There will be “no winners” if unions press ahead with industrial action in the North Sea, the new boss of the oil and gas industry’s trade body warned yesterday.
Deirdre Michie, who has taken over as chief executive of Oil & Gas UK, said over 5,000 jobs had been lost in the North Sea - mainly onshore jobs - with “more to come”.
But she added while the North Sea was mature and had produced over 43 billion barrels of oil, the body believes that there remains “still half again to go for” in the region if operators and the wider supply chain slim costs and the government provides more fiscal support.
BG Group has saved itself more than £18million after it agreed a new contract on a flotel damaged by North Sea gales.
Life boats on the Safe Bristolia were damaged last October when a huge wave lashed the vessel that was in place to offer accommodation to workers on BG’s North Everest platform.
The flotel’s owner, Prosafe, took the vessel back to a shipyard in Norway for repair. Last week, the Norwegian offshore accommodation specialist announced it had “rephased” the Safe Bristolia’s work programme with BG.
The newly-appointed energy minister came to Aberdeen just days into the start of her term to underline the importance of the North Sea to the UK.
Andrea Leadsom, the Conservative member of parliament for South Northamptonshire, was appointed the fifth minister of state in as many years following the Conservative general election victory. She will report to Amber Rudd, the new secretary of state overseeing Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc).
Ms Leadsom said her priorities will be “keeping the lights on, keeping the bills down – and getting a climate change deal in Paris”.
One of her first jobs will be to attend the major UN climate summit in Paris later this year, where it is thought Germany and France plan to push for an “ambitious, comprehensive and binding” global agreement on cutting carbon emissions, replacing the Kyoto Protocol.
The boss of the new oil and gas regulator has been revealed as the keynote speaker at the first Press and Journal Gold Awards.
Andy Samuel, chief executive of the Oil and Gas Authority (OGA) which is set to usher in a new era of collaboration in the North Sea, said events such as the Gold Awards would help the industry “create a positive future”.
The announcement of the evening’s highlight comes just days before the deadline for submitting entries to the awards comes on Friday.
Mr Samuel said: “I am delighted to be speaking at the Press and Journal Gold Awards in June. At this challenging time for our industry, it has never been more important to recognise and reinforce the positive impact oil and gas companies and their employees have on Aberdeen and the north-east.”
Vedanta Resources posted a full-year loss after a sharp drop in crude prices precipitated a $4.5 billion writedown related to its Indian oil and gas business.
The company's London-listed shares fell as much as 4 percent early on Thursday before recovering to 660 pence, unchanged from the previous day's close.
Best known as a mining company, Vedanta bought a controlling stake in Cairn India Ltd CAIL.NS, India's largest private-sector oil producer, in 2011.
Like other resources companies, it has struggled with plummeting commodity prices in the last year. Brent crude collapsed to a low of just above $45 a barrel in January from a high of $115 last June.
Oil prices eased slightly on Thursday as weak data from the world's top economies raised concern about the outlook for global fuel demand.
Uncertainty over the strength of any decline in US oil output also weighed.
The larger economic picture offset data that showed a large drawdown in US crude stockpiles last week.
June Brent crude was trading 10 cents down at $66.71 a barrel as of 0917 GMT. US crude for June delivery, at $60.20, was 30 cents lower.
The Trans Nigeria Pipeline that carries Nigeria's Bonny Light crude oil to an export terminal has been shut down since May 12, a Shell spokeswoman said on Thursday.
The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has launched a consultation that will see the watchdog bring in legally enforced safety standards on North Sea helidecks.
Currently an Aberdeen-based body called the Helideck Certification Agency (HCA) oversees inspection and certification services for more than 300 offshore helidecks.
But a review launched by the CAA last year following the fatal crash off Sumburgh saw the watchdog look at ensuring that the safety requirements of landing areas for helicopters were enforced under law, which currently the HCA is not required to do.
The HCA was set up in 1997 by helicopter operators. Last year it was acquired by investors backed by a private equity company, Praesidian Capital Europe. The HCA is now controlled by a firm called Helideck Analytics, set up by former CHC executives, Neil Calvert and David Dobbin.
Deal making in the oil and gas sector is set to accelerate as higher oil prices and an improved outlook for the sector boost investor appetite, a broker has predicted.
Royal Dutch Shell's £46billion bid for smaller rival BG Group last month highlighted the shift in sentiment in the sector after mergers and acquisitions (M&A) slumped in the first quarter of 2015 to a 20-year low, a report by Morgan Stanley revealed.
The research found that there were only 30 deals completed at a value of £2.6billion in the quarter, most of them in North America.
An Aberdeen entrepreneur now based in Houston has shrugged off a $20million (£13.2million) hit to his business as a result of the Petrobras “graft” scandal.
Oilfield services giant Expro has launched its OTC exhibition campaign with the announcement of a £30million ($45million) contract in Canada with Statoil.
Pipeline engineers Stats Group, has invested £1.3million in new facilities in Houston to expand its services in the US and South American oil and gas markets.
A fresh profits warning on the troubled Laggan-Tormore gas terminal development hit the share price of service giant Petrofac yesterday.
Almost £350million was wiped off Petrofac’s market value as shares slid 10% to 912.5p.
