Gulfsands Petroleum has removed its chief executive. Mahdi Sajjad has been replaced by Alastair Beardshall as executive chairman with immediate effect. The oil and gas company, which operated in the North African region, said Sajjad would remain as a director of the company.
Nigeria is in talks with Russia’s Rosatom Corp. to build as many as four nuclear power plants costing about $80 billion as Africa’s biggest economy seeks to add 1,200 megawatts capacity by the end of the decade. The West African nation signed an agreement with Rosatom to cooperate on the design, construction, operation and decommissioning of a facility, said Franklin Erepamo Osaisai, chairman and chief executive officer of the Nigeria Atomic Energy Commission. It will be increased to four nuclear plants with total capacity of 4,800 megawatts by 2035, with each facility costing $20 billion, he said.
British Gas owner Centrica has appointed a former boss of Aviva’s UK operation to run its residential energy business. Mark Hodges becomes managing director of British Gas at a time when the energy market is the subject of a full-scale competition probe. He spent over 20 years with Norwich Union and Aviva before leaving in 2011 to become the boss of specialist insurance broker Towergate Partnership. He left that job in October.
French company Bourbon said three of its crew members were kidnapped from a crew boat off the coast of Nigeria. The incident happened on the Surfer 1440 after pirates boarded the vessel on April 8. A spokesman for the company said:"The 3 crew members of Nigerian nationality have been kidnapped. An emergency unit based in Nigeria has been immediately activated.
Wood Group PSN (WGPSN) has been awarded a five-year contract from EnQuest to provide engineering, design, construction, procurement and commissioning services in the North Sea. The work will be carried out on the Thistle, Heather and Northern Producer offshore assets. EnQuest said the terms of the contract reflected the company’s ongoing focus on reducing costs and improving the efficiency of its North Sea offshore operations.
Yemen halted output and exports from the country’s sole liquefied natural gas plant, citing security concerns, as clashes between Shiite Houthi rebels and a Saudi Arabia-led Sunni coalition in the country worsens. Yemen LNG Co. declared force majeure, a legal clause meaning circumstances make it impossible to meet contractual obligations, according to an e-mailed statement Tuesday. Tribal fighters seized posts outside the city of Balhaf in southeastern Yemen near the plant after soldiers fled, said Abu Bakr al-Awlaki, a local resident who witnessed the clashes. “Due to further degradation of the security situation in the vicinity of Balhaf, Yemen LNG has decided to stop all LNG producing and exporting operations and start evacuation of the site personnel,” according to the statement. “The plant will remain in a preservation mode.”
Petroleo Brasileiro SA plans to release 2014 audited financial results April 22 after a five-month delay, averting a potential acceleration of debt payments. The Rio de Janeiro-based oil producer, at the center of Brazil’s largest corruption scandal, said Monday it will present the long-delayed financial results to its board and release them after approval. “The company expects to release these financial statements after the meeting, subject to a decision by the Board of Directors,” Petrobras said in a regulatory filing.
Technip has been awarded a brownfield subsea contract by Dana Petroleum for work in the North Sea. The agreement is for work on the Triton floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel which is located 193 kilometres east of Aberdeen. It produces oil and gas from different fields including Bittern, Guillemot West and North West, Clapham, Pict and Saxon, which are tied back to the FPSO vessel via subsea facilities. Bill Morrice, managing director of Technip in the UK, said: “The scope of the 2015 campaign was defined by Dana and its Triton partners, as a result of a successful detailed riser life extension study executed by Technip in the UK late 2014.
North Sea oil and gas company Ithaca Energy said yesterday it had completed a successful final development well test on the Stella field. The five wells drilled achieved a combined maximum flow test rate of more than 53,000 barrels of oil equivalent (boe) per day. Aberdeen and Calgary-based Ithaca said this “significantly de-risks” a project – the Greater Stella Area (GSA) – which is expected to produce about 30,000boe per day, including 16,000 for its own 54.66% stake.
Aberdeen energy service firms Hydro Group and EnerMech are to work together in launching an new hydraulics hose product for the oil and gas industry. It is believed the tie-up could generate in the region of £500,000 over the next year. Graham Wilkie, sales director at Hydro Group, which designs and manufactures cables and connectors for subsea and onshore use, said: “Collaboration, diversification and innovation are key to surviving in challenging markets.
Total has pulled out of a deepwater block in offshore Oman. Nasser Al Aufi, undersecretary at the Ministry of Oil and Gas, did not provide any details regarding the French company's decision. The company has signed an exploration and production-sharing agreement in December 2013 for Block 41, which lies off the Omani coast, north-west of Muscat.
The US is planning to impose a new regulation on offshore oil and gas drilling in a bid to prevent the type of explosions which caused the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. According to reports, the Interior Department could make the announcement as early as this week.
