressures in the fast-growing economy.
(AFP, 6/25/11)
2011 Jul 1, Hundreds of barrels
of crude oil spilled into Montana's Yellowstone River after an
ExxonMobil pipeline beneath the riverbed ruptured, sending a plume
25 miles downstream and forcing temporary evacuations. An estimated
42,000 gallons of oil leaked from the pipeline.
(AP, 7/3/11)(SFC, 7/23/11, p.A4)
2011 Jul 1, China confirmed
that an oil spill had occurred in waters around Nanhuangcheng Island
in Shandong province. US oil company ConocoPhillips operated the
Penglai 19-3 oil field where the leak originated. Leaking oil was
first detected on June 4, and then again on June 17. The state
maritime bureau said that an area in the mouth of the Bohai Sea,
measuring 840 square km (336 square miles), had been badly polluted
due to the spill.
(AFP, 7/5/11)(SFC, 7/6/11, p.A4)
2011 Jul 1, In central Iraq the
Al-Ahdab oil field, operated by China National Petroleum Corp, began
production with 60,000 barrels per day. The contract with CNPC,
signed in 2008, allows the Chinese company to develop the field for
23 years.
(AFP, 7/1/11)
2011 Jul 4, In Egypt saboteurs
bombed a gas pipeline in the Sinai peninsula, sending flames into
the sky and cutting supplies to Israel and Jordan. 7 policemen
charged with killing protesters were ordered released on bail. Angry
families stormed a station where the suspects from Ezbet Abu Qarn
were being held, triggering clashes with security forces in which an
18-year-old boy was killed.
(AFP, 7/4/11)(AP, 7/5/11)(AFP, 7/5/11)
2011 Jul 9, Nigerian special
military forces in Niger Delta arrested four suspects after troops
raided sites where stolen oil was illegally being "refined." More
than 1,000 the sites were destroyed during the operation.
(AFP, 7/9/11)
2011 Jul 16, The Greek oil
tanker 'Aegean Star' belonging to the Endeavour Marine Agency
company and flying a Liberian flag was hijacked, 30 nautical miles
off the coast of Nigeria. The ship was released on July 18.
(AFP, 7/18/11)(Reuters, 7/18/11)
2011 Jul 19, Iran issued a new
warning that it will halt supplies of crude to India unless the
issue of billions of dollars in overdue payments is resolved. New
Delhi has been struggling for more than six months to pay Tehran due
to international banking sanctions imposed on the Islamic republic
over its nuclear program.
(AFP, 7/19/11)
2011 Jul 24, Pirates seized the
Rbd Anema e Core, an Italian tanker with a crew of 23, off Benin in
the Gulf of Guinea.
(AFP, 7/24/11)
2011 Aug 4, In India a 740-foot
(225-meter) vessel, which had been transporting coal from Indonesia
to the western Indian state of Gujarat, sank off Mumbai. The navy
rescued 30 crew members. The ship was estimated to be carrying 325
tons of fuel oil and 56 tons of diesel. By Aug 7 oil had spread over
an area of 7 nautical miles and cleanup efforts were underway.
(AP, 8/7/11)
2011 Aug 4, A UN report was
released that described oil destroying crops and seeping into
drinking water supplies in Ogoniland, Nigeria, a region of the Niger
Delta. In one case, the UN found one village where drinking water
was polluted with benzene 900 times more than the international
limit.
(AP, 8/5/11)
2011 Aug 5, Sudan’s foreign
ministry said it has blocked a shipment of southern oil after Juba
refused to pay customs fees, escalating a row between the two sides,
with the south accusing Khartoum of sabotaging its economy.
(AFP, 8/5/11)
2011 Aug 8, Sudan said it has
granted a petroleum exploration license to China after visiting
Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi and President Omar al-Bashir held talks
in Khartoum.
(AFP, 8/8/11)
2011 Aug 12, Royal Dutch Shell
PLC said it is trying to stop oil leaking from a flow line at one of
its drilling platforms in the North Sea off the coast of Scotland.
On Aug 15 Shell estimated that 54,600 gallons had leaked from the
Gannet Alpha oil rig. On Aug 16 Shell said a 2nd smaller leak had
been found at the rig.
