Power Finance Corporation (PFC) on Monday floated a wholly-owned consultancy arm—PFC Consulting Limited (PCL)—to advise both Central and state utilities on attracting private investments in generation and transmission projects, including award of ultra mega power projects (UMPP), in particular.

The new venture would take over from Power Finance Corporation services related to UMPPs, including formation of special purpose vehicles, carrying out the bidding and awarding process and obtaining regulatory clearances for the projects, Power Finance Corporation chairman and managing director V K Garg told reporters here.

The consultancy arm of Power Finance Corporation would be an extension of consultancy services group (CSG).

Bordeaux Energy Inc. and its joint venture participant Savant Alaska LLC (Savant) commences drilling of the Kupcake-1 well located on the North Slope of Alaska on March 26th, 2008.

Under its previously agreement with Savant, on drilling the Kupcake-1 well Bordeaux will earn a 30% undivided interest in seven leases (the "Leases") currently held by Savant, located on and offshore the North Slope of Alaska. The Leases are situated 20km from the 13.6 billion barrel Prudhoe Bay oil field and immediately adjacent to the 100 million barrel Liberty Field operated by BP but not yet in production.

Bordeaux anticipates drilling of the Kupcake-1 exploratory well will take approximately 30 days to reach its target depth of 3350 metres. The well is expected to cost a total of approximately US$14 million to drill and log, of which Bordeaux's share is currently estimated to be US$5.6 million.

Chevron Corporation says that Gen. James L. Jones (retired, United States Marine Corps) has been nominated for election to Chevron's board of directors. Jones, 64, is currently president and chief executive officer of the Institute for 21st Century Energy, a policy, economic and educational center in affiliation with the United States Chamber of Commerce. Jones will be considered for election to Chevron's board at the company's annual stockholders meeting on May 28. If he is elected, the board will increase from 14 to 15 members, and Jones will serve on the Public Policy Committee and the Board Nominating and Governance Committee.

Jones has been the Institute for 21st Century Energy's president and chief executive officer since March 2007. Prior to the position, Jones served as the Supreme Allied Commander – Europe and Commander of the United States European Command – NATO from January 2003 to February 2007. Previously, Jones served as the 32nd Commandant of the United States Marine Corps from July 1999 to January 2003.

Jones serves on the board of directors of The Boeing Company, Invacare Corporation and Cross Match Technologies. He also chairs the Atlantic Council of the United States, the Armed Forces Benefits Association and the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation. Jones also is a trustee at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Jones earned a bachelor's degree in International Relations and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from Georgetown University. During his Marine Corps service, Jones was recognized on numerous occasions through high-level national and international awards. He currently is serving as Special Envoy for Middle East Security.

Venezuela is rerouting oil to China that had previously been sent to a U.S. refinery co-owned by its state oil company and Exxon Mobil Corp., Venezuela's oil minister said Friday.

Rafael Ramirez said Exxon Mobil has stopped ordering crude for a refinery in the New Orleans suburb of Chalmette as legal wrangling between the Irving-based company and Petroleos de Venezuela, or PDVSA, continues.

"Everything went to China," Ramirez told reporters.

PDVSA and Exxon Mobil are locked in a fierce legal battle over compensation for the 2007 nationalization of a jointly owned heavy oil project in Venezuela's Orinoco basin.

Ramirez vowed last month that PDVSA would meet its existing contracts with Exxon, including continued shipments to Chalmette. The refinery processes about 190,000 barrels a day, but does not depend exclusively on Venezuelan crude.

PDVSA's profits increased 15 percent last year, jumping to $6.2 billion from $5.4 billion in 2006 as world oil prices reached historic highs, Ramirez said.

A No. 2 core was brought to the surface showing oil, as the company looks for contact with water. Two 24-metre cores cut over three days all had “good oil shows” throughout a 48.6 m sampling.

”This latest well appears to point to a potentially significant gross hydrocarbon column both at the Dunsborough-2 well and for the field as a whole,” a statement said.

Shareholders were told it was “to early” to comment on reserves, but said the field could be comparable to the nearby producer Cliff Head and its 16 million barrels.

Mexico's ruling conservatives are fine-tuning an energy bill with opposition parties but the reform could disappoint investors by keeping profit-sharing contracts illegal, lawmakers said on Wednesday.

President Felipe Calderon's National Action Party, or PAN, which lacks a majority in Congress, has been trying to convince the opposition in recent weeks to revamp energy laws to boost the sagging state-controlled oil industry.

