The first well has been spudded on the Gina Krog field in the Norwegian North Sea. Statoil said drilling began earlier this week using the Maersk Integrator rig, which will now be in use until 2019. The milestone is one of many for the company on the Gina Krog development project.
GE Oil & Gas will provide high-end turbomachinery for the first phase of the landmark Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP) - a partnership between BP, the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) and Turkey's state-owned BOTA (Petroleum Pipeline Corporation).
Halliburton Co.’s takeover of Baker Hughes Inc. is facing resistance from US enforcement officials who are concerned the tie-up could hurt competition, according to a person familiar with the matter. Justice Department lawyers reviewing the proposed $34.6 billion transaction are worried about consolidation in the industry from combining the No. 2 and No. 3 firms, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the review is confidential. Though Halliburton has proposed selling some assets to other companies, government officials aren’t convinced its plan would restore sufficient competition, the person said.
Russia became the second largest supplier of oil to China after Saudi Arabia in the first six months of 2015. The country's oil exports increased by 27% as compared with the same period of the previous year to almost 786,000 barrels per day.
Det Norske Oljeselskap ASA is claiming as much as 20 million barrels more of the Johan Sverdrup oil field as it appeals a government decision that reduced its stake in the giant deposit offshore Norway. The Trondheim-based company asked the government to raise its stake to 12.23 percent from the 11.57 percent it was awarded in a July 1 ruling by the Petroleum and Energy Ministry, according to an appeal letter dated Tuesday obtained by Bloomberg. The field holds as much as 3 billion barrels of oil, meaning a successful appeal may result in an increase of 20 million barrels. “Det Norske asserts that the decision is invalid,” it said in the appeal. The ministry has misinterpreted the petroleum act and hasn’t provided sufficient justification for its decision, which constitutes a process error, the company said.
Statoil has made a gas discovery in the Julius prospect in the North Sea alongside its partner Total of between 15 and 75 million barrels of recoverable oil. Well 2/4-23S was drilled by the Maersk Gallant in the King Lear area and proved gas and condensate in the Ula formation. The Norwegian operator said the well was aimed at appraising the King Lear gas and condensate discovery made by the PL146/PL333 partnership in 2012.
Shell has been given approval by the US Department of Interior to carry out limited offshore drilling in the Arctic. The decison comes amidst strong opposition from environmental groups who fear a potential oil spill in the region could have a lasting impact. The oil major will not be able to begin drilling until it has all necessary hardware in place to proceed as well as necessary safety measures.
Imagine parking your $300 million boat for months out in the open sea, with well-paid mechanics hovering around it and the engine running. The Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea have become a garage for deepwater drillships -- at a cost of about $70,000 a day each. It’s either that or send your precious rig to a scrapyard. The dilemma underscores how an offshore industry that geared up for an oil boom is grappling with a bust. Rig owners are putting equipment aside at unprecedented numbers as customers including ConocoPhillips pull back from higher-cost deepwater exploration. That’s helped make Transocean Ltd. and Ensco Plc two of the three worst performers in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index over the past year.
Weatherford said it plans to increase the number of headcount reductions within the company to 11,000. The number is up from the previous estimate of 10,000 and is expected to come from support staff within the US. The move has been made in response to what Weatherford sees as a weakening market in North America.
A new rapid response drone service that can monitor and inspect offshore installations in the North Sea has been launched in Aberdeen.
Truck driver Craig Huzulak is unemployed after losing his job four times since December -- the new normal in a Canadian oil patch still reeling from a downturn. Huzulak, 49, was working at a mine last year near Fort McMurray, Alberta, when crude prices plunged and work dried up. He lost two more positions in the following months and then had a job offer yanked at the end of June before he could even start. In addition to the market rout, the father of two now worries about the self-driving trucks Suncor Energy Inc. is rolling out in its oil-sands mining operations that will replace workers like him to save companies money. “It’s really, really hard for heavy-equipment operators,” said Huzulak, who has driven trucks and worked on drilling rigs in Western Canada for 15 years. “There’s a lot more fear now that this might last longer.”
The oil and gas downturn is holding back Scotland’s economy against a background of continued overall growth, a new report says. According to the Scottish Chambers of Commerce (SCC), which reveals the findings of its latest Quarterly Economic Indicator today, business trends were mostly positive in the three months to June 30. SCC says the construction sector “appears to be continuing to enjoy the buoyant trade that it has experienced throughout 2014 and into this year”.
When the HMAS Sydney was sunk during WWII by what should have been a weaker German cruiser, all 645 of its crewmen perished, taking the explanation for the disaster to their watery graves. But nearly 70 years on, an Aberdeenshire subsea technology company has played a “key role” in solving the mystery surrounding the sinking of the ship, which lay undiscovered off the western Australian coast until 2008. Ashtead Technology yesterday said it donated equipment to the survey team after being sounded out by international subsea firm DOF Subsea earlier this year.
Oil’s rebound from a six-year low has faltered on signs the global surplus will be prolonged as Iran bids to restore output after its nuclear accord.
A former senior Chinese energy executive has gone on trial this week, the official Xinhua news agency reported on Wednesday, part of the government's sweeping crackdown against deep-rooted corruption. Wang Yongchun was a deputy general manager at China's biggest oil company, China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), until he became caught up in a graft probe last year. Wang's trial on charges of "holding a huge amount of property with unidentified sources" and "abuse of power by a staff member of a state-owned company" opened on Monday in Xiangyang, central Hubei province, Xinhua said.
Australia’s oil and gas industry body APPEA has called on an inquiry into unconventional gas in the state of Victoria to support ‘sensible policies’. The move comes after a fracking moratorium was introduced in the region three years ago. The APPEA claims the state is the only in Australia to ban new investment in developing its onshore gas resources.
The son of a worker kidnapped in Libya has spoken of his shock at the incident. The man's father Fausto Piano was taken earlier this week along with his three colleagues Gino Pollicardo, Salvatore Failla and Filippo Calcagno. The men, who work for Bonatti construction company, were kidnapped near an industrial complex owned by energy company Eni in the western city of Mellitah.
A drop in oil prices this month is likely to be short-term and will not deflect OPEC from its policy of keeping output high to defend market share, delegates from Gulf OPEC members and other nations said. Falling Chinese stock markets and the Greek debt crisis have raised concern about demand, while the Iranian nuclear deal could lead to higher oil exports from the Islamic Republic. Benchmark Brent crude, trading below $57 a barrel on Wednesday, has fallen more than 10 percent in July. OPEC, in a major policy shift, decided in November against cutting its production target of 30 million barrels per day (bpd) to prop up prices, seeking instead to defend market share against U.S. shale oil and other competing sources. The group reconfirmed the strategy at a meeting in June.
Golar LNG is to develop a third floating liquefaction facility (FLNG), with the conversion of the liquid natural gas carrier Gandria.
South Korea's S-Oil Corp, the country's third-largest refiner, said on Wednesday it sees a recovery in industry-wide second-half refining margins after a recent dip. S-Oil whose main shareholder is Saudi Aramco, the Kingdom's state oil giant, reported a 613 billion Korean won ($533 million) profit in the second quarter from a 238.1 billion won profit a quarter earlier and a 54.4 billion won loss a year ago, helped by more stable oil prices and healthy margins. The refiner said it expected margins to recover to a solid level following a recent correction.
Brazil's state-run oil firm Petrobras confirmed on Tuesday it had found irregularities in the approval of a 2009 contract to provide naphtha to petrochemical company Braskem SA and had reported the issue to public prosecutors. Petrobras, or Petroleo Brasileiro SA, said in a securities filing that it began investigating the contract based on plea deal testimony from former executive Paulo Roberto Costa and money changer Alberto Youssef in a sweeping graft probe. On Saturday, TV Globo reported that the two revealed a bribe paid by Braskem for a deal allowing it to pay below-market rates for naphtha, causing losses to Petrobras.
South Korea's GS Engineering and Construction Corp has signed a contract to expand a Korea Petrochemical Industry Co (KPIC) naphtha cracking plant for 311 billion Korean won ($270 million), the two companies said on Wednesday. The project will help KPIC expand its ethylene production capacity to 800,000 tonnes per year (tpy) from 490,000 tpy, along with its raising benzene, toluene and xylene production capacity to 300,000 tpy from 220,000 tpy, according to the builder GS E&C in a statement.
Edison Norge's first exploration well for its North Sea licence has come up dry. The company said the wildcat well 2/11-11 was drilled about seven kilometres southwest of the Valhall field and about five kilometres west of the Hod field.
ConocoPhillips ended talks with China National Petroleum Corp. on a shale gas development in the country after a two-year study. “The right commercial decision was to halt further discussions on this block,” ConocoPhillips’s China unit said in an e-mail response to questions Wednesday. The company said it made the decision “some time ago.”
An investigation is underway after a gas leak on a North Sea platform. Production was temporarily shut down on the Beryl Alpha platform around 200 miles from Aberdeen after the incident earlier this month. Operator Apache said the leak was suspected to have come from a flow transmitter on one of its wells.