Abu Dhabi, with 6 percent of global crude reserves, selected GS Energy Corp. of South Korea to join Japan’s Inpex Corp. as the second Asian partner in the Persian Gulf emirate’s biggest onshore oil concession.
GS Energy secured a 3 percent stake for 40 years in the venture, it said in a statement.
Another South Korean company, Korea National Oil Corp., said it will provide technical support to GS Energy in the project. State-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Co confirmed the award Wednesday. Inpex won a 5 percent stake in the venture last month.
A Professor from the University of Aberdeen has been appointed director of the Global Subsea University Alliance.
Prof Ekaterina Pavlovskaia who works in the School of Engineering, will take over from Professor Matthew Franchek, from the University of Houston, who held the post for two years.
The appointment was made as the Alliance met last week at the Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) in Houston.
Ithaca Energy said yesterday its operating costs were down by about 30% from a year ago as the global oil and gas industry adjusts to lower crude prices.
First quarter results from UK North Sea-focused Ithaca showed it has reduced the costs associated with each barrel of oil it produces to less than $35.
The Aberdeen and Calgary firm also highlighted the impact of tax changes announced by Chancellor George Osborne in the March Budget.
The boss of the new oil and gas regulator has been revealed as the keynote speaker at the first Press and Journal Gold Awards.
Andy Samuel, chief executive of the Oil and Gas Authority (OGA) which is set to usher in a new era of collaboration in the North Sea, said events such as the Gold Awards would help the industry “create a positive future”.
The announcement of the evening’s highlight comes just days before the deadline for submitting entries to the awards comes on Friday.
Mr Samuel said: “I am delighted to be speaking at the Press and Journal Gold Awards in June. At this challenging time for our industry, it has never been more important to recognise and reinforce the positive impact oil and gas companies and their employees have on Aberdeen and the north-east.”
Mikhail Fridman’s LetterOne Group has appointed a former Swedish prime minister as a board adviser.
The Russian Tycoon made the latest high-profile addition as it expands the oil and gas business.
Carl Bildt will take on the role a week after ex-British trade minister Mervyn Davis was names as deputy chairman of LetterOne’s board of directors.
BP, the former state-owned oil company with operations from Russia to Iraq, appointed the retired chief of Britain’s overseas spying network as a board member.
John Sawers was head of the MI6 service until November 2014. He spent 36 years working for the British government in international affairs and security, including in Iraq, Egypt, South Africa and the US, BP said in a statement Thursday. BP is working on the giant Rumaila and Kirkuk deposits in Iraq.
Sawers, who this year spoke of an increased Russian threat to the West, will also help oversee a business that owns a fifth of OAO Rosneft, the Kremlin-controlled company sanctioned by the US and Europe over Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.
The Trans Nigeria Pipeline that carries Nigeria's Bonny Light crude oil to an export terminal has been shut down since May 12, a Shell spokeswoman said on Thursday.
Offshore workers are being given the chance to prepare for real-life emergencies at facilities in Aberdeen.
Falck Safety Services invited Energy Voice along to see how staff are being trained to prepare with incidents that could happen offshore.
The three-storey facility includes a helideck, a bridge and an engine room and can be modified into hundreds of different set-ups to suit training.
This infographic shows the price of a tank of petrol versus the average salary worldwide.
The data reveals both North America, the UK and Scandinavian countries fair the best when it comes to cost whereas regions including Afghanistan, Ethiopia and Egypt suffer from a small margin between income and petrol cost.
A study says fracking has the potential to unlock 140billion barrels of global oil supplies.
The amount would be equivalent to Russia's known reserves, according to analysis by IHS.
According to the report, countries such as Iran, Mexico, China and Russia are likely to benefit most from exploiting techniques in the US shale revolution.
LLOG Exploration plans to drill a well into a block near where oil major BP's Macondo well ruptured five years ago.
The privately-held oil and gas company - which has backers including Blackstone Energy Partners - received approval to drill a well in Blocks 252 and 253 in the Mississippi Canyon area of the Gulf in April.
Oil major Shell said it would consider smaller additions to its business in North America.
The company - which ruled out large acquisitions after its deal to buy BG Group - said while its cash reserves are more limited, it would consider smaller acquisitions.
According to reports, Marvin Odum, director of Shell's Americas exploration and production business, said the company would look at other option including the Permian Basin in Texas and New Mexico, the Utica in Appalachia and Western Canada.
Economic growth in Nigeria, Africa’s biggest crude producer, slowed in the first quarter as the oil industry contracted amid a slump in prices, according to the country’s statistics bureau.
Expansion in gross domestic product eased on an annual basis to 4 percent compared with 5.9 percent a quarter earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics said in a statement.
Petroleos Mexicanos’ exploration and production director will be temporarily reassigned a week after a fatal oil platform collapse in the Gulf of Mexico.
Gustavo Hernandez, who was appointed E&P director last year, requested the 40-day reassignment and will move to a role focused on assisting Pemex to form partnerships with private companies that are seeking to enter Mexico’s recently opened oil industry, the official said.
