The new head of the International Energy Agency (IEA) said there needed to be greater partnership between the organisation and China. Fatih Birol made the comments on his first visit to the world's largest energy consumer. Birol, who took up his new post earlier this month, told an audience of Chinese officials and foreign diplomats in Beijing that one of his top priorities in the role will be to strengthen ties with the company.
Bilfinger Salamis and Semco Maritime are looking to extend a collaboration partnership used in Denmark to the UKCS. The companies have been working together since 2008 on bringing together complementary skills and competence to support clients such as Maersk, DONG and Hess in fabric maintenance, decommissioning and inspection.
Investment in U.K. North Sea oil and gas projects could drop as much as 80 percent by 2017 as the collapse in crude prices forces the industry to cut back. Capital investment across the industry of 14.8 billion pounds ($22.8 billion) last year will probably decline by 2 billion to 4 billion pounds annually to 2017, Oil & Gas U.K., an industry lobby group, said in its annual economic report Wednesday.
Gulf Arab stocks were poised for the longest winning streak since April following a surge in Asian equities and oil’s biggest gain this month. The Bloomberg GCC200 Index, a gauge of 200 of the region’s biggest and most-liquid shares, rose 1.9 percent as of 1:20 p.m. in Riyadh. That put it on track for a fifth-day gaining and the highest close in almost three weeks. The measure climbed above its 20-day moving average for the first time since July 27.
Aker Solution has strengthened its team with the appointment of a new regional president for the UK and Africa. David Clark will oversee expansion and support operations in the key markets using more than 30 years of experience in the oilfield services. Clark most recently worked as vice president of production facilities for Schlumberger as well as positions earlier in his career at Wood Group and Technip.
The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate has given Lundin Norway the go-ahead for its North Sea wildcat well.
Ensco will reduce its onshore support jobs by a further 14% in a bid to streamline costs amid the continued decline in oil price. The offshore driller previously said earlier this year it had halved its onshore workforce by 50%.
Advances in remotely operated vehicle (ROV) technology and the challenges posed by a difficult marketplace will be among the topics under the spotlight at Subsea UK’s 2015 ROV Conference in Aberdeen on Friday. The event, which takes place at the Village Hotel, in Kingswells, will welcome industry experts to debate global market outlook, deepwater construction, trenching and mining and operational efficiencies.
The wave of defaults and debt restructuring hurting oil bonds around the world looks set to reach China. Notes of oil services firms are the nation’s worst performers this quarter with a 5.9 percent slide amid record industry debt and slumping crude prices, according to a Bank of America Merrill Lynch index of foreign-currency notes. Explorers have lost 1.4 percent. Some private-sector companies have dropped to distressed levels with the 2019 notes of Honghua Group Ltd. at 38.5 cents on the dollar and Anton Oilfield Services Group’s 2018 paper at 44 cents. China’s quest to secure resources for the world’s second- biggest economy has sparked a fourfold expansion in petroleum industry debt in the past decade to 1.3 trillion yuan ($205 billion). Crude’s 14 percent slide this year is adding to stress on energy firms’ finances. Standard & Poor’s says oil and gas companies account for 28 percent of all corporate defaults globally this year, and that they are among the most vulnerable to failures in coming months.
Billionaire Warren Buffett dumped Exxon Mobil Corp. shares held by Berkshire Hathaway Inc. and took a $4.5 billion stake in refiner Phillips 66 after souring on the outlook for oil prices, he said in television interviews. “I did get less enthusiastic about crude oil prices at the time we owned” Exxon, he said in an interview with Bloomberg television Tuesday. “I felt that the future wasn’t going to be as good as people were thinking it was going to be.” That pessimistic view of oil was only part of the reason Berkshire exited Exxon, Buffett said, noting that he no longer owns any oil and gas production businesses. His choice to invest in Phillips 66 stems from his admiration of Greg Garland, the refiner’s chairman and chief executive officer, as well as its operations in chemicals and other businesses, he told CNBC. “We’re not buying it as a refiner,” he said. “We’re certainly not buying it as an integrated oil company. We’re buying it because we like the company and we like the management very much.”
Bristow plans to increase its cost saving measures from $95million to $150million as it looks to streamline its business further.
