Groundbreaking

Russia’s OAO Rosneft no longer is considering BP plc as a partner for its planned Arctic development, the company’s CEO said Friday.

OAO Rosneft has given BP plc until Monday (May 16) to negotiate an acceptable alternative to their historic share swap agreement announced in January. The “groundbreaking strategic alliance” to explore Russia’s largely unexplored Arctic region, considered key to BP CEO Bob Dudley’s plan to right the company, would give state-controlled Rosneft around 5% of BP’s ordinary voting shares in exchange for BP receiving 9.5% of Rosneft shares (see NGI, Jan. 17). However, BP already had joint venture (JV) exploration agreements with Alfa-Access-Renova (AAR), a Russian oligarch consortium, in TNK-BP. The group of Russian billionaires disputed the Rosneft alliance, and in March an arbitration tribunal extended an injunction of the agreement (see NGI, March 28). AAR in essence won its case before the tribunal, which said it would allow BP to move forward with the Rosneft share swap only if it agreed to cede its Arctic JV to TNK-BP.

BP plc and Russia’s state-controlled oil company OAO Rosneft late Friday announced a “groundbreaking strategic alliance” involving a stock swap and a deal to jointly explore Russia’s Arctic region.

BP plc and Russia’s state-controlled oil company OAO Rosneft late Friday announced a “groundbreaking strategic alliance” involving a stock swap and a deal to jointly explore Russia’s Arctic region.

As the oil and natural gas industry explores ever-deeper targets, particularly in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM), the Department of Energy (DOE) is touting a groundbreaking pre-drill seismic technology to confirm deep oil and natural gas reserves.

TECO Energy subsidiary TECO Power Services on Tuesday held a groundbreaking ceremony for its 599 MW independent power project in Dell, AR. The Dell power station is being constructed by NEPCO under a turnkey construction contract. Actual construction on the facility began in March. Like its sister station — McAdams power station in Kosciusko, MS — the Dell facility will be a natural gas-fired, combined-cycle plant. Both the Dell and McAdams projects are designed to interconnect with the Entergy transmission system and sell electricity to wholesale customers in the Southeast and Midwest, including the states of Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee and Kentucky. The plant is expected to begin commercial operation during the second half of 2002.

Backers of the Elk Hills Power Plant in the western edge of the San Joaquin Valley’s oil patch held groundbreaking ceremonies Monday –on a 570-MW gas-fired plant in the midst of plentiful local gas supplies. The plant’s sponsors are Occidental Petroleum (Oxy), which owns the nearby Elk Hills oil/gas production fields once a part of the U.S. Navy’s Strategic Reserves, and Sempra Energy. The new plant will get all of its fuel supplies — up to 94 MMcf/d — from nearby Elk Hills, delivered through an Oxy pipeline, eliminating the normal utility transportation charges.

Indiana regulators and FERC are weighing a potentiallygroundbreaking case that, in the end after court review, couldaward “complementary jurisdiction” to both states and the federalgovernment in instances where interstate pipelines are seeking tobypass local distribution companies (LDCs) in order to directlyserve end-use customers.

Indiana regulators and FERC are weighing a potentiallygroundbreaking case that, in the end after court review, could give”complementary jurisdiction” to both states and the federalgovernment in instances where interstate pipelines are seeking tobypass local distribution companies (LDCs) in order to directlyserve end-use customers.