Canacol Energy has confirmed it has landed a 15 year contract with Altenesol LNG. The agreement will see the firm execute a new 15 year take or pay contract for the sale of 35 million standard cubic feet per day of gas to Altenesol LNG next February.
Saipem has been awarded a $1.8billion engineering and construction contract from the Kashgan field project in the Caspian Sea. The deal, through its subsidiary ERSAI Caspian Contractor LLC, is for the construction of two 95km pipelines which will connect D island in the Caspian Sea to the Karabatan onshore plant in Kazakhstan.
Petrofac has signed two strategic contract agreements with Algerian state-owned Sonatrach. The first is a five year contract providing a range of multi-discipline engineering design and procurement services in support of the company’s upstream hydrocarbon development programme. The company said the contract will cover the early definition of new projects, detailed engineering and services in support of project execution.
Solo Oil said the newly constructed gas export pipeline from the Songo Songo processing plant to the KN-1 gas well has been completed. The KN-1 well, when connected to the export pipeline, is expected to produce at least 20 million cubic feet per day. The company announced earlier this month that it has signed an asset purchase agreement with Aminex for the first 6.5% interest in the Kiliwani North Development licence.
Gulf Keystone Petroleum has temporarily suspended export crude deliveries from the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. The company said it remained in a dialogue with the Kurdistan Regional Government’s Ministry of Natural Resources in order to receive outstanding payments due to the company. A spokesman said in the interim Gulf Keystone would be recommencing crude oil supply for local Kurdistan use.
Lundin Petroleum has completed the drilling of a wildcat well in the Norwegian Sea. The well investigated the hydrocarbon potential of the Zulu prospect in PL674BS which is located 100km west of Stavanger on the Norwegian coast and 30 km northeast of the Johan Sverdrup discovery. The main objective of well 26/10-1 was to test the hydrocarbon potential in the Miocene Utsira Formation sand.
Automation and technology group ABB has won a contract worth more than $50million to supply an electrical system for one of the world’s first floating liquefied natural gas (FLNG) facilities. The contract was awarded in the fourth quarter of 2014 by Japanese engineering contractor JGC Corporation. JGC is part of a consortium that is building the facility for Petronas along with the Samsung Heavy Industries of Korea.
Oil and gas explorer InfraStrata plans to fund preliminary work on a £300million gas storage project at Islandmagee, Northern Ireland, via a share offering later this month. The placement is expected to raise £2million and will go ahead on the London Exchange on February 24 if the company’s shareholders approve the move at a meeting the day before. The European Union-backed project is being managed by Belfast-registered Islandmagee Storage Limited (IMSL), a joint venture between InfraStrata, which holds 65%, and Moyle Energy Investments, which owns the remaining 35%.
Energy service giant Weatherford International is axeing 9% of its global workforce as the job cull across the oil and gas industry in response to low crude prices continues. The latest redundancies mean about 5,000 people among Weatherford’s 56,000-stong head-count will soon be out of work. But the group’s largely Aberdeen-based eastern hemisphere operations, serving markets such as the North Sea, Middle East, East Asia, Australia and west Africa, will be spared the worst.
This week's most read story on Energy Voice was the news that Talisman Sinopec was following in the footsteps of a number of companies by considering a change to three on, three off shifts. The move has already been made by Apache and is also being considered by Marathon Oil. A spokeswoman for Talisman Sinopec said:“Following a working group review, Talisman Sinopec proposes to move to a 3/3 rota, which would deliver essential cost efficiencies in a safe manner.
Oil giant BP is recommending its shareholders support a resolution calling on the company to address its climate change risks. The move comes after Shell recommended its shareholders support an identical resolution, filed by more than 150 investors, including UK local authorities and the Church of England. The resolutions call on the oil companies to transparently assess their business model against the commitment by governments not to let global temperatures rise more than 2C above pre-industrial levels - the threshold above which “dangerous” climate change is expected.
