TotalEnergies SE’s chief executive officer has plenty of reasons to antagonize the French government with the possibility of moving its stock listing to Wall Street. Measured in dollars, there are tens of billions of them.
Global oilfield service company Forum Energy Technologies yesterday said it has made 12 employees redundant following the closure of its workshop in Lybster, Caithness. The Houston-based firm’s statement adds it to an ever-growing list of oil and gas companies that have been forced to lay off staff due to low crude prices and rising costs. Last week oil giant Shell said it would make 250 of its North Sea workforce redundant, while Taqa revealed plans to reduce its headcount by 100. BP earlier announced it would cut 200 full-time onshore positions and 100 contractor roles from its 4,000-strong North Sea workforce. Forum yesterday said that the company’s operations at Lybster, which focused on the manufacture of oil well drilling equipment, will be shifted to one of its other facilities.
Wintershall has named a successor to Rainer Seele after he was named as the new chief executive of OMV. Mario Mehren, currently a member of the the board of executive directors of Wintershall, will take on the role from July 1. He is currently responsible for exploration and production for the company covering the regions of Russia, North Africa and South America.
Statoil has awarded 2H Offshore a contract for analysis on the Johan Sverdrup field in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea. The company's work includes tieback conductor, platform conductor and surface riser engineering analysis. 2H had already conducted engineering studies for Statoil to support wellhead specification on the development.
Wintershall boss Rainer Seele has been appointed chief executive of OMV. The 54-year-old will take up the role from July this year and has signed a three-year contract with an extension option with OMV for a further two years. The current chief executive, Gerhard Roiss, had previously announced his departure from the company.
Electromagnetic Geoservices ASA (EMGS) has entered into two new contracts with two oil companies to provide data from their library in the Barents Sea. The two new licensing agreements will provide 3D electromagnetic data from EMGS's multi-client data library in the Barents see, and together the agreements are worth an estimated $4 millio
The European Union has blocked Hungary’s £8.6billion nuclear expansion deal with Russia, highlighting Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s challenge in maintaining close ties to the Kremlin while observing EU rules. The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, supports the European Atomic Energy Community’s refusal to approve Hungary’s plans to import nuclear fuel exclusively from Russia, sources say.
The UK Government “sailed too close to the wind” before taking measures to keep the lights on, at a cost to taxpayers and the environment, peers have said. An inquiry by the Lords science and technology committee, prompted by concerns over blackouts as the country’s capacity to meet peak demand was squeezed, found it would take an “improbable” sequence of events to put the lights out nationally.
The UK is to use its "world-leading" climate and adaptation expertise to help countries successfully tackle climate change, Energy Secretary Ed Davey said today. Launching the initiative at a round-table meeting of leading environmental organisations and UK Government officials in London, he said: "The UK is a global leader in tackling climate change and the major threat it poses to our prosperity and security.
Celtic Renewables, said to be the world’s first company to produce biofuel capable of powering cars from residues of the whisky industry, has received £500,000 in a new round of investment. The latest cash injection takes the Edinburgh company's valuation to £10million.
Europe’s biggest oil companies are gaining support from an unlikely source as they confront the industry’s worst slump since the financial crisis: lower oil prices. Although better known for their oil fields, refineries, and petrol stations, BP, Royal Dutch Shell and Total are also the world’s biggest oil traders.
Greenpeace has appealed to Britain's transparency watchdog, the Information Commissioner, over the UK Government’s "repeated refusal" to publish the full version of a heavily redacted report on the impacts of fracking. The environmental campaigners want ministers to release the report in full before a crucial vote by Lancashire authorities on whether to allow shale firm Cuadrilla to frack in the area.
After taking a battering from the crash in crude prices, Europe’s oil and gas producers are gaining some relief from the relentless slide in the euro. France’s Total, Italy’s En and Repsol of Spain will benefit most from earning revenue from oil and gas sales in US dollars, the industry’s dominant currency, while paying a large chunk of salaries, rent and other costs in euros, according to data compiled by Bloomberg Intelligence.
