Ezra a crafty way to entertain at ONS
EXHIBITING at Offshore Northern Seas? Or perhaps you're planning a bit of hospitality but have failed to do anything about it.
Chinese snatch Norwegian drilling firm
Norwegian drilling company Awilco has fallen prey to COSL, China's largest offshore oil services group, in a deal worth $2.5billion.
Lundin makes Caspian strike
LUNDIN Petroleum's Caspian Sea Morskaya-1 discovery well in the Russian sector has been successfully tested at a combined flowrate of 2,500 barrels per day of 32 deg API oil.
$100million Pazflor win for BW Offshore
A CONSORTIUM comprising BW Offshore units Advanced Production & Loading (APL) and SBM Offshore have secured a contract with Total for the engineering, procurement, supply, construction and installation (EPSCI) of the oil loading system on the Pazflor project offshore Angola in deepwater block 17. The contract is worth about $100million and the project is due for delivery early-2011.
BP rings in Liberty project offshore Alaska – at last
BP IS at last poised to start development of its Liberty field offshore Alaska, three years after making the decision to press ahead and 11 years following discovery in 1997.
IMCA calls on sector to report on DP incidents
THE International Marine Contractors Association (IMCA) has called on the offshore industry to report all incidents involving dynamic positioning (DP) station-keeping as part of a wider drive to enhance ship-related safety.
Orders keep on rolling in at Aker
Norwegian company DOF Subsea has taken delivery of its latest construction vessel from Aker Yards and immediately deployed it on an eight-year charter with subsea group Acergy.
Wind energy: aspirations vs delivery
Driven partly by the European Union's renewable energy targets for 2010 and 2020, most member countries have set themselves ambitious wind energy targets.
Windfall tax? What a daft idea
There is a journalistic ritual of placing the words, "the influential", in front of the name of any parliamentary committee in order to add a bit of weight and significance to whatever subject it is reporting on. In fact, most parliamentary committees and their reports are pretty non-influential, even if they grab a few headlines.
Hybrid/electric race a non-starter
It was really quite remarkable. I nearly fell off my chair when I heard that, at the recent G8 meeting, Gordon Brown was effectively trying to dictate technology policy by saying that all British motorists will be driving electric or hybrid cars by 2020. Eh?
Huge opportunities up for grabs
It's great news that expansion in offshore wind could create up to 30,000 new jobs in manufacturing and bring £3billion of investment to the north-east of England - or as BERR parochially puts it, the north-east, forgetting that there is also the north-east of Scotland.
Seeps suggest ‘jumbo reserves’ off Kenya
INTEREST offshore Kenya is set to revive thanks to Origin Energy finding evidence of natural oil seepage from the sea floor which lines up with "very large" structures identified from seismic surveys.
Red Spider moves to new HQ
Red Spider has moved to a new purpose-completed headquarters eight times bigger than its first home and four times larger than the last premises at Westhill, outside Aberdeen.
Get smart about employee benefits
People are both a major asset and cost of business. In today's climate, the oil&gas industry is facing a skills shortage, making recruitment one of the biggest challenges to overcome.
USGS signals Arctic bonanza
Vast petroleum reserves lie north of the Arctic Circle, according to the US Geological Survey - more than 400billion barrels oil equivalent of potentially recoverable oil, natural gas and liquids. And most of it seems to lie offshore.
Big UK gas project in prospect
Drilling is about to start on the Southern North Sea East Breagh prospect which, if successful, could clear the way for the largest UK Continental Shelf dry gas development for years.
China’s turbine firms prepare to storm global wind markets
EXPLOSIVE growth in the demand for wind power has created a global waiting list for wind turbines, according to ClimateChangeCorp. It says Chinese turbine companies may be part of the solution as they ramp up production and get ready to export. And according to the Global Wind Energy Council (www.worldenergy.org), China will become the top wind turbine manufacturer by 2009.
Building world where no one can excel
So here it is, the result of education, education, education - a system that leaves students wishing to take up science subjects at university now needing an extra year's education for, among other things, "remedial maths".
Caledonian nous key to Varel’s success
Late spring saw Aberdeen company Downhole Products gobbled up by fast-growing Varel International for an undisclosed sum. What perhaps differentiates this deal from so many others is that Varel's president is a Scot who led a management buy-in of the US firm in 1998 when it was about the same size as the latest target.
BP report points to fall in output
The annual BP Statistical Review of World Energy is an essential reference source. It gives production and consumption statistics for many countries and all the regions in the world, disaggregated by oil, gas, coal, nuclear energy and hydroelectricity.
The worst is perhaps yet to come
"The location for today's attack was deliberately chosen to remove any notion that offshore oil exploration is far from our reach".
Free FPAL training to industry suppliers
AS THE FPAL evolution progresses, free supplier training sessions continue to be held at the Aberdeen office. The training sessions offer suppliers an opportunity to learn how they can fully utilise FPAL and understand the potential benefits offered through the system's associated services.
Managing contract risk a key concern
Contractual relationships are an essential element of any business. However, the nature of the oil & gas industry is one that sees the sector dominated by contracts.
1988 to 2008 – lessons learned
The Piper Alpha disaster was a turning point for the UK oil & gas industry, leading to significant changes in the industry's approach to safety management, regulation and training.
Students switching to energy conservation mode
FIRST-YEAR students from seven universities across England, not Scotland, are celebrating their energy-saving successes following a national competition to encourage students to reduce their energy consumption.