The firm admitted it would lose a further £130million on the Total-operated project, in addition to the £154million in losses it took on the scheme in 2014. This on a project value of £800million.
Ayman Asfari, Petrofac’s Chief Executive listed a number of difficulties facing the development of the loss-making gas terminal that included industrial action and the high cost of doing business in the North Sea.
An international well control training and certification body has launched a new programme aimed at reducing behavioural problems implicated in the Macondo disaster.
The International Well Control Forum (IWCF) has initiated a pilot scheme to bring in a “culture shift” which will empower people to act on safety concerns.
The programme, Crew Resource Management (CRM) has been designed to improve non-technical skills and encourage a change in attitude to raise awareness of human factors in well operations.
Subsea firm Ennsub Group has raised a £1.5million loan to help it expand its engineering capacity in deepwater winch technology.
The Aberdeen firm got the backing from the Scottish Loan Fund, which was set up by the Scotttish Government in 2011 for firms having difficulty accessing traditional bank finance.
Ennsub, which was founded in 2012, will also use the backing to expand its assembly capacity and its workforce.
Energy service firm 3Sun has acquired a rope access firm in Great Yarmouth for an undisclosed sum.
The target, AID Industrial, employs seven people and offers a range of personal protection equipment (PPE) as well as safety courses in rope access, work at height and global wind organisation.
3Sun, which has a base in Aberdeenshire as well as in Denmark and Norway, said the deal would allow it to keep control on costs.
UK corporate profitability reached a 16-year high in 2014 despite easing back in the fourth quarter.
But the Office for National Statistics figures showed the oil and gas industry hit an 18-year low in the final quarter of last year.
Measured as “net rates of return”, corporate profitability for all non-financial UK firms improved to a high of 11.9% in 2014.
This was up from 11.2% in both 2013 and 2012 and a low of just 9.7% in 2009, according to analysis by economics firm IHS.
Oil giant Shell has played down concerns that its £47billion proposed “mega-merger” with BG Group will lead to hundreds of further job cuts in the North Sea.
Sources have claimed that up to 300 jobs are set to be cut in Aberdeen as the two firms plan to join forces and trim £1.6billion in costs annually. Shell is currently negotiating to cut at least 250 staff and agency contractors from its 4,500-strong North Sea workforce.
Combined, BG and Shell will employ 5,500 people in the region and be the biggest oil and gas producer on the UK Continental Shelf.
A further 300 jobs would amount to a 10% drop in employee numbers between the two firms.
A spokeswoman for Shell said she did not “recognise” the 300 jobs figure, but pointed to chief executive Ben van Beurden’s admission that there are “of course going to be synergies” if the deal goes ahead.
Global Energy Group has continued its diversification strategy with the acquisition of a metals specialist in the nuclear industry.
The Inverness and Aberdeen-based energy service firm snapped up Langfields, a nickel alloy and titanium fabrication business that also serves the pharmaceutical, chemical, offshore, marine and defence industries.
The Salford-based firm, wholly owned by Robert Dean, 60, has a pedigree dating back to 1908 when it was involved in the production of mild steel, copper and brass components.
Iain MacGregor, Global’s chief executive, said the deal “brings us into more non-oil and gas work, specifically nuclear”.
He added: “I think it's important for companies in the oilfield services sector to diversify their risks in the current climate. This is why both of our last two acquisitions have been non oil and gas.”
The world’s biggest oil companies lost more than a billion barrels of known reserves last year as the “big five” energy majors struggled to stem the decline in new discoveries, a report has found.
Analysis by brokers Morgan Stanley found that BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell and Total saw proved reserves shrink to 78.6billion barrels of oil equivalent (BOE) in 2014 from over 80billion the prior year – the steepest drop since 2008.
North Sea industry veteran Paul de Leeuw has been revealed as the keynote speaker for an upcoming conference for the decommissioning industry.
Mr de Leeuw, who has worked in the oil and gas industry for over 25 years for companies including Shell, Marathon Oil, BP, Venture Production and Centrica Energy, will "set the scene" for the conference which will focus on a sector that is "full of opportunity", organisers said.
This year’s annual Decom North Sea conference, entitled "Decommissioning – The Economic and Operational Challenges" takes place in Aberdeen on May 27.
North Sea operator Enquest has told staff it plans to change the shift patterns of its offshore workforce as well as implement job cuts.
Staff were contacted yesterday to hear about the firm’s plans to implement a three weeks on, three weeks off shift rotation.
The company has also launched a 45-day consultation in an effort to cut jobs from amongst its estimated 500-strong North Sea workforce.
An Aberdeen firm set up by two entrepreneurs has completed a survey of its promising gas field in Australia.
Warrego Energy,founded by Dennis Donald and Duncan MacNiven, expects to drill the West Erregulla field at the end of this year or in early 2016 following completion of the seismic survey.
The company undertook significant preparatory work to ensure the site’s cultural and botanic heritage is preserved.
More than £4.7billion worth of UK North Sea assets are up for sale as high costs and the oil price collapse put their owners’ balance sheets under pressure, a report has found.
Oil and gas consultancy 1Derrick said that the number of North Sea oil and gas assets on the market has increased to 41 from 30in 2013.
But deals have been slow to progress, with 21% of assets staying on the market for more than a year in 2014, up from 13% in 2013, according to the firm.
