In case you missed them, Energy Voice’s Friday Five
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.
Insights
Editor’s Column: 200 metre margins and rejection letters
Do you know what gives me hope for this industry’s future?
Offshore Europe: Burn the midnight oil
Be prepared.
Opinion: Grey beards, novices, and missing generations
Cast your mind back only 12 months, the oil price is sitting at US$107, the scene has been set – the offshore oil industry in the North Sea is finally making a real commitment to its most important asset – people. Major investment in attracting, training and retaining talent is top of the agenda; the industry is making major strides to become the sector of choice for the best and brightest professionals creating a platform for rewarding careers that offered prosperity, stability and security. All the talk in Aberdeen is about skills shortage and the need to hire more and more people. How things change in one short year, the Brent oil price has plummeted and continues to trade sub US$ 50, there is little or no investment in exploration, few major projects have been sanctioned and the operating cost base remains far too high in the North Sea. To compound matters the talent void in the oil business of a year ago has not gone away just because oil prices are low but still the industry is hell bent on destroying the very fragile fabric that remains. 2015 as in previous low oil price eras is generating plenty of noise from all camps on the subject of balancing the need to reduce headcount whilst retaining talent, but looming large for all of us in Aberdeen, the oil capital of Europe, is the real daunting prospect of a 1986 déjà vu when oil prices collapsed. Managerial, technical, professional and offshore workers were unceremoniously jettisoned in huge numbers with dreams and futures in tatters. Young and inexperienced oilfield professionals the first to be cast aside leaving Aberdeen to become a city in severe recession whilst the rest of the UK prospered.
North Sea reflections
When the Sea Gem rig struck gas off Durham in September 1965 and the North Sea’s potential role as an energy source impinged upon public consciousness, Harold Wilson was Prime Minister, America was digging deeper into the Vietnam War and the Beatles were at number one with Help!
Andy Samuel: The OGA’s call to action, six months on
It is six months since the Oil and Gas Authority (OGA) published Call to Action in response to the commission from the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change. The report identified the key risks facing the UK oil and gas industry following the sharp decline in global oil prices, the required action from industry, government and the OGA, and early priorities for the new regulator.
EV Insights: Energy 2050 figures broken down
These are the findings from Energy 2050 - Securing Our Future research unveiled ahead of Offshore Europe 2015. Panelists including Sir Ian Wood, EY managing partner Derek Leith, Andrew Reid, chief executive of Douglas-Westwood,Rebecca Wain, a 24-year-old graduate geologist and Michael Engell-Jensen, co-chairman of Offshore Europe joined Energy Voice's Rita Brown to discuss the results.
In case you missed them, Energy Voice’s Friday Five
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.
Opinion: The ambiguous role of the North Sea in the Energy Union
The European Commission’s push toward the creation of a European Energy Union, aiming to make energy in Europe more secure, affordable and sustainable, stepped up a gear last month with the release of the ‘Summer Package’ of reforms to existing energy policy initiatives. This latest set of reforms is yet another indication that energy policy-making is increasingly considered as a European policy to be tackled with a coordinated and centralized approach in the EU institutions. Despite plenty of discussion about the UK’s relationship with the European Union since May’s election, the EU’s latest plans for the future of energy mix in Europe have failed to raise attention outside of Brussels.
Opinion: Inspiring the next generation – safely
Those of us of a certain age will remember playing outdoors - often unsupervised for many hours - especially in the summer months.
Opinion: The great fall of China
The constant ebb and flow between investor fear and optimism seems firmly positioned toward the former as we reach the end of the summer. Global equity markets have reversed the gains of earlier in the year in a series of trading sessions which saw a sea of red across dealers’ screens, culminating in what has already been termed ‘Black Monday’. So, what’s causing the fall in equity markets around the world and what should you do if you’re invested or were thinking of investing prior to the recent downturn?
EV Insights: In case you missed them, Energy Voice’s Friday Five
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.
