A week later the explosions that rocked a Texas chemical plant, Petrochemical maker TPC Group Inc will reconstruct the Texas plant. The fire at the Port Neches plant forced the county to temporarily vacate over 60,000 residents from the area. TPC Group CEO last week informed that the 175 employees at the Port Neches plant would be compensated until year-end, with the plant shut for an indefinite but extended period.

Continuing on its growth strategy, Scottish service provider, Motive Offshore has concluded the purchase of Norway-based Pumptech for a seven-figure sum. The acquisition will allow Motive to leverage Pumptech’s large fleet of zone-2-accredited hydraulic pump units (HPUs), apart from their expertise in flexible flowlines and umbilical testing. Richard Charles has been appointed as Flexibles Division Manager for the new division.

Aquarius Marine Coatings (AMC) has introduced a new anti-foul coating solution for offshore oil and gas. Coppercoat-Commercial has high levels of copper and is a natural anti-microbial agent. It will effectively protect sub-sea infrastructure from hosting layers of plant, animal and microbe growth. This coating does not contain any volatile organic compounds and offers protection against degradation forms.

The international market was a bit quiet on Thursday ahead of the start of OPEC meetings later in the day. The oil prices went steady as the day progressed because of the substantial drop in the U.S. crude inventories. Brent decreased by 0.2% and was traded at $62.90 a barrel. WTI fell by 0.4% and was traded at $58.21 a barrel.

Global carbon emission has hit record levels in 2019 because of the increased use of natural gas. According to the analysis of the Global Carbon Project, CO2 emissions were on a course to rise 0.6% this year. This increase has been recorded even after a substantial decline in the use of coal. "Natural gas is now the biggest contributor to the growth in emissions", says the Carbon Budget report.

On Wednesday, oil prices buoyed ahead of the OPEC meeting. Larger than expected decline in US stockpiles also helped the market revive its growth. Brent went up by 0.6% and was traded at $61.17 a barrel. WTI increased by 0.6% and was traded at $56.41 a barrel. Amidst all the scepticism, the industry believes that OPEC with its allies might agree on deeper output cuts during the next meeting.

Russia and China, yesterday, kickstarted the 3,000-km-long Power of Siberia pipeline for the transportation of gas from Siberia to northeast China. The launch was overseen by Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping. The pipeline is being seen as an attempt to boost economic and political ties between Moscow and Beijing. The move will fortify China’s spot as Russia’s top export market.

Oil and gas services firm, KCA Deutag has secured a five-year contract extension from CNRI for three platforms operating in the UK North Sea. The scope of the contract includes the delivery of drilling operations and maintenance services on CNRI’s Ninian South, Ninian Central and Tiffany platforms. CNRI and KCA Deutag have a long history of working together.

Oil prices jumped on Tuesday, as OPEC de facto leader, Saudi Arabia pushed the cartel to deepen a supply cut agreement. Brent crude futures rose 0.3%, to $61.11 per barrel. U.S. WTI crude was priced 0.4% higher, at $56.17 a barrel. Sources familiar with the discussions said that the cartel is aiming to increase its existing supply cut by 400,000 bpd and prolong the pact until June.

Rovco, a subsea technology company has launched a new product called “SubSLAM Live”. It is 3D streaming technology which will allow clients to live stream 3D underwater point clouds to any device in the world. “The model is compressed and progressively sent over a low-bandwidth <256Kb network link to a cloud server along with the ROV's position", says Rovoco's CSO.

Shanghai Futures Exchange has informed that China will launch low-sulphur fuel oil futures in the first quarter of 2020. This would be China's second bonded oil futures contract. The first contract was in March 2018 on the Shanghai International Energy Exchange (INE), a ShFE subsidiary. Apart from this, ShFE will actively promote the launch of alumina future also.

With the growth in the manufacturing activity of China, the market hopes that the fuel demand will see a significant increase in the immediate future. Owing to optimism, oil prices edged up on Monday. Brent went up by 1.2% and was traded at $61.23 a barrel. WTI increased by 1.6% and was traded at $56.03 a barrel.

Vietnamese state-backed Binh Son Refining and Petrochemical Co (BSR) has reached an agreement with SOCAR to purchase 5 mln barrels of crude in 2020. A statement on BSR’s website read that SOCAR will supply 5 mln barrels of Azeri Light crude to BSR-operated Dung Quat refinery. Vietnam has seen increased dependence over imported crude due to slow domestic output and China's stance in the region which hampers offshore exploration.

Exploration and development firm, Cairn Energy has entered into an agreement to farm out its stakes in Capricorn Norge to Solveig Gas. The deal will fetch Cairn $100m, apart from the customary working capital adjustments, upon completion of the transaction. Capricorn Norge owns a 10% interest in the Nova field, where Wintershall Dea is the operator. Cairn intends to use the proceeds from the transaction to fund its ongoing business.

Equatorial Guinea has revealed plans of spending $1 billion in energy projects, which includes the construction of two new oil refineries among other projects. Energy minister, Gabriel Obiang Lima stated during the Africa Oil Power Conference last week that the new refineries would process 30,000-40,000 bpd of crude oil including from the Zafiro offshore field. Equatorial Guinea is looking to diversify its energy sector.

Oil prices held ground in the international market on Friday, amidst quiet trade during Thanksgiving holiday in the US. Benchmark Brent crude was priced at $63.82 a barrel. WTI crude futures CLc1 rose to $58.12 a barrel. Investors are keeping a close look on the OPEC+ meeting scheduled for the next week. The cartel has until now withheld output to boost the prices.

After US crude and gasoline stocks rose against expectations, oil prices declined on Thursday. Brent fell down by 0.3% and was traded at $63.88 a barrel. WTI decreased by 0.4% and was traded at $57.87 a barrel. According to the EIA, US stockpiles touched 1.6 million barrels last week as the production touched record heights.

The sale of government 's stakes in Bharat Petroleum has got SBI Capital and Deloitte in a race for advisors. According to the sources, both the firms will give 15 minutes presentation on Thursday post which financial bids will be opened. “The advisor will undertake tasks relating to all aspects of the proposed strategic disinvestment culminating into successful completion of the transaction during the current financial i.e. 2019-20", said DIPAM.