(AP, 8/13/11)(SFC, 8/16/11, p.A4)(SFC, 8/17/11,
p.A3)
2011 Aug 16, Norway’s Statoil
said that the North SEa Aldous and Avaldsnes oil discoveries
together contain between 500 million and 1.2 billion barrels of oil,
significantly more than previously thought.
(SFC, 8/31/11, p.A4)(http://tinyurl.com/3u5v3zp)
2011 Aug 22, Royal Dutch shell
said sabotage in Nigeria has led to six oil spills from one Shell
pipeline since the start of the month, while damage to another line
has caused a temporary production halt.
(AFP, 8/22/11)
2011 Aug 30, Ethiopian ONLF
rebels reportedly killed 25 soldiers protecting a Chinese oil
exploration company called PetroTrans.
(AP, 9/2/11)
2011 Aug 31, Nebraska governor
Dave Heineman urged Pres. Obama's administration to deny a key
permit for TransCanada's Keystone XL crude oil pipeline from
Alberta, Canada to the Gulf Coast of Texas on the grounds that the
line could put the Ogallala Aquifer at risk.
(AP, 8/31/11)
2011 Aug 31, Russian bailiffs
raided the offices of BP in Moscow to uncover documents over its
failed deal with Rosneft. The search came less than a day after
Rosneft and ExxonMobil agreed to a stunning Arctic exploration deal
overseen by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
(AFP, 8/31/11)
2011 Sep 1, Ukraine opened
shale gas development to Western giants, assigning its first
exploration contract to the Anglo-Dutch firm Shell in a deal worth
up to $800 million (555 million euros).
(AFP, 9/1/11)
2011 Sep 2, The EU banned oil
imports from Syria in a move that will cost the embattled regime
millions of dollars each day as it uses deadly force to try to crush
a 5-month-old uprising. Activists said at least six people were
killed in the crackdown.
(AP, 9/2/11)
2011 Sep 9, Anglo Dutch Shell
announced that it had discovered oil in deep waters around 150 km
(90 miles) off the coast of French Guiana following a joint venture
drilling project with venture energy partners Total, Tullow and
Northpet.
(AFP, 9/9/11)
2011 Sep 11, Iraq's autonomous
Kurdistan region halted crude exports, nearly a week after it
rejected a new oil and gas law approved by the central government.
(AFP, 9/11/11)
2011 Sep 14, Armed pirates
raided a tanker off the West African coast and kidnapped 23 sailors,
62 nautical miles from Benin's capital of Cotonou, as the
Cyprus-flagged vessel tried to transfer its cargo of crude oil to a
Norwegian-registered ship. Analysts believed many of the pirates
come from Nigeria, where corrupt law enforcement allows criminality
to thrive. The tanker and crew were released on Oct 24 after the oil
was unloaded.
(AP, 9/14/11)(AP, 9/24/11)
2011 Sep 19, Turkey escalated a
dispute with Cyprus over oil and gas drilling in the eastern
Mediterranean, saying that it would send warships to protect its
claims to resources off the coast of the divided island. US energy
firm, Nobel Energy, had just exploratory drilling for oil and gas
off the coast of Cyprus despite strong warnings from Turkey not to
do so.
(AP, 9/19/11)
2011 Sep 21, Turkey’s Pres.
Erdogan signed a deal with Turkish-controlled north Cyprus to begin
drilling for oil and gas.
(Econ, 9/24/11, p.63)
2011 Sep 23, French oil giant
Total said it had restarted production from an offshore oil platform
off Libya, making it the first major to return to work since the
fall of Kadhafi.
(AFP, 9/26/11)
2011 Sep 26, Anglo-Dutch oil
group Shell said it has shut in 25,000 barrels per day of crude in a
southern Nigerian oil field due to spills caused by sabotage and
theft.
(AFP, 9/26/11)
2011 Sep 26, Italian oil giant
ENI said it has resumed oil production in Libya more than six months
after civil unrest brought oil and gas output in the country to a
near standstill.
(AFP, 9/26/11)
2011 Sep 27, Kyrgyzstan
officials said Gazpromneft-Aero Kyrgyzstan, a Russian-controlled
company, will soon start supplying 20 percent of the aviation fuel
to the Manas Transit Center, strategically vital US air base, and it
could eventually increase that share. Family members of the two
previous Kyrgyz presidents, both of whom were overthrown in popular
uprisings, have been accused of profiting from dealings with the
base.
