The incoming chief executive of Occidental Petroleum has been given a promotion ahead of starting her new role. Vicki Hollub will now become the company’s president and chief operating officer and will replace the current boss Stephen Chazen in 2016. Earlier this year it was announced she would take over when Chazen retired as chief executive of the company.
Investment bank Piper Jaffray has agreed to acquire Simmons and Co in a deal worth $139million. The company said the move represented a “major step” in its drive towards $500million in annual investment banking revenue. Piper Jaffray will acquire 100% of Simmons in the $139million deal, which will consist of $91million in cash and $48million in restricted stock.
Cameron International has said it will reduce its headcount further as the low oil price continues. The company said around 75 jobs would go in early January next year. The move comes after the company previously said it would be letting 150 staff members go this autumn.
Fairway Energy Partners has awarded Wood Group a contract to provide engineering, design and procurement services for the Pierce Junction crude oil facility in Houston. The win has been awarded to Wood Group Mustang who will provide services to Fairway as they build out the surface facilities that support the crude oil storage facility.
Norwegian operator Statoil is reported to have told made staff in the US redundant after they refused to take voluntary redundancy. According to reports in Norwegian press, the staff are amongst around 100 members of staff who have been affected by job losses.
Oasis Petroleum said crews have successfully plugged an oil well in North Dakota which had been spewing oil and saltwater for a number of days. The Houston-based oil company said the well had been put under control after problems began at the weekend.
Offshore drilling contractor Transocean has refused to confirm it held a meeting with staff at its Aberdeen premises concerning potential reduction in headcount.
Public confidence in technologies being used in deepwater will be one of the key components to the success of the Subsea Systems Institute (SSI), according to its director. The institution was set up earlier this year with funding from the RESTORE Act on the back of the Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010. The federal statute was signed into law by President Barack Obama in 2012 after the incident which killed 11 workers and caused significant environmental, ecological and economic damage in the Gulf of Mexico.
ProSep has made a number of changes to its senior team as it looks to strengthen its position amid the oil price decline. The company said Patrick McCarthy, who joined the board of directors one year ago, will become the chief executive. Former boss Neil Poxon will remain with ProSep to oversee the transition until the end of this year.
ROVOP has won more than £2.5million worth of new contract wins in the last month across the oil, gas and offshore wind markets. The Aberdeen company said the contracts had been netted from both its office in the city as well as its Houston base. The work scopes for the projects, which extend into the third quarter of next year, include inspection, repair and maintenance (IRM) on several major North Sea operators' platforms.
An airline has stopped business class only flights for oil workers from Stavanger to Houston after the decline in oil price. The journeys – which could cost as much as $7340 – were started in August last year by Scandinavian airline SAS. However the decline in demand from customers to fly on the specially upgraded Boeing 737-700 aircraft has seen the company invest in an alternative route from Copenhagen to New York.
OEG Offshore has merged its US business with equipment provider Cameron Rental and Tank Inc (CRT). The multi-million dollar move has been made in a bid to enlarge the combined businesses with a full geographic network of locations across the Gulf of Mexico region. OEG Houston’s recent relocation to a larger office facility in the city’s energy corridor and its merger with CRT is the next step in the development of the company’s strategy to offer services to the Gulf of Mexico region.
Employees in Houston working for oil major Chevron are expected to find out when potential job losses are to come as the company reduces its headcount in the region by 950 positions. The move is understood to be part of a wider plan as it looks to streamline its costs globally following the oil price decline. Chevron workers are expected to be given two months’ notice in advance that their positions have been cut.
Texans cranking up their air conditioners to battle a heat wave are spurring the highest electricity prices since the so-called polar vortex brought frigid arctic air into the U.S. 18 months ago.
McDermott International has managed a profit boost during the second quarter of the year. The engineering and construction company was hit by a better-than-expected revenue growth which took its earnings outlook from $50million to $70million. Its previous view had been for $25million to $50million.
A unique test facility that can help identify and prevent potentially catastrophic pipeline failures around the world has opened for business. The $1.5 million Technology Development Centre in Houston was created by the PRCI (Pipeline Research Council International). It will helps enable operators and pipeline companies to carry out real world testing of onshore and offshore pipelines in one place and then assess how equipment will perform in extreme conditions.
Subsea 7 has struck a deal with Cameron and Schlumberger company OneSubsea to develop and deliver integrated development solutions. The move means the establishment of a worldwide non-incorporated alliance between the two firms. Subsea 7 will work alongside OneSubsea to create development solutions through the combination of subsurface expertise, subsea production systems and susbsea processing systems.
