The Norwegian government has modified an original proposal on how to divide up stakes in the Johan Sverdrup field in the North Sea, giving Det norske a smaller stake than originally proposed, it said on Thursday.
Sverdrup, Europe's costliest offshore energy project, contains up to 3 billion barrels of oil equivalent (boe) and could operate for 50 years. It is forecast to start production by the end of 2019.
Four out of five shareholders, including operator Statoil, agreed in February on how to divide up the project, but Det norske disputed the agreement, asking for a government review.
Integrated subsea services firm Harkand said yesterday it has adapted a support vessel to keep busy against the backdrop of the oil and gas industry downturn.
The Spearfish craft has been switched from the Gulf of Mexico to the North Sea and fitted with a hydraulic gangway that provides workers with safe access to platforms.
The vessel, which is on long-term charter Norway’s Siem Offshore, normally supports subsea construction projects, but is now supporting Premier Oil’s commissioning work on the £960million Solan project west of Shetland.
Turkey and Russia's Gazprom are likely to finalise a deal on natural gas prices by mid-July, Turkish officials told Reuters, after Ankara warned last week it could seek international arbitration if they failed to agree.
Russia, which supplies more than half the gas consumed by Turkey annually, has already agreed to cut prices by 10.25 percent, but Gazprom's additional demands regarding the Turkish Stream natural gas project are delaying the final signature, a Turkish energy official said.
Last week, Turkey said it had the right to take Gazprom to international arbitration if there we no agreement by June 29. Ankara already has a case at the court against Iran, its second biggest supplier.
Royal Dutch Shell has been granted permission to develop the Appomattox deepwater oil and gas field in the Gulf of Mexico, set to be the energy giant's largest floating platform in the region.
The Appomattox project, 80 miles off the coast of Louisiana, is expected to reach peak production of around 175,000 barrels of oil equivalent (boe) per day, Shell said in a statement on Wednesday.
A $400 million floating plant for changing LNG back to gas has sat idle off Indonesia's coast for around six months despite only being commissioned last summer, hit by faltering demand for the cleaner fuel as oil prices drop and the economy slows.
The stoppage could stoke government worries over the strength of appetite for gas in Southeast Asia's largest economy, another blow to the administration of President Joko Widodo which has been pushing for greater consumption of the fuel to curb pollution and diversify energy sources.
Tepid Indonesian demand also means more liquefied natural gas is likely to spill into regional markets, already struggling near their lowest since before the Fukushima crisis in 2011 boosted usage as Japan shut all its nuclear reactors.
The Obama administration dealt a setback to Royal Dutch Shell's Arctic oil exploration plans on Tuesday, saying established walrus and polar bear protections prevent the company from drilling with two rigs simultaneously at close range, as it had planned.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued Shell a permit which emphasized that under 2013 federal wildlife protections, companies must maintain a 15-mile (24-km) buffer between two rigs drilling simultaneously.
The rule is meant to protect populations of animals sensitive to sounds and activities of drilling. Walruses have been known to plunge off rocks into the sea during drilling, putting some at risk. The animals are already at risk from reduced habitat due to global warming.
Ukraine said it halted natural gas imports from Russia on Wednesday after EU-brokered talks collapsed without a deal on how much Kiev should pay for its supplies and an interim accord expired at midnight.
Russian gas flows to the European Union via Ukraine were unaffected. The European Commission said both sides had promised gas transit west would remain smooth, but it would not relinquish its mediation efforts until there was agreement.
"From today, Ukraine is not getting gas from Russia. Transit supplies are as normal," Maksim Belyavsky, a spokesman for Ukraine's gas transit monopoly Ukrtransgaz, said.
The number of oil and gas leaks occurring offshore is at its lowest ever level, a new report says.
Injury rates were also lower than in many other sectors, including construction, transport and manufacturing, according to industry body Oil and Gas UK (OGUK)’s Health and Safety Report 2015, published today.
