Aberdeen firms X-Subsea UK and X-Subsea Atlantic are in administration, with 20 jobs axed, after a downturn in orders.
They are subsidiaries of Granite City-based X-Subsea UK Holding (X-Subsea UKH), which is also in administration.
Their parent, Norway’s Reef Subsea, went into liquidation in February after backers pulled support in the wake of falling oil prices.
But X-Subsea operations in Houston in the US, Ciudad del Carmen in Mexico and Singapore are not in administration.
Administrators for Aberdeen firm Specialist Subsea Services (SSS) said yesterday they had completed the sale of its assets and intellectual property to James Fisher Offshore (JFO), part of marine service company James Fisher & Sons, for an undisclosed sum.
SSS, which was part of Norwegian group Reef Subsea, collapsed in February.
A total of 77 jobs were lost immediately, with another five initially kept on as KPMG restructuring experts tried to find a buyer for the business.
Wood Group has confirmed almost 100 jobs are at risk at the Energy service giant.
As previously reported on Energy Voice, the company said it had launched a consultation with about 380 staff in its Wood Group PSN business - 80 of whom are expected to lose their jobs - following an operational review aimed at reducing costs and improving efficiency.
It is anticipated a further 12 roles will go in the company’s Wood Group Kenny subsidiary.
Cheap hotel prices in Glasgow in early May highlight one of the reasons why the organisers of the UK’s largest green-energy show were so keen to move it from Aberdeen this year.
But it could be back in Europe’s energy capital within a few years, thanks to current hotel projects and a major new venue in the city, north-east MSP Lewis Macdonald told the Press & Journal.
A check yesterday on a well-known booking website showed rooms in three-star hotels in Glasgow on Tuesday May 5, the eve of All-Energy 2015, and Wednesday, May 6 are available from £45 a night.
For those people still needing a room after the event ends on Thursday, May 7, three-star budget accommodation is available for only £35.
Aberdeen company Swire Oilfield Services is poised to shed up to 50 jobs in the Granite City.
A spokeswoman for Swire, which employs about 850 people in operations in more than 25 countries, said the firm had begun consultations with staff at its headquarters in Souter Head Road.
North Sea oil and gas company Trap Oil Group (Trapoil) saw its shares nearly halve in value yesterday after it warned it may go bust.
In a bleak outlook with 2014 results, the firm said it was in urgent need of a “viable funding solution” – without which it was “highly likely” that it would run out of money by July.
Trapoil is one of the once-ambitious new entrants to the market which emerged in much healthier times for the industry not so long ago.
Founded in 2007, it raised £60million when it floated on London’s Alternative Investment Market in April 2011.
After swooping to buy husband and wife-run Banchory firm Reach Oil and Gas for £30million it quickly embarked on a mission to become one of the most active explorers in the North Sea.
Energy service giant Weatherford International said yesterday it had ramped up job cuts to 10,000 in response to lower oil prices.
The number is 2,000 more than it had previously announced for this year and the new total will leave it with about 39,000 people in its core global operations, plus 6,000 on rigs.
Weatherford, which has its global headquarters in Switzerland, with Europe and Caspian business run from offices in Aberdeen, said most of the extra 2,000 jobs being axed were in North America.
Oil giant BP insists it remains committed to the UK North Sea despite it yesterday agreeing to sell its 36.22% stake in the Central Area Transmission System (Cats) pipeline system to a private-equity firm for £324million.
BP is the operator of Cats, which is now 99% owned by Antin Infrastructure Partners. ConocoPhillips and Eni own the other 1% between them.
Trevor Garlick, regional president, BP North Sea, said: “The North Sea is an important region for BP.
“Our strategy here is to focus our resources and investment to create an efficient, sustainable and competitive business which will contribute to UK energy security for many years to come.
“Key elements of this are the completion of our major projects in the central North Sea and Shetland area, and continued management of our portfolio.”
Aberdeen oil and gas technology firm Petrotechnics has been signed up to help improve the safety of rail workers as part of a national initiative by track owner and operator Network Rail.
Petrotechnics specialises in software to improve frontline operational performance and risk management in hazardous industries.
