While some see it as Woodside's vote of confidence in the emerging oil province in Mauritania, others believe the energy giant is planning a takeover bid for its Mauritanian partner.

Staying in the markets, last month's big offshore discovery in the Otway Basin sparked gold miner Perilya to increase its holding in Strike Oil.

Just weeks after wrapping up Crest Engineers, Perth-based engineering group Clough moved to acquire a half stake in Melbourne-based engineering firm, Shedden Uhde for an undisclosed amount.

Australian Gas Light Co is set to remove its 5% ownership cap early next month while moving to become a modern corporate entity in a week or so.

Out in the field, Woodside this week started preparation work for a big seismic shoot off the coast of South Australia. Keen to maintain its environment credentials, the Perth-based group initiated a big community campaign, which included extensive discussions with local fisherman.

Santos kick off its Carnarvon Basin drilling program with the spudding of a exploration well on the weekend. The program will include another exploration well as well as two appraisal wells.

Junior explorer Longreach Oil has farmed into second well of Empire Oil's drilling program, Leschenault-1, onshore Perth Basin.

Newly-listed junior explorer Orchard Petroleum has entered into a joint venture agreement with an American company to explore for oil and gas in California's San Joaquin Basin.

After successful community consultation, emerging coalbed methane (CBM) player Eastern Star Gas only needs approval from a shire council and some regulatory bodies to proceed with development of the Coonarah gas field.

While making a name for itself in conventional oil and gas, Santos has made its first venture into CBM production with the opening of a gas processing facility in Queensland that will supply the Swanbank Power Station.

The $400 million BassGas project now awaits only approval from the Federal Environment Minister, David Kemp, after the Victoria Government gave the project the all clear this week.

Despite all the necessary government approvals, September 11 and the Enron collapse conspired to thwart Syntroleum Petroleum's plan to build a billion dollar gas-to-liquids plant on the Burrup Peninsula.

While one project died, another's hopes of staying alive were a given a big boost. Partners in the PNG-to-Queensland gas pipeline project signed a conditional sales agreement with CS Energy, which together with the AGL agreement should bring the project closer to being commercially viable.

One project that will have a hard time getting off the ground is the development of the Sunrise gas field in the Timor Sea. Continuing bickering amongst the parties could force the Federal Government to withhold around a billion dollars in funding for a gas project in the Northern Territory.

Talking of politics and economics, Tasmanian businesses will face a long wait on a gas reticulation system after the Government there terminated the bidding process because prospective companies could not meet key criteria.

This failure was all gas industry lobby groups needed to call on once againt the Federal Government to review the National Gas Code.

In overseas news, farmin deals with Australia and Indonesia saw CNOOC boost it gas reserves substantially.

Carnarvon Petroleum kicks off the second phase of its Thai oil field development while in PNG, construction of that nation's first oil field refinery is in full swing after the arrival of the first steel consignments.

In land of the long white cloud (ie NZ), Shell announced the widely anticipated sale of Mauri and Maari interests to Austrian outfit, OMV.

Methanex says there is more gas in the aging Maui field, but whether it will be able to get that gas at the right price to keep its Taranaki plants operating beyond 2007 remains in doubt.

Finally, both the IMF and the World Bank believe rising oil prices will eventually have a negative impact on world economic growth. Most of the recent rise in oil prices can attributed to Bush's war rhetoric toward recalcitrant Iraq.

However, a UK consulting group says the transport sector is heading for a real crunch and it has nothing to do with Saddam's driving ability. Douglas-Westwood, in a report on oil supply, says oil reserves are being drawn down at an "unprecedented" rate and will soon "permanently" cease to be abundant.

It said the transport sector will be hardest hit as the world moves from oil abundance to oil scarcity.