Dutch communities rattled by earthquakes are upending Europe’s energy market. Towns in the northern province of Groningen sit atop the continent’s biggest gas field, where the Dutch government says exploration by oil and gas majors Royal Dutch Shell and ExxonMobil has triggered 196 earthquakes since 2013, damaging buildings and making home sales difficult.
A Scottish based aero-derivative gas turbine firm has been named technology partner with Honeywell International. Peterhead-quartered Score Energy has secured the deal following efforts to upgrade Honeywell's DLE bleed valves.
Policymakers responsible for oil and gas industry taxation and regulation should be relocated from London to Aberdeen, a think-tank has said. Business organisation N-56 has set out a five-point action plan for the North Sea oil and gas industry in a letter to First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and UK Chancellor George Osborne.
Claxton Engineering Services has been awarded a contract with Statoil to supply conductor and internal centralizers to a minimum of 14 wells on the Gina Krog development offshore of Norway. First delivery under the deal, which was for an undisclosed sum, is scheduled for March 2015.
The drop in crude prices has bumped Scotland's employment outlook down to its lowest level in two years, according to a new survey from recruitment agency Manpower. At minus 1%, Scotland is the only part of the UK with a negative outlook going into the second quarter.
Norwegian oil giant Statil has awarded a contract to Sentinel Marine to provide a new multi-role Emergency Response and Rescue Vessel (ERRV) to support operations on the Mariner field on the UK Continental Shelf (UKCS). Sentinel Marine is an Aberdeen-based company, owning and operating offshore support vessels in the oil and gas marine industry.
Maersk have launched a new training facility in Kingswells, providing additional training opportunities to oil and gas workers in Aberdeen. Launched this week, the centre aims to complement the training facilities that already exist in the north-east, including the survival centre in Portlethen and the boat training facility in Stonehaven.
A leading politician has intervened in an effort to prevent the European Commission from limiting emissions from the UK's oil and gas industry. The commission has proposed the medium-sized combustion plant directive, which would limit the emissions produced by medium-sized engines and generators - integral to every offshore oil platform.
An oil and gas firm have been given extensions to three of their Danish projects. New World Oil and Gas Plc have been granted extensions to work programme commitment deadlines on their three Danica Jutland and Danica Resources Limited licences. This will allow for them to propose more technical work to further eliminate the risks of prospects at the spots, located in south-east and south-west Denmark.
Vital North Sea oil and gas reforms remained on track last night after a bid to scupper the plans failed in Westminster. The "cornerstone" of Sir Ian Wood’s recommendations for the future of the sector is now poised to become law within weeks after a wrecking amendment by a group of MPs fell in the Commons. Members of the environmental audit committee tried to remove a section of the Infrastructure Bill which for the first time would enshrine in law "the objective of maximising the economic recovery of UK petroleum".
Falcon Oil and Gas said it would be pursuing “all options” after its partner in a three-well drilling programme failed to complete work on time. Last year Falcon Oil and Gas extended an agreement with Nafta Industrija Srbije jsc (NIS) by five months. The companies had agreed in 2013 to complete a three-well drilling programme targeting the Algyo Play in Hungary.
A moratorium on fracking is needed amid concerns over local environmental risks and climate change, a committee of MPs has demanded. The cross-party Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) warned extensive production of unconventional shale gas, which is extracted through the controversial process of fracking, is not compatible with the UK’s goals to cut greenhouse gas emissions. The committee also called for fracking to be “prohibited outright” in protected areas such as national parks, areas of outstanding natural beauty and ancient woodlands, and banned in all water source protection zones, which feed drinking water aquifers.
Aberdeen Central SNP MSP Kevin Stewart has claimed politicians who supported amendments to a controversial piece of Westminster legislation are guilty of a “complete betrayal of oil workers across the north-east”. Scottish Labour MPs Mark Lazarowicz and Katy Clark and Scottish Liberal Democrat MP Alan Reid all put their names behind the changes to the Infrastructure Bill, which will be debated today. Members of Westminster’s environmental audit committee tabled an amendment calling for the removal of a section, which would enshrine in law “the objective of maximising the economic recovery of UK petroleum”.