Eighteen months ago, Chevron set up an Aberdeen satellite to its technology company in Houston. Prediction was that staffing in Europe's energy capital would build to about 70 by now, and it has, with the prospect of growing to 120 - more than originally anticipated.
The first quarter of 2008 saw a doubling of E & A (exploration and appraisal) drilling levels compared with the same period for 2007, with 20 wells started and nine sidetrack legs initiated.
PERENCO has been granted five new exploration blocks offshore Brazil in the deepwater sector of the Espirito Santo Basin. The company will operate blocks ES-M-416, ES-M-418, ES-M-472, ES-M-529 and ES-M-531 with 50% interest in partnership with Brazilian companyOGX Petroleo e Gas.
AGR will soon be on the move to a new Aberdeen home. The company has outgrown the current premises at Queens Terrace, where it started life as Peak Well Services some years prior to being acquired mid-2006 by Norwegian group AGR.
Dutch group IHC Merwede has taken over The Engineering Business (EB), one of the UK's best design, engineering and construction outfits serving the needs of the offshore industry.
ONE of the upstream petroleum industry's premier charity fundraising events, the BG Energy Challenge, this year takes place in Plymouth on July 10-12.
SCHLUMBERGER has inaugurated a $100million-plus training facility in Tyumen, Siberia, the gateway city to many of Russia's oil&gas resources.
THE Press and Journal and Munro's Travel Group of Aberdeen have teamed up to launch their first Middle East oil & gas conference and exhibition initiative.
ARTHUR Millholland, the founder and president of exploration and production independent Oilexco, will deliver the keynote address at DEVEX 2008, which takes place in Aberdeen next month.
The appetite for mergers and acquisitions in the global oil & gas industry remained robust in 2007, despite the credit crunch sparked by the US sub-prime mortgage lending debacle.
THE value of oil & gas asset deals in Europe climbed above $5.5billion in 2007 after two straight years of decline, driven by a rise in both corporate and asset deal value. Total deal count was flat for the third consecutive year and four of the top eight buyers in Europe were state-owned or controlled, according to analysis by John S. Herold, Inc. and Harrison Lovegrove & Co.
An innovative internet-based system designed to help verify worker competence in the offshore industry has attracted the attention of the UK's Offshore Contractors' Association.
Our oil industry is high value, high risk. When the UK's Corporate Manslaughter Act 2007 comes into force next month, it is expected to herald the start of a new era in the world of health and safety prosecutions.
Five years have passed since US and UK forces invaded Iraq and overthrew Saddam Hussein. There would be few people who expected the problems there to have lasted so long, with little sign of solutions in the foreseeable future.
Shell has signed up to a joint research and development agreement in the US that is intended to make biofuels more efficient and greener.
Amec has made an acquisition calculated to deliver huge leverage to its oil & gas engineering and project management capabilities worldwide.
The current turmoil in the financial markets may feel pretty much irrelevant to anyone working in the oil & gas industry. Believe me, it isn't.
It came out of left field - I mean the £500million conditional deal between Lunar Energy and the Koreans to manufacture and deploy tidal (marine current) turbine technology developed by Aberdeen offshore oilfield company Rotech Engineering.
An undersea robot "glider" that harvests heat energy from the sea to propel itself across oceans? You have to be kidding - surely?
Glamis Castle is not the most obvious setting for me to engage in a spot of contemplation about how the world's energy needs could be met and climate crisis averted. Even less would I expect to be doing so in the company of a Nobel Prize-winning physicist.
Light well intervention using ships rather than cumbersome, expensive mobile offshore drilling units rigs is gaining momentum. The population of vessels capable of handling this type of work is poised for a growth spurt and the technologies required to carry out the work are maturing.
The Global Wind Energy Council is forecasting that the global wind market will grow by more than 155% to reach 240GW (Gigawatts) of total installed capacity by 2012.
Chevron is working on a project designed to boost the recovery rate from the UK North Sea Captain heavy oilfield to 50%. If successful, this could deliver up to 160million additional barrels of oil and boost recoverable reserves past the 450million barrels mark.
FROM Q3 2008, the University of Leeds is offering a new three-year BEng (Honours) undergraduate degree course in petroleum engineering. The diet comprises:
Forgetting things is normal and is often a factor of the ageing process. In my case, and I am sure many others, too, it is sometimes a question of choice to conveniently forget something.
