Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s $70 billion deal to buy BG Group Plc was cleared by Australia’s competition watchdog despite concerns it could reduce natural-gas supply to local customers and boost prices. “The proposed acquisition would be unlikely to substantially lessen competition in the wholesale natural gas market,” Rod Sims, chairman of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, said in a statement on Thursday.
Revelations that top officials are suspected of pilfering the equivalent of almost the entire annual defense budget would cause shock waves in most countries. Not in Nigeria, where the public sees political power and graft as bedfellows. The novelty this time is that President Muhammadu Buhari immediately ordered the arrest of a former national security adviser, after a government commission found that he and other officials allegedly misappropriated as much as $5.5 billion that was supposed to buy equipment to fight Islamist militant group Boko Haram. “I don’t think Nigerians would be very surprised about somebody stealing $5 billion at all,” Boye Gbadebo, a Nigerian national who works as an Africa analyst at consultancy Ake Partners, said by phone from Johannesburg.
Aberdeen hotels suffered a further slump in trade in October as the wider impacts of the oil and gas industry downturn continued to hit hard, new research findings show. The latest monthly LJ Forecaster Scottish Intercity Report from tourism market specialist LJ Research says revenue per available room (revpar), a key benchmark for the sector, tumbled “unprecedentedly” below £50. Aberdeen’s revpar was £49.18, its lowest rate for several years and down by 37% on October 2014, according to LJ Research.
Shell uncovered 100 million barrels of oil in one of its plays in the Gulf of Mexico.
The oil and gas industry has shed 233,000 jobs this year, according to Swift Worldwide Resources.
The US Department of Justice has approved the proposed merger between industry heavyweights Schlumberger and Cameron.
The UK oil and gas industry’s decommissioning sector is growing at a steady pace, with total expenditure expected to hit £16.9billion over the next decade, a new study shows. Oil and Gas UK (OGUK) raised the forecast from £14.6billion a year ago, citing an influx of 47 new projects into its 2015 Decommissioning Insight survey. A total of 79 platforms are now expected to be removed across the UK continental shelf by 2024, according to the poll, which was launched at the Offshore Decommissioning Conference in St Andrews.
Many working in the North Sea have still to recognise the full impact of $50 oil and the crisis affecting the sector, according to one senior industry figure.
Oil and gas engineers are being told to "name their price" when applying for jobs with Islamic State, according to an international terrorism expert.
Energy and Climate Change Secretary Amber Rudd is to signal the end of polluting coal-fired power stations in the UK - but will say it is “imperative” new gas plants are built.
The Oil and Gas Authority has approved UK Oil & Gas Investments's bid acquire a 20% interest in UK onshore Weald Basin licence PEDL143.
The takeover of Simmons & Co. by Piper Jaffray Cos. marks the end of an energy industry dealmaker founded by one of the leading champions of the “peak oil” theory, Matthew R. Simmons.
Terrorist groups are cashing in on $1million in crude sales every day, according to the new Global Terrorism Index.
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.
BP Plc will need to revise its plan to explore for oil in an untapped frontier off the coast of southern Australia before regulators will approve its drilling program estimated to cost more than A$1 billion ($710 million).
At the helm of the Tata Group for more than two decades, Ratan Tata took a biggest-is-best approach. Putting India’s largest conglomerate on steroids, he propelled Tata onto the world stage by adding marquee brands such as Land Rover, Jaguar, Tetley tea and New York’s Pierre hotel to the group producing much of the nation’s salt, steel, trucks, electricity, fertilizer and other basic goods. He also increased debt 11-fold in his final 10 years.
Aberdeen couple Fred and Donna Nicol have sold another business just weeks after announcing the sale of Bridge-of-Don-based First Hose in a deal potentially worth £6million.
The Paris attacks will impact the French economy in the near term but activity is likely to remain resilient, according to a leading expert. IHS global insight chief European and UK economist Howard Archer has compared the most recent attack in the French capital – which killed 129 people – to previous incidents in both London and Madrid. Archer said experience from those events showed the economic impact is likely to be “limited and temporary”.
Premier Oil has sold its Norwegian business, Premier Oil Norge, to Det norske for $120million.
While nobody can predict how deeply investors will react to attacks that killed scores of people in Paris Friday, the history of terror incidents around the world over the last 15 years shows market reactions are often sharp and, increasingly, short-lived.
Trinity confirmed a reduction in investment shaved-off the top of its production figures.
Apple has confirmed its expanding operations in Singapore will be powered by solar energy as it zeroes in on its 100% renewable target.
A competition where Scottish entrepreneurs can win funding up to £100,000 will be judged by outgoing the chief executive of the Wood Group, Bob Keiller, at an event in Edinburgh next month.
BG Group has approved A$1.7billion natural gas development in Australia.
Coal power plants are not the solution to help billions of people without electricity or clean cooking facilities, aid agencies have warned.