Dutch oil and gas producer Oranje-Nassau Energie (ONE) announced its entry into the UK North Sea yesterday after snapping up 50% of the Sean field.
The move increases the Amsterdam-based firm’s total production to more than 20,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day and is part of its “long-term reserve base growth strategy”.
Sean is in the southern sector of the North Sea and ONE is now the operator after acquiring its stake from Shell and Esso Exploration and Production UK, which each held 25%. The remaining 50% is held by SSE E&P UK.
A record number of firms are flying the flag for Scotland at the Oil and Gas Asia show in Malaysia this week. South-east Asia is fast becoming a strategically important market says Neil McInnes, who looks after the region for Scottish Development International (SDI).
The size and scale of south-east Asia suggests it has the potential to one day rival some of the other leading markets in Asia Pacific.
Together, the 10 countries in the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) represent Asia’s third largest economy – and the world’s seventh largest – with a combined GDP (gross domestic product) of £1.6trillion.
Oil major BP will suspend operations at one of its platforms in the Caspian Sea.
The British oil company said it will be postponing work at Chirag, while planned maintenance takes place.
A stable ruble and new tax rules are likely to support Russian oil producers’ profitability even after a slump in the price of oil, the country’s main source of export revenue, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers.
The fiscal burden declined in the first quarter, contrary to concerns Russian oil companies had expressed about rules introduced in January, Andrey Soldatenko, tax director for PwC in Moscow, said in an interview.
“If key macroeconomic factors like oil prices and the ruble exchange rate remain relatively stable, the trend may continue beyond the first quarter,” Soldatenko said last month in Ufa, Russia.
The ruble is likely to remain stable “given the latest efforts of the Bank of Russia,” he said.
The drop in oil prices will probably spur smaller oil and gas explorers in Africa to consider mergers to fund their ambitions, according to Pura Vida Energy NL.
Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s $70 billion deal to buy BG Group Plc may be followed by mergers and acquisitions among smaller operators, according to the Perth-based company, which started drilling off Morocco this week. Freeport-McMoRan Oil & Gas LLC is its partner.
Royal Dutch Shell Plc sees oil prices increasing because supply from shale drilling in the U.S. won’t be enough to meet increasing global demand.
The industry needs to find an additional 4 million barrels to 5 million barrels a day of supply every year to meet rising demand and replace depleted fields, Shell Chief Financial Officer Simon Henry said in an interview on Tuesday.
“Lower oil prices increase demand and reduce investment, and it already has,” Henry said. Global demand of about 93 million barrels a day is increasing by 1 million every year, he said in London.
Dutch ship designer, builder and repairer, Damen, has broken into the oil & gas standby (ERRV) market for the first time with its remarkable Twin Axe workboat.
It was only a matter of time as a number of these vessels are successfully servicing the needs of North Sea windfarms. They are weatherly, fast and have the ability to carry significant loads.
It is Groen Offshore, Guard & Support that has broken with oil & gas tradition and gone for something totally different to convention.
Helix Well Ops’ new well intervention semi-submersible, the 35,000-ton Q5000, is en-route to the US Gulf of Mexico following its handover by the Jurong Shipyard in Singapore.
The company’s latest asset is due to stop off at Mauritius, Namibia and Curacao before eventually arriving during the summer.
Based upon the successful Q4000 design, the Q5000 is a much larger second generation intervention semi with enhanced capability for subsea intervention, construction and life of field services.
The company had been planning the new-build for a number of years prior to placing orders for not just one but two intervention semis . . . Q5000 in 2012 and Q7000 the following year, though there is talk of the latter being pushed back to 2017 because of deteriorating market conditions.
Confidence and determination are important, but cash pays the wage bill. The industry has already witnessed some casualties of the downturn, and we are not out of the woods yet. What does “through cycle investing” really mean?
First, let’s acknowledge that not everyone is in the same predicament.
If you have a monopoly on an essential product or service you can boast how many requests for rate reductions you have politely declined or ignored. Some call these “begging letters”, but the form and substance varies widely.
Some are well considered, with a tailored personal message from named senior executive to named senior executive. Perhaps even uncomfortably comparing published customer and suppliers profit margins!
Amec Foster Wheeler (AMF) said yesterday the value of its global order book grew by £400million to a record £6.7billion despite “challenging” conditions in the first four months of 2015.
The engineering and project management giant added the rest of 2015 was likely to continue the recent pattern of growth in downstream and Middle East oil and gas markets offset by tougher conditions elsewhere.
AFW also said Amec’s integration of the Foster Wheeler business since a £2billion takeover last year was progressing according to plan.
There was probably much searching of “Who’s Who?” last month when Amber Rudd was anointed as secretary of state at DECC and Andrea Leadsom emerged as energy minister in the same department.
The first slight surprise was that the department still existed. With the Liberal Democrats having committed hari-kari, it would not have been a surprise if energy and the green bits which surround it were reunited with the world of business and enterprise at 1 Victoria Street.
Ms Rudd is an Edinburgh University graduate, a banker and clearly has been on a bit of a fast track in government, as PPS (parliamentary private secretary) to the chancellor of the exchequer and latterly as a junior minister in DECC.
Indeed, it is a CV which suggests competence and ambition.
Almost 30 years have passed since Ewen Kerr walked out of Oldmachar Academy into the big wide world. He had wanted to work . . . something engineering-related; ideally training to become a draftsman. The North Sea seemed logical; after all it had been booming, only his timing was awful as the province had just been hit hard in the 1986 oil price crash.