(AP, 9/27/11)
2011 Sep 27, In Egypt
assailants in two pickup trucks struck a pumping station on a gas
pipeline to Israel about 15 miles (25 km) west of the region's main
city of el-Arish before, causing a loud explosion and fire.
(AP, 9/27/11)
2011 Oct 3, The Tanzanian navy
foiled a pirate attack on an offshore oil drilling ship and captured
all seven bandits. The attack on the Ocean Rig Poseidon, owned by
Ocean Rig of Norway, took place as it was carrying out exploration
drilling for Brazilian firm Petrobras.
(AFP, 10/4/11)
2011 Oct 4, British company
Heritage Oil PLC said that it has acquired a controlling interest in
a Libyan company licensed to provide oil field services including
offshore and land-based drilling. Heritage said it paid $19.5
million for a 51% stake in Sahara Oil Services Holdings Ltd.
(AP, 10/4/11)
2011 Oct 5, In New Zealand the
47,000 ton Liberian-flagged container vessel "Rena" ran aground on a
reef about 12 nautical miles (22 km) off the North Island. Maritime
New Zealand soon declared the vessel a hazardous ship as an oil
slick more than doubled in size in just a few hours on the Bay of
Plenty. The ship had 1,368 containers on board.
(AP, 10/6/11)(AP, 10/12/11)
2011 Oct 8, Production at
Iraq's biggest oil field was partially halted after two bombs at the
Rumaila field damaged a pipeline transporting crude. Iraq currently
produces around 2.9 million bpd, and says it will be capable of
output of 12 million by 2017.
(AFP, 10/8/11)(SSFC, 10/9/11, p.A4)
2011 Oct 11, New Zealand
declared its worst maritime pollution disaster, as oil gushed into a
pristine bay from the Rena, a stranded container ship being pounded
in heavy seas.
(AP, 10/11/11)
2011 Oct 12, India and Vietnam
signed an accord to promote oil exploration in Vietnamese waters
that could escalate long-standing tensions with China as it presses
territorial claims to much of the South China sea.
(AP, 10/12/11)
2011 Oct 16, Houston-based
Kinder Morgan agreed to buy El Paso Corp. for $21.1 billion. This
will make Kinder the nation’s largest operator of natural gas
pipelines.
(SFC, 10/17/11, p.A5)
2011 Oct 16, Guinea’s
government announced an increase in the price of diesel and petrol
from 7,500 to 9,500 francs ($1.37) per liter, double the price from
10 months ago. An overwhelming majority of the Guinean population
lives in poverty despite the country's rich mineral wealth from
bauxite, iron and gold.
(AFP, 10/17/11)
2011 Oct 18, Nigeria's military
said it had arrested 50 suspected oil thieves in the past three
months and destroyed some 2,000 illicit refineries this year in the
oil-producing Niger Delta region.
(AFP, 10/18/11)
2011 Oct 18, A Nigerian tribal
king filed a lawsuit in a US court in Detroit, Michigan, seeking $1
billion from Royal Dutch Shell to compensate for decades of
pollution that sickened his people and damaged their lands. The suit
was brought on behalf of the people of Ogale in the Eleme local
government area, where the UN team found the most serious
groundwater contamination and people drinking water laced with
cancer-causing benzene at 900 times World Health Organization
guidelines.
(AFP, 10/20/11)
2011 Oct 20, Italian energy
giant ENI announced a giant natural gas discovery off the coast of
Mozambique, which could be the largest in company's history.
(AFP, 10/20/11)
2011 Oct 20, Nigeria's military
arrested 46 suspects and seized a vessel laden with stolen refined
petroleum products in the oil-producing Niger Delta.
(AFP, 10/23/11)
2011 Oct 25, Nigeria’s
anti-graft agency said a court has jailed 7 Nigerians and 2
Ghanaians for dealing in illegal petroleum products.
(AFP, 10/25/11)
2011 Oct 25, The UAR said a
ship carrying 450 tons of diesel fuel sank off the coast of Umm
al-Quwain emirate.
(SFC, 10/26/11, p.A2)
2011 Oct 26, The US government
gave BP approval to drill at its Kaskida field, some 192 miles of
the Louisiana coast. This would be BP’s first deep-water operation
since the Deepwater Horizon Macondo well blowout on April 20, 2010.