Announcing its latest contract yesterday, its said its Proscient system was to be used to increase safety and improve productivity across 20,000 miles of railway by reducing the risk of delays, engineering overruns and spiralling maintenance costs.
Working in partnership with the US technology giant Computer Sciences Corporation, Petrotechnics’ input forms part of Network Rail’s Planning and Delivering Safe Work programme, which is introducing safety improvements across the UK rail network.
Independent offshore infrastructure owners should be subject to normal corporation tax to stimulate the growth of these companies, according to an oil and gas expert at law firm Bond Dickinson.
Uisdean Vass, oil and gas partner for Bond Dickinson in Aberdeen, told an audience of North Sea oil and gas bosses at a business gathering in the Granite City last night the current taxation model for independent offshore infrastructure owners was unfair and counter-productive to the needs of not just the industry, but also the UK economy.
Last year’s Wood Review encouraged the emergence of a class of independent infrastructure owners and Mr Vass said fiscal changes were one effective way of supporting this aim.
Energy consultant Adil said yesterday it aimed to arrest declining interest in North Sea brownfield projects and potentially unlock 250million barrels of oil equivalent (boe).
The Aberdeen company announced it had refocused its specialist brownfield project management team to help operators drive improved efficiency in “this challenging sector”.
Adil has put a set of guidelines together to help the industry learn from its experience of what characterises successful projects.
Oil giant BP insists it remains committed to the UK North Sea despite it agreeing to sell its 36.22% stake in the Central Area Transmission System (CATS) pipeline system to Antin Infrastructure Partners for £324million.
BP is currently the operator of CATS, which is now 99% owned by Antin.
Aberdeen firm EnerMech is to turn its expertise to good use in a £36billion development which will deliver an estimated 8% of the world’s total liquefied natural gas (LNG) production.
The mechanical engineering group said yesterday it had won “multimillion-dollar” contracts for the air drying and nitrogen purging of six gas storage tanks at the new Curtis Island LNG facilities in Queensland, Australia.
US-based construction and civil engineering giant Bechtel has asked EnerMech to provide pre-engineering, supervision, manpower and equipment for work on the tanks, which together hold the equivalent of 56 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
Aberdeen energy service firm XPD8 Solutions has described a new £375,000 contract in west Africa as a "pat on the back" by one of its clients.
The six-month deal will see asset integrity management specialist XPD8, which has its headquarters in North Silver Street, move Tullow Oil's existing computer-based maintenance management system to a new software package, Maximo.
Once installed, the Maximo system will support planning, scheduling, performance monitoring and reporting of asset integrity key performance indicators for the Jubilee floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel offshore of Ghana.
XPD8 managing director Mark Cavanagh said: “It is a pat on the back to our team that we have been chosen to work again with Tullow Oil, which is an existing client for us, on what is another significant contract.
UK North Sea gas fields could be forced to shut down if a Russian oligarch ignores a UK Government demand to sell them.
Energy Secretary Ed Davey yesterday warned Dea UK its operating licences may be revoked by the UK Government unless owner LetterOne, led by billionaire Mikhail Fridman, sells up within six months.
The threat affects five Dea-operated gas fields – Breagh, Cavendish, Clipper South, Topaz and Windermere – and comes as the UK offshore industry is already struggling to safeguard investment and jobs in the wake of a sharp plunge in oil prices.
The UK Government has decided to revoke North Sea oil field licences owned by DEA, RWE's oil and gas unit bought last month by Russian billionaire Mikhail Fridman's LetterOne, unless the licences change ownership, the energy ministry said today.
"The Secretary of State Ed Davey ... proposes to revoke DEA UK's North Sea petroleum licences unless LetterOne arranges for a further change of control of the DEA UK gas fields in the North Sea," the ministry said in a statement.
BP will throw the spotlight on the future of key west of Shetland projects at a Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) Aberdeen section event next week.
Scott Thomson, west of Shetland area subsurface manager at BP, will discuss the efforts being made in the Schiehallion and Loyal fields to maximise long-term recovery.
These fields have been operational since 1998 and already delivered nearly 400million barrels of oil, but a new floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel was needed to continue production.
