Industry - Oil latest news

Energy companies placed $487.3 million in winning bids for the right to drill in the western Gulf of Mexico, knowing they may get a chance later to explore in other areas that have been off limits for decades.

London (Platts) -- 21Aug2008 -- Corus has entered into exclusive negotiations with a new prospective buyer of its aluminium smelters in the Netherlands and Germany, the UK-headquartered steel producer said Thursday. Corus has started...

Seoul (Platts) -- 21Aug2008 -- South Korea's second-largest steelmaker Hyundai Steel announced Thursday it will buy more than 1.6 million mt of coal a year for next five years from Australian miner BHP Billiton to ensure it has adequate...

Kuwait plans to install $1.3bn worth of power-generation equipment in a bid to raise output by 7.9% as energy demand soars, reported Bloomberg. The country is building four new gas and steam turbines, one generator and three distillers at the Shuaiba North power station, said Mohammed Boshehri, a planning director at the Ministry of Electricity and Water. The new power capacity is needed to boost manufacturing, develop new industries such as tourism and meet demand from expanding residential developments. [AMEInfo.com]

The chief executive of Devon energy Corp. says its new proposed downtown headquarters will be the tallest building in Oklahoma.

Forest Oil Corp. agreed to buy natural gas and oil properties in Texas and Louisiana from closely held Cordillera Texas LP for $892.9 million in cash and stock to extend its holdings in the region.

Kuwait is extending the date to close bids for a contract to build a 2,000-megawatt power station in Subbiya to Oct. 7 from Aug. 17 after foreign companies requested more time, Khalid al-Wasmi, assistant undersecretary at the Ministry of Electricity and Water told Bloomberg. The project will cost about $2.6bn. [AMEInfo.com]

Oil rose to $117 a barrel in New York today as traders worried that Russian crude may be disrupted after the US agreed to build a missile-defense system in Poland and the conflict in Georgia has halted supplies from the Caspian Sea, reported Bloomberg. Crude oil for October delivery rose as much as $1.44, or 1.3 percent, to $117 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange and was trading at $116.83 at 2:30 p.m. in Singapore [AMEInfo.com]

Masdar, a renewable energy company owned by the Abu Dhabi government, has announced that it has begun work on a $230m photovoltaic production plant in Ichterhausen, Germany. The 70 megawatt plant, part of Masdar's plan to invest $2bn in thin-film photovoltaic manufacturing, will open in the third quarter of 2009, the company said in a statement. [AMEInfo.com]

A Progress energy Corp. plant that was recently shut down will remain closed because officials discovered an additional system malfunction.