With pressure from net-zero obligations now mounting, coupled with a growing awareness that it has a valuable energy transition role to play, the North Sea oil and gas industry would at last appear to be taking electrification of UKCS infrastructure seriously.
At the start of last month, Scotland’s Just Transition Commission generated domestic headlines after criticising the Scottish Government’s handling of the BiFab crisis.
Hurricane Energy has booked the Transocean rig Paul B Loyd, Jr for work West of Shetland next year and in 2019.
Trundling around this year’s Offshore Europe has, believe it or not, put me in a reasonably positive mood. The fact that the foundations for the European Wind Deployment Centre are now being installed offshore just a few miles up the coast from the AECC serves as valuable reinforcement.
At last November’s Oil & Gas UK share, BP stated clearly that it could do business in UK waters at $50 a barrel, significantly boost production and hit the exploration trail. Six months later, that strategy holds firm, as the major’s North Sea president, Mark Thomas, explained to Jeremy Cresswell.
As I write this, parliamentary candidates of all hues are going hammer and tongs at one another in what has become a vicious battle for political supremacy in the UK.
It may be HQ’d in Reading and internationally owned, but many regard Expro Group as an Aberdeen company and one of the town’s bellwether offshore businesses. Jeremy Cresswell checks out the current state of play with its CEO Mike Jardon.
Last month, it emerged that there’s a handover of the helm underway at Shell’s UK Continental Shelf and Ireland business based out of Aberdeen.
Energy industries advanced inspection and asset integrity service company Sonomatic has built a new £4million North Sea HQ in Aberdeen and says its expansion drive could generate as many as 200 more jobs.
Aross literally decades we at the P&J have time and again revisited the relationships between operators, main contractors and the rest of the supply chain.
It was during the 2016 Offshore Technology Conference in Houston that Energy broke the news that M2 Subsea was being put together to compete in the ROV (remotely operated vehicle) and related services marketplace.
Norwegian company Oceanteam has reached an understanding with its bondholders on the main terms of the bond loan.
Mid-January saw Norwegian analyst Rystad Energy publish a commentary about the collapse in the volumes of hydrocarbons discovered of late.
Schlumberger’s chairman and CEO, Paal Kibsgaard, is predicting a “multi-year” up-cycle starting this year and warns that spare production capacity is now wafer thin.
As UKCS capital investment continues to collapse – the 2017 forecast is £5.7billion – and backlogs evaporate, pressure on the subsea community remains intense. Jeremy Cresswell caught up with Subsea UK’s CEO Neil Gordon.
He was one of the most dynamic and positive people I have ever met in the upstream oil & gas industry.
Make no mistake, the North Sea isn’t out of the woods yet. However, Oil & Gas UK’s CEO Deirdre Michie is quietly optimistic that the tide of adversity is turning for our offshore industry.
Make no mistake, the public do not like Big Oil. It is in the eyes of most, a rapacious machine that will trample over anyone and anything to get what it wants.
Transocean is the primary cause of the ongoing offshore drilling rig “glut” according to a Wall Street analyst.
No-one has put as much effort into the basement play on the UK Atlantic Frontier as Dr Robert Trice. And he explains why to Jeremy Cresswell
On November 8, we broke the news that Siccar Point Energy was buying the UK assets of Austrian company OMV.
As 2016 draws to a close, I find myself reflecting on what the future holds for us all and how increasingly urgent it is that we must adapt if, as a species, we are to remain viable.
I’m old enough to remember the amazing Brent advertising in the Sunday colour supplements of the mid-1970s that likened the challenge of developing this first generation North Sea oil giant to Nasa’s moon shots.
UK oil & gas independent Siccar Point Energy is buying the UK assets of Austrian company OMV for an undisclosed sum, it was today confirmed.
As things stand today, what is the schedule for removal of the first topsides looking like?
