US oil output will peak at a 43-year high in 2015 as producers work through a backlog of uncompleted wells before trailing off in the second half of the year.
Production will increase to 9.43 million barrels a day this year, the most since 1972, the Energy Information Administration said Tuesday in its monthly Short-Term Energy Outlook.
That’s 240,000 barrels higher than last month’s estimate. Monthly output will fall in June through early 2016.
Norwegian oil and gas firm Statoil is celebrating a key milestone for its giant Mariner development near Shetland.
Pipe-laying for the £4billion-plus project got under way earlier this week.
About 25 miles of pipelines for gas, oil and diluting agent are being installed on the seabed by the pipe-lay vessel Seven Navica.
Anton Oilfield Services Group has won a bid for the provision of tight oil development services for two well projects in China.
The contract has been valued at more than $6.6million.
It follows a similar contract win involving horizontal well open hole multi-stage fracturing services for another tight oil development project in the Sulige area in Erdos last month.
Statoil has entered into an agreement with Colony Capital for the sale of its head office building in Norway.
The company will also sign a 15-year lease agreement with an extension option at the same time.
Statoil's head office building is at Forus in Stavanger.
Gazprom has been given more time to respond to charges by European Union antitrust regulators after it was alleged the company levies excessive prices and blocks rivals in Eastern Europe.
The European Commission announced in April that the Russian oil giant had been given 12 weeks to reply to the charges.
Antitrust regulators had brought the charges after more than two years of investigation.
National Oilwell Varco has launched a consultation period over potential job losses related to its operations the UK.
The Houston-based company, which has five difference premises working under the same umbrella in the UK, said up to 100 jobs could be at risk.
Swire Oilfield Services has made an appointment to its executive team.
Roy Shearer will join the company as its chief financial officer and will be based at the offices in Aberdeen.
He will be responsible for the finance function across the group, including accounting and reporting, planning, tax and treasury.
Alpha Petroleum plans to bring a new oil field in the British North Sea on stream in 2020 using a floating production system so it can operate there without building pipelines.
The former chief executive of Centrica has joined up with the Carlyle Group and CVC Capital Partners to launch a new oil and gas vehicle targeting $5billion in deals.
Sam Laidlaw said his Neptune Oil & Gas would be looking for acquisitions in the North Sea, North Africa and Southeast Asia.
The company will be eyeing up possible acquisitions as energy groups looks to sell assets after the decline in oil prices.
AWE Limited has reached total depth at the Waitsia-1 appraisal well in the Perth Basin, Western Australia.
The company said the Holmwood Shale was intersected at 3,490metres and total depth was achieved 17metres into the Holmwood Shale.
Wireline logs will be run over a number of intervals, including the Dongara and Kingia Sandstones.
Repsol SA joined its European peers in calling for governments to agree on carbon pricing at a United Nations climate summit later this year, expanding the group of energy companies seeking a voice at the meeting.
Repsol on Tuesday signed the letter that BP Plc, Eni SpA, Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Statoil ASA, Total SA and BG Group Plc released earlier this month asking for a global price for carbon.
The addition of Spain’s largest oil company to the group further highlights the division within the global oil industry as the top American companies, Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp., decided to stay out of the European initiative.
Statoil has made a gas discovery in the Gymir prospect, the third find the Aasta Hansteen area for the company and its PL602 partners.
The Norwegian explorer estimates the volumes in Gymir to be in the range of between six and 19 milion barrels of oil equivalent.
Well 6706/11-2 was drilled by the Transocean Spitsbergen rig in the Gymir prospect and proved a gross 70-metre gas column in the Nise formation.
Albania has delayed bidding for companies to explore for oil and gas on five onshore blocks for a further month.
The country has also delayed bidding for a further two blocks indefinitely.
Energy Minister Damian Gjiknuri ordered the bidding date be postponed for another month to allow companies more time.
The shale oil boom that turned the US into the world’s largest fuel exporter and brought $3 gasoline back to America’s pumps is grinding to a halt.
Crude output from the prolific tight-rock formations such as North Dakota’s Bakken and Texas’s Eagle Ford shale will shrink 1.3 percent to 5.58 million barrels a day this month, based on Energy Information Administration estimates.
It’ll drop further in July to 5.49 million, the lowest level since January, the agency said Monday.