Bob Keiller: Right Now – Continue to Exceed Your Customers’ Expectations
Bob Keiller sends a message on Core Values to Wood Group employees every week. The note below is taken from a message he sent to employees a few weeks ago. Remember the '80s US rock band Van Halen? Ever heard of a clause buried deep in their lengthy touring contract? It stated something like “there should be no brown M&Ms backstage…if found, the band has the right to cancel the concert at full pay without warning.”
Shell-BG merger still works with cheap oil
Should Shell push ahead with its $70 billion bid for BG in the face of cheaper oil? The tumbling oil price – down by a fifth since the merger was announced in April - has raised fears that Shell shareholders might balk at the 50 percent premium the Anglo-Dutch energy group agreed to pay for its smaller rival. But while the price tag may look bigger today on some metrics, so should the cost savings.
Oil: How low can she go?
With WTI on the precipice of breaking below $40/bbl, chatter abounds on just how low oil prices can go from here, with some discussing prices in the low $30s, or potentially lower. While this type of price action is not without possibility, Bentek does not believe this is rooted in fundamentals, but rather, would be a short term phenomenon spurred by speculative trade capitulation and/or a brief storage shock. In terms of the former, should the paper losses from traders holding long positions in oil become too difficult to bear, the market has the potential for a short term rout if/when there is a liquidation of positioning.
Aberdeen: swimming in oil and money
For anyone with an entrepreneurial spirit and a spirit of adventure, the opportunities in the 70s oil industry were limitless.
In case you missed them, Energy Voice’s Friday Five
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: The front page that heralded a new oil era
Never was the transition from one industrial age to another more starkly illustrated than in this edition of the north-east of Scotland’s best-selling newspaper in April 1970.
Opinion: Shale gas – whose decision is it anyway?
The past week has seen the UK Government issue a policy statement designed to speed up the planning system for shale gas development, as well as announcing the extent of the 14th Round of Onshore Oil and Gas licences for England.
Opinion: It’s time to address the technical challenges of decommissioning
Decommissioning has been on the oil and gas agenda for many years, although to the majority within the industry it was something not to be concerned about “now”. It would be carried out “mañana”, and by someone else.
Opinion: Learning from past mistakes
Energy Voice has launched an event aimed at ensuring the next generation of industry innovators don’t get lost in translation amid a market downturn. One of the first ports of call should be looking at what companies are spending and where they’re spending it during a crunch. The last economic recession in 2009 led to the slashing of budgets allocated for workplace training within companies. A survey undertaken at the time found that in the private and public sector, 33% and 34% of respondents reported reduced training funding.
Loren Steffy: Obama’s New Climate Policy: More Green Dreams, Less Reality
So much for “all the above.” President Obama’s “clean power plan” for combatting climate change, unveiled Aug. 3, makes it clear that the U.S. strategy is to plunge head first into renewable energy -- no bridge fuels, no gradual migration to a low-carbon future.
In case you missed them, Energy Voice’s Friday Five
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.
Bob Keiller:Find the right mentor for the right situation
I ask for advice and guidance all the time – I always have. For me, it isn't always about the answers I get, but the way it makes me think differently about the subject. Let me give you an example. In late 2008, many economies were heading toward recession. I had been PSN’s CEO and had never led a business into a downturn before. I wondered who could help and give me some good advice on things to do, things to say, contingency plans to make.
Opinion: 42 – The ultimate question?
There are a lot of important things related to the number 42. There are 42 US gallons in a barrel of oil. The three best-selling music albums – Michael Jackson’s Thriller, AC/DC’s Back in Black and Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon – all last 42 minutes. Buzz Lightyear’s spaceship is called 42. Cricket has 42 laws (apparently!) I’ll leave you to decide which is the most important out of those. According to Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the number 42 is “the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything!” But for us as an industry, it represents a great division of opinion. Why? Think about it; what does three on/three off, or 21 + 21 equal? 42.