A Labour government would bring in a legal target to slash carbon emissions from the power sector and improve energy efficiency for five million homes, as it seeks to create a million new “green” jobs.
Setting out details of Labour’s “green plan”, shadow energy and climate change secretary Caroline Flint said that “building a more equal society means tackling climate change and protecting nature”.
The plan includes a legally binding target to decarbonise electricity supplies by 2030, delivering energy efficiency upgrades to at least five million homes over 10 years and developing a green industrial strategy to create a million new jobs.
Lundin Petroleum has confirmed the appointment of a new upper management position.
Nick Walker will join the international petroleum firm's management team as senior vice president of development and operations with immediate effect.
Mr Walker will have the responsibility of overseeing all worldwide development projects as well as being a member of the Investment Committee.
Security forces have been put on alert in Saudi Arabia for a possible attack on a shopping mall or energy installation.
The country’s Interior Ministry spokesman Mansour Turki said information had been passed on which included the possibility of an attack on an Aramco installation.
In 2006, four Al Qaeda militants breached the gates of a Saudi Aramco plant but were killed in a shootout with security guards before managing to cause any damage.
Oil giant Halliburton has posted a better than anticipated quarterly profit which was boosted by revenue from regions including Latin America and Asia.
The company, which agreed to buy its smaller rival Baker Hughes last year, said some revenues had been affected in other regions by the oil price decline.
Petrobas has made a new gas discovery in the Amazon basin.
The company said it was made while drilling of well 1-BRSA-1293-AM took place.
The site, informally known as Jusante do Aneba, was drillinh to a total depth of 2.040 metres.
Subsea UK is looking to establish a regional hub in England which could bring together businesses across the subsea supply chain and help identify new opportunities within the sector.
The Industry body will host its second event in Bristol tomorrow, where around 40 businesses are estimated to be involved in the sector, which is focused on underwater activity in relation to oil and gas, defence, oceanology and marine renewables.
Neil Gordon, chief executive of Subsea UK said: “The south-west of England is home to a huge amount of innovation and expertise, particularly in the areas of oil and gas. As an organisation covering the whole of the UK, we want to help these companies exploit the potential to increase business at home and abroad.
Russia’s economy showed signs of recovery in the first and second quarters amid a declining dependence on oil, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich said.
“Oil prices are not as important to the Russian economy as before,” Dvorkovich told Bloomberg TV Monday at the World Economic Forum on East Asia in Jakarta, adding that other factors such as the global environment and Russia’s own polices influence its economy. “As far as oil prices are concerned, we can live with different prices and still grow.”
US-traded Russian stocks last week posted their longest streak of weekly gains in two years as higher oil prices and a stronger ruble boosted the outlook for companies that depend on domestic demand.
Karoon Gas Australia has confirmed its oil discovery in Brazil's offshore Santos basin.
The company said it had encountered a 213 metre gross oil column in the Echidna-1 exploration well from wireline pressure data across the Paleocence and Maastrichtian aged reservoir intervals.
Karoon managing director, Robert Hosking, said:"The Echidna discovery represents another significant achievement for Karoon. Echidna adds incremental resource to Karoon's discovered Kangaroo oil field which further supports Karoon's ambitions to develop an integrated production hub in the Santos Basin."
GDF Suez said a gas discovery has been made in Algeria.
The discovery was made alongside partners including Repsol, Enel and Sonatrach in the Illizi basin.
The French company currently holds a 20% licence in the development.
Energy industry body Oil and Gas UK (OGUK) will host a hustings event featuring four parliamentary candidates in Aberdeen this week.
The hustings will be attended by chief secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander, Labour’s Dame Anne Begg, Conservative candidate Alexander Burnett and former Scottish first minister Alex Salmond.
An international well control training and certification body has launched a new programme aimed at reducing behavioural problems implicated in the Macondo disaster.
The International Well Control Forum (IWCF) has initiated a pilot scheme to bring in a “culture shift” which will empower people to act on safety concerns.
The programme, Crew Resource Management (CRM) has been designed to improve non-technical skills and encourage a change in attitude to raise awareness of human factors in well operations.
Oil prices are likely to stay low for a long time after falling more than 40 percent in the past year, said officials from two OPEC nations.
Nigeria and Algeria both warned that oil prices, currently at around $60 a barrel, probably won’t recover to the 2011-2013 level of more than $100 a barrel.
“You forecast at your own risk, but it seems to me that we should be regarding this as a permanent shock,” Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the Nigerian finance minister, said on a panel discussion Sunday in Washington near the end of the International Monetary Fund’s spring meetings.
“We should prepare our economies for that eventuality.”
