Energy Roundup: ConocoPhillips, Chevron, Marathon to Explore Indonesia, Masdar Buys Into Wind Farm, and More

Indonesia doles out 22 oil and gas blocks — Indonesia awarded exploration rights for 22 oil and gas blocks to foreign and local companies including Marathon Oil, Kanzai Oil, ConocoPhillips, Chevron, Husky Energy, Pearl Energy, Australian Worldwide and Sinochem Petroleum E&P. The planned investment will total more than $300 million for the first three years of exploration. [Source: Energy Current]

ExxonMobile starts competitive bid process for natural gas plant in Papua New Guinea — ExxonMobil has begun its competitive bid process for the engineering, procurement and construction of PNG LNG’s liquefied natural gas plant and associated facilities. The plant will be constructed about 12 miles northwest of Port Moresby on the Gulf of Papua. Also participating in the competition are Bechtel, and Chiyoda of Japan. [Source: Energy Current]

Masdar  takes 20 percent stake in world’s largest offshore wind farm — Abu Dhabi’s clean tech initiative, Masdar, took a 20 percent stake in the London Array — the world’s largest planned offshore wind farm (271 turbines), located about 12 miles off the English coast near the mouth of the River Thames. Masdar bought the stake from E.ON, the German firm, which will still retain 30 percent ownership in the project. The rest is being financed by Denmark’s DONG Energy. The terms of the deal were not disclosed, but the total cost of the project is said to be around $4.3 billion. [Source: Earth2Tech]

Evergreen wins sales deals totaling 160 megawatts — Evergreen Solar, a solar panel maker, has signed two sales contracts worth more 160 megawatts. The deals were with Mainstream Energy and its energy distributing subsidiary, AEE Solar and with a trading company in Japan which plans to market the panels worldwide. Shipment is set to begin in 2009. The panels will be manufactured at Evergreen’s Massachusetts plant. The dollar amounts of the deals were not disclosed. [Source: Energy Current]

(Image courtesy London Array)