But the PAN is giving up on a core part of its vision for turning around the sector: attracting foreign partners to technologically challenging but potentially huge deepwater oil fields by offering them a share in profits.

"Risk contracts are not in the equation," said PAN lawmaker Juan Bueno, who sits on the Senate energy committee.

Under Mexico's constitution, state monopoly Pemex has sole rights to explore for and produce Mexican oil, and left-wingers bitterly oppose allowing contracts that would have Pemex share risks and profits with outside companies.

Bueno said the PAN was considering a less-extreme proposal that would let Pemex form partnerships with other state-owned energy firms. "That is something we are studying," he said.

He did not say what form such partnerships could take.

Pemex announced another fall in total oil reserves on Wednesday, showing that its fledgling deepwater drilling projects have so far not been able to confirm what seismic tests suggest could be some 30 billion barrels of oil under the Gulf of Mexico seabed in water several kilometers deep. Neither private nor state-run oil companies are expected to sign up for risky deepwater oil projects without contracts that would give them a share in profits.

Cabinet members and PAN lawmakers are meeting opposition legislators all this week to try and reach a consensus on a proposal that could be unveiled within two weeks.

PAN lawmakers said the proposal could also call for reducing state oil company Pemex's heavy tax load and giving the company more freedom to make business decisions.

Mexico is a top supplier of crude to the United States, but decades of underinvestment have left oil reserves and output waning and left Mexico importing 40 percent of its gasoline.

Bueno said the PAN proposal might also include opening up fuel storage and transport to more private investment.

Lawmakers for the centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, another key opposition bloc, plan to meet Calderon's energy minister next week to discuss the proposal, the party's leader in the lower house told reporters.

PAN lawmakers said the government wanted to seal a deal with the opposition before presenting its bill.

"That's where we're at. It wouldn't make sense to present a bill that was destined for failure," said Alonso Lizaola, a PAN lawmaker and secretary on the lower house energy committee.

Mexican lawmakers from the opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party said time is running out to debate and approve an energy bill before Congress recesses April 30.

Senator Manlio Fabio Beltrones, the party leader in the Senate, urged President Felipe Calderon to present as quickly as possible his plan to loosen the state's monopoly on oil, which the government says is the only way Mexico can halt declines in output and reserves.

Calderon's inability to get a bill through Congress would be a failure for his administration, which has made energy reform a top political priority. Calderon needs the support of the opposition party, known as the PRI, to get the bill passed.

``It's not over until the fat lady sings,'' said Armand Peschard-Sverdrup, senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. ``But clearly the clock is ticking.''

Beltrones, speaking today in an interview on Radio Formula, said Congress may open an extraordinary session between May and August to debate an energy bill.

Calderon's National Action Party, known as the PAN, has drafted part of the energy reform package. The plan would allow state oil company Petroleos Mexicanos, known as Pemex, to join with private or foreign companies to develop wells that straddle the U.S. border.

Alonso Manuel Lizaola de la Torre, a PAN member in the lower house of Congress, said he had planned to present the initiative yesterday. Hector Larios, his party leader in the lower house, asked him to postpone it.

``To be able to realize contracts and agreements for the joint development of border fields is extremely important for Mexico,'' the proposal says, according to a copy provided to Bloomberg News by Lizaola de la Torre.

Calderon's party postponed presenting the initiative because of recent protests by opponents of the reform, including a rally in Mexico City's main square yesterday led by former presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, Lizaola de la Torre said.

Lopez Obrador and members of his Party of the Democratic Revolution have promised to hold rallies at congressional buildings, airports and financial institutions to protest reformation of the energy industry.

Mexico's constitution reserves oil to the government, banning any outside investment in exploration or production. The country nationalized most aspects of the oil industry in 1938. Calderon is hoping to change secondary laws to allow private and foreign companies to team up with Pemex, which would retain ownership of the drilling projects.

Lawmakers from Calderon's party intend to present the border-well bill along with a larger energy initiative, Lizaola de la Torre said.

Emilio Gamboa Patron, PRI leader in the lower house of Congress, also said today that his party can't be rushed to pass an energy bill and time is running out.

Pemex generates about 40 percent of federal revenue. Crude output may drop by a third by 2016 unless partnerships with other companies gives it access to technology that would allow it to drill deepwater wells, the government has said.

