Table of Contents

International news for oil and gas professionals

Led by an investment boom in pipeline construction, capital expenditures for oil and gas projects in the US will increase 10% to $348 billion in 2013, following a 7% increase in spending last year.

In the Short-Term Energy Outlook report released in February, the US Energy Information Administration projected that the average West Texas Intermediate crude oil price will fall to $93/bbl in 2013 and to $92/bbl in 2014 from $94/bbl in 2012.

Exploration and development of oil and natural gas from shale plays could spread worldwide beyond the US and Canada faster than many people currently assume, participants at an International Energy Forum Roundtable concluded earlier this year.

US natural gas producers urged the US Department of Energy to quickly approve LNG export applications as DOE's comment period on allowing US LNG exports closed.

It's time for Ohio to "modernize" its severance tax so the state can more fully benefit from oil and gas discoveries there, Gov. John Kasich (R) said in his 2013 State of the State address.

Governors descended on Washington, DC, Feb. 23-25 eager to exchange ideas and share experiences at the National Governors Association's 2013 Winter Meeting.

Representatives from the US Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy should have been invited to testify at a hearing examining potential problems from EPA's allowing gasoline with a 15% ethanol blend into the US market, the ranking minority member of a US House Science, Space, and Technology subcommittee suggested.

Global LNG suppliers looking at Asia should focus more on combined Southeast Asian markets—Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore—as the LNG appetite of these markets increase. India, on the other hand, may disappoint.

A research team in Japan is using new pressure coring characterization tools to keep deep sea floor subsurface methane hydrate-bearing sediment samples from deteriorating, the US Geological Survey reported.

International sanctions have ravaged the Iranian oil industry, the production of which once exceeded 6 million b/d, more than twice the current level.

Over the past few decades, Iraq has rarely been featured in the news for positive developments. However, a revolution is in the works as the country is busy building a bright future on the back of its rapid improvements in the energy sector.

Theoretical calculations and laboratory experiments have demonstrated the feasibility of heat transfer with a sucker rod string. Liaohe field tests of the wells show this technology can heat the wellbore in steam-stimulated wells.

The past decade has seen what is now considered to be a revolution in natural gas production, as the industry has discovered how to produce natural gas economically from tight formations such as shales, which are extremely common.