Lego building methods could be the answer to the North Sea oil and gas sector’s current plight, energy industry leaders heard at a seminar in Aberdeen yesterday.
Organised by trade association Oil and Gas UK (OGUK), the event promoted the virtues of simplification and standardisation and gave an insight into cost efficiency measures taken by other sectors during hard times.
Franco-Japanese alliance Renault-Nissan said the automotive industry practically fell off a cliff during the global financial crisis of 2008, while also having to cope with customers’ demands for more content in their cars for less money.
Shale output in the United States will prove resilient to low oil prices likely to be prolonged by the prospect of half a million barrels per day of Iranian crude making its way back to the market, BP's chief economist said on Tuesday.
Talks in Vienna between world powers trying to end sanctions on Tehran in return for limits on Iran's most sensitive nuclear activities could bring a significant increase in Iranian oil exports.
BP's Spencer Dale, however, told Reuters that it would probably take time for any easing of sanctions to filter through to oil markets if an Iran deal is agreed.
Massive downward revisions to oil output in Brazil and Iraq have increased the risks for oil markets of going from the current feast to famine within just a few years, leading to a price spike that would give a new boost to the U.S. shale industry.
Brazil and Iraq had been expected to add over 2 million barrels per day to global supply by 2020 and another 2.5 million by 2025, becoming the two biggest contributors to help meet rising global demand, according to the long-term forecast of the International Energy Agency.
With Brazil's Petrobras cutting this week its five-year production outlook by 1.4 million bpd in response to low oil prices and the ongoing corruption probe and Iraq renegotiating deals with oil majors to reflect "more realistic" output targets, the current glut in the oil markets is poised to end sooner than expected.
Israel plans to leave its biggest offshore natural gas project, Leviathan, in the hands of a U.S.-Israeli consortium while opening the industry to more competition, under a proposal announced on Tuesday.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been adamant in seeking a deal that would allow Leviathan to be developed and sought a parliament vote to let the state circumvent the antitrust authority, which has expressed opposition.
When some ministers said they would not support such a position, Netanyahu faced a coalition crisis and ultimately the vote was postponed due to lack of a majority.
Ukraine does not agree with gas discount proposed by Russia for third-quarter gas deliveries, Russia's RIA news agency quoted Ukraine's Energy and Coal Minister Vladimir Demchishin as saying on Tuesday.
U.S. Coast Guard and police boats cleared a way through protesters in kayaks at a Seattle-area port on Tuesday so a drilling ship could head for the Arctic on behalf of Royal Dutch Shell.
The Noble Discover is the second drilling ship Shell has sent to the area in recent days.
The activists, who have staged frequent demonstrations during the past two months against Royal Dutch Shell's oil exploration in the Chukchi Sea off mainland Alaska, had taken to the waters just beyond the Port of Everett north of Seattle where the oil rig launched for sea.
Aberdeen energy service firm Xodus Group has struck a deal worth £380,000 for work on the Zirku oil and gas processing facilities in the Persian Gulf.
The contract was awarded by Abu Dhabi-based oil major Zakum Development Company (Zadco) and builds on several orders Xodus notched up in the Middle East so far this year.
The new agreement will see Xodus lay on services aimed at preventing vibration induced failures on Zirku-Island-based installations over a 24-week period.
A fledgling Aberdeen-based engineering firm has reeled in £500,000 worth of orders in the last two months by offering cost savings to operators in the oil and gas industry.
Low oil prices and high costs have beset the sector in recent times, forcing companies to fire staff and mothball projects to balance their budgets.
But the downturn has created a gap in the market for companies to thrive if they can offer cheaper alternatives than their rivals, the directors of Step Change Engineering (SCE) believe.
The US Supreme Court on Monday rejected bids by BP and Anadarko Petroleum Corp to avoid penalties under federal pollution law in connection with the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
The high court left in place a June 2014 ruling by the New Orleans-based 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals, which said the companies were liable for civil penalties under the federal Clean Water Act.
