Aker Solutions has confirmed it is set to axe up to 70 North Sea jobs. The Norwegian firm said the move, announced to staff at its Dyce offices this morning, was part of a wider cost cutting programme announced last month. Overall the company said it would cut 500 jobs across operations in Norway and 400 roles outside of the country.
A year after oil sank into a bear market, the industry is still hunkering down for a long period of low prices, with Europe’s biggest producer seeing only the first glimpses of a recovery. In the last five months, US production sank by 590,000 barrels a day, or more than 6 percent. The bad news: Drillers are cutting costs with a speed and brutality not seen in decades, enabling many to continue producing at a high level even as prices remain low. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. sees crude falling by another $10 a barrel as storage tanks fill up in the coming months. “I see the first mixed signs for recovery,” said Ben Van Beurden, Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s chief executive officer, speaking at the Oil & Money conference in London.
Urals Energy, the independent exploration and production company with operations in Russia, has been granted an additional license by the Russian regulatory authorities to expand the boundaries of its license area at Arcticneft.
Pemex was forced to evacuate its Sihil A platform in the Gulf of Mexico after a gas leak was detected. Mexico’s state-owned company confirmed 85 workers had been evacuated. The leak was believed to have started at 9pm local time. Pemex confirmed there was no fire or injuries as a result of gas leak.
Bowleven, the Scottish oil and gas exploration group focusing on Africa, has appointed former Asco chief executive Billy Allan as a non-executive director and chairman designate.
Nostrum Oil & Gas’ takeover of Tethys Petroleum came to a grinding halt, after a last minute shareholder block.
It was the “right time” for Wood Group’s Bob Keiller to leave the top role, according to the firm’s chairman.
Wood Group has won a multi-million pound deal with Bechtel in Kazakhstan to increase the capacity of a tank farm.
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.
A decision by the Norwegian minority government to start making withdrawals from the country’s sovereign fund could mark a “radical change” for the region. Leading expert Professor Jon Kleppe, from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, said the sovereign fund has risen from NOK 6300billion at the start of the year to NOK 7000billion. He said the increase was largely down to the weakening of the Norwegian Kroner next to the US dollar.
ConocoPhillips has begun a reduction in its headcount in Alaska as part of the company's 10% workforce decrease in the state.
China’s slowdown and tumbling commodity prices will push global economic growth this year to the lowest level since the recession year 2009, the International Monetary Fund has predicted. In a report in advance of the IMF-World Bank annual meetings in Lima, Peru, this week, the fund said the world economy will grow 3.1% this year, down from a July forecast of 3.3% and from 3.4% growth last year. “The risks seem more tilted to the downside than they did just a few months ago,” IMF chief economist Maurice Obstfeld told reporters. Mr Obstfeld downplayed the risk of a global recession, however.
Petrolia said it has obtained a completion permit which will allow it to carry out the cleaning of the well at Haldimand 4 in Quebec and start a long-term production test. The company have already removed the pump installed last year in order to prepare the well for the cleaning operations.
Russian oil producer Gazprom has almost halved the planned capacity of its TurkStream gas pipeline project, according to the company’s chief exec. The expected capacity has been reduced from 63billion cubic metres (bcm) to 32bcm. Chief executive Alexei Miller said Gazprom now plans to supply a smaller amount because it also wants to expand the Nord Stream gas pipeline which runs on the bed of the Baltic Sea to Germany.
Oil climbed to the highest level in a month amid speculation that falling crude production will ease the global supply glut. Futures rose as much as 5.6 percent in London and 5.1 percent in New York. The first signs of recovery in the oil market are beginning to appear, Royal Dutch Shell Plc Chief Executive Officer Ben Van Beurden said at an industry conference in London Tuesday, though the company still plans for a long period of low prices. U.S. crude output fell 120,000 barrels a day in September, the Energy Information Administration said. Oil has held near $45 a barrel for more than four weeks after plunging to a six-year low in August amid speculation a global glut will be prolonged. U.S. crude stockpiles remain about 100 million barrels above the five-year average, while OPEC continues to pump above its collective quota.
The co-chairman of Nigerian independent Atlantic Energy has reportedly been arrested over alleged corruption and money laundering charges. The move comes just days after the former Nigerian oil minister under President Goodluck Jonathan was arrested before being bailed in the UK.
Canadian energy firm Veresen has confirmed a new $860 million gas plant has been given the green light in British Columbia.
Freeport-McMoRan is set to review its strategic alternatives for oil and gas business as well as making changes to its board. The company said the move had been taken after “constructive” discussions with shareholders. Freeport will now evaluate alternative courses of action designed to enhance value and achieve self-funding of the company’s oil and gas business.
Shell’s Ben van Beurden said the industry must create a “brave new world of energy”.
An energy firm has cut jobs at its Aberdeen base. Lockheed Martin confirmed 27 posts have been made redundant. The US-led firm acquired its city base as part of a deal to take over Amor Group two years ago. A company spokesman said “the majority” of the 27 job losses were in the Aberdeen office.
Fugro has been awarded an extension on the ongoing offshore geophysical and geotechnical campaign being led by Pemex in a deal worth $13million. The company is working in conjunction with Diavaz on the project which will support exploration drilling activities in the Bay of Campeche and deepwater locations in the Perdido area.
Investors are still keen to invest in the North oil and gas industry, if the right deal is available, according to a senior industry expert.
A brand new oil company has been launched in Norway, despite the current industry slump. Okea is the second to be born in the country since the summer of 2015 when Origo was rolled out at Offshore Northern Seas. And it is the fourth over this period if the two UK companies Verus (derived from Bridge Energy) and Siccar Point are included. All have private equity funding underpinning them. In the case of Okea, Seacrest Capital Group has got behind the newly created oil & gas development and production company headquartered in Trondheim.
Two Robert Gordon University (RGU) graduates have set up their own company specialising in developing innovative underwater products for the energy industry. Ben Grant, 30, who studied electrical and electronic engineering and Alastair McLennan-Murray, 31, an artificial intelligence and robotics graduate, set up Impact Subsea in February, around the time that oil prices hit rock bottom prior to what turned out to be a small and temporary partial recovery. Impact Subsea offers products and solutions to oil & gas, offshore renewables and scientific markets. Its products are used on remotely operated and autonomous underwater vehicles and in “stand-alone” applications. Given the nature of what they offer, the hope is that they can exploit the current crisis.
Aberdeen-based Rigfit Offshore (UK), the specialist accommodation outfitting arm of Global Energy Group can now press ahead and expand into the Middle East as a result of taking over Seven Seas International. The deal to acquire manufacturing facilities in Dubai and Bahrain for an undisclosed sum significantly enhances the Rigfit offering and adds to its existing operations in Sharjah, UAE. Moreover, it fits precisely with Global Energy’s strategy of creating a family of hubs around the world to drive internationalisation of the Scottish group.