Sound Oil is set to move forward with the testing phase of the latest appraisal of the Nervesa project after a well encountered a number of gas bearing intervals. The Mediterranean focused upstream oil and gas company said the second Nervesa appraisal has reached total depth of 2,054 metres and logging is now also complete.
Energy supplier SSE said it has lost more than 500,000 customer accounts in the last year, despite its pledge to freeze bills until at least July 2016. The UK’s second biggest company blamed “increasingly challenging and highly competitive market conditions” for the decline to 8.5 million accounts. SSE’s retail arm reported a 39% increase in profits to £456.8 million for the year to March 31, meaning that it made an average of £69 from the supply of household electricity and gas - before tax and interest payments. The rise in profits follows a tariff hike in November 2013 and the firm’s subsequent pledge to freeze prices, which it recently extended to next summer in the wake of a 4.1% average reduction in gas prices from last month.
A broken pipeline has spilled 21,000 gallons of crude oil into the ocean, creating a slick stretching about four miles along the central California coastline. Authorities responding to reports of a foul smell near Refugio State Beach found a half-mile slick already formed in the ocean, Santa Barbara County fire department said. Staff traced the oil to the onshore pipeline that spilled into a culvert running under the US 101 freeway and into a storm drain that empties into the ocean.
Growing global oil demand will create a daily shortfall equating to about 80 times the size of current North Sea output without more investment in production, Royal Dutch Shell boss Ben van Beurden has said. The gap between supply and demand could grow to 70million barrels per day by 2040, he said, adding: “That’s the equivalent of six times Saudi Arabia’s 2013 production and 80 times the size of today’s UK North Sea production.”
Seals are taking advantage of offshore windfarms to forage for food, satellite tracking has shown. Data from tagging harbour and grey seals on the British and Dutch coasts of the North Sea revealed that 11 harbour seals visited two active windfarms off the German and UK coasts. At both sites, the GPS tracking showed several worked their way through the area in a grid-like pattern, travelling in straight lines between individual turbines where they appeared to focus their hunt for prey. Seals also tracked the path of subsea pipelines, with two seals in the Netherlands encountering a section of pipeline and following it on multiple trips for days at a time, the research published in the journal Current Biology showed.
A landmark legal hearing will be held this week in a bid to quicken the criminal investigation into a North Sea helicopter crash which killed four offshore workers. Prosecutors will go to the Court of Session in Edinburgh on Tuesday to argue that accident investigators must hand over the black box recorder from the Super Puma L2 which came down off the coast of Shetland, in August 2013. It is hoped that the move will shorten the wait faced by survivors and families of those who died for answers over the tragedy. The hearing has been scheduled for three days.
Gazprom revived a deal with Saipem SpA to build a gas link through the Black Sea, which was suspended after Russian President Vladimir Putin scrapped the South Stream pipeline to Europe last year. Italy’s biggest oil and gas contractor will start laying the new route to Turkey next month as the Moscow-based exporter shifts contracts, including pipe supplies, to the new project, Gazprom management board member Oleg Aksyutin told reporters on Tuesday. Saipem shares narrowed losses of as much as 1 percent after the news, and trading down 0.6 percent at 12.43 euros at 1:42 p.m. in Milan.
Oil’s rebound and more certainty around company valuations are keys to driving mergers and acquisitions activity next year given the pent-up demand for deals, bankers said Tuesday at an energy forum in Houston. “The dam will break at some point,” Stephen Trauber, vice chairman and global head of energy at Citigroup Inc., said at the Mergermarket conference. The Permian Basin in West Texas and southeastern New Mexico is a hot area for M&A interest, while consolidation is expected in the Eagle Ford shale play in South Texas as producers try to drive efficiencies and lower costs, Trauber said.
Firms which flew the flag for Scotland at the world’s biggest oil and gas show are already reaping the rewards of taking part in the event. Early feedback from 12 of the 58 companies supported by Scottish Enterprise (SE) to attend the Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) in Houston in the US earlier this month shows they expect to increase their international exports by £50million over the next three years as a direct result. Contracts were signed during the week for projects in the Gulf of Mexico and Brazil, while some of the firms received invitations to tender for other work around the world.
The European Union's top official in charge of creating an 'energy union' has accepted an invitation to visit Scotland later this year. Maros Sefcovi, vice president of the European Commission, will explore the potential role Scotland could play in creating a single energy market across the region. The energy union has been described as the EU's most ambitious plan since the 1950s and would allow gas and electricity to flow across Europe to where it was needed.
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon will join the chief executive of the OGA (Oil and Gas Authority) Andy Samuel as speaker at a leading industry event next month. The politician will help open the Oil and Gas Industry conference which takes place in Aberdeen in June. Other notable speakers include BP's Trevor Garlick, regional president of North Sea, and John Person from Amec Foster Wheeler.
Gulfsands Petroleum has removed its chief executive from his role. The company, which has oil and gas activities in Syria, Morocco, Tunisia and Colombia, said Mahdi Sajjad would no longer be working with them.
North Sea technology can leverage the many unknowns of an emerging Asian exploration market as the new frontier finds its footing, according to an industry leader. Keith Palmer, Expro’s president of EPTI Overseas, sat down with Energy Voice fresh off his appointment in Bangkok, Thailand. Palmer discussed the emerging Asian market in the wake of Energy Voice research which revealed the region to be one of the most sought international frontiers. Palmer said now was a critical time for the North Sea to capitalise on a technology transfer.
MOL Group has made a new commercial discovery from an exploration well in Pakistan. The company said the discovery was from the Mardan Khel-1 well in the TAL block where it is the operating shareholder.
Premier Oil said it has encountered oil shows in an exploration well in the Isobel Deep prospect. The company, which resumed drilling from the Falkland prospect after it was temporarily shutdown, said a zone of elevated formation pressure was penetrated and oil shows were encountered. An additional casing string before drilling ahead through the main reservoir will now be run.
The fall in oil price has seen more than $100billion of spending on new projects suspended, postponed or stopped, according to new research. According to research conducted for business broadsheet the Financial Times, companies including Shell, BP and ConocoPhillips and Statoil have moved to prevent capital spending on 26 major projects in 13 countries. Thousands of jobs have been lost across the globe as companies look to save costs during the price decline.
Petrobas said output in Brazil and abroad rose 8.8% last month from a year ago to 2.78million barrels of oil and equivalent natural gas. Brazil's state-run oil company said increases in production on two if its recently installed FPSOs (Floating Production, Storage and Offloading) in the sub-salt region at Santos basin were the main factors behind the overall output boost.
Workers at Marathon Petroleum's refinery in Texas have voted to continue to strike after a contract proposal was rejected. The staff, who work out of the company's base at Galveston Bay, voted by a secret ballot earlier this week. Almost 900 striking workers had voted, with the proposal for the contract overwhelmingly rejected.
Opponents of Royal Dutch Shell’s use of a Seattle seaport terminal to prepare for exploratory oil drilling in the Arctic Ocean have attacked on two fronts. Protesters blocked port entrances and the US city declared that Shell and its maritime host lacked a proper permit. Seattle issued a violation notice, saying use of Terminal 5 by a massive floating drill rig breached the site’s permitted use as a cargo terminal. The 400ft Polar Pioneer and its support tug Aiviq must be removed from the terminal or Shell’s host, Foss Maritime, must obtain an appropriate permit, the Seattle Department of Planning and Development said.
As the latest survey goes live on Energy Voice, we've collected the first findings from the project, which were revealed at OTC 2015. Energy Voice has called on the global energy sector to participate in the second part of its landmark research launched to mark 50 years of oil and gas exploration in the North Sea. The project is a response to falling oil prices, which placed the UK and wider global energy market under pressure.
Alaska Governor Bill Walker vetoed $3 billion from the state budget and said he may have to furlough government workers as lawmakers remain at odds over how to deal with a deficit caused by plummeting oil taxes and royalties. Walker on Monday vetoed the unfunded portion of a $5 billion spending plan sent to him by the legislature May 12, saying it was the “least detrimental” choice he faced.
Despite BHP Billiton Ltd.’s spin off and sale of about $15 billion of unwanted assets over the last three years, the biggest miner remains saddled with a portfolio of even harder-to-shift rejects. A total of nine assets -- from a US thermal coal mine to UK oil and gas platforms -- haven’t made the cut for a new slimmed-down parent or the demerger company South32 Ltd. The unloved operations, valued at more than $2.8 billion according to RBC Capital Markets, are hampering Chief Executive Officer Andrew Mackenzie’s quest to halve the size of BHP’s core portfolio to focus on big ticket earners including crude oil, iron ore and copper.
Diversification into oil and gas work has helped Aberdeenshire firm Xtreme Business Solutions more than double its turnover. The communications network infrastructure specialist was previously focused mainly on the construction industry. But the shift of emphasis towards more work with firms linked to offshore sector, with help from economic development agency Scottish Enterprise (SE), has seen turnover rocket by 50% in three years, to £3.8million in 2014.
Have you ever heard the story of the ancient Chinese farmer? You know the one that takes place far, far away in a rural community in ancient China. You see back then a man’s worth wasn't measured by his monetary gains. Instead a man’s worth was determined by the amount of land, livestock and sons he had. My farmer had one horse, one son and a big piece of land, so he was doing pretty good.
Kosmos Energy has encountered additional hydrocarbons at the Tortue-1 exploration well in Block C8 offshore Mauritania. The company said the findings were based on preliminary analysis after drilling to a total depth to evaluate the deeper Albian stratigraphy. The well has intersected 10 metres of net hydrocarbon pay in the lower Albian section, which is currently interpreted to be gas.