Escape Business Technologies is under new ownership today after a Norwegian takeover of the Aberdeen-based information technology company. It is the second multimillion-pound acquisition of a business in or near the Granite City in as many days, following Proserv’s move to buy Nautronix on Monday. Cegal, headquartered in Stavanger, will announce its swoop on Escape to the Norwegian stock exchange this morning.
Offshore catering workers will forge ahead with plans to ballot workers on strike action. The move comes after workers claimed they had not received a 1.3% pay increase promised to them by employers. Earlier this month Unite said it would be having a vote on strike action over the pay dispute.
Mexico is willing to work with OPEC if the group tries to stabilize crude markets amid a global supply glut and slide in prices, Iran’s Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said after talks with Mexico’s labor secretary.
French oil major Total, operator for the Egina oil field offshore Nigeria, has successfully installed acoustic specialist Sonardyne's Fusion 6G subsea positioning network to support its development of the $15billion project.
Fire and security specialist Autronica will provide Statoil with equipment for its offshore operations in the Johan Sverdrup oil field in the North Sea.
Bibby Offshore has this year delivered two multimillion pound decommissioning contracts to the UK Continental Shelf.
Sound Oil has confirmed that it is still on track for production from its Nervesa gas discovery in Italy by the end of the year.
Union members are poised to protest at Offshore Europe today. Unite the Union have planned the move following a dispute with offshore catering companies. Trade union bosses have accused offshore catering firms of "point blank"refusing to honour a 1.3% pay rise that had been agreed for the year.
Woodside Petroleum Ltd. offered A$11.65 billion ($8.1 billion) in stock for Oil Search Ltd. as it aims to take advantage of a collapse in oil prices in what would be the biggest energy deal between non-related companies in the Asia-Pacific region. Woodside offered one share for every four Oil Search shares, which amounts to a premium of about 14 percent based on Oil Search’s closing price on Monday. Oil Search rose 16 percent to A$7.835 and Woodside slid 2.9 percent to A$29.68 as of 1:12 p.m. Sydney time. Oil Search was one of the few oil and gas companies to report a jump in profit in the first half, driven by its Papua New Guinea liquefied natural gas project. “The market is sending a pretty clear signal that Woodside’s offer is undervaluing the Oil Search stake in the PNG LNG project, which is really one of the most competitive LNG investments in the whole Asia Pacific region,” Angus Nicholson, a market analyst at IG Markets Ltd. in Melbourne, said by phone. “Not to mention Woodside will need PNG government support, so that could be tricky.”
At a time when the collapse in crude prices pushes Russia’s economy into a recession, the nation’s oil producers are managing to beat their western counterparts. On measures including cash flow, profit margins and share prices, OAO Rosneft, Lukoil PJSC-- Russia’s two largest oil producers -- and OAO Gazprom Neft are performing better than Royal Dutch Shell Plc, BP Plc or Exxon Mobil Corp. “When oil goes down, the western companies are hurt more than the Russian companies,” said Maxim Edelson, a Senior Director at Fitch Ratings in Moscow. Because Russian tax rates adjust automatically to lower prices the nation’s companies enjoy a buffer to the slump in crude while “a lot of the hit is taken by the government.”
Brent crude rebounded after a two-day decline before trade data from China, the world’s second-biggest oil consumer.
Wintershall has awarded Odfjell Drilling's semi-submersible Deepsea Stavanger a $175million contract for the drilling of production wells on the Maria field in the Haltenbanken area of the North Sea.
Oil and financial sanctions on Iran will probably be lifted within the first three months of 2016, according to four western diplomats familiar with the nuclear monitoring process. Under the terms of a July 14 accord between world powers and Iran, sanctions imposed internationally on the Persian Gulf nation will be lifted in return for restrictions on nuclear work. The Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency will assess when Iran has fulfilled the terms of deal, paving the way for the removal of restrictions. The monitoring necessary for that to happen will probably be in place by January or February, according to three of the envoys. A fourth saw restrictions lasting as late as March. All of the officials have knowledge of the IAEA’s verification regime in Iran and asked not to be named discussing confidential estimates.
A decent night's sleep, internet access and more recreational space are the key priorities for North Sea offshore workers as they prepare for spending longer periods offshore.