Oil and gas skills body Opito has agreed to work more closely with the Engineering Construction Industry Training Board (ECITB) to avoid duplication of effort.
The two engineering skills bodies have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to deliver to their members a “common menu of skills solutions”, to collaborate on the collation of industry data around manpower trends and skills forecasting, as well as the creation of skills programmes that meet common industry needs.
The collaboration will also build on work undertaken to date around the industry’s modern apprenticeship scheme.
Oil and gas industry veteran Jim Milne scooped a lifetime achievement gong at an awards ceremony in Aberdeen last night.
Mr Milne, the founder and chairman of the Balmoral Group, was celebrated for his outstanding achievement to the north-east region at the annual Northern Star Business Awards.
Another winner of one of the top awards on the night was CHC Helicopter West North Sea, which received the “overall business of the year” award.
They long stood in the shadows of state- owned Chinese energy giants, small in size and clustered in an eastern province along the coast. Now, independent refiners are wielding growing clout in the global oil market.
Shandong Dongming Petrochemical Group, the biggest of dozens of privately owned refiners known as “teapots,” illustrates how such processors may be coming into their own after for years depending on state-owned companies for oil. It began importing supply on its own this year after hiring two crude traders in Singapore, according to Shen Fan, a deputy general manager at Pacific Commerce Holdings Pte, its trading unit.
China is widening access for teapots as part of its drive to encourage private investment in its energy industry. That may boost imports into the world’s second-biggest oil user, helping counter a glut that’s cut benchmark prices by half in the past year. The small plants account for almost a third of the nation’s processing capacity, and if Shandong Dongming is a guide, may attract cargoes from Latin America to West Africa and Australia.
Staff at TransCanada have been told to expect more job reductions as part of a major restructuring of the company.
Senior staff roles are also expected to be affected at the pipeline and power company as a result of the oil price.
The company said the current environment was having a “profound impact” on customers and it would do what was necessary to reduce costs.
Rockhopper Exploration has reached an agreement to drill a further well on the Isobel/Elaine complex in the North Falkland Basin.
The company said the re-drill well will target the Isobel Deep reservoir which has oil bearing in well 14/20-1 but could not be logged or sampled for mechanical reasons.
This new well will be drilled 4km from the original bore and is also expected to encounter additional reservoir targets in the Elaine South and Isobel Shallow fans.
Oil and gas supply chain firms are being urged to be vigilant after evidence of a growing number of fraudsters trying to exploit online payment processing systems.
KPMG said it had seen a rise in the number of businesses being targeted by criminals seeking to substitute their own bank details for those of genuine companies.
The oil and gas industry, with its extensive and complex supply chain, is deemed to be particularly at risk as a variety of legal and illegal means are used to identify suppliers and their customers.
Transocean Ltd., the world’s largest offshore rig contractor, has been linked for the first time to the corruption probe of Petroleo Brasileiro SA, the state-owned energy giant at the center of Brazil’s biggest corporate scandal.
A former executive at Brazil’s state-run oil company has testified to receiving what he says were payments made by someone claiming to be a Transocean agent in exchange for a rig- operation contract from Petrobras.
“Transocean has a long-standing commitment to and upholds the highest standards for corporate ethics and compliance,” the company said in an e-mailed response. “Our employees -- and everyone conducting business on our behalf -- are required to adhere to our high standards for integrity, honesty, financial discipline and legal and regulatory compliance.”
Just as gas export-terminals are preparing to start up along America’s Gulf Coast, the oil-price crash has made it unprofitable to send the U.S. fuel abroad, according to the North America head of power and natural gas supplier Engie.
It costs about $2 to liquefy gas and another $3 to take it from the U.S. to Asia, said Zin Smati, president and chief executive officer of Engie’s GDF Suez Energy North America. Engie changed its name from GDF Suez SA in April.
Those costs used to leave plenty of profit margin when the gap between LNG prices in Asia and natural gas in the U.S. was more than $14 per million British thermal units. Now, the spread is less than $5, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
General Electric said it had struck an agreement with the Government to access export financing of up to 12 billion US dollars (£8 billion) in a deal that could create up to 1,000 jobs.
Statoil marked 20 years this week since the start of oil production from the Troll field which has been Norway’s largest oil producer for the last three years.
In the past two decades more than one billion barrels has been produced with an income of NOK460billion.
The Troll oil and gas adventure started with the awarding of the fourth licensing round in 1979.
In July of that year, Borgny Dolphin began exploration drilling and four months later Troll was a fact.
Repsol SA, Spain’s biggest oil company, is exploring options including a sale of part or all of its stake in Gas Natural SDG SA to shore up its balance sheet amid low oil prices, according to people familiar with the matter.
Repsol, whose 30 percent stake in the Spanish natural gas distributor is valued at about 5.2 billion euros ($5.9 billion), is discussing potential deal structures with advisers, the people said, asking not to be identified because the discussions are private.
As well as a full or partial sale, which could come as soon as this year, options include selling shares in the market and finding partners to join Gas Natural’s shareholder structure, the people said.
Major oil and gas players will emerge from the global downturn leaner and greener sparking a new boom for firms in the supporting industries, a respected industry CEO believes.
Trinidid focused oil producer LGO Energy has released its first significant production results from a new well in the Goudron oil field in the Caribbean.
Oil rebounded to trade near $45 a barrel as investors weighed shrinking US stockpiles against signs of lower demand for crude as refineries shut for maintenance.
North Sea oil and gas workers are feeling impact of the low oil price which has hit wages and left many chasing jobs, according to recruitment specialists in Aberdeen.
Europa Oil & Gas said it was granted permission for the underground drilling corridor of an exploratory borehole at its Holmwood prospect in in the Weald Basin, in Surrey, England.
Europa has a 40% interest in the licence, alongside Egdon Resources's 18.4% stake, Altwood Petroleum's 1.6% stake, Warwick Energy's 20% stake and UK Oil & Gas Investment's 20% stake.
Now planning permission has been secured, the company will move on to detailed drilling planning and environmental permitting, and it expects drilling to take place in late 2016 or in 2017.
The first minister has admitted that there is a “great deal” that needs to be done to protect oil and gas jobs – and insisted the Scottish Government is doing all it can to help alleviate the crisis.
Nicola Sturgeon said that her taskforce was working to minimise job losses, but that the UK Government needed to stop hampering progress in the sector.
The Conservative’s energy spokesman Murdo Fraser rounded on the first minister, saying she needed to do more than “pass the buck” while people are “worried about their futures”.
Labour’s energy spokesman Lewis Macdonald agreed that her efforts so far have only “scratched the surface” of the crisis affecting the North East.
Russia’s Economy Ministry criticized a proposed tax increase on the nation’s main revenue source, crude producers, saying it may hurt output and the budget in the long term.
The oil-extraction tax formula proposed by the Finance Ministry last week would hurt “the economics of working deposits and in fact would ’kill’ production at the most efficient fields in terms of tax performance,” Deputy Economy Minister Nikolay Podguzov said.
“Clearly, if production decreases, taxes also fall.”
Halliburton has reduced its headcount in North Dakota as the low oil price continues to hit companies.
The move comes after it was revealed the US Department of Labour had forced the oilfield service company to pay back more than $18million in unpaid overtime.
US federal energy regulators have extended their efforts to crackdown on a contested form of market manipulation by alleging Total and two of its traders rigged natural gas prices.
A notification from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) alleges the French company intentionally made losing trades in order to affect index prices on at least 38 occasions.
The “uneconomic” trading was said to have happened on at least 38 occasions between June 2009 and June 2012.
A planned shutdown of the Buzzard oilfield in the North Sea is likely to be rescheduled for November.
The move would boost next month's supply of crude which helps underpin the Brent benchmark.
The shutdown had originally been planned for next month instead.