(SFC, 10/27/11, p.A8)
2011 Oct 27, Tens of thousands
of Syrians held a mass rally in Latakia in support of embattled
President Bashar Assad, but the regime's crackdown on dissent
continued in opposition areas as security forces killed at least
four people. Oil Minister Sufian Allaw acknowledged Damascus was
having difficulty selling its oil after the European Union banned
oil imports from Syria. Syrian troops were seen planting mines along
a region bordering northern Lebanon in a bid to stem weapons
smuggling.
(AP, 10/27/11)(AFP, 10/27/11)
2011 Oct 28, In southern Iran
an explosion at a state-run oil field killed a worker and injured
three others. A refinery in central Iran was hit by a fire.
(AFP, 10/28/11)
2011 Oct 29, Iranian media
reported a blast at a southwest oil field, the third such explosion
in the country in 24 hours attributed to accidents.
(AFP, 10/29/11)
2011 Oct 28, Nigeria's military
seized a ship laden with 5,000 tons of stolen oil amid rising cases
of crude theft in one of the world's main oil producing regions.
(AFP, 10/31/11)
2011 Oct 30, Pirates off the
coast of Nigeria seized an oil tanker with over 20 crew.
(AFP, 11/3/11)
2011 Nov 2, UK shale gas firm
Cuadrilla Resources said exploration work triggered small tremors at
its drill site near Blackpool in northwest England earlier this
year, as activists scaled a rig protesting against its gas recovery
methods.
(Reuters, 11/2/11)
2011 Nov 7, Chevron experienced
an oil spill offshore from Rio de Janeiro from one of its drilling
operations. Chevron reportedly stopped the leakage in about 4 days.
(http://tinyurl.com/6reqagd)(Econ, 12/31/11,
p.23)
2011 Nov 9, Shell said a
pipeline fire in southern Nigeria has caused a cut in oil production
in the country, with a spill also reported in connection with the
incident.
(AFP, 11/9/11)
2011 Nov 10, The US government
delayed approval of a Canada-to-Texas oil pipeline until after the
2012 US election, bowing to pressure from environmentalists and
sparing President Barack Obama a damaging split with liberal voters
he may need to win reelection. The State Department was considering
rerouting TransCanada Corp.'s proposed $7 billion Keystone XL
pipeline to avoid ecologically sensitive areas of Nebraska.
(Reuters, 11/11/11)
2011 Nov 10, In Egypt 2
explosions a gas pipeline halting supplies to Israel and Jordan.
(AP, 11/10/11)
2011 Nov 13, Kuwait said it has
boosted its oil output to above three million barrels per day. The
oil minister warned that any cut in crude production would send
world prices soaring.
(AFP, 11/13/11)
2011 Nov 13, Anglo-Dutch oil
giant Shell reported a fresh spill from a key delivery pipeline in
southern Nigeria, but said it has contained the leak.
(AFP, 11/13/11)
2011 Nov 13, In Qatar energy
ministers of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) met to prepare
for a first summit of the 12-member group which is to discuss prices
and coordination. The meeting welcomed Oman as the newest member of
the forum. Other members included Algeria, Bolivia, Egypt,
Equatorial Guinea, Iran, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Russia, Trinidad and
Tobago, and Venezuela. Kazakhstan, Norway and the Netherlands were
observers.
(AFP, 11/13/11)
2011 Nov 14, Maritime New
Zealand said salvage crews have finished pumping 1,454 tons of oil
from the Rena, grounded on Oct 5, and were removing the last of
1,280 containers that remained on board.
(SFC, 11/14/11, p.A2)
2011 Nov 16, The Nebraska
legislature voted 45-0 to advance a proposed law that would reroute
the $7 billion TransCanada Keystone XL pipeline, avoiding the
SandHills and Ogallala aquifer that environmental groups and many
residents fear could be polluted by a spill.
(Reuters, 11/16/11)
2011 Nov 17, Algerian President
Abdelaziz Bouteflika sacked Noureddine Cherouati, the managing
director of state energy giant Sonatrach and gave his job to another
senior official in the firm. Abdelhamid Zerguine, the head of
Sonatrach's subsidiary at Lugano in Switzerland," was named to
replace him.
