Russian energy company Rosneft said on Monday it had registered to take part in the 13th licensing round organised by Brazilian national energy agency Agencia Nacional do Petroleo, Gas Natural e Biocombustiveis. Rosneft said that 10 oil basins and blocks, located onshore and offshore, would be put up for sale at the licensing round.
British gas prices fell on Monday due to an oversupplied transmission system, helped by rising liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal send-outs as new tankers sailed for the UK. Rising flows from the South Hook LNG terminal in Wales offset the impact of maintenance at Norway's Kollsnes gas processing platform, which has resulted in restricted exports to Britain. "This reduction has been more than offset though by a ramp-up in send-outs from South Hook, nominated at 51 million cubic metres/day (mcm). Though flows have yet to physically reach this level," said Marcel Boonaert, head of trading and portfolio at Wingas UK.
The organisers of a Norwegian oil and gas show have underlined the link between technologies used in the space and energy industries by paying for two budding drilling engineers to spend time with Nasa. Stavanger-based ONS Foundation, which runs the annual Offshore Northern Seas (ONS) event and is supporting the internship programme, said knowledge transfer between the two sectors could pave the way for significant technological breakthroughs. The interns, Stavanger University students Fridtjof Wabakken and Saresh Mohamad, said their three-month stints at the Nasa Ames Research Centre in California had helped them fulfil their childhood dreams.
Helicopter pilots have shown “overwhelming support” for a vote on strike action in a move that could cripple the struggling North Sea oil and gas industry. More than a third of pilots operating in the North Sea nailed their colours to the mast at a meeting convened by their representative body in Aberdeen late on Thursday. It came after two of the sector’s main offshore transport providers announced plans to axe dozens of jobs in response to low oil prices.
Aberdeen is going through a “period of reinvention” to move away from a reliance on visitors linked to the oil and gas sector, a tourism expert said yesterday. Andrew Martin, director of the Scottish Centre of Tourism at Robert Gordon University’s Aberdeen Business School, said efforts were being made to develop hospitality niches in the north-east, such as golf tourism and the whisky and castle trails. Any hopes of replacing lost income from the energy industry were “un-realistic”, he added. Steve Harris, chief executive of tourism body Visit-Aberdeen, said the Granite City’s weekend visitor market was holding up well, with numbers higher “than before”, while plans to create a single marketing organisation for the north-east would boost them further. Mr Martin and Mr Harris were speaking after a new study revealed yet more hardship for hotels in Europe’s energy capital, as low oil prices drive custom away.
OPEC's second-largest producer, Iraq, plans to export near-record volumes of Basra crude in September, up 20 percent from August, as it ramps up heavy oil production, trade sources said on Thursday. "There were a number of wells shut-in before Basra Heavy came out to minimise the quality impact on Basra Light," a source with knowledge of Iraqi oil production said. "Those are now being restarted." Iraq allocated 3.017 million barrels per day (bpd) of Basra crude for export in September, up from 2.52 million bpd in August, traders said, citing a preliminary loading programme from the State Oil Marketing Organization (SOMO).
Gazprom Neft, the oil arm of state gas producer Gazprom, posted 73.2 billion roubles ($1.14 billion) in net profit for the second quarter, up 47 percent year-on-year, thanks to the weak rouble, the company said on Thursday. Gazprom Neft, one of a few growing Russian oil firms by output, said its revenue was at 423.2 billion roubles compared to 429.3 billion roubles a year ago.
Thai state energy firm PTT PCL has won approval to buy a total 2 million tonnes a year of liguefied natural gas (LNG) from Shell Eastern Trading (PTE) and BP Singapore PTE Ltd in long-term contracts, the energy minister said on Thursday. Shell Eastern and BP will supply 1 million tonnes each to state-controlled PTT from 2017, Energy Minister Narongchai Akrasanee told reporters after a meeting of the ministry's policy and planning office. As part of the 15-to-20 year contracts, PTT will import 0.5 million tonnes of LNG from Shell Eastern and 0.317 million tonnes from BP in April 2016, Narongchai said.
