NORWEGIAN group DOF Subsea has been contracted by EnCana to provide specialist subsea services from its multipurpose support vessel, the Skandi Bergen, on the Deep Panuke gas project offshore Nova Scotia. The company said its contract was estimated to be worth about $6.3million.
EXXONMOBIL is entering the Black sea via a licensing with TPAO, of Turkey, covering two deepwater blocks.
THE IEA says Saudi Arabia will continue to play a vital role in balancing the global oil market and that its willingness to make timely investment in new production will be a key determinant of future price trends.
SWORD'S view is that a robust supply chain is fundamental to a healthy North Sea - and fundamental to Aberdeen long-term. But he is worried that the birth rate is now too low to enable the next generation of SME babies to come through and survive.
Developments in Kuwait are concentrated on the Sabriyah and the Umm Niqa fields, where a total of 50,000bpd of NGL capacity is being added, with completion expected in 2011. Another project at the Sabriyah field should add 160,000bpd more oil production by 2015.
SWORD admits that P/E faces its own set of challenges, and one is access to capital.
Homing in on exploration & production companies, 3i's head of oil, gas and power pointed out that everything was great in the petroleum garden with $140-plus oil. That meant every project was economic at $100 a barrel.
Energy has explored the impact of the credit crunch and stock markets rout with the energy bank, Simmons & Company International. But how does private equity view the current, and possibly deepening, shambles?
THE discovery that has done more than any other in recent years to draw attention to the latent potential of West of Shetland is surely Rosebank/Lochnagar, over which there has been much speculation as to size - mostly in the 400-600mmb range, but could be larger, with the prospect of a future separate gas find in the same locale.
EVEN allowing for Total bringing Laggan/Tormore onstream, BP will remain cock o' the walk West of Shetland as operator of the Clair, Foinaven and Schiehallion fields. On November 26, Foinaven notched up 11 years of production. By any measure, this, the very first development West of Shetland, has been a success story, including attracting investment in infill drilling, pursuing satellite opportunities - notably East Foinaven I
2009 is primed to become the most exciting year ever on the UK Atlantic Frontier, both on the development front and in the hunt for, and confirmation of, new resources.
Turning to OMV, we reported in November that the company was seeking to farm-down "before doing battle" with its West of Shetland target, Tornado, hoping to divest a large chunk before starting drilling early in the new year.
The connection between economic activity and the oil price is a fairly obvious one. As economic activity declines, as it is now, then so will energy demand - and the cost of a barrel will follow it down.
I have recently completed a study of new market opportunities for the former oil fabrication yard at Nigg, in Easter Ross. Brown and Root stopped building offshore platforms and modules there in 2003, since when the facilities have only been used by other companies on a very small scale.
ABERDEEN'S Balmoral Group is hoping to cash in on the burgeoning market for remotely operated vehicles, especially deepwater units, by developing a suite of new-generation buoyancy systems with depth capabilities to 7,000m.
Eni is to delay first oil from its Goliat project in the Norwegian sector of the Barents Sea by a year, to 2013, because the company can't begin necessary purchases in time for the planned start-up.
ITI Energy has put out a call for parties interested in working with the publicly funded Intermediary Technology Institute to harvest energy from seaweed.
The extraordinary convulsions continue and you can bet your bottom dollar that the North Sea exploration and production landscape will have changed dramatically by this time next year regardless of whatever fiscal changes are implemented in the spring 2009 UK Budget following the just-published Treasury consultation paper on the topic.
WITH both the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer and the President-elect of the United States making major speeches a few days ago about how to tackle the effects of global recession, one obvious contrast lay in the relative lack of emphasis placed on the drive for clean energy by Alistair Darling.
"The board should set the global corporate standards that apply and can be effectively translated to every area of the company's business" - Lord Woolf, the Woolf Committee, May, 2008.
The engine of future increase in world oil output will be Opec, its members' collective share rising from 44% in 2007 to 51% in 2030. So says the International Energy Agency in its headline-grabbing World Energy Output 2008 report.
Privately financed UK independent Chrysaor is to develop the West of Shetland Solan discovery at a cost of £150-175million, with first oil anticipated in 2010.
FAR East yards like Yantai Raffles have huge new rig order books. However, the credit crunch and $50 oil are now leading to cancellations.
North Sea company Bow Valley Energy said yesterday that a range of alternatives were being considered for its future.
International engineering and project-management company AMEC said yesterday it had now begun conceptual engineering studies to test the potential for further development of the huge Clair field west of Shetland.