(AFP, 11/17/11)
2011 Nov 17, Brazilian
authorities began investigating an offshore oil spill. Chevron says
that between 400 and 650 barrels of oil have leaked from a well it
was drilling off the coast of Rio de Janeiro. The leak totaled no
more than 3,000 barrels.
(AP, 11/17/11)(Econ, 12/31/11, p.23)
2011 Nov 17, Sudan’s government
blocked South Sudanese oil exports through its Red Sea port due to a
dispute over transit fees. The pipeline was not been shut down, but
the south was not being allowed to ship its oil cargo out of Port
Sudan.
(AFP, 11/28/11)
2011 Nov 18, Brazil's
environmental protection agency said nearly 110,000 gallons of oil
may have spilled into the Atlantic Ocean because of a leak at an
offshore Chevron drilling site. Chevron had said that only 16,800 to
27,300 gallons in total leaked into the ocean.
(AP, 11/19/11)
2011 Nov 18, India's Reliance
Industries and British giant BP announced the creation of an equal
joint venture firm to source and market natural gas in India.
(AFP, 11/18/11)
2011 Nov 21, The US approved
extra curbs on Iran’s banking system and oil industry in an ongoing
effort to thwart the country’s nuclear program.
(SFC, 12/1/11, p.A3)
2011 Nov 21, Brazil’s Ministry
of the Environment, IBAMA, said it will fine Chevron Corp. nearly
$28 million for the Nov 7 oil spill off the coast of Rio de Janeiro
state. In December an additional $5.6 million was added for poor
contingency planning.
(SSFC, 11/27/11, p.A10)(Econ, 12/31/11, p.23)
2011 Nov 23, Turkmenistan
signed an agreement with China to boost natural gas deliveries. This
will see the central Asian nation supply about half of China's gas
needs. The gas agreement was one of 14 signed following talks in
Beijing between Turkmen President Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov and
Chinese President Hu Jintao.
(AP, 11/23/11)
2011 Nov 24, Uganda ruled that
Heritage Oil must pay a $404 million tax bill, dismissing an appeal
by the UK-listed company. Heritage argues it is not liable to pay
tax in the country on the $1.45 billion sale last year of stakes in
two oil blocks in western Uganda to Anglo-Irish firm Tullow Oil.
Uganda in March allowed Tullow to sell two-thirds of its Uganda
interests to France's Total and China's CNOOC in a $2.9 billion
deal, after Tullow agreed to pay over $300 million as security
against Heritage's unpaid taxes.
(AFP, 11/24/11)
2011 Nov 25, In Egypt masked
gunmen blew up a gas pipeline which supplies Egyptian gas to Israel,
in the eighth such attack this year.
(AFP, 11/25/11)
2011 Nov 28, Niger officially
became an oil producer with the opening of a refinery run by the
state and a Chinese company.
(AFP, 11/28/11)
2011 Nov 30, Sudan said it will
take 23% of the south's vital oil exports as payment in kind, after
talks in Addis Ababa failed, but will not block Juba's exports.
Sudan was looking to charge the south $36 per barrel for the use of
its oil infrastructure, in contrast to a southern offer of 70 cents.
Southern oil minister Stephen Dhieu Dau rejected the north's fee as
"extortionate."
(AP, 11/30/11)
2011 Dec 2, The Environmental
Rights Action (ERA)/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (FoEN) visited
Kalaba community, Bayelsa state, and observed five spill points on
the pipeline which was spewing oil into the environment. The
pipeline was operated by Agip, the local subsidiary of Italian oil
group Eni.
(AFP, 12/3/11)
2011 Dec 6, Taiwan's
state-owned CPC Corporation signed a 20-year contract with Qatar's
RasGas to buy 1.5 million tons of liquefied natural gas a year.
(AP, 12/6/11)
2011 Dec 7, In South Africa an
investigation commissioned by the government into the UN
oil-for-food program in Iraq cleared Deputy President Kgalema
Motlanthe of corruption. The probe was ordered in 2006 by then
president Thabo Mbeki, into what has become known in the country as
"Oilgate," to look at allegations of kickbacks sourced by senior
members of the ruling party from the State Oil Marketing
Organization of Iraq (SOMO). The UN oil-for-food program ran from
1996 until 2003.
