Showing posts with label McAfee. Show all posts
Showing posts with label McAfee. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Of PetroChina, Gazprom and Hackers!

But first...Brent remains well into US$100+ per barrel territory while WTI remains in sub-US$90 region. Let’s face it the Nymex WTI-ICE Brent spreads remain extremely weak and it is becoming a recurring theme. The front-month spread even capped -US$16 per barrel mark (US$16.29 to be exact) on Feb 11; the date of expiry of the Brent forward month futures contract.

Moving away from pricing, it emerged last week that Russia’s Gazprom reported a fall in profits from RUR173.5 billion to RUR160.5 billion; an annualised dip of 9% for the quarter from July to Sept 2010 period. The cost of purchasing oil and gas jumped 29% according to the state owned firm while operational costs rose 12%. Dip in profit even prompted Russian PM Putin to “ask” them to raise their game.

Elsewhere, the “All Hail Shale” brigade had to contend with PetroChina – the Chinese state-controlled energy firm – acquiring a 50% stake in a Canadian Shale Gas project run by Encana. The stake cost is pegged at a cool US$5.4 billion. PetroChina already has majority stakes in two oil projects in Canada with Encana. There doesn’t appear to be much of a ruckus about the Chinese shopping in Canada. I guess Canadians are less uptight about Chinese investment in perceived strategic energy assets than the Americans.

Finally, computer security firm McAfee claimed in a report published on February 10th that hackers have attacked networks of a number of oil and gas firms for a good few years now. The full report is available for downloading here and it makes for interesting reading. However, I am not entirely surprised by the revelations.

In a nutshell, McAfee claims that in a series of co-ordinated attempts at least a dozen multinational oil, gas and energy companies were targeted – named by it as Night Dragon attacks – which began in November 2009. Five firms have now confirmed the attacks, it adds.

© Gaurav Sharma 2011. Photo: Oil tanker © Michael S. Quinton/National Geographic Society