At the time of writing, some seven E&A (exploration & appraisal) wells are active, with this representing no change since last month. Of these current seven, five are exploration and two appraisal in nature, with two in the Gas Basin, four in the Central North Sea and one in the Northern North Sea.
To date this year, eight wells have spudded, representing an increase of one since the last report.
Currently, some 30 mobile rigs are active on the UK Continental Shelf, with seven on E&A drilling duties and 23 on D&P (development & production) operations. In addition, 12 are in port, with five awaiting to resume contracts, and seven stacked, two of which are available.
This infographic shows the how the Baker Hughes rig count - which reached a peak in October 2014 - has dramatically dropped since the oil price decline.
At the beginning of the month, the most recent figures from Baker Hughes rig count showed there had been a continued drop.
Panoro Energy has entered into a rig contract agreement with Saipem for the Scarabeo 3 drilling rig to carry out the drilling and completion programme for the Aje field Cenomanian oil development.
The Aje field contains hydrocarbon resources in sandstone reservoirs at three main levels – a Turonian gas condensate reservoir, a Cenomanian oil reservoir and an Albian gas condensate reservoir.
The rig will be moved to the Aje drilling location and will be used to carry out well operation for the first phase of the oil field development, which includes two subsea production wells.
Oilex has completed the laying of pipeline and pre-commissioning at the Cambay-73 oil and gas production facilities.
The company said tie in to the production facilities are expected to be completed shortly.
Cammbay-73 will supply gas to the low pressure gas market in the vicinity of the Cambay field and is expected to pr oduce approximately 50-60 boepd of gas and condensate.
Nigeria can boost its oil and gas production by changing the way capital investments are funded in its joint ventures with energy companies, according to Seplat Petroleum Development Co.
State-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corp., or NNPC, holds an average 55 percent stake in five joint ventures with Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp., Total SA and Eni
SpA that pump more than 80 percent of the country’s crude. It pays the same share of capital contributions for the operation of the oil ventures.
Seplat, a Nigerian producer now running a joint venture with NNPC after buying assets sold by Shell, wants the current funding arrangement in Africa’s biggest oil producer scrapped in favor of a method less dependent on the government.
Despite a difficult year the energy sector is still a vital organ of our economy. Companies and policymakers have made a considerable effort to reduce production costs and ensure the industry remains a provider of thousands of jobs in the north-east. The Press and Journal Gold Awards marked 50 years of oil and gas activity in the region and outlined an optimistic outlook for the future of an industry that can thrive for 50 more. Mark Lammey reports.
All that glitters in the North Sea oil and gas industry was celebrated at the weekend as the inaugural Press and Journal Gold Awards were held in Aberdeen.
The event, run in association with the paper’s sister website Energy Voice and title sponsor Aberdeen Asset Management, marked a major milestone for the sector – the 50th year of the granite city’s involvement in the development of the North Sea.
Mitra Energy has commenced 3D seismic survey acquisition operations in offshore Vietnam.
The survey work is being undertaken by PTSC CGGV Geophysical Survey using the seismic vessel Amadeus.
The IWCF (International Well Control Forum) has appointed its first chief financial officer.
David Conroy will be based at the UK's headquarters in Montrose where he will be developing the role to lead changes to the technical aspects of IWCF's services.
This will include exam quality, programme development, curriculum and training.
A.P. Moeller-Maersk A/S, owner of the world’s largest shipping container line, is seeking to win contracts to build and upgrade ports in Nigeria and Kenya as the Danish company expands its African operations.
Maersk is awaiting a final sign-off on a contract to help build a new port in Badagry in Nigeria’s southern Lagos state, according to Lars Reno Jakobsen, the company’s senior vice president for Africa.
“That project, once its been finalized could be more than $2 billion in terms of investment,” he said in an interview at the World Economic Forum in Cape Town on Friday. “Hopefully we can start some time this year. It will provide capacity, not only for containers, but also for oil, break-bulk and offshore.”
Oil and gas companies need to take a long-term, strategic approach to recruitment if they are to avoid the pitfalls of a self-inflicted, perpetuating talent shortage, a new report says.
Energy firms are more focused on reducing their headcounts to cope with the current oil price downturn, with industry body Oil and Gas UK venturing last month that as many as 4,000 North Sea jobs have been lost since last summer.
But talent shortages have affected the industry since the 1990s, and many observers have warned that the sector still needs to find new workers, or it will not be ready to take advantage when the market picks up.
