You may be relieved to know that this is not an article about Brexit. However, every cloud has a silver lining - because the last six months of Brexit-related debate have in fact seen the UK’s ports sector attract an unusual amount of political, and therefore public, attention.
At this time last year, I commented in this column about what 2018 might look like for the UK oil and gas industry.
There is a burgeoning sense of optimism sweeping the sector and the market feels much stronger than it did 12 months ago. The industry is definitely starting to recover and rebuild itself following three years of weak prices and significant cost pressures.
It’s 2035.
The offshore industry has faced some extremely challenging times in recent years.
While the oil price has fluctuated in 2018, the North Sea Basin has continued its steady recovery demonstrating it can still compete with lower cost regions around the world.
I’m not a big fan of looking backwards. And being an optimist by nature I believe there is a lot to look forward to for Aberdeen and the wider energy sector in 2019.
It may surprise you to learn that Christmas trees can be confusing things – especially in the world of finance writes Alex Drummond, Managing Director, Drummond Finance.
In the era of Trump and Brexit it’s a risky business trying to second guess what the future might hold, especially when it comes to the UK ‘s often volatile oil and gas sector. There are, however, some developments we can look back on from the last 12 months in trying to assess what might lie in store over the course of 2019.
We have had a successful year with steady growth across all key areas of the business - from field development to decommissioning as well as in the renewables sector. This underlines the continued demand for quality consultancy services both in the North Sea and internationally, which is very reassuring.
It’s been an extremely positive year for the renewable energy industry with many ground-breaking projects going live. The increase in activity has built upon the success of the previous year, seeing continued growth in the solar, biomass, hydrogen fuel cell and wave and tidal sectors and achieving a record 10,336MW of installed renewable electricity capacity in Scotland.
The year 2018 exhibited several major changes to the operating environment for the North Sea oil industry. The dramatic fluctuation in oil prices was an obvious and key feature. Starting at around $60 in January the Brent price climbed to a peak of around $85 in late October and then fell dramatically to below $60 at the time of writing. The increase was fostered by threats of severe sanctions against Iran by the US Government plus continued stagnation of production in Venezuela. The subsequent granting of many waivers to the sanctions plus evidence of continued growth in US production and signs of weakening world demand growth produced the dramatic fall in recent weeks. The announcement of production cuts of 1.2 million barrels per day by OPEC and collaborating countries, particularly Russia, produced only a minor increase in the price. The future outlook is very unclear. For example, sanctions on Iran could be tightened at some future date.
Every day, people in the UK are estimated to drink over 95 million cups of coffee, which is roughly equivalent to over 170,000 barrels a day of the black liquid in the UK alone. For those of us who get our brew from Starbucks, Café Nero or Costa Coffee, we are more than happy to pay upwards of £2 for this black magic. Although a small price to pay for a moment of happiness, the cost of this cup of coffee we enjoy so much is roughly equivalent to $900 per barrel.
We have 12 years to clean up our carbon act on a global scale or face catastrophic climate change: that was the stark warning from the IPCC in October. The following month, the UK Government reaffirmed its support for carbon capture and storage (CCS) – a tested technology that will deliver massive reductions in carbon emissions – and the Acorn CCS Project in north east Scotland secured a licence to select a suitable North Sea CO2 storage site.
As workers adjust to recent changes in the offshore rota system, Nicole Stewart from behavioural change consultancy DEKRA Organisational Reliability, discusses the impact of certain offshore rota patterns on mental health.
With the North Sea in the midst of a resurgence, there’s a slight temptation for some in our sector to forget a few of the smaller things that are going on. But the recent UK budget saw a call-to-action for the oil industry.
Former member of hacktivist group Anonymous, Mike ‘sting3r’ Jones discusses the recent Saipem cyber-attack and the immediate threat to Big Oil.
Martin Findlay, Partner, KPMG LLP (UK), looks at the latest developments around Brexit from an oil and gas sector and business readiness perspective.
A forecast for Scottish economic growth recently issued by EY indicates that onshore upstream employment in Aberdeen is expected to fall 0.3% by 2021. Interestingly, the same report details that there is likely to be an increase in the number of jobs in the wider oil and gas sector in the coming years, including roles associated with technology, administration and communication. It is clear that O&G jobs are not going to disappear overnight, yet, all the same, this change is likely to have an impact on the individuals working within the industry.
Decentralised energy, customers not meter points... who have needs, wants and preferences, services beyond commodity.
For Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) to make a meaningful contribution towards decarbonising our energy system, it needs to start with a bang, not a whimper.
We have only 12 years to avoid a catastrophe across our planet –less than the time taken for a child to complete school.
Karen Blanc is operations lead at Atkins’ Aberdeen oil and gas office, and a committee member of the Aberdeen X-Industry Support (AXIS) Network, a group set up to raise awareness of how gender diversity impacts the north-east energy sector. Here, she speaks on behalf of AXIS.
Anyone in the UK energy industry who didn’t clock the dramatic weather headlines of November 26 must have had their head in the sand.
The world’s advanced economies have hit the buffers with efforts to slash carbon dioxide emissions.