French major Total has pulled out of a planned US$10bn refining and petrochemicals facility in Vishakhapatnam (Vizag) in Andhra Pradesh in the south of India, according to the Economic Times (ET).

The chief executive of France's Air Liquide, an industrial bellwether, says a dearth of engineers is set to force companies to recruit heavily in emerging markets and could lead to a big shift eastwards

Now that the partners in the giant Gorgon liquefied natural gas (LNG) project off Western Australia have made a final investment decision (FID) on the development, the fate of other LNG projects in Australia and the wider region is uncertain. With the sheer scale of Gorgon, which will produce 15mn tonnes per annum (tpa) of LNG, dwarfing other projects in the area, and concerns that Asian gas demand may not grow as quickly as LNG supply in the Pacific Basin, we expect to see some cancellations, or at least consolidation, among the 27 or so planned LNG export projects in the Asia Pacific region.

An Indian consortium that is exploring the offshore Farsi Block in Iran has announced that it is not planning to develop an oil discovery at the block, because it has been found to be commercially unviable, according to India's Economic Times (ET).

Independent Russian gas producer Itera signed a deal on September 13 with Turkmenistan to jointly develop an offshore field in Block 21. Reserves at the field are estimated at 1.17bn barrels (bbl) of oil and 60bn cubic metres (bcm) of gas.