PETROCHINA, the world's largest oil company by market value, intends to invest a minimum of $60billion in acquisitions outside China between now and 2020, according to its chairman, Jiang Jiemin.
The £2.5billion Laggan-Tormore project on the UK Atlantic Frontier has finally been approved and should, once onstream, deliver some 1trillion cu ft of gas to the UK market, plus significant volumes of condensate internationally, starting in 2014.
2010 has the makings of a reasonable year for exploration and appraisal drilling in north-west European waters, according to Ian Burdis, VP well management at AGR Petroleum.
ON APRIL 13-14, the International Association of Drilling Contractors is to stage a major conference on well control, which is an aspect of upstream petroleum that is assuming greater importance than ever. This is driven by a cocktail of factors, notably tight money, the drive to deeper waters and higher pressures and temperatures.
Red Spider Technology of Aberdeen has received a £5million cash injection from Simmons Parallel Energy and Energy Ventures to "properly fund and internationalise the business".
THE world's largest open access offshore wind turbine drive train test rig is on the drawing board at the UK's Energy Technologies Institute (ETI). Two companies - Converteam and HORIBA Instruments - have been commissioned to deliver competing designs for an indoor test rig capable of dynamically testing a complete wind turbine drive train and nacelle with input power up to 15MW (megawatts).
Violence remains a daily occurrence in Iraq, yet the time is right for firms to invest. With national elections and recently concluded oil deals, the country is entering a new phase in its history.
Everywhere we look, the renewables revolution seems to be top of the agenda, whether it's wind, tidal or solar.
Serious litigation relating to man-made climate change began in the first half of this decade. The most notable cases are in the US, where legal tradition and process lend themselves to the pursuit of new types of actions.
OVER recent weeks, the optimism that had driven commodity prices and equities higher disappeared. The escalation of the Greek debt problems has certainly highlighted the still significant issues facing the global economy. In broad terms, we believe that if the market is undergoing volatile movements in a possible sideways direction, then the quoted oil&gas sector may still outperform.
When oil prices were above $100 per barrel and demand was outstripping supply, the top priority for most companies was maintaining and increasing production, with cost control and "value creation" taking a secondary role.
AFTER a very sluggish start, UK exploration and appraisal (E&A) activity is showing the first glimmers of an emergence from the hibernation that was a large part of 2009. From a dearth of new activity in January, operations have been completed on five wells so far this year.
LAST month, Lucile Franoux, a petroleum engineer with Maersk Oil in Aberdeen, started a six-month exchange internship in Mexico with Pemex, the Mexican state oil company.
THE Institute of Marine Engineering, Science & Technology (IMarEST) has granted accreditation to the graduate training programme set up by Fugro GEOS. This programme aims to provide graduates with a blend of learning - e-learning, classroom learning and workshop training - to ensure that they develop the competencies they require for their job and also to ensure that their wider professional needs are met.
As one of Norway's biggest trainers of skilled workers, Statoil says it plans to take on 184 apprentices in 2010 - 16 more than last year.
Scientists in California have come up with a radical new approach to flexible solar-cell technology that apparently makes them both more effective and cheaper.
BY DIPPING ordinary paper or fabric in a special ink infused with nano-particles, a Stanford University engineer has found a way to cheaply and efficiently manufacture lightweight paper batteries and super-capacitors as well as stretchable, conductive textiles known as "eTextiles".
DO YOU get chauffeured to school in mum or dad's massive lump of four-wheel-drive urban assault vehicle? There's a fair possibility as Aberdeen is stuffed with such vehicles. Or is the mode of transportation more responsible - a small hatchback perhaps? It seems blindly obvious, but the best way to reduce emissions in the short term is a "drastic downscaling of both size and weight' of conventional petrol and diesel cars", according to an Oxford University study.
LAMPRELL, a specialist provider of engineering services to the international oil&gas industry, has secured two significant new contract awards from Fred Olsen Windcarrier totalling $320.4million.
ABERDEEN company ffA (Foster Findlay Associates) and TerraSpark Geosciences have agreed to mutually explore advancement of 3D seismic analysis and interpretation capabilities and to explore parallel research and development programmes.
HEWLETT Packard and Shell are collaborating in the development of a wireless sensing system to acquire extremely high-resolution seismic data on land.
The first issue surrounding diabetes and working offshore is that you must disclose to your employer and occupational healthcare provider that you have the condition.
A NEW rig, Iran Alborz, has started work in the Caspian. It is Iranian-built and has now started work on a well in the Iranian sector. Hedayatollah Khademi, managing director of the rig's owner, North Drilling, has been reported as saying this is the first of three wells scheduled to be drilled this year.
THE partners in the Gudrun discovery offshore Norway have decided to go ahead with its development based on a single steel-jacket platform.
Anadarko has made what appears to have the makings of a major hydrocarbons discovery off Mozambique, East Africa, where there has so far been little offshore exploration, let alone success.
