As the Autumn Statement is announced this week, Derek Leith, UK head of oil and gas taxation at EY, has taken up the role of Energy Voice’s guest editor. Follow along each day as he spells out the challenges and triumphs the industry faces.
As Chancellor George Osborne prepares to give his first Autumn Statement in the first Conservative Government for more than a decade, Energy Voice looks back on how the industry has been supported.
On 25th November, the Government will announce a joint Spending Review and Autumn Statement. Economic security, national security and opportunity have already been identified as the major themes, but with the Paris climate change conference just around the corner, could there be some respite for the hard pressed renewables sector?
Each week Energy Voice pulls together the Friday Five. Click below to see the site’s most read and engaged with copy of the week.
At last, one sensible decision from energy secretary Amber Rudd. I am among those who welcome the shutting down of all UK coal-fired plant by 2025, unless retrofitted with CCS. That seems clear and unequivocal. Since no-one is prepared to invest in heavy-duty clean-up technologies, the operators of the remaining coal-fired plant effectively wrote the death warrant themselves. On Tuesday evening, there was a fascinating documentary on the box about UK power generation. Basically the focus was Ferrybridge in Yorkshire, which is operated by Scottish & Southern Energy and clearly on its last legs.
Geopolitical developments often have a major impact on oil prices since they can affect oil supply directly and since the threat of future supply disruptions can also build a risk premium into oil prices. As a notable example, in the early part of 2014, conflicts in Libya and Iraq led to temporary outages in their oil production, keeping world prices high, even as supply elsewhere in the world continued to ramp up. When production from those two countries came back on stream, that was an important trigger for the plunge in oil prices later in the year. Notice how much oil price spiked at the historical times of war.
One of the key questions in the often-polarised debate on renewable energy, in public, in parliament, and in the media, is “Can we afford it?”
A North Sea helicopter pilot who feared he would collide with a plane was forced to take evasive action – after a “relatively new” air traffic controller failed to tell him it was flying nearby.
Each week Energy Voice pulls together the Friday Five. Click below to see the site’s most read and engaged with copy of the week. EV Insights is sponsored by EV
The world crude oil price has been fluctuating around a low-level of $50/barrel for three months, now the prospect seems even gloomier as the International Energy Agency projects that 41% of the world market will continue to be taken by OPEC countries until 2020, with the rest of the world stagnating their production.
Securing appropriate sites in the early exploration phase is crucial to the growth of the shale industry in the UK, and it is important for a number of reasons. Unlike the United States, where population density leaves large open swathes of bare agricultural land available, the UK is constrained by more designations, EU-backed incentive and protection schemes and a chequered history of mining and industrial activities. In addition – when having to consider the geology, PEDL licence blocks and the financial reality of coming to terms with landowners – basic land availability is becoming an increasingly important issue.
This year’s downgrading of the UK’s Energy Trilemma Index rating by WEC, from AAA to AAB might seem a surprise to some given the UK’s past leadership in attempting to tackle pressing issues related to the energy transition, but for those of us living in the UK, it has been clear for some time that the country is losing balance on energy policy.
Established oil and gas investors have long been aware that in this market you need to take a ‘through-cycle’ strategy, managing the up cycle in the knowledge that tougher times are always on the horizon. The execution of the strategy in down cycle, organic or inorganic, can play a decisive role in determining the winners when the market recovers. And the market will recover.
You may not have noticed it, but the planet was saved this week.
The effects of lower oil prices are far-reaching, varied and still hotly debated.
With the immediate threat of industrial action by offshore catering workers put on hold as negotiations continue between employers and unions, Energy Voice looks back at the 1979 catering dispute that made headlines at the time.
Recently we’ve heard suggestions that the SNP’s flagship £10 million wave-power prize should be scrapped. But given the history of The Saltire Prize it's no surprise that it has run into problems, with no-one even likely to come close to meeting the qualifying criteria by the 2017 deadline. From the start it looked like another of Alex Salmond’s pipe dreams and a PR stunt for the nationalists.
Logic will get you from A to B, imagination will take you everywhere - Einstein. The development of smart sustainable cities, a drive towards a behavioural shift to one planet living and tangible investment in the empowerment of our cities and their people. In the EU, there are 14 million people working in the construction industry, only 12% of them are women. The industry is already facing a huge skills gap - we need to focus on developing a diverse range of people into strong environmentally focussed professionals. People who will change our industry from the inside out; turning it into the industry of the Built Environment.
The head of the World Meteorological Organisation has said immediate action must be taken if mankind is to keep global warming at manageable levels.
Each week Energy Voice pulls together the Friday Five. Click below to see the site’s most read and engaged with copy of the week.
The infamous Guy Fawkes belonged to a group who planned the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605. The plotters hid a large amount of gunpowder in a cellar beneath the House of Lords in an assassination attempt on the King. However, the authorities received a ‘tip off’ and searched the Palace of Westminster in the early hours of the 5th of November where they found Fawkes guarding the gunpowder.
Although the recent data breach of four million customers has placed Talk Talk in the media limelight, it’s by no means the only organisation to have had its security compromised in 2015. Every second of everyday a hacker is trying to infiltrate company networks and, with alarming regularity, we are seeing them succeed. Despite this, it’s not all doom and gloom. The Talk Talk, Ashley Madison and Barclays breaches have generated more than just concern and panic. They have generated awareness. The more businesses know what to look out for and know how to protect themselves, the less likely a hacker is to succeed. Knowledge is power, as they say, and in this case it couldn’t be truer. Simple precautions can help, and everyone can benefit from straightforward advice.
At a time where oil and gas companies across the globe are being affected by the commodity price downturn, many have developed and implemented contingency plans which have seen the selling off of low-profit subsidiary companies, enforced wage cuts, the loss of experienced personnel, a reduction in marketing budgets, and even the cutting of apprenticeship and graduate programmes. It’s a bit of an understatement to say that there’s a huge cloud over the whole industry right now as chief executives worry about keeping their businesses afloat but it’s that last example, the loss of the next generation of oil and gas workers that we need to put higher up the industry’s priority list if we are to ensure the sector has a sustainable future. In order to secure the future of the North Sea oil and gas industry, we need to continue empowering and encouraging a steady pipeline of talent to come through even in challenging times. Past experience has shown us that ignoring this can lead to bigger and more costly issues in the long term.
The year 2015 has been extremely tough for the oil and gas service and supply industry, its companies and people.
One day, it would be great to write something positive about the current UK government in the energy context. But so long as it carries on the way it is, that won’t happen. Last month, I laid into chancellor George Osborne for the nuclear deal cooked up with the Chinese. The sycophantic fawning that occurred during the state visit of Xi Jinping (“Xi Dada”, or Uncle Xi), with yet more major UK opportunities peddled in Beijing’s direction was nothing short of disgusting. Indeed, Osborne, with his haircut reminiscent of the BBC’s casting of “I Claudius” donkey’s years ago and which one is advised signifies power, has rather dominated the energy stage of late.