Subsea 7 has been awarded a contract worth $200million for the installation of flexible lines for Petrobas’ projects. The contract will used Subsea 7’s construction and flex-lay vessel Seven Sea on a day-rate basis. The vessel has been operating for Petrobas under a similar day-rate contract since 2013 and will commence the new contract in direct continuation to the current one.
UK government bonds fell, pushing 10-year yields to the highest level in almost a month, as investors’ outlook for inflation increased before a report that economists said will show consumer prices stagnated in March. The UK 10-year break-even rate, a measure of the outlook for inflation derived from a difference in yield between gilts and index-linked bonds, climbed to the most in two weeks. Oil prices have jumped 30 percent since touching a six-year low in January, reducing the risk of consumer prices falling. Yield increases have so far been limited by prospects of the Bank of England keeping interest rates at a record low for the rest of the year. “Though the consensus is for a flat reading, there could be a sense that there might potentially be an upward surprise because of higher” fuel prices during March, said Vatsala Datta, a UK rates strategist at Royal Bank of Canada in London.
Labour has pledged it would create a robust and regulatory regime before fracking for shale gas could go ahead. The political party made the vow as it unveiled its election manifesto just weeks before voters go to the polls. There was also a nod to the North Sea oil and gas sector, with a promise to provide long-term strategy for the industry, with more certainty on tax rates and measures to help exploit the potential for storing carbon emissions in offshore oil and gas fields. Labour has also pledged to freeze fuel bills until 2017.
Oil giant Shell has announced the sale of 158 service stations in deals with two of the UK’s leading forecourt operators. St Albans-based Motor Fuel Group is picking up 90 sites with another 68 going to Blackburn-based Euro Garages, which already has a relationship with Shell. Handover of the service stations will take place by the end of the year, with the dealers continuing to use the Shell brand as well as its fuels for five years following the sale.
Statoil could reduce its headcount by more than 2,000 staff as it looks to make cost savings following the oil price decline. According to reports, the move would affect engineering staff – particularly workers drilling and maintaining wells – as well as administrative staff.
Norwegian company TGS will reduce its headcount by around 100 staff members as it looks to save costs. It announced it would be looking to make cost savings of around $10million as a result of the oil price decline. TGS said it expected its net revenues for the first quarter of 2015 to be around $172million, about 23% lower than revenues reported for the first quarter of 2014. A spokesman said net revenues had been lower than management’s expectation due to weaker late sales from the data library in all of its geographic regions.
A number of oil explorers drilling in the Falkland Islands have axed plans to drill a second well in the south and east of the country following the oil price decline. Noble Energy, Falkland Oil and Gas (FOGL) and Edison International have said they will continue drilling in other parts of the region. The move is in line with a number of companies who have scaled back costs following the drop in oil price within the last nine months.
Nationwide demonstrations calling for the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff have swept Brazil for the second day in less than a month. Turnout at the latest protests appeared down, however, prompting questions about the future of the movement. A poll published over the weekend suggested the majority of Brazilians supported opening impeachment proceedings against Ms Rousseff, whose second term in office has been buffeted by a corruption scandal at the nation’s largest company, oil giant Petrobras, as well as a stalled economy, a sliding currency and political infighting. Only 13% of survey respondents evaluated her administration positively.
Forty-five managers and employees of a mine in western Turkey have gone on trial accused of causing the deaths of 301 miners who perished in a fire last year in Turkey’s worst mining disaster. The defendants include the chief executive and the general manager of mine company Soma Komur Isletmeleri AS. They did not attend the opening of the trial in Ankara today amid security concerns.
Atlas Knowledge has secured a contract to deliver safety training for workers involved in the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) project. The deal will see a total of 11 courses delivered to almost 300 onshore personnel working on the planned construction of the pipeline. It will bring natural gas across Greece, Albania and Italy through the Southern Gas corridor.
Karoon Gas Australia has made a discovery at its Echidna-1 exploration well in the Santos Basin. The company said the well intersected an oil bearing section in Paleocene sands, and mudlogs showed an elevated gas reading and oil florescence in sandstone. Wirelogging will now be conducted to ascertain the extent of the gross and net columns, Karoon Gas said.
Aker Solutions and Fjords Processing have formed an alliance to develop technology and capabilities for wellstream separation and treatment solutions for the subsea and topside market. The WellSep alliance will apply Aker Solutions' subsea processing experience and testing facilities and Fjords' topside and onshore separation technologies. Rune Fantoft, chief executive of Fjords Processing, said:"This is a great opportunity to further develop our key technologies with one of our most important partners, Aker Solutions. "Developing our competence in a joint initiative will enable us to increase our focus on produced water and separation technology."
Six climbers who boarded an oil rig in the Pacific have now left after worsening weather conditions caused them to halt their activities. Last week the group had scaled the Transocean-owned rig, which they claim is being sent to the Arctic by Shell. The oil giant, which announced plans to by BG Group earlier this month, had been seeking an injunction from a US federal court in Alaska to remove the six from the Polar Pioneer.