With OPEC ceding control for the first time since the 1980s, US shale oil has been anointed the world’s new “swing producer” by everyone from ConocoPhillips and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan.
But can America’s oil really swing it?
Producers cut billions in spending, idled half the country’s rigs and kept more than 3,000 wells off the market, and it still took five months for US production to start dropping.
Analysts and banks say a recovery in production will also prove slower and more difficult than it would be for a single producer like Saudi Arabia.
Petrofac is set to incur a further $195million charge on the Laggan-Tormore project as a result of continued delays.
The company is currently building the Shetland Gas Plant for Total after signing a £800million deal in 2010 for engineering, procurement, supply, construction and commissioning of the site.
Petrofac has previously said it expected to recognise no further profit or loss on the project over the remainder of the contract duration.
BP will throw the spotlight on the future of key west of Shetland projects at a Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) Aberdeen section event next week.
Scott Thomson, west of Shetland area subsurface manager at BP, will discuss the efforts being made in the Schiehallion and Loyal fields to maximise long-term recovery.
These fields have been operational since 1998 and already delivered nearly 400million barrels of oil, but a new floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel was needed to continue production.
Oilfield technology company Plexus Holdings yesterday announced its first contract win in South America and said its geographic reach now spanned five continents.
The Aberdeen firm revealed the new order for wellhead equipment for a development well offshore of Venezuela was worth an estimated £800,000.
Plexus said it was to supply its Tersus TRT mudline suspension system for a well on the Perla gas field after eni Venezuela and Repsol Venezuela secured the gas licence from the country’s ministry of petroleum and mines, with first revenues expected from this month on.
The chief executive officer of Norway’s largest oil producer said the industry will probably see more deals after Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s $70 billion to BG Plc, especially if crude prices remain depressed.
“All player are looking now at opportunities,” Eldar Saetre, said in Washington on Friday. “There could be more deals. It depends on the oil price, if prices stay low players will get distressed and look for deals.”
Saetre said that the high valuation expectations of potential sellers was “still a problem.”
Royal Dutch Shell Plc hired Barclays Plc to help arrange a 10 billion pound ($15 billion) loan to help fund its purchase of BG Group Plc, two people with knowledge of the matter said.
The short-term bridge facility will replace an existing 3 billion-pound loan provided by Bank of America Corp. on April 8, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the transaction is private.
The loan will help fund the cash component of the purchase price, the people said.
Statoil has joined forces with a number of other oil companies to commit to ending the practice of routine gas flaring at production sites by 2030.
The company's chief executive Edar Saetre represented Statoil at a signing at the World Bank in Washington with Norwegian foreign minister Borge Brende.
General Electric Co. beat analysts’ first-quarter profit estimates, buoyed by rising sales of power-generation equipment amid the drag from low crude prices on its oilfield-equipment business.
Excluding costs for the proposed sale of most of the GE Capital finance business, adjusted profit from continuing operations was 31 cents a share, GE said in a statement Friday.
That topped the 30-cent average of eight analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg.
Fallout from the global rout in oil markets showed up in GE’s sales, which trailed analysts’ estimates.
Argentina has commenced legal action against five companies currently drilling for oil and gas in the Falkland Islands.
The move was announced by the Argentinian minister for the Falklands after a judge in Rio Grande agreed to take on the case.
Drilling for oil and gas in the resource-rich Falklands area by London-listed companies remains controversial as a decades-long row between the UK and Argentina over the sovereignty of the islands has not been resolved.
The case will involve three UK firms as well as two other companies from the US.
Sound Oil has received approval of its Environmental Impact Assessment for the Nervesa field production concession.
It is anticipated the award of the concession from the Italian Ministry of Economic Development will follow shortly.
The company said preparations for the drilling of the second Nervesa well are nearing completion - with the rig now having arrived at the well site.
North Atlantic Drilling has delayed a deal with Rosneft until 2017.
The company, a subsidiary of offshore rig firm Seadrill, said the terms of the agreement would need to be renegotiated.
Subsea firm Ennsub Group has raised a £1.5million loan to help it expand its engineering capacity in deepwater winch technology.
The Aberdeen firm got the backing from the Scottish Loan Fund, which was set up by the Scotttish Government in 2011 for firms having difficulty accessing traditional bank finance.
Ennsub, which was founded in 2012, will also use the backing to expand its assembly capacity and its workforce.
Energy service firm 3Sun has acquired a rope access firm in Great Yarmouth for an undisclosed sum.
The target, AID Industrial, employs seven people and offers a range of personal protection equipment (PPE) as well as safety courses in rope access, work at height and global wind organisation.
3Sun, which has a base in Aberdeenshire as well as in Denmark and Norway, said the deal would allow it to keep control on costs.