Investment in the industry may help Mexico's economy as exports to the U.S., which buys over 80 percent of Mexican goods sent abroad, are falling. Mexico's central bank in January cut its economic growth forecast for 2008 by half a percentage point, to a range of 2.75 percent to 3.25 percent.

``Mexico is going to have to brace itself for what could be a severe and lengthy recession in the U.S. and the ripple effect on the Mexican economy,'' Peschard-Sverdrup said. ``Energy reform could help to neutralize that.''

The government on Thursday exempted NTPC Ltd from the Rs 1,000-crore investment cap in a joint venture or subsidiary set up to bid for power projects, a move that would help the top electricity producer to place competitive bids for the upcoming seven plants it is eyeing.

"We are extremely happy. This will help us in being competitive to a great extent," Company Chairman and Managing Director T Sankaralingam said.

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs gave its nod to waive the ceiling for equity investment by NTPC to establish financial joint ventures and wholly-owned subsidiaries in India or abroad for participating in bidding called by state utilities and distribution licensees, an official spokesperson said.

The approval would facilitate participation of NTPC in bidding for the development of power projects initiated by government utilities and result in greater competition and establishment of more public sector power projects, the spokesperson said after the CCEA meeting.

Being a 'Navratna' company, NTPC's participation in any joint venture for bidding was restricted to Rs 1,000 crore. The company had been seeking a special exemption from the government, particularly to bid for setting up seven coal- based power plants in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka.

The company seeks to become a 50,000-MW company by 2012. It has a total installed capacity of 29,144 MW at present.

Earlier, the company had to wait for a Cabinet clearance for an over Rs 1,000-crore equity participation in a joint venture for participating in bids for a power project. The seven projects, totalling a capacity of more than 10,000 MW, require an investment of up to Rs 1,800 crore each.

China is ready to join the Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline if India drops out of the 7.4 billion dollar project, Pakistani sources have said.

Pakistan had urged Iran earlier this month to finalize the Iran-Pakistan-India natural gas pipeline project by April because of its growing demand for gas, while Tehran was holding final talks with India over the deal, reported UPI on Tuesday.

Tehran informed Islamabad if New Delhi remained reluctant to joint the project under the US pressure, Iran would then invite Beijing to participate in it.

According to the report, the Chinese have told Pakistan's Petroleum Ministry that they are ready to join the so-called "peace pipeline" project.

Pakistan and Iran have finalized a gas purchase agreement, but India is yet to complete modalities largely due to differences with Islamabad over the transit fee to be paid for the fuel carried through Pakistani territory. Islamabad has called on Iran to increase the volume of the natural gas it will supply by 50 percent if India opts out of the deal.

Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Murli Deora on Wednesday emphasised the need for India and Brasil to further enhance cooperation between both countries, especially in the oil and gas sector.

During a meeting with Brazilian Minister for Development, Industry and Foreign Trade, Miguel Jorge, Deora said efforts are afoot in this direction as the two national oil companies of respective countries, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) (India) and Petrobras (Brazil) have entered into an arrangement for exploration and production of hydrocarbons in India and Brazil.

To a suggestion by the Brazilian Minister to enhance ethanol blending Deora informed that Indian Government has already decided to blend ethanol with petrol at 10 per cent against five per cent being blended at present.

Both Ministers expressed satisfaction over the efforts being made to take cooperation between them forward.

In a major development that could result in a breakthrough, Pakistan has invited India for talks on finalising the $ 7.4 billion Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline deal.

"I received an invitation from Pakistan's Energy Minister to visit Islamabad to finalise the transit fee issue so that the IPI pipeline deal could be wrapped up soon," Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Murli Deora said on Monday, a leading english daily reported here Tuesday.

The Minister was supposed to visit Pakistan in February first week to hold talks on the issue but it was cancelled at the last moment.

Deora said he hoped to resume negotiations on the issue as soon as the new government in Pakistan was installed.

"I will visit Pakistan sometime next month to hold talks and hope to wrap up the issue of transit fee and related matters as soon as possible and sign a formal agreement to make the project happen." The issue of "transportation fee" was sorted out by the two governments and now the focus of the talks would be on the "transit fee" sought to be levied for gas transported from Iran to the India- Pakistan border. India and Pakistan had, in principle, reached an agreement on the transportation charges that New Delhi would be paying to Islamabad.

A point of mutual concern for both nations was the incorporation of a new clause sought to be incorporated by Iran on revision of natural gas price every three years.