Keep your people, warns Simmons
Leading energy banker Matt Simmons is warning upstream oil&gas against knee-jerk reactions, especially cutting back on investment and jobs - battening down the hatches.
Fugro-Rovtech fleet’s got the lot
ROVs are used today on most semi-submersibles, jack-ups and drillships. They are used for many tasks on and around the seabed where a marine drilling rig is positioned.
Five elements to newcomer’s North Sea strategy
KOOT: "We want big exposure to Northern North Sea assets. We feel there is a lot of oil to be developed. If you just look at the Triassic, there's 750mmb of oil to be tapped, so we're very much focused on drilling additional wells from the installations we're now involved in.
A well rounded solution
US reports on Ike’s smashing time in Gulf
THE US Interior Department's Minerals Management Service (MMS) has reported that Hurricane Ike destroyed 49 of the 3,800 offshore oil&gas production platforms in the US Gulf of Mexico.
$5bn put up
OIL & Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) is to invest more than $5billion in developing its deepwater blocks KG-DWN-98/2 and KG-DW-IV, with first production anticipated in 2013.
Noatun prospect success
STATOILHYDRO'S exploration well drilled on the Noatun prospect 16km north of the Njord field in the Norwegian Sea has encountered gas and condensate. A sidetrack is to be drilled in the well to assess whether the find is worth exploiting.
MPD already drilling the un-drillable
IT DOESN'T take an oil minister to tell us that we need more oil and that it is "understood by Government at the highest level". Any teenager old enough to fill up the family car knows that. Consumers pay good money for petrol to make sure oil companies also know that. That has been the real incentive to tackle fields previously viewed as too old, too deep, too hot, and develop the technology to make it happen.
Engineering consultancy at threshold of founder’s dream
Computational mechanics specialist Prospect is in an expansionist mood with the expectation that its workforce will grow from 40 today to 140 by 2010.
Fostering the art of communication
A year ago, OPITO launched its highly successful Go Explore campaign designed to raise awareness of the oil&gas industry among young people with the aim of driving them to the oilandgas4u.com website.
Maiden contract
Fugro Saltire enters Aberdeen to prepare for her maiden contract. This 111m ship, owned by E. Forland Shipowners and Fugro Rovtech, will provide offshore construction and subsea support. It is equipped with FCV 3000-class remotely operated vehicles
Bounty find for Canadian Superior
CANADIAN Superior has notched up what it says is a significant gas discovery offshore Trinidad & Tobago with the drilling and production testing of its Bounty exploration well.
Iranians roll in barrels
NATIONAL Iranian has reported that four new oil&gas fields probed over the past two years have in-place reserves totalling 3.7billion barrels of oil and 52.97billion cu ft of gas.
Insurgency in Nigeria – and elsewhere
In late-June, 2008, gunmen from the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) used powerboats to speed across more than 100km of open sea to attack Shell's giant Bonga oil production vessel off Nigeria.
Time for ‘forensic management’
Year in, year out, time and again I have listened to North Sea leaders saying that safety is getting better and that skills issues really are being tackled. While listening politely, the sceptic in me says, "Ye-e-e-s, but watch what happens to such pledges if commodity prices head for the basement or, more particularly, sink in the quick sand of middle management".
Is rig rate resistance hotting up?
Rig day-rates may be about to peak as drilling contractors hit resistance from increasingly wary oil companies.
Mould-breaking shared emergency response centre now coming of age
When Petrofac established its shared emergency response and crisis management business in Aberdeen during 2005, locating the facility downstairs from the Maritime Coastguard Agency at Blaikies Quay, the company was, in a sense, pushing at an open door, yet at the same time, it wasn't.
Busting the conundrum
FOR many years, the hunt has been on to find ways of releasing hydrogen cheaply and in large quantities through electrolysis so that the gas can be used as a fuel. The latest to claim it is at the threshold of a clean, renewable method of production is a team of US scientists at Pennsylvania State University.
Portable hydrogen power system
A GROUP of American scientists at Missouri University of Science and Technology is developing a portable, hydrogen-generating power system to power everything from laptops to communications gear for soldiers in the battlefield.
Forum promoting collaboration
A global initiative to promote shared knowledge of flexible pipe in the subsea sector is being hailed a success.
Liberia offering five blocks
WEST Africa: Liberia's ministry of land, mines, and energy has launched a new licensing round in which five offshore blocks are to be offered to the highest bidder.
Wily trade group in Africa push
NOF Energy has signed what it calls a global partner agreement with the South Africa Oil & Gas Alliance (SAOGA).
Rocksource to survey Cyclops
ROCKSOURCE is to carry out a controlled source electromagnetic (CSEM) survey over the Cyclops prospect straddling blocks 17/6 and 17/9 in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea.Cyclops is located just north of the Bream and Brisling oil discoveries and is part of the same Middle Jurassic play. The prospect is estimated to contain 100million barrels of recoverable oil.
Faroes launches its third round
THE Faroese ministry of fishery and natural resources has launched its third licensing round with a call for interested companies to apply for exploration licences offshore.
Dublin government extends licensing to north-west Rockall Basin
IRELAND has decided to extend the area to be opened for licensing in the 2009 Rockall Round to include the north-western margin of the Rockall Basin.