(AFP, 12/7/11)
2011 Dec 8, Syrian activists
launched a campaign of civil disobedience to pile pressure on
President Bashar al-Assad, after he drew a stinging rebuke from the
US for denying he ordered a deadly crackdown. A major Syrian
pipeline carrying oil to a refinery in the restive Homs province was
blown up.
(AFP, 12/8/11)(AP, 12/8/11)
2011 Dec 13, In Iraq pumping
from the southern Rumaila field fell following two explosions to
700,000 barrels per day, down from 1.4 million barrels. Oil exports
were not affected. The pipelines were expected to be repaired in
about a week.
(AP, 12/14/11)
2011 Dec 18, Russia’s Kolskaya
oil drilling platform capsized and later sank amid fierce storms off
the coast of Sakhalin Island, plunging dozens of workers into the
churning, icy waters. Of the 67 men aboard, 14 were plucked alive
immediately after the accident.
(AP, 12/18/11)(AP, 12/19/11)
2011 Dec 18, Iranian state
media reported that Russia’s Tatneft has signed a preliminary accord
valued at $1 billion with the Persian Gulf country to develop the
Zagheh oil field located in southwestern Iran. The next day Tatneft
said no accord has been signed.
(SFC, 12/18/11, p.A2)(http://tinyurl.com/7j78scn)
2011 Dec 19, Mauritania said it
has signed an agreement with French oil group Total to explore for
oil at sea and to extract any oil discovered.
(AFP, 12/19/11)
2011 Dec 21, Shell, the major
oil producer in Nigeria, said an oil spill likely occurred as
workers tried to offload oil onto a waiting tanker. Shell estimated
the Bonga spill likely was less than 40,000 barrels, or 1.68 million
gallons. The oil slick affected 115 miles (185 km) of ocean along
Nigeria's coast.
(AP, 12/22/11)
2011 Dec 29, Industry sources
said Saudi Arabia's state oil company Aramco was seeking to buy fuel
in order to donate about 500,000 tons of products to Yemen in
January.
(Reuters, 12/31/11)
2011 The National Commission on
the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling authored
“Deep Water: The Gulf Oil Disaster and the Future of Offshore
Drilling.
(Econ, 4/23/11, p.87)
2011 Daniel Yergin authored
“The Quest: Energy, Security and the Remaking of the Modern World.”
(Econ, 9/17/11, p.89)
2012 Jan 1, In Myanmar gas
prices unexpectedly rose more than 30 percent for the new year and
sparked fears of other goods costing more as well.
(AP, 1/1/12)
2012 Jan 1, Nigeria, Africa's
most populous nation and largest oil producer, announced immediate
ends to subsidies on petrol, a policy that had held pump prices at
65 naira per liter ($0.40, 0.30 euros).
(AFP, 1/2/12)
2012 Jan 2, In Nigeria prices
at many stations more than doubled to 140 naira or more per liter in
a country where most of the population lives on less than two
dollars a day. The country's main labor unions threatened mass
action.
(AFP, 1/2/12)
2012 Jan 2, Pakistani
protesters clashed with police and major cities were paralyzed as
thousands of people demonstrated over severe gas shortages and price
hikes.
(AFP, 1/2/12)
2012 Jan 3, Nigerian police
fired tear gas and detained protesters while crowds blocked petrol
stations amid rising anger over a controversial measure that has led
to skyrocketing fuel prices. A top trade union accused police of
shooting dead a protester. Two suspected Boko Haram gunmen shot dead
the head of the Shehuri neighborhood in Maiduguri. Suspected sect
members also killed the leader of a neighborhood in Damaturu during
a simultaneous attack. A girl was killed in the crossfire after
suspected sect members attacked a police station in the northern
state of Jigawa.
(AFP, 1/3/12)(AP, 1/4/12)
2012 Jan 3, Pakistanis angry at
gas shortages blocked a major highway and clashed with police for
the second day, adding pressure on a government bogged down by
scandal, near economic collapse and militant violence.
(AP, 1/3/12)
2012 Jan 4, An Ecuadoran
appeals court upheld last year’s landmark $9.5 billion judgement
against Chevron Corp. over oil contamination in the Amazon rain
forest.
(SFC, 1/5/12, p.D1)
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