Japan to drop humpback whale hunt

Japan has suspended its first humpback whale hunt in seas off Antarctica since the 1960s, backing down in an escalating international battle over the expansion of its hunt.

Japan dropped the planned taking of 50 humpbacks, which have been off-limits to commercial hunting since 1966 at the behest of the United States, the chair of the International Whaling Commission, said Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura. The government has decided to suspend hunts of humpback whales while talks to normalize IWC are taking place. Japan dispatched its whaling fleet last month to the southern Pacific in the first major hunt of humpback whales since the 1960s, generating widespread criticism. Japanese whaling officials said Friday they had not harpooned any humpbacks yet.

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Shell to begin water injection at Ursa/Princess in 2008

Shell personnel have commenced the Ursa/Princess facilities commissioning process to prepare for the initiation of water injection, projected sometime next year.

The Ursa/Princess waterflood project, located in the Mars-Ursa Basin of the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, will improve reservoir performance at the deepwater Ursa and Princess fields. The waterflood topsides injection system will inject filtered and treated water via two separate flowlines to three subsea sites. One will go to an existing well site northwest of Ursa, one to an existing well site southeast of Ursa and one to a new well site northeast of Ursa. Producing wells will include three Princess subsea wells and as many as six Ursa tension leg platform (TLP) wells. J. Ray McDermott's Amelia, La., fabrication yard cut first steel on the modules in October 2006. The modules were completed and ready for offshore installation one year later.
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BHP lets Falcon go to Fugro

BHP Billiton has agreed to sell its Falcon airborne geophysical technology to Dutch company Fugro.

BHP said it would retain exclusive use and priority access to the technology for minerals exploration until March 2010. Execution of the sale agreement will be completed by March 2008. The Falcon technology, jointly developed by BHP Billiton and Lockheed Martin, is deployed on aircraft operated by Fugro Airborne Surveys. It has been used for petroleum-related work in Australia, Papua New Guinea and other parts of the world too. BHP have a long and productive relationship with Fugro Airborne Surveys and through this agreement they will continue to use Falcon technology through a world class geophysical service provider, focusing efforts on discovery of new mineral deposits.

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Langsa write-off for Modec

Japanese floating production giant Modec is expecting to book a loss of 2.5 billion yen ($22 million) by writing off its investment in Indonesia's offshore Langsa oilfield.

The Tokyo-based company said Langsa is the only project in the world in which Modec holds the concession. Stable production of oil continues at between 1000 barrels per day and 2000 bpd. To cover for the write-off loss, Modec plans to sell some of the securities it holds, and expects to book a net gain of 700 million yen ($6 million) on both a consolidated and non-consolidated basis. Modec will focus on floating production systems, which shows solid growth, and will continue to expand its businesses as a global leader in this field. The Langsa field has a chequered past, and is currently operated by a joint venture between Indonesia's Medco and Japan's Mitsui, who lease a small floating production vessel from Modec.

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