Anchor-handling operations are high risk, especially when mobile drilling units are being prepared to shift location. The vulnerability of anchor-handling vessels is clearly demonstrated by the loss of the Bourbon Dolphin west of Shetland in April, 2007, and the Stevns Power offshore West Africa in 2003.
BRAZILIAN hydrocarbons regulator ANP estimates that the pre-salt reserves in blocks currently held by Petrobras and other operators are in the range 50-70billion barrels oil equivalent.
Energy has explored the impact of the credit crunch and stock markets rout with the energy bank, Simmons & Company International. But how does private equity view the current, and possibly deepening, shambles?
2009 is primed to become the most exciting year ever on the UK Atlantic Frontier, both on the development front and in the hunt for, and confirmation of, new resources.
The connection between economic activity and the oil price is a fairly obvious one. As economic activity declines, as it is now, then so will energy demand - and the cost of a barrel will follow it down.
I have recently completed a study of new market opportunities for the former oil fabrication yard at Nigg, in Easter Ross. Brown and Root stopped building offshore platforms and modules there in 2003, since when the facilities have only been used by other companies on a very small scale.
ABERDEEN'S Balmoral Group is hoping to cash in on the burgeoning market for remotely operated vehicles, especially deepwater units, by developing a suite of new-generation buoyancy systems with depth capabilities to 7,000m.
Eni is to delay first oil from its Goliat project in the Norwegian sector of the Barents Sea by a year, to 2013, because the company can't begin necessary purchases in time for the planned start-up.
ITI Energy has put out a call for parties interested in working with the publicly funded Intermediary Technology Institute to harvest energy from seaweed.
The extraordinary convulsions continue and you can bet your bottom dollar that the North Sea exploration and production landscape will have changed dramatically by this time next year regardless of whatever fiscal changes are implemented in the spring 2009 UK Budget following the just-published Treasury consultation paper on the topic.
WITH both the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer and the President-elect of the United States making major speeches a few days ago about how to tackle the effects of global recession, one obvious contrast lay in the relative lack of emphasis placed on the drive for clean energy by Alistair Darling.
"The board should set the global corporate standards that apply and can be effectively translated to every area of the company's business" - Lord Woolf, the Woolf Committee, May, 2008.
The engine of future increase in world oil output will be Opec, its members' collective share rising from 44% in 2007 to 51% in 2030. So says the International Energy Agency in its headline-grabbing World Energy Output 2008 report.
Privately financed UK independent Chrysaor is to develop the West of Shetland Solan discovery at a cost of £150-175million, with first oil anticipated in 2010.
FAR East yards like Yantai Raffles have huge new rig order books. However, the credit crunch and $50 oil are now leading to cancellations.
Relaxation of the constraints that dictate where offshore windfarms can be built could cut £16billion from the overall cost of developing UK offshore wind, the Carbon Trust claims.
Lewis Limited, of Aberdeen, is a subsea engineering company specialising in bespoke design-and-build and operation of riserless and lightweight subsea well-intervention equipment. That includes lightweight risers to surface for coiled-tubing intervention as well.
The landscape in which companies execute major capital investment oil&gas projects has changed since the 1960s North Sea and Gulf of Mexico booms.
It is encouraging to see this industry continuing to attract graduates. In recent years, we have enjoyed a strong pipeline of new talent fresh from university filtering through the doors of companies across the supply chain, from major operators to small niche technology firms.
The UK oil&gas industry has a considerable challenge on its hands to maximise recovery of the nation's remaining 25billion barrels of oil&gas from beneath the seabed.
THE stock market is on a roller-coaster ride, and so are oil prices. We have moved very quickly from July's figure of $147 a barrel to about half that level. On September 29, oil fell by $10 in one day, but it is worthwhile to reflect that, back in 1995, the price of oil was $10 barrel.
When asking students on our hostile environments courses, "What is the biggest threat to your safety and security when operating in .........", this blank could be filled with "West Africa", "The Middle East" or "South America", among many other areas. But their answer, without fail, is "kidnap".
ABERDEEN'S Robert Gordon University (RGU) has become the first UK university to hold Masters level graduation ceremonies in three overseas locations for students on corporate oil&gas industry-related programmes. Cappings have been held in Kazakhstan, Algeria and, most recently, Venezuela.
ENERGY is a key element in four new degree programmes just launched by Aberdeen University with a view to the first intake of students kicking-off their studies in September, 2009.
There are some very smart young minds working in the renewables sector these days - witness the work of Jesus Lopez Taberna, who very recently successfully defended his PhD thesis on how to protect wind turbines against sudden dips in grid voltages.
