Suicide attackers have targeted two natural gas facilities in the central Syrian province of Homs, killing eight people, officials said. State news agency Sana also reported the attacks, saying guards opened fire at the attackers as they drove towards the plants, forcing them to detonate their bombs before reaching their targets.
Independent project services consultancy Cambla plans to expand to the Middle East after it exceeded its turnover target by more than 45% in its first year. Established in 2013, the firm has grown significantly over the past year – increasing staff numbers and securing a string of contract extensions with North Sea oil and gas operators including Marathon Oil and Centrica to provide project services support. In the financial year ending July 31, Cambla grew its turnover to £362,000 and expects this to rise to over £500,000 next year.
It is more critical than ever for North Sea oil and gas firms to keep skills at the top of their agenda, despite any layoffs caused by low crude prices, industry body Opito said. The skills, standards and workforce development organisation said there was still an over-riding need to turn potential talent into the offshore workers of tomorrow. Doing so will not just equip the industry with the people it requires when oil prices rise but also help to keep safety at the forefront of operations offshore, it added. Opito managing director John McDonald’s reminder of the importance of maintaining a competent and safe oil and gas workforce came as the Portlethen-based organisation set out its priorities for the year ahead.
The company, which is in a consortium with Kuwait Energy, had success in its Faihaa-1 exploration well, after targeting the Yamama formation. A spokesman said the discovery was made at 4,000 metres at the site in Northern Basra.
Cape has been awarded a five year contract extension by EDF Energy for the supply of access, insulation and associated service in support of its eight nuclear power stations in the UK. The contract will see the company provide its services until 2021 in support of the energy suppliers. Around one fifth of the UK’s energy supply comes from EDF’s nuclear power stations, two coal fired power stations, combine gas cycle turbine power station and wind farms.
BG Group has loaded up its first cargo from the QCLNG (Queensland Curtis Liquefied Natural Gas) project. The company said the first vessel being loaded is from the Methane Rita Andrea. A second cargo will be loaded onto the Methan Mickie Harper which is expected in Gladstone in the first week of January.
Oil advanced for the first time in three days amid speculation that an escalating conflict in Libya will help ease a global supply surplus that’s driven crude into a bear market. Brent futures rose as much as 1.6% in London. Fires have been extinguished at three of five tanks at Es Sider, Libya’s largest oil port, which were set ablaze after an attack by militants, said Ali al-Hasy, a spokesman for the Petroleum Facilities Guard. Algerian Energy Minister Youcef Yousfi called on the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to cut output to boost prices.
A price war is brewing between Canada and Latin America over who will satisfy US Gulf Coast refiners’ hunger for heavy oil. The new Seaway Twin pipeline will almost double the amount of heavy Canadian crude coming to Gulf terminals and plants to about 400,000 barrels a day starting in January, according to Calgary-based based ARC Financial Corp. The shipments are growing even without the Keystone XL pipeline, which has been delayed for six years because of environmental opposition. The Canadian supply will square off against crudes from Mexico and Venezuela that have traditionally fed refineries along the Texas and Louisiana coasts.
Mexico’s Finance Ministry took out 50 billion pesos ($3.4 billion) from the state oil company Petroleos Mexicanos, according to a statement sent to the Mexican Stock Exchange. The payment this month was meant to “make management of public-sector finances more efficient,” according to the filing from the oil company, known as Pemex. The withdrawal marks a departure from the government’s usual methods of obtaining revenue from Pemex, which include taxes and royalties. Pemex typically provides about a third of the federal budget, and its contributions dropped this year as the oil company faced production declines and falling crude prices. During the first 11 months of 2014, taxes paid by Mexico City- based Pemex declined by about 260 billion pesos, or 22 percent, from the same period of 2013, according to records. The withdrawal shows “a near addiction to Pemex’s revenue by the ministry,” Fluvio Ruiz, a board member of the oil company’s petrochemical unit, said in a phone interview. He said he had no prior knowledge of the disclosure through his role at the company. Pemex and Finance Ministry press officials declined to comment.
Saudi authorities pledged to curb wages and push ahead with investments next year as the world’s largest oil exporter seeks to counter the effect of tumbling crude prices on the economy.
Lukoil has sold its 20% stake in NOC (National Oil Consortium) to Rosneft. NOC was established by Russian oil companies in 2008 as part of the Russian-Venezuelan economic promotion. In 2010, the NOC and Venezuelan company PDVSA registered a joint venture, PetroMiranda, to develop the Junin-6 block in the Orinoco heavy-oil belt.
Shares in oil giant BP have increased by 0.5% on the back of reports its set to close a deal with Rosneft to develop fields in eastern Siberia. The potential agreement has been reported by Moscow-based newspaper Kommersant, which says that Rosneft has signed a "strategic partnership" with BP to explore oil fields.
A farm-out agreement between Chariot Oil and Gas and Woodside has been approved by the Moroccan Authorities. The company made the deal earlier this year with Woodside who committed to pay 100% of the 3D seismic acquisition and processing costs incurred across the licence by Chariot. A spokesman said a substantial part of the funds had been received bringing its estimated cash balance to $52million.
Billionaire Harold Hamm, whose early adoption of shale drilling in North Dakota helped usher in a US energy renaissance, plans to cut spending by 41% at his company after the plunge in oil prices. Continental Resources Inc. and other US producers can adjust quickly to the crude collapse and will be able to withstand the downturn better than many producing countries, which face economic “ruin,” Hamm said in an interview. “The oil and gas industry has lowered the cost of gasoline to consumers in this country,” Hamm, chairman and chief executive officer of Continental, said yesterday.
Fears have been raised that an emergency summit on North Sea oil will “fall flat on its face”. Aberdeen City Council Conservative group leader Ross Thomson yesterday voiced his “extreme disappointment” at the way Labour announced the event, with no details on its remit or venue. He has e-mailed other group leaders on the council calling for an a commitment to constructive talks.
Oil traded near the highest price in almost two weeks as the US economy expanded at the fastest pace in more than a decade, signalling fuel demand may increase in the world’s biggest consumer. West Texas Intermediate futures were down 0.6% in New York, paring a 3.4% gain yesterday. Gross domestic product rose at a 5% annual rate from July through September, the most since 2003, according to revised Commerce Department data.
Oil traders are poised to cash in on low crude prices by storing vast quantities of the commