Mozambique's government has sacked the heads of the state energy companies responsible for overseeing the development of huge offshore gas reserves, cabinet said late on Tuesday.
The chairmen of Mozambique's National Hydrocarbons Company (ENH) and the National Institute of Petroleum (INP) had been removed, a statement following a cabinet meeting said, without giving a reason.
Nelson Ocuane has been replaced as chairman of the ENH by the Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Omar Mitha.
The Dutch government is looking at ways to boost its production of gas from the North Sea, including offering larger tax breaks for companies that explore or produce gas, it said on Wednesday.
The government is formulating a new policy on energy after two major setbacks: Curtailing production at Europe's largest gas field Groningen due to safety concerns and a June court order to speed up emissions reductions to meet international norms.
In a statement, Economic Affairs Minister Henk Kamp said his department was "investigating, together with the companies involved...whether new measures are needed" to ensure and potentially increase North Sea production.
The chief executive of Shell has revealed he embarked on a “personal journey” before making the final decision to resume drilling in the Arctic this year.
Ben Van Beurden said he was aware of the risks the company were taking but believed Shell could responsibly explore for hydrocarbons in the Arctic.
His comments to a BBC programme on climate change were made as former BP chief executive Lord Browne – who was also interviewed – warned the company could be taking both reputational and financial risk with the move.
Lord Browne made the comments as Shell announced it had just started preliminary drilling in Alaska’s Chukchi Sea after several setbacks.
The head of Libya’s internationally recognized government resigned, just hours after the United Nations opened peace talks meant to end the civil war in the holder of Africa’s largest oil reserves.
Abdullah al-Thinni, who heads the government in eastern Libya, said on a television program Tuesday that he will quit all his official posts. An official resignation will be submitted to parliament on Sunday.
Lundin Petroleum has made an oil discovery on the Luno II prospect in the Norwegian North Sea.
The company said the find had been made in the exploration well 16/4-9 S located in a separate sub-basin.
The well is located on the southwestern flank of the Utsira High approximately 15km south of the Lundin Petroleum operated Edvard Greig field.
For want of a refinery unit in Indiana, oil is tumbling in Oklahoma and Alberta while gasoline in the Midwest is soaring.
Leaking tubes on a piece of equipment forced BP Plc to shut the largest crude unit at its refinery near Chicago over the weekend, according to a person familiar with operations there. It could be down for at least a month. The shutdown of the most important unit in the biggest plant in the Midwest has disrupted markets throughout the region.
It puts extra oil onto an already-oversupplied market and cuts the supply of gasoline to the Midwest in the middle of peak summer demand. That’s helped push heavy Canadian crude to trade at the lowest level in a year and propelled wholesale gasoline in Chicago to the highest level since 2013.
China’s crude oil imports rose to record on a monthly basis driven by imports by small, private refineries amid low oil prices.
Overseas purchases by China increased to 30.71 million metric tons in July, equivalent to about 7.3 million barrels a day, according to preliminary data released by the Beijing-based General Administration of Customs on Saturday. It was higher than December’s level at 30.4 million tons, a previous monthly record. The world’s second-largest oil consumer imported a record 7.4 million barrels a day in April and 7.2 million in June.
Operators have been urged to sell ageing oil and gas assets but retain decommissioning liabilities worth billions in order to avoid the threat of early shut downs in the North Sea.
Analysts at KPMG have warned that oil and gas operators as well as the new Oil and Gas Autority (OGA) need to approach decommissioning in a new way or risk failing to “maximise economic recovery” as recommended by industry veteran, Sir Ian Wood.
In the report, KPMG said many North Sea firms lacked the capability to undertake decommissioning or were “poorly suited” to managing late life assets. This would only be worsened by the possibility of a “ large wave” of decomissioning projects going ahead by 2020, driving up costs and increasing the burden on skills.
Morocco's Societe Anonyme Marocaine de l'Industrie du Raffinage (SAMIR) will halt production at its 200,000 barrel per day (bpd) Mohammedia refinery due to financial difficulties, the company said in a statement.
Sources at the refinery said it was already shut down, but would restart once it received delivery of two cargoes of 2 million barrels of crude oil, scheduled to arrive between Aug. 15 and 18.
It said SAMIR will continue to supply oil products until its stocks run out.
Petroleum additives producer Afton Chemical has earned RC14001 and ISO 14001 certification for all US operations from British Standards Institute (BSI).
Lukoil has been awarded the rights to develop the Vostochno-Taimyrsky block in Eastern Siberia.
The win comes as the company as the company battles allegations of money laundering at its Petrotel refinery in Romania.
Oil giant Shell’s plans to build a strategic alliance with Gazprom could be affected after the US placed one of the Russian company’s biggest oil fields under sanction.
Earlier this year the two companies signed an agreement which would see them develop an alliance in the gas sector.
The deal could see them work in a number of areas including exploration and production, to sales – which could include asset swaps.
Sector heavyweight Jacobs Engineering has won the engineering, procurement and construction management (EPCM) for ExxonMobil's Beaumont refinery in Texas.
The two oil basins off Rio de Janeiro’s coast offer a glimpse into the tough choices Petroleo Brasileiro SA is making as it slashes $77 billion in investments.
The Campos Basin along Rio’s north shoreline produces more oil than any other region in Brazil, but output is sliding fast as fields age. The Santos Basin to the south holds Brazil’s biggest-ever crude finds, but the massive deposits up to four miles deep are costly to tap. They each need billions of dollars in investments. Petrobras doesn’t have the cash for both.
The dilemma highlights how far Brazil’s state-run oil giant has fallen since its 2010 heyday, when it raised $70 billion in what was then the world’s biggest-ever share sale to fund projects from Africa to the Gulf of Mexico. Since then, a sweeping corruption scandal and tumbling oil prices have forced it to scale back operations. It’s now trying to sell almost $60 billion of assets and cut more than a third of a five-year investment plan that was once the world’s largest.
A steel jacket for the Mariner platform in the North Sea has started its journey from the Spanish Dragados yard.
The move comes after the construction of the large platform sub-structure was launched in 2013.
At 134 metres high and with a footprint of 88 x 62 metres, it is the largest steel jacket ever built for a Statoil project.
U.S. oil and gas company ConocoPhillips is reviewing its portfolio in Indonesia and may soon seek buyers for a stake in a production sharing block it operates in the Natuna Sea, company and government sources said.
The company has proposed to upstream oil and gas regulator SKKMigas to open its data room for the South Natuna Sea Block B, the agency's spokesman Elan Biantoro told Reuters, noting that such requests were usually made by companies "that want to farm out their participating interests."
ConocoPhillips was opening the data room to offer its share to other investors, spokesman Joang Laksanto said.
Beach Energy has bought a 40% operating interest in the highly prospective oil producing ATP 1056 permit in Queensland, Australia from AGL Cooper Basin, a subsidiary of AGL Energy, for $850,000.
Schlumberger has expanded its Gulf of Mexico seismic data portfolio by launching a new survey in the Campeche basin.
The survey offshore will cover an area of 80,000sq km and will be carried out using two fleets of WesterGeco vessels.
Maurice Nessim, president at WesternGeco, said: “Building on our experience in the US Gulf of Mexico, we are focused on collaborating with customers to understand and prioritize the hydrocarbon potential in the Mexican waters of the Gulf.
Wood Group has won a $28million contract with Mexican state-owned oil company Pemex.
The deal will see Wood Group Kenny (WGK) and Wood Group Mustang (WGM) provide deepwater and complex shallow water concept and basic engineering services.
European natural gas traders have one more reason to be bearish: Norway is overproducing and output at the nation’s biggest field is poised to reach an eight-year high.
Europe’s second-largest supplier pumped more gas than forecast in five of the first six months this year, Norwegian Petroleum Directorate data show. Output from the Troll field is set to climb 23 percent to 33.5 billion cubic meters (1.2 trillion cubic feet) in the year through September, according to an estimate by Eclipse Energy Group, a London-based consultant.
Norwegian output is rising amid a global oil and gas glut that’s pressuring prices and cutting profit for companies including Troll’s operator Statoil ASA. Brent crude is trading close to the six-year low it reached in January, and gas prices in the U.K., a European benchmark, are at the weakest for this time of year since 2009.
Norway's hard pressed oil and gas sector can weather the storm created by $50 oil, if the industry continues to work towards reducing costs and adapts to the new price levels.
Searching for oil off the coast of one of the world’s most dangerous and corrupt countries was always going to be difficult for Soma Oil and Gas Ltd. Now its work in Somalia is being scrutinized by the UK’s Serious Fraud Office.
On July 31, the SFO raided Soma’s London office as part of its investigation into almost $500,000 worth of payments to Somali officials. Soma, funded by Russian billionaire Alexander Djaparidze and headed by former UK Conservative Party leader Michael Howard, says it’s done nothing wrong and is cooperating with the inquiry.
Soma has “always conducted its business in a completely lawful and ethical manner” in trying to develop the country’s first oil reserves, it said in a statement Aug. 3. The SFO has confirmed “no suspicion whatsoever attaches to Lord Howard,” Soma said AugUST 1. Djaparidze didn’t respond to Bloomberg requests seeking comment.
Soma began working more than two years ago in Somalia, where al-Qaeda-linked militants have waged an insurgency since 2006. The country hasn’t had a functioning central administration since civil war erupted almost a quarter of a century ago. It also ranks alongside North Korea as the world’s most graft-ridden nation, according to Transparency International, the Berlin-based watchdog.