Oilfield technology company Plexus Holdings yesterday announced its first contract win in South America and said its geographic reach now spanned five continents.
The Aberdeen firm revealed the new order for wellhead equipment for a development well offshore of Venezuela was worth an estimated £800,000.
Plexus said it was to supply its Tersus TRT mudline suspension system for a well on the Perla gas field after eni Venezuela and Repsol Venezuela secured the gas licence from the country’s ministry of petroleum and mines, with first revenues expected from this month on.
Oilfield service company Hunting reported a 60% plunge in first quarter operating profits yesterday, blaming falling global rig counts and cost-cutting across the industry.
Shares in the company fell 8% to £5.36 in early trading on the London Stock Exchange but later recovered to around £5.88.check market close
Hunting, which announced in February it would cut an unspecified number of jobs and realign business units to help counter a drop in drilling activity, said its subsea, electronics and tubular component machining businesses did better in the first three months of 2015, compared with last year, offsetting weakness in its North American drilling tools operation.
North Sea oil and gas company Ithaca Energy said yesterday it had completed a successful final development well test on the Stella field.
The five wells drilled achieved a combined maximum flow test rate of more than 53,000 barrels of oil equivalent (boe) per day.
Aberdeen and Calgary-based Ithaca said this “significantly de-risks” a project – the Greater Stella Area (GSA) – which is expected to produce about 30,000boe per day, including 16,000 for its own 54.66% stake.
Aberdeen energy service firms Hydro Group and EnerMech are to work together in launching an new hydraulics hose product for the oil and gas industry.
It is believed the tie-up could generate in the region of £500,000 over the next year.
Graham Wilkie, sales director at Hydro Group, which designs and manufactures cables and connectors for subsea and onshore use, said: “Collaboration, diversification and innovation are key to surviving in challenging markets.
Shell has a new boss at the helm of its UK North Sea business after Glen Cayley, who was the oil and gas giant’s upstream director for the region, left to join the new Oil and Gas Authority (OGA).
Paul Goodfellow took over as Shell’s upstream vice-president for the UK and Ireland last month in a low-profile change.
One of his first tasks was to oversee last week’s announcement of 250 job cuts and changes to offshore shift patterns.
Mr Goodfellow was previously unconventionals vice-president, US and Canada, for Shell’s upstream business in the Americas.
Before that, he was onshore development vice-president in the Americas upstream operations, with responsibility for field development planning, technical and technology functions.
The Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan (OTPP), one of Canada's biggest investors, has said it is actively scouting for energy assets as it looks to trim positions in oil and gas derivatives and invest directly in producing assets.
Chief investment officer Neil Petroff said: “We have our natural resource group out there looking for real assets.
“The current price of oil, I think, gives us an opportunity to look for platform companies, where we can grow.
Oil major BP is facing a potential shareholder revolt over chief executive Bob Dudley’s £8.6million pay package, up by 25% in 2014, at its annual general meeting this month.
The potential protest over his remuneration is being encouraged by two groups which advise shareholders in FTSE 100 Index-listed companies.
Mr Dudley’s bumper pay rise came in the same year as BP launched a £665million cost-cutting drive, which in January led to the company announcing about 200 full-time onshore positions and 100 contractor roles would be shed from its 4,000-strong North Sea workforce.
BP introduced a pay freeze for staff this year as oil and gas firms look to cut costs in response to the recent slump in crude prices.
North Sea firm Ithaca Energy saw its shares jump as much as 14% yesterday after it said it had increased its oil hedging to mitigate against lower prices.
But the company also revealed the sharp drop in crude prices late last year wiped £117million off its 2014 balance sheet, leaving it with pre-tax losses of £225million.
Ithaca, whose stock plummeted more than 27% in February after it announced start-up from its Greater Stella Area (GSA) project would be severely delayed, said yesterday it had 4,000 barrels of oil per day hedged at an average price of $69 from July 2016 to June 2017.
The London and Toronto-listed company also reported “solid” underlying cashflow generation and a 22% increase in proved and probable reserves to 70million barrels of oil equivalent (boe).
