Ten years ago, North Sea people viewed the Middle East as an onshore play with some shallow offshore tacked on. On the face of it this was not a target market for UK companies and technologies honed in north-west Europe's hostile maritime environment.
We're mostly familiar with the lithium ion battery, which can be recharged hundreds of times and is shown to work really well in devices such as mobile phones.
The findings of new research into the impacts and ownership of risk across the decommissioning of North Sea oil and gas infrastructure could shape the contracting models that have so far proved elusive to the industry and stalled progress.
Leading power and automation technology group ABB says it has solved a 100-year-old electrical puzzle by developing a direct current breaker for high voltage DC transmission that it says will help shape the grid
There are signs that shales in Japan could harbour commercially viable oil and gas reserves.
Pacific Drilling's new-build ultra-deepwater drillship Pacific Khamsin has been contracted by Chevron for an initial two years' operations offshore West Africa.
Petroleum Geo-Services (PGS) has signed charter agreements with PF Thor for four new seismic support vessels to assist its seismic operations worldwide.
The research & development unit of oil major Total has joined with Plexus to develop a new and safer subsea wellhead, using Plexus' patented POS-GRIP technology.
Wärtsilä has signed a contract for the design of a new type of diving support vessel (DSV) to be built for subsea contracting major Subsea 7.
Wind power could supply up to 12% of global electricity by 2020, creating 1.4million new jobs and reducing CO2 emissions by more than 1.5billion tons per year, more than 5 times today's level, according to new research.
GE's Oil & Gas Subsea Systems business plans to add a new subsea centre in Bristol at the city's Aztec West Business Park.
Kongsberg Oil & Gas Technologies of Norway has agreed to acquire 100% of the shares in Apply Nemo, an independent supplier of advanced engineering services, products, and solutions for subsea oil and gas applications.
UK North Sea operators now face tougher insurance conditions as part of a wider tightening of rules designed to ensure that oil and gas explorers and producers are practically and financially equipped to deal with major spills.
London-listed Tullow Oil is purchasing the Norwegian independent oil and gas company Spring Energy for $372.3million, subject to adjustment for working capital. The deal with HitecVision (87.6%) and other shareholders (12.4%) is back-dated to September 1.
Just before Christmas, the planning application for the huge 1.2GW (gigawatt), Round Three East Anglia development off the coast of Anglia was submitted.
Statoil is to install the world's largest seismic project of its kind with deployment of permanent reservoir monitoring (PRM) on the seafloor around its Norwegian sector Snorre and Grane oilfields.
BP has started the build of a new facility in Houston that will house what the super-major says will be the world's largest supercomputing complex for commercial research.
AREVA and STX France are to work together with a view to "optimising" foundations" for offshore wind turbines.
Though Tullow Oil has encountered hydrocarbons with its Okure-1 exploration probe drilled on the Deepwater Tano Block offshore Ghana to a total depth of 4,511m (14,800ft), the drill-bit encountered low net to gross oil-bearing reservoir in a secondary objective, having penetrated non-reservoir quality formations at the main objective levels below the so-called "TEN cluster".
Fugro Atlantic has been appointed to undertake a geological and geophysical survey for the Virginia Wind Energy Area for the state of Virginia in the US.
Petroleum Geo-Services (PGS) has embarked on a 15,550sq km seismic survey offshore Uruguay using its GeoStreamer technology and the survey vessel Ramform Vanguard.
Iceland's premier, Olafur Grimsson, has indicated that the Reykjavik government will set up a wealth fund, anticipating a possible offshore oil and gas boom, now that the doorway to exploration is open.
Hess has struck oil with its Pecan-1 exploration well drilled on the Deepwater Tano/Cape Three Points licence offshore Ghana.
The US Energy Department's Energy Information Administration (EIA) has reported that average domestic production for 2012 will come in around 6.4million barrels per day, which is 800,000bpd up on the prior year.
Petrobras has made a new oil find in the ultra-deepwater Sergipe-Alagoas Basin offshore Brazil's Sergipe state.