Foreign oil producers in Iraqi Kurdistan are resorting to selling crude at about $30 a barrel in the domestic market as the government hangs on to companies’ export earnings amid weaker world prices and a costly battle with Islamic State. “The government’s announcement was that there would be payments coming,” said Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani, executive chairman of Norwegian producer DNO ASA, said in an interview in Oslo. “That payment I think got disrupted because of lower prices and the resolution of the budget issues.” That’s forcing DNO to increase sales to the local market.
The Government has been accused of watering down rules preventing fracking in protected areas. Ministers accepted Labour moves to tighten fracking regulations in the Infrastructure Bill by imposing a number of conditions, including banning the process from protected areas such as national parks and groundwater protection zones which feed aquifers. But campaigners warned the Government’s new amendment to the Bill, which is now being considered by the Lords, has weakened the rules by allowing ministers to define what counts as protected groundwater source areas and other protected areas. The new amendment also removed the rule preventing drilling underneath protected areas, environmentalists said.
Ivanhoe Energy has confimred the termination of a contract in Ecuador. Ivanhoe and Petroamazonas agreed in August 2014to mutually terminate the Specific Services Contract under which Ivanhoe has been operating since 2008.
Real Energy will soon have an increased acreage in the Cooper Basin. The oil and gas exploration company is set to aqcuire a permit that covers an area of 1,043 km2, increasing the firm's acrage postion in the field to 9,357 km2.
Petrobras has made a new discovery on the Campos Basin in Brazil. The firm found oil accumulations in BM-C-35 in the area's post-salt layer.
Energy minister Matthew Hancock has pledged to support the crisis-hit North Sea oil sector prompted by the dramatic fall in global prices. He came under fire in the Commons today from Labour’s Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) who accused the Government of doing “very little”. The MP called for the reduction in the additional taxation on the fuel and investment tax write-offs.
Cape said its SOCAR Cape joint venture has been awarded three significant contracts in Azerbaijan worth $65million. The company will supply services to projects that are part of the development of the Shah Deniz field, a major natural gas development in the country. The joint venture agreement with the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) was signed in 2010 and is 51% owned by SOCAR and 49% owned by Cape.
Suncor Energy Inc., Canada’s largest oil company, will push ahead with its planned Fort Hills oil sands project even as the price of oil hovers around $50 a barrel. Suncor will spend C$1.6 billion ($1.3 billion) this year as it advances construction of the project, the Calgary-based company said in a statement.The operation will begin producing oil at the end of 2017, the company added.
Weatherford will reduce its workforce by 9% - estimated to be around 5,000 jobs – as it looks to save costs. The company said the job losses will be made to staff within its operation and support positions and are most likely to be made in the Western Hemisphere. The move is in line with a number of companies, including BP and Schlumberger, who have announced a reduction in their headcounts.
OAO Rosneft, Russia’s largest oil producer, will cut spending 10% this year after oil prices slumped. “For the past year and a half we have cut spending by 10% annually, and this year this tendency will continue,” Rosneft Chief Executive Officer Igor Sechin told Russian President Vladimir Putin outside Moscow.
Chevron has acquired a 30% interest in three blocks in waters offshore Mauritania from Kosmos Energy. The agreement, for blocks C8, C12 and C13 are subject to approval from the Mauritania government. Under the agreement, Kosmos Energy will retain a 60% interest and remain as operator.
Petroleo Brasileiro SA Chief Executive Officer Maria das Gracas Foster and five of her top managers resigned amid a corruption probe that’s wiped out billions of dollars of the oil producer’s value and threatens Brazil’s economic revival. Shares retreated after a two-day rally. State-run Petrobras’s board of directors will meet Friday to elect replacements for Foster and her management team, it said in a one-sentence statement Wednesday.
Mosman Oil and Gas is expected to flow test one of its Petroleum Creek well in the next few weeks. The news comes as a recent report on of the project identified valuable geological information including the identification of multiple distinct depositional layers.
Senex Energy has spudded the tenth well of its 2015 Australian drilling program. The Martlet North-1 oil exploration well in the South Australian Basin was spudded on January 27, 2015.