“My father was head engineer at John M Henderson’s here in Aberdeen,” recalls Kerr. “So maybe it was a genetic thing. But with the North Sea in recession, I couldn’t get a job. I ended up working in a bank for a year or two as it was all that was available.
“I had done my Highers and I could have gone to university but I wanted to work. I made that choice. Whether it was right, well, you can look back and wonder. But I’ve done OK.
“The career advice I got wasn’t very good . . . and that was to go and work in a bank because I couldn’t get a technical job. And to be honest, looking back, banking was a really good grounding. I even started doing my banking exams . . . economics, finance, that sort of thing; a good grounding for running a business.
Integrated subsea services firm Harkand has completed its first project in the Caribbean for BG Trinidad and Tobago.
The remotely-operated vehicle (ROV) subsea support work lasted 75 days and was carried out by the team on board Harkand’s multi-purpose vessel the Go Electra in the waters off Trinidad and Tobago.
Sterling Energy has completed a 3D seismic survey over a high-graded portion of the Ambilobe block.
The acquisition was undertaken by CGG Services on behalf of the Ambilobe joint venture partners Sterling and Pura Vida Mauritius.
The processing of the data will begin shortly to a pre-stack migration cube.
A new international research programme is being launched to make renewables cheaper than coal within 10 years.
The scheme’s backers, who include leading figures from business, government and academia, warn that cheap clean energy is crucial to keeping global temperatures from rising by more than 2C - seen as the threshold for dangerous climate change.
Like the US programme in the 1960s to put a man on the moon, the Global Apollo Programme has a clear goal, in this case to make electricity from solar and wind cheaper than power from coal in every country and to do so within a decade.
A manager in working for Libya's Mellitah has been kidnapped, according to reports.
The staff member, working for the consortium, which is owned by state oil firm NOC and Italy's ENI, was taken earlier this week.
Mellitah operates a complex in Libya which exports oil and gas as well as the Wafa and El Feel oilfields.
Dana Gas has signed an agreement for oil major BP to pay for part of its exploration costs in the El Matriya onshore concession area in Egypt.
BP is expected to pay an estimated $39million of the cost of Dana's drilling of a natural gas exploration well.
Chevron has moved a deepwater Gulf of Mexico platform to sheltered waters after damage was caused its installation tendons.
The company said the Big Foot TLP was not connected to any subsea wells or tendons at the time of the incident.
Energy firms are facing increased pressure from the Government to pass on a fall in wholesale costs to consumers by slashing household bills.
Amber Rudd, the Energy and Climate Change Secretary, has written to the Big Six energy companies asking them to alter their prices now a pre-election pledge by Labour to impose a freeze was off the table.
The latest analysis by regulator Ofgem found firms could increase their profit margins to up to £118 on an estimated annual dual fuel deal this year, while wholesale gas and electricity costs were £80 lower than they were estimated at a year ago.
A body responsible for training North Sea workers is working to ensure that skills development does not fall off the agenda due to the oil price slump.
Yesterday Opito launched schools week, a work experience taster programme for 70 north-east pupils. The students from 27 schools across the region will get a chance to learn about and engage with 22 oil and gas companies across the supply chain.
The number of companies participating in the week-long series of events has risen from nine last year which was the first time the scheme was trialled.
Premier Oil has taken full ownership of the Solan field.
The UK-listed oil company acquired the 40% stake in the field which it did not already own.
It purchased Chrysador’s interest in the Solan field, West of Shetland, for nil upfront consideration.
An Invergordon firm that was founded as a ferry operator nearly 50 years ago and evolved to meet the needs of a growing oil and gas industry has been swallowed up by Global Energy Group.
Aberdeen and Inverness-based Global said yesterday it had acquired MF Marine Operations through its Caledonian Towage subsidiary.
Global – owned by Highland businessman Roy MacGregor and his family – did not say how much it paid Colin Watson, MF Marine’s owner and managing director, for the business.
Aberdeen and Stavanger are two cities sitting on either side of the North Sea with long histories evidenced by their many fine old buildings constructed respectively of granite and wood.
The links between the two cities go back many centuries largely through trading and fishing but since the advent of the oil and gas industry in both areas in the late sixties our populations have become even closer.
In 1990 the two cities cemented that relationship by formally twinning. In 1995 the two cities joined together with another four energy capitals to be the founder members of the World Energy Cities Partnership an organisation which has grown to 22 energy capitals from around the world.
Companies in Alberta prepared to return to work as rain eased a wildfire that prompted the shutdown of 10 percent of Canada’s oil-sands production.
Canadian Natural Resources Ltd.’s operation staff received permission today to go to the Primrose oil sands site to implement a “step-by-step recovery plan,” Julie Woo, a company spokeswoman, said in a statement Monday.
Cenovus Energy Inc. plans to send essential staff to the Foster Creek project once a government team assesses potential hazards, the company said on its website.
Iran, seeking billions of dollars to revitalize its ailing oil industry, plans to offer significantly better commercial terms to companies prepared to invest than offered during the last market opening nearly two decades ago.
Foreign oil executives who have reviewed partial drafts of the new terms, called the Iranian Petroleum Contract, said they’re more generous than the types of deals used in the 1990s and 2000s.
Unlike those contracts, which merely paid a set fee for the delivery of a project, the new agreements could give investors some share of a field’s production and allow companies to book more reserves on their balance sheet.