South Korea's GS Caltex Corp is expected to cut refinery runs further in September after trimming throughput by nearly 3 percent in August to combat weak margins, traders said on Thursday. The country's second-biggest refiner by capacity after SK Energy has cut throughput to about 720,000 barrels per day (bpd) so far this month versus July. But traders said GS Caltex was likely to keep refinery runs at or above 700,000 bpd as demand for jet fuel and kerosene could increase towards year-end on heating fuel demand in winter.
Austrian oil and gas group OMV's new chief executive is looking towards Russia for low-cost energy sources to boost the company's upstream business, which has been squeezed by low crude prices. Though OMV's downstream refining and marketing operations bolstered second-quarter results posted on Wednesday, CEO Rainer Seele cast a wary eye over margin prospects for that side of the business and sees exploration as key for the longer term. OMV has placed its bets on expensive but stable exploration projects in the North Sea as output in Yemen and Libya stalls, and Seele is keen to maintain the upstream focus.
North America’s leading independent oil and gas producers reported large losses in the second quarter despite cutting costs and increasing output. Ten of the largest independent oil and gas producers in the United States reported total losses of almost $15 billion between April and June, compared with profits of almost $3.5 billion a year earlier. Three more independents remained profitable, but reported net income of only $66 million, down from more than $1 billion in the second quarter of 2014.
Mozambique's government has sacked the heads of the state energy companies responsible for overseeing the development of huge offshore gas reserves, cabinet said late on Tuesday. The chairmen of Mozambique's National Hydrocarbons Company (ENH) and the National Institute of Petroleum (INP) had been removed, a statement following a cabinet meeting said, without giving a reason. Nelson Ocuane has been replaced as chairman of the ENH by the Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Omar Mitha.
The Dutch government is looking at ways to boost its production of gas from the North Sea, including offering larger tax breaks for companies that explore or produce gas, it said on Wednesday. The government is formulating a new policy on energy after two major setbacks: Curtailing production at Europe's largest gas field Groningen due to safety concerns and a June court order to speed up emissions reductions to meet international norms. In a statement, Economic Affairs Minister Henk Kamp said his department was "investigating, together with the companies involved...whether new measures are needed" to ensure and potentially increase North Sea production.
Low oil and gas prices steered Aberdeen hotels to double-digit percentage falls in both occupancy and revenue for the second month on the trot, a new report says. And there is uncertainty as to whether hotel prices will be ratcheted up for next month’s Offshore Europe conference, a common practice in the Granite City. Aberdeen hotel rooms generated £52.45 a night on average in May, down an alarming 30% year-on-year, according to accountancy network BDO’s survey of three and four star establishments. Edinburgh, Glasgow and Inverness all experienced strong increases in revenue, though the Scottish capital was the only location to enjoy a rise in occupancy.
Morocco's Societe Anonyme Marocaine de l'Industrie du Raffinage (SAMIR) will halt production at its 200,000 barrel per day (bpd) Mohammedia refinery due to financial difficulties, the company said in a statement. Sources at the refinery said it was already shut down, but would restart once it received delivery of two cargoes of 2 million barrels of crude oil, scheduled to arrive between Aug. 15 and 18. It said SAMIR will continue to supply oil products until its stocks run out.
U.S. oil and gas company ConocoPhillips is reviewing its portfolio in Indonesia and may soon seek buyers for a stake in a production sharing block it operates in the Natuna Sea, company and government sources said. The company has proposed to upstream oil and gas regulator SKKMigas to open its data room for the South Natuna Sea Block B, the agency's spokesman Elan Biantoro told Reuters, noting that such requests were usually made by companies "that want to farm out their participating interests." ConocoPhillips was opening the data room to offer its share to other investors, spokesman Joang Laksanto said.