The April 20, 2010, Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion and Macondo oil well rupture killed 11 workers and caused the largest offshore environmental disaster in US history, polluting large parts of the Gulf, killing marine wildlife and harming businesses.
France's CGT union on Monday called on workers at all oil refineries, depots and port loading terminals to strike on July 2 to protest against Total's plans to end refining at its La Mede plant on the south coast.
In a statement, the CGT also called for Total's service stations to be blocked every Thursday this summer until the oil company withdraws its proposals for La Mede.
Russia proposes keeping the gas price for Ukraine unchanged in the third quarter, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said on Monday, a day before Russia's energy minister goes to Vienna for gas talks.
"Despite all the difficulties in our current relations with Ukraine, we should within reason make concessions," Medvedev told Energy Minister Alexander Novak and Gazprom Chief Executive Alexei Miller.
Gazprom had said Ukraine would be charged $287 per 1,000 cubic metres with no discount in the third quarter. That compares to the $247 charged in the second quarter, including a discount of $100 per 1,000 cubic metres.
Islamic State suicide bombers blew up two trucks in the heart of the northeastern Syrian city of Hasaka and a fire erupted at petroleum storage tanks and a textile firm after shelling by the militants, a Syrian army source said on Monday.
The army source was quoted by state television as saying the militants had targeted a major roundabout and near a mosque in the southeastern Ghwyran neighbourhood, a residential area that the militants entered since Thursday in a lighting assault to seize the government-held parts of the city.
Japan's average price for imported liquefied natural gas (LNG) fell to its lowest since September 2009, dragged down by declining oil markets, offering relief to the countries' utilities which had been burning record amounts of the fuel after the Fukushima disaster.
LNG import prices averaged $8.84 per million British thermal units (mmBtu) in May, the lowest since $8.28 in September 2009, Reuters calculations based on finance ministry data showed on Monday.
Brazilian state-run oil company Petrobras is looking to sell some of its biofuel assets as it tries to raise cash to cover investment for new offshore oilfields and service its debt, Reuters reported, citing two sources.
The company, whose $125 billion of debt is the biggest of any oil company and the third-largest of any non-financial enterprise, plans to sell as much as $13.7 billion of assets by the end of 2016.
The first source, who has direct knowledge of Petrobras' plans, said the company's ethanol plants, which transform sugarcane into fuel, were the most likely area of the business to be sold. Petrobras has nine ethanol plants and five biodiesel plants.
Marathon Petroleum Corp is preparing to restart the 60,000 barrel per day (bpd) gasoline-producing Fluidic Catalytic Cracking Unit 1 at its 451,000 bpd Galveston Bay Refinery in Texas City, Texas, said two sources familiar with plant operations.
Marathon could begin restarting the unit, which has been shut since Jan. 13, as early as Friday, the sources said. If there are no problems with the restart, the FCCU is expected to be back in production by June 26.
A Malaysian naval vessel has located the hijacked tanker Orkim Harmony in Vietnamese waters and is trying to persuade the pirates onboard to surrender, promising them they will be unharmed, Malaysian maritime officials said on Thursday.
Both the crew and the cargo are safe, and the navy is in the midst of negotiations with the robbers, officials with the Malaysia Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA) said in a press briefing in Kuala Lumpur.
Malaysia's Chief of Navy Admiral Abdul Aziz Jaafar said on his Twitter account that at least eight perpetrators were on board the Orkim Harmony armed with pistols and machetes.
UK-based Sequa Petroleum has reached agreement to buy a portfolio of Norwegian offshore field interests for $602 million from Wintershall, the oil and gas subsidiary of BASF, the companies said on Thursday.
Sequa said the transaction will be conducted by Oslo-based Tellus Petroleum Invest A/S, which it is also buying in a concurrent deal for $4 million plus 6 million shares in Sequa.
The agreement with Wintershall will give Tellus interests in five fields - 20 percent of Knarr, 15 percent of Maria, 10 percent of Yme, 6.5 percent of Ivar Aasen and 4.5 percent of Veslefrikk.
