Current Trends in the Oil & Gas Industry of the Asia-Pacific
Asia-Pacific is keen on boosting the productivity of new and established oil and gas reserves within its territories.
The Asia-Pacific’ s demand for oil and gas continues to rise as it witnesses rapid urbanization and industrialization. At the moment, the Asia-Pacific is said to be consuming approximately 25 % of the world’ s oil supply, 45 % of coal and 10 % of natural gas. While it has traditionally supported its demand with exports from other regions, at present countries in the Asia-Pacific are taking significant steps towards decreasing import dependency and boosting regional energy security and autonomy.
In order to satisfy the increasing demand for energy, oil & gas and petrochemicals, and thus encourage further regional economic growth, the Asia-Pacific is keen on boosting the productivity of new and established oil and gas reserves within its territories.
Renewed Energy
Some of the more mature oil and gas reserves in the region are found in China and India, and in certain parts of Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia. Currently, new oil frontiers are being developed in other countries, like the Philippines and Myanmar. Exploration of unconventional oil and gas reserves in deeper and more remote waters is notably gaining traction. National oil companies within the region, such as the China National Offshore Oil Corporation( CNOOC), India’ s Oil and Natural Gas Corporation( ONGC), Malaysia’ s Petronas, Thailand’ s PTT and Vietnam’ s PetroVietnam have taken the lead in investing in and developing the region’ s oil & gas industry. Additionally, independent oil & gas companies and international oil companies are seeing increasing regional participation.
American and European oil & gas titans have started ramping up their activities within the Asia-Pacific, with the keen interest of capitalizing on the region’ s rapidly expanding market. Some of the more notable regional activities of international oil companies include Exxon Mobil’ s agreed acquisition of Papua New Guinea’ s InterOil, British Petroleum’ s( BP) plans of expanding its Tangguh LNG project in Indonesia, and Chevron and Exxon Mobil’ s bid to invest in an oil project in Kazakhstan, which is geared towards transporting crude to China. Other international players actively participating in the regional oil & gas activities include Reliance, Shell and Murphy.
18 Construction Leaders • April 2017