OPEC on Tuesday raised its forecast of oil supplies from non-member countries in 2015, a sign that oil's price collapse is taking longer to impact on shale and other competing sources than previously thought. In a monthly report, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) raised its forecast for non-OPEC supply this year by about 90,000 barrels per day (bpd).
Kuwait has set the official selling price (OSP) for crude oil sales to Asian buyers for September at $1.35 a barrel below the average Oman/Dubai quotes, up $0.45 from the previous month, a source familiar with the matter said on Tuesday.
The chief executive of Brazil's Petroleo Brasileiro SA estimates it will take five years for the state-run oil producer to win back the credibility it lost among investors after a massive corruption scandal sent some of its top executives to jail. Aldemir Bendine told daily O Estado de S.Paulo that the corruption scandal will weigh on Petrobras as long as investigations continue but that he will keep pushing for management and financial changes in the company.
Alberta's energy regulator is investigating the deaths of 30 blue herons at a Syncrude Canada oil sands site in the northern part of the Canadian province, the agency and company said on Saturday. The Alberta Energy Regulator said it sent investigators to the Syncrude Canada Mildred Lake site, which is about 40 km (25 miles) north of Fort McMurray. In 2010, Syncrude was fined C$3 million ($2.29 million) for negligence in the 2008 deaths of 1,600 ducks in a toxic tailings pond, a case that fueled international concern about the environmental impact of developing Canada's oil sands.
Royal Dutch Shell is considering investing billions in Brazil, set to become a focal point after the planned acquisition of BG Group, even as it prepares to sell huge chunks of its business to pay for the $70 bln deal. Despite a broad drive to cut spending in the face of persistently low oil prices, Chief Executive Ben Van Beurden remains steadfast in his plans to buy BG, which will transform Shell into the world's biggest liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplier. The company has announced plans to sell around $30 billion in assets between 2016 and 2018 to improve its balance sheet and focus on its core deepwater oil and LNG business.
Royal Dutch Shell has agreed to sell its controlling stake in Tongyi Lubricants in China, in the energy company's latest step to restructure its global refining business. Shell said it expects to complete its exit from Tongyi, in which it bought a 75 percent stake in 2006, by late 2015 or early 2016. The value of the sale to Huo's Group, its partner in Tongyi, and private equity firm Carlyle International, was not disclosed. The Anglo-Dutch oil and gas company will remain present in China's growing lubricant industry, which produces liquids such as engine oils and greases.
Italian energy group ERG is to buy German utility E.ON's Italian hydroelectric power plants for about 950 million euros ($1 billion), expanding its renewable portfolio which mostly comprises windfarms. E.ON's Terni Hydroelectric Complex, which has 527 megawatts (MW) of generating capacity and produces about 1.4 terawatt hours of electricity a year, was put up for sale in late 2013 along with other assets in the country. ERG currently operates windfarms in Europe with a total capacity of 1.38 gigawatts, including 1.1 gigawatts in Italy, as well as a gas-fired thermal plant in Sicily with a capacity of 480 MW.
Business is so tough for oilfield giants Schlumberger and Halliburton that they have come up with a new sales pitch for crude producers halting work in the worst downturn in years. It amounts to this: "frack now and pay later." The moves by the world's No. 1 and No. 2 oil services companies show how they are scrambling to book sales of new technologies to customers short of cash after a 60 percent slide in crude to $45 a barrel. In some cases, they are willing to take on the role of traditional lenders, like banks, which have grown reluctant to lend since the price drop that began last summer, or act like producers by taking what are essentially stakes in wells.
The energy industry’s professional membership body yesterday lambasted the sector’s inability to provide clear information on fracking, the method of shale gas extraction. And, unable to tolerate the situation any longer, the Energy Institute has published its own guide to fracking, which is one of the most divisive issues surrounding the industry at present. In January, the Scottish government declared an indefinite moratorium on granting planning consent for fracking while further research was carried out.