GE Oil & Gas has invested in the development of new completion and workover riser connectors for the offshore market. The company said the move will help enable operators in a bid to save rig time during operations. GE Oil & Gas has awarded SRP (Subsea Riser Products) a contract to develop and qualify SRP’s Nimway 510 and Nimway 710 completion and workover riser connectors.
The most useful thing for an oil-tanker captain heading to Houston right now might be a fishing rod. That’s because they’re going to have to wait an average of four days, or eight times longer than usual, to unload as Houston’s storage tanks fill with record amounts of U.S. oil extracted from shale. U.S. ports and waterways are grappling with the highest crude stockpiles and fuel exports in decades. “There’s a lot more oil on the water,” Erik Broekhuizen, the head of tanker research at Poten & Partners, a shipbroker that specializes in energy, said by phone June 16 from New York. “There are some inefficiencies in the system where ships are left waiting to discharge.”
Marathon Petroleum Corp is preparing to restart the 60,000 barrel per day (bpd) gasoline-producing Fluidic Catalytic Cracking Unit 1 at its 451,000 bpd Galveston Bay Refinery in Texas City, Texas, said two sources familiar with plant operations. Marathon could begin restarting the unit, which has been shut since Jan. 13, as early as Friday, the sources said. If there are no problems with the restart, the FCCU is expected to be back in production by June 26.
Thirty years ago, times were so tough in Houston that Steve Zimmerman introduced the Oil Barrel Special, a three-course lunch tied to the plummeting price of crude. He revived the special at his restaurant Cinq in January, in the midst of another precipitous decline, but there haven’t been many takers, about 10 a week compared with the 70 a day who used to queue for the chance to enjoy filet mignon for a steal. Houston -- known in some parts of town as the Energy Capital of the World -- has been doing just fine in this oil bust. “In the 1980s, there was a major crisis,” said Zimmerman, who’s owned the La Colombe d’Or hotel, where the special is now a dinner option at Cinq, for 35 years. “This is just a blip.” Houston, the fourth-largest city in the U.S., was slammed by the ’80s crash, when oil took a 67 percent nosedive in four months. Banks failed, shopping malls emptied out and foreclosures shot up. Tax revenue shriveled and the city fired dozens of sanitation workers, which led to a strike that completely halted trash pickup. Back then, 87 percent of all so-called base-employment jobs were tied to the oil and gas industry, while as of 2010 fewer than half were, according to an analysis by the University of Houston. That explains why Mayor Annise Parker in a recent speech called the 59 percent price-drop of 2014 and 2015 “just a pothole in the road.”
Life might be tough in the oil & gas industry right now, but the chief upstream strategist at oilfield analysts IHS told OTC delegates at an OTC gathering that a staggering amount of new oil production was needed to meet forecast demand. Bob Fryklund said that 50million barrels per day of additional production would be needed to meet projected demand by 2040 ... that’s about 55% more than today. He said that it was possible to see about 20million barrels per day of that figure; after that it became more difficult to identify how the gap would be filled.
Aberdeen marketing and communications specialist Fifth Ring has teamed up with a Brazilian counterpart in a move which both firms hope will lead to new business in the international oil and gas market. The strategic alliance with Rio-based Zoom Out will see the companies co-operate on digital media, public relations and brand strategy projects for a wide variety of clients and on both internal and external campaigns. It also sees Fifth Ring extend its operations from its current bases in Aberdeen, Houston, Dubai and Singapore.
A trio of accountants from Aberdeen firm Johnston Carmichael (JC) is currently in Houston in the US as part of efforts to spread north-east oil and gas expertise around the world. Granite City office joint managing partners Niall Farquharson and Andrew Walker along with new recruit and tax director Richard Britten are attending the world’s biggest oil show, OTC. Mr Britten only joined JC in April but is already playing a key part in building the firm’s employer solutions practice, which targets companies with internationally mobile employees.
For many in the North Sea industry, OTC in Houston has become part of the annual ritual. Unlike many such events which come and go in fashion, this one remains the top destination for many of the industry’s players and politicians from a’ the airts. The Offshore Technology Conference has been going strong since 1969 which means it has seen a few extreme ups and downs in the price of oil and plenty gloomy prognostications about the future. But in a sense, the event’s own longevity points to the underlying truth that this is an industry which has long since learned to take such fluctuations in its stride, and perhaps even turn them to advantage. For some of the old Aberdeen lags who have packed their suitcases once more and headed for Texas over the past few days, OTC is a great social occasion as well as a business one – a chance to meet old friends and particularly renew contact with many in the international industry who have, at some stage in their careers, passed through the North Sea industry.