A competition where Scottish entrepreneurs can win funding up to £100,000 will be judged by outgoing the chief executive of the Wood Group, Bob Keiller, at an event in Edinburgh next month.
A new mine that could ensure a 50-year supply of a key ingredient of drilling mud used in the North Sea is taking shape.
Premier Oil is eyeing North Sea bargains as the firm promised first oil from its Solan field in time for Christmas.
Aberdeen Asset Management has completed the installation of 1,000 solar panels on an investment property it owns in North London. The Aberdeen investment firm said the installation at the materials recycling facility (MRF) will provide an estimated 225,000 kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity to tenant Biffa Waste Services, saving around 20 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) annually.
A north-east fabrication firm offering manufacturing services to the oil and gas industry has gone into administration. Harlen Fabrication in Dyce has appeared to suffer the effects of the downturn in the oil and gas industry. Calls were made to directors of the company were not returned.
Iona Energy has called for a two month extension on a debt restructuring plan after it raised concerns about the “funding position” of its partner, Atlantic Petroleum.
An ailing oil and gas industry has forced experts to lower their expectations for economic growth across the whole of Scotland during 2015. Brian Ashcroft, emeritus professor of economics at Strathclyde University said yesterday the downturn offshore was stifling onshore service businesses throughout the country. He was speaking after the university’s Fraser of Allander Institute – an economic think-tank – delivered its latest commentary on the state of Scotland’s finances.
A marine engineering firm has set sail for the South Pole to undertake what is thought to be the first underwater welding project of its kind inside the Antarctic Circle. Shetland and Aberdeen-based Ocean Kinetics has teamed up with civil engineers, Arch Henderson, to fix a quay thought to have been damaged by in iceberg at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) Rothera Research Station.
An Aberdeen-based supplier of hoses to the offshore oil and gas industry has been sold to a Swedish industrial firm in a deal worth up to £6million.
Maven Capital Partners has injected £5.4million into an energy engineering firm that has successfully diversified from oil and gas to the off and onshore wind sector. GEV Group, which has an office in Aberdeen, will use the funds to support its “impressive growth plans”, Maven said. Maven said the investment means GEV is well positioned to capitalise on the projected growth in wind power, driven by global emissions and fossil fuel reduction targets.
Global industrial giant Smiths Group has snapped up an Aberdeen-based energy consultancy. XPD8, founded in 2003, will become part of John Crane, the largest operating division of the FTSE-100 listed parent company. The deal marks an exit for XPD8’s private equity backer Maven Capital Partners and the firm’s founder, Mark Cavanagh.
Shetland Islands Council faces a £5.5million chop to its budget next year after BP decided to ship oil to the lower-cost Port of Rotterdam rather than the Sullom Voe Terminal.
A busy Offshore Europe event delivered “staggering” occupancy levels for Aberdeen hotels, but failed to reverse an ongoing decline due to the oil price crash, new figures show. In what is the first report on the Granite city’s hotel trade for the key month of September 2015, LJ Research found that room occupancy fell 12.8% despite reaching 99% capacity halfway through oil week. The report also found that hotel room yields in the month were down 13.8% on September 2013 – the last time Aberdeen hosted the biennial oil and gas event.
North Sea energy firms are continuing efforts to break into new, global markets as the collapse in oil prices takes its toll on the supply chain. Firms like Aberdeen-based Reftrade UK, which specialises in providing refrigeration containers in harsh environments, is looking to the pharmaceuticals industry. Meanwhile, Enermech, a mechanical engineering group which has its headquarters in Aberdeen, has invested £250,000 to offer a mobile valves testing service in South Africa which takes in sectors as diverse as brewing and the pulp and paper industry.
A pressure group for the unconventional oil and gas industry in the UK has hailed the appointment of a leading science educator to spearhead efforts to reassure communities that fracking is safe. Ukoog, which also represents the interests of other uncoventional onshore oil and gas plays, has appointed Professor Averil Macdonald as its chair. Professor Macdonald is Emeritus Professor of Science Engagement at the University of Reading and a board member of WISE (Women in Science and Engineering), consultant director of Highbury College, and was chair of the Expert Group for Women in Science until 2015.
Energy supplier SSE will re-open a mothballed gas plant in England to ensure the lights stay on in the UK this winter. SSE said the 735MW gas-fired power station at Keadby in North Lincolnshire will re-open from Monday 9th November. This follows announcements earlier this year of its intent for the plant to return to service.
A company formed to commercialise technology that promised to make remote gas finds more economic to exploit has gone into administration.
The billionaire owner of Grangemouth made his first move into the North Sea buying up gas fields from a Russian oligarch just days before the sale breached a government-imposed deadline. Jim Ratcliffe, chairman and chief executive of Ineos, is thought to have paid up to £500million for 12 fields from Mikhail Fridman, who had been forced to sell the assets by the UK government. Mr Fridman’s firm, LetterOne Group (L1) had initially paid £3.8billion to buy Dea, the upstream oil and gas business of German utility RWE in a deal which closed in March.
The price of a barrel of Brent crude is expected to reach $60 by the end of the year - according to at least one economist. Carl Paraskevas, senior economist for the Bank of Scotland said the lender’s house view was that the price of a barrel of oil would start rising, driven by a fall in production of oil and gas. Speaking at an event in Aberdeen yesterday, Paraskevas added: “There has also been a marked pick up in demand,” he said. “Chinese imports of crude are up and seems relatively stable.”
After a senior economist said he expected a barrel of Brent crude to reach $60 by the end of the year - three experts give their view on whether this estimate is feasible.
Aker Solutions has confirmed it is set to axe up to 70 North Sea jobs. The Norwegian firm said the move, announced to staff at its Dyce offices this morning, was part of a wider cost cutting programme announced last month. Overall the company said it would cut 500 jobs across operations in Norway and 400 roles outside of the country.
Oil and gas firms are struggling to work together better in order to maximise recovery in the North Sea, a new report has found. Deloitte’s survey of oil and gas operators and oilfield services companies revealed that a lack of effective supply chain collaboration means companies are missing out on maximising the potential value from the region. While 74% of respondents said collaboration was an “integral” part of their day-to-day business, only 27% reported that their efforts have resulted in a successful outcome, the report found.
Over 100 jobs could be at risk in Aberdeen due to proposed cuts to the feed-in tariff for solar energy projects, a trade body has warned. The Solar Trade Association warned the jobs of up to 27,000 people employed in the solar energy sector and its supply chain are under threat around the UK, with as many as 2,400 of the 3,000 solar jobs in Scotland at risk. The Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc) proposed at the end of August to cut the tariff paid for electricity generated by solar rooftop panels by 87% - from 12.4p to 1.6p.
The multi-billionaire founder of Microsoft has launched legal action against oil giant Petrobras as well as the Brazilian arm of big four accountancy, PWC.
A decision by Drax to pull out of a £1billion carbon capture and storage (CCS) competition means a rival project at Grangemouth should get a shot at the funding, an industry specialist has claimed.
