Recommended by "Lel Bruce Peto" 2000 oil chronology read..

Recommended by "Lel Bruce Peto" 2000 oil chronology reading..


 Oil & Gas Chronology :  Year 2000, partial.



March 2000

March 2 Valero Energy Corporation agrees to purchase ExxonMobil's 160,000-
barrel-per-day refinery at Benicia, California, and 340 retail gasoline 
stations for $895 million. The sale is part of the package of divestitures 
which Exxon and Mobil agreed to in order to secure approval for their 
merger from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Valero was selected 
despite a higher bid from Ultramar Diamond Shamrock Corporation, in the 
expectation that Valero posed fewer potential problems with approval by 
the FTC, as it has not previously sold gasoline in California and would 
introduce a new competitor into that market.

March 3 A strike by workers at Petroleos de Venezuela (PdVSA) officially 
begins, but fails to attract much support from union members. Only about 
15 percent of PdVSA workers fail to report for work, according to the 
company, and operations are not disrupted.

March 6 The United States Supreme Court overturns the State of 
Washington's law establishing state regulation of oil tankers, ruling 
unanimously that federal laws take precedence. The attempt to impose 
tougher regulatory standards came in the wake of the 1989 Exxon Valdez 
disaster in Alaska.

March 7 New York Mercantile Exchange front-month West Texas Intermediate 
crude oil futures contract closes at $34.13 per barrel, the highest level 
in nine years.

March 9 South Korea's Hyundai Corporation announces that it is to begin 
developing Libya's Elephant oilfield, discovered in 1997. The project is 
expected to produce 150,000 barrels per day when it reaches full output 
capacity in 2003.

March 14 The Clinton administration announces changes to the system for 
assessing royalties for oil production on federal lands. In the future, 
royalty calculations will be pegged closer to current spot market prices, 
instead of an arbitrary value at the wellhead. The changes are expected to 
generate an additional $67.3 million per year in revenues.

March 15 Phillips Petroleum announces that it has agreed to purchase 
Atlantic Richfield's assets in Alaska for $6.5 billion. The sale is being 
made in an effort to secure approval from the Federal Trade Commission 
(FTC) for the merger of Atlantic Richfield with BP Amoco. Earlier the same 
day, the FTC announced that it had suspended its antitrust lawsuit seeking 
to block the merger, citing progress in talks with the companies involved.

March 17 Secretary of State Madeleine Albright announces an easing of some 
United States economic sanctions against Iran. Purchases of several non-
energy items produced in Iran, such as pistachio nuts and Persian rugs, 
now will be permitted. Sanctions dealing with Iran's oil and natural gas 
industries, however, remain in place.

March 21 Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson arrives in Algiers to meet 
with Algeria's oil minister, Chakib Khalil, as part of a final round of 
talks with oil producers about the need to increase production in advance 
of the OPEC ministerial meeting scheduled for March 27th. The visit is the 
first to Algeria by a cabinet level American official in over a decade. 
Earlier in the day, Secretary Richardson had visited Nigeria for talks 
with President Olesegun Obasanjo.

March 20 EPA Administrator Carol Browner announces that the Clinton 
Administration intends to push for a phase out of the use of methyl 
tertiary butyl ether (MTBE) as a gasoline additive. The administration 
wants Congress to pass legislation which would end the requirement for the 
use of MTBE in gasoline sold in some smog-prone urban areas, and instead 
require nationwide use of ethanol.

March 23 Vice Admiral Charles Moore, who oversees United States naval 
operations in the Persian Gulf, briefs the United Nations Sanctions 
Committee on the increased smuggling of Iraqi oil. Iraq is expected to 
earn in excess of $500 million from oil smuggling, and possibly up to 
double that amount, in the absence of strong action by Iran to prevent the 
use of its territorial waters by smugglers. 

March 23 BP Amoco announces that it will purchase 20 percent of the shares 
to be offered by PetroChina in its initial public offering (IPO) on the 
New York and Hong Kong stock exchanges on April 7. PetroChina is a unit of 
China National Petroleum Corporation China's largest oil and gas company. 
The announcement by BP Amoco provides a needed boost to the IPO, which had 
to be scaled back in size by more than half due to lack of interest on the 
part of many large institutional investors. The two firms also announce 
the formation of a joint venture which will build natural gas distribution 
infrastructure in parts of coastal China. 

March 23 Russia's Lukoil announces the discovery of as much as 2.2 billion 
barrels of new oil reserves in the Russian sector of the Caspian Sea.

March 26 Vladimir Putin is elected president of Russia on the first 
ballot, winning 53 percent of the popular vote. Putin took office as 
acting president in December 1999 after the resignation of Boris Yeltsin.

March 27 ExxonMobil files a lawsuit in an attempt to block the sale of 
Atlantic Richfield's assets in Alaska to Phillips Petroleum. ExxonMobil 
holds stakes in Prudhoe Bay assets currently operated by Atlantic 
Richfield. 

March 28 After two days of meetings, oil ministers of the Organization of 
Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) agree on an increase in oil 
production of 1.452 million barrels per day by its members, excluding Iran 
and Iraq. Iraq, has not been subject to OPEC production agreements while 
under U.N. Security Council sanctions. Iran, though not formally signing 
on to the agreement, stated its intention to raise its production in order 
to avoid loss of its market share. This would represent about a 1.7 
million barrel per day increase in OPEC production targets, if Iran was 
included. Several major non-OPEC producers, including Mexico and Norway, 
also have indicated an intention to raise production.

March 30 The State Department announces that it is lifting its hold on an 
Eximbank loan to Russia's Tyumen Oil Company. The loan was blocked by the 
State Department in December due to a dispute between Tyumen and BP Amoco 
over the ownership of assets in Siberia's Chernegorneft oil field, but the 
two firms had since reached a settlement. 

March 30 The United Nations Security Council votes to allow Iraq to import 
$1.2 billion in spare parts and other equipment for its oil industry this 
year under the "oil-for-food" program. This is an increase from the 
previous $600 million annual value allowed. 

 

April 2000



April 5 The government of Iran announces that it has seized a tanker which 
was smuggling Iraqi oil through Iranian territorial waters. A spokesman 
for the United States Department of State welcomes the action. 

April 6 PetroChina, a holding company which serves as a stock market 
listing entity for the China National Petroleum Corporation, launches an 
initial public offering (IPO) on the New York and Hong Kong stock 
exchanges. The IPO is valued at nearly $3 billion, scaled back drastically 
in size due to a lack of investor interest. 

April 7 Tosco Corporation agrees to purchase the Wood River Refinery, 
located in Illinois from Equilon Enterprises, a joint venture between 
Texaco and Shell, for $420 million. Equilon officials say the sale is part 
of a shift to concentrate on the West Coast petroleum products market.

April 12 Several Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) of major United States 
oil companies meet with senior Saudi Arabian officials to discuss possible 
investments in natural gas and petrochemical projects. The firms 
represented at the meetings include Chevron, Conoco, ExxonMobil, Marathon 
Oil, Phillips Petroleum, and Texaco. The Saudi government announces, in 
conjunction with the meetings, a package of legal changes that will make 
Saudi Arabia more open to foreign investors. Complete foreign ownership 
will be allowed for some types of projects, and the maximum corporate tax 
rate for foreign enterprises will be reduced to 15 percent.

April 14 BP Amoco receives approval from the Federal Trade Commission 
(FTC) for its $28 billion takeover of Atlantic Richfield Corporation 
(ARCO). As part of the approval, ARCO has agreed to sell its crude oil 
production operations in Alaska to Phillips Petroleum in a deal valued at 
$6.5 billion.

April 18 The China National Petroleum Corporation announces an agreement 
with Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) to begin purchases of Orimulsion, a 
power-plant fuel made from bitumen from Venezuela's Orinoco region.

April 18 Amerada Hess Corporation announces an agreement with the Algerian 
state-owned oil company Sonatrach to develop three oil fields in central 
Algeria. The $555 million project will develop the El Gassi, El Agreb, and 
Zotti fields. 

April 19 The United States Commerce Department reports a record $29.2 
billion trade deficit for February 2000. This is due largely to the sharp 
increase in prices for crude oil imports, which added $1.3 billion to the 
monthly trade deficit.

April 24 The American Petroleum Institute (API) files a federal lawsuit 
seeking to overturn the Interior Department's new rules for royalty 
valuation of natural gas produced from federal government lands. The 
Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA), which represents 
independent oil and gas companies, also has filed a similar lawsuit.

April 25 Royal Dutch Shell agrees to pay a $2 million fine for 
transporting smuggled Iraqi oil aboard a Russian tanker. The tanker, 
Akademik Pustovoit, was detained by United States naval vessels enforcing 
United Nations sanctions against Iraq on April 5. Defense Department 
spokesman Kenneth Bacon states that Shell appeared to have acquired the 
Iraqi oil unwittingly, and would therefore be allowed to keep the cargo. 
The fine will go into a United Nations fund for the enforcement of 
sanctions.

April 28 Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey sign a final governmental 
agreement in Washington on the planned Baku-Ceyhan pipeline, which would 
transport oil from the Caspian Sea region to Western markets through the 
Turkish port of Ceyhan. The agreement covers the issues of transit fees, 
security, and governmental liability involved in the project.

April 29 Iraq's oil ministry states that it expects to export more than 
$8.5 billion of oil in the current six-month phase of the United 
Nations "oil-for-food" program. 

April 30 Total Fina Elf announces that it intends to invest $8 billion in 
Saudi Arabia's natural gas sector. The announcement comes following a 
meeting between Total Chairman Thierry Desmarest and Saudi Arabia's Oil 
and Gas Policy Committee, which includes Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal 
and Petroleum Minister Ali Naimi. The Saudi government has been seeking 
foreign investment in natural gas and petrochemical projects.

April 30 The National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) signs a 25-year agreement 
with a consortium of multinational firms for a set of studies dealing with 
its natural gas sector. The topics will include estimating reserves and 
assessment of Iran's prospects for both increased domestic use and export 
of natural gas. Firms involved in the agreement include BP Amoco, Royal 
Dutch Shell, British Gas, and Gaz de France, among others.

Received on Friday, 21 February 2003 20:08:33 UTC