His former role will be temporarily overseen by his former chief of staff, Javier Hinojosa, as Pemex begins structural changes that were announced last year.
Up to 90 jobs are under threat at a subsidiary of Aberdeen and Inverness-based Global Energy Group.
Isleburn, which employs more than 600 people at operations in the Granite City and Evanton in Easter Ross, stressed that the potential redundancies may not happen.
A statement from the firm said: “We deeply regret having to take this action which, if required, is likely to commence around the beginning of June.
Thousands of job cuts in the global oil and gas industry are an unfortunate but necessary step in making sure firms can survive the current downturn, Wood Group chief executive Bob Keiller said yesterday.
Speaking after Aberdeen-based energy service giant Wood Group’s latest annual meeting, Mr Keiller said he knew only too well about the devastation that can be caused by the loss of someone’s employment.
He added: “Of course it has a huge impact on people and their families.
Ethiopia plans to begin exporting renewable energy to a broader range of neighbouring nations by 2018 as part of a cross-border effort to maintain regional energy demand.
The move will also limit increases in climate-changing emissions.
The Eastern African Power Pool (EAPP) initiative aims to create or expand clean energy transmission lines among about a dozen countries in the region.
Marine service company James Fisher and Sons has bought more assets from companies left stricken by the collapse of Norwegian group Reef Subsea.
Reef went into liquidation in February after its backers withdrew their support due to the drop in oil prices, plunging Aberdeen-based subsidiaries Specialist Subsea Services (SSS) and X-Subsea into administration.
Last month James Fisher pounced to buy SSS assets, and yesterday said it had shelled out £14.8million on equipment and patents owned by X-Subsea Holdings.
X-Subsea, which itself had two subsidiaries in Aberdeen, was put into administration late last month at a cost of 20 Granite City jobs.
McDermott International has reduced its headcount by almost 1,700 as a result of losses in its first quarter.
The Houston-based company suffered a loss of $14.5million in the first few months of the year.
Ecopetrol SA, Colombia’s state-controlled oil producer, said first-quarter profit fell 91 percent from a year earlier as the slump in oil prices weighed on the company.
Net income for the group dropped to 355.9 billion pesos ($149 million), from 4.06 trillion pesos a year earlier, Bogota-based Ecopetrol said Tuesday in a statement after markets closed.
That missed the expectation for profit excluding one-time items of 467.5 billion pesos, the average of three analysts’ estimates compiled.
The University of Aberdeen has signed an historic agreement to establish its first international campus in South Korea which could help train oil workers of the future.
As previously revealed on Energy Voice, millions is set to be spent on teaching students on a real platform off the Gwangyang cost.
Academics had said the unique joint venture with the South Korean government was a “statement of optimism” in the future of the energy sector, which has been hit hard by a global sump in oil prices.
At a ceremony held in the city of Changwon, representatives from the University put pen to paper on an agreement between the University and its partners in the project, the Gyeongsangnamdo Prefecture, Gwangyang Bay Free Economic Zone Authority, and Hadong County.
Learning solutions provider Atlas Knowledge has signed a deal with the Ministry of Oil and Baghdad Oil Training Institute (BOTI) in Iraq.
The contract will enable the firm to deliver safety and technical training to the country’s oil and gas workforce as part of a project sanctioned by the Ministry of Oil’s Department of Training and E-learning.
As a former investment banker and financial journalist, new Energy Secretary Amber Rudd enjoyed a career outside of politics before her rapid rise.
After she graduated from the University of Edinburgh with a history degree, Ms Rudd worked in the City of London and New York in investment banking before moving into venture capital.
She has also been noted as being the “aristocracy co-ordinator” for the party scenes in Four Weddings And A Funeral, and also set up a freelance recruitment business and wrote for financial publications.
The mother-of-two’s first attempt to enter Parliament in 2005 was unsuccessful as she finished a distant third in the Labour safe seat of Liverpool Garston.
A former energy minister has accused the governments of Scotland and the UK of overseeing a “dismal failure of energy policy” related to the Western Isles.
Brian Wilson said the Western Isles have the highest electricity tariffs in the UK and that 70% of households in the area suffer from fuel poverty, which is worse than anywhere else in Western Europe.
That record is particularly galling given that the Western Isles are often said to have the greatest potential for the generation of renewable energy in Europe, according to Mr Wilson, energy minister from 2001-03.
Noble Energy Inc. will acquire Rosetta Resources Inc. for $2.1 billion in stock, giving the Houston-based oil company a position in two of the largest areas of shale production in Texas.
Noble will also assume Rosetta’s net debt of $1.8 billion, the company said in a statement on Monday. The valuation is about a 38 percent premium to the target’s closing price on Friday.
Rosetta produced 66,000 barrels a day of oil and gas in the first quarter from the Eagle Ford and Permian areas, of which more than 60 percent was liquids.
