By Kirstie Langan, Business Development Executive at Apollo
We’ve all heard it a thousand times, ‘our people are our biggest asset’. I don’t buy it. I appreciate I’m perhaps failing to acknowledge the spirit of this statement, but to explain further – I don’t buy the idea that just having ‘good people’ (whatever that means) is enough to drive success. Let’s also have a think about that notion of ‘good people’ – do we mean competent people, entertaining people, nice people, generous people, motivated people or just people who have previously worked for a business that competes with our own…?
By Paul Wheelhouse, minister for energy, connectivity and the islands
Scotland has been at the heart of the global oil and gas industry for decades and, more recently, has been a driving force behind the renewable energy revolution, and has demonstrated high ambition with our world-leading targets and frameworks for mitigation of climate change.
Norway is easily the biggest source of imported natural gas for the United Kingdom. In the first quarter of this year, when demand soared thanks to the now-forgotten Beast from the East, 60% of imports came by pipeline from Norway.
When OPEC and Russia shook on increasing crude oil production by a million barrels daily to stop the oil price climb that had begun getting uncomfortable for consumers from Asia to the United States, there was no sign of what was to come just two months later: slowing demand in Asia, ample supply, and a brewing price war between Saudi Arabia and Iran.
As a proponent of hydrogen being a very significant component in the UK’s atmospheric decarbonisation drive, I read with interest two recent reports; Delivering Clean Growth, CCUS Cost Challenge Task Force, July 2018 and Reducing UK Emissions, Committee on Climate Change, June 2018.
The discussion around hard Brexit, soft Brexit, divorce bill, transition arrangements, new trade deals and the Chequers Brexit plan is now rapidly turning into a bewildering array of statements, claims and counter claims.
By Tom Kellermann, Chief Cybersecurity Officer, Carbon Black
When the Die Hard movie franchise got a reboot in 2007 the plot revolved around an attack on New York’s infrastructure, with our hero John McClane up against a gang of cybercriminals intent on gaining access to critical energy, water and transport control systems to wreak chaos and (naturally) make off with a load of cash. Fast forward less than a decade and the situation went from movie plot to stark reality, as in 2015 Ukraine battled a Russian-orchestrated cyberattack on its electricity control centre that caused massive power outages in the depths of winter. When an enemy can turn your lights off when you need them most, that’s a powerful statement of their disruptive potential. The concern for the energy sector is not just that it is under attack, it’s that the enemy is already inside its networks, gaining persistence and waiting for the opportunity to strike. Let’s take a look at the situation and how the sector can harden its systems to make sure we keep the searchlight squarely on our adversaries.
A new report has just been published by the Carbon Capture Utilisation and Storage (CCUS) Cost Challenge Taskforce promoting the virtues of carbon, its capture and potential usage in other things.
We all know what happened. We also know how difficult the last three years have been, not only in local oil and gas communities but also globally. It has been a very tough few years.
By Penelope Warne, senior partner & head of energy, CMS, and Louis Peng (Beijing Office)
China’s growing demand for non-contractual liquefied natural gas (LNG) will change the landscape in the next few years, influencing the global market, LNG prices, international LNG supply agreements and China’s domestic gas industry.
Imagine if just a fraction of the pre-owned equipment, inventory and spares sitting idle in the yards and warehouses of the world’s oil towns today could be re-used. What would this do to the industry’s balance sheet, the need for new capital and the economics of projects where the re-use of pre-owned equipment made sense?
The phrase “temporary efficiency drags will create headwinds for additional upward pricing in the third quarter” may cause your eyes to glaze over. For shareholders of Halliburton Co. — whose CEO uttered those unfortunate words on Monday — it induced sudden nausea. The stock collapsed 8 percent, its biggest one-day drop since November 2014, when OPEC’s surprise decision to keep pumping sent oil into a tailspin.
By Barry Rust, Marketing Manager Energy & Sustainability, Tata Steel
Recent events in the UK and Europe have highlighted important questions surrounding the provision and types of energy that will be required to fuel our future needs.
By Timur Tadjiev, senior materials and welding engineer at Wood
In any large project in the oil and gas industry, the preparatory work that goes on at infrastructure design stage can often become a significant resource sink. The specifying of components, be it pipelines, flanges, valves or other ancillary equipment, can drag on in an iterative and often inefficient process that distorts initial cost and revenue projections.
The oil and gas industry has long been a pioneer for flexible working. Indeed, Shell UK’s country chair Sinead Lynch, an advocate of agile working at the corporation works part-time. Both Shell and BP pride themselves on their work / life balance opportunities.
BP has announced the purchase of the UK’s largest charge point supplier and operator, Chargemaster. It is the latest in a string of acquisitions in the battle for the Electric Vehicle (EV) customer and BP appears to follow in the footsteps of Shell, its key oil major rival. What then does the EV business mean for the business model of an oil major?
Helicopter safety has been big news in 2018, with passengers, community members, unions and politicians justifiably demanding that safety standards in the North Sea are kept to the highest level.
There’s no mystery about the biggest problem with wind power. It is, quite simply, that the wind does not always blow and when it doesn’t, other sources of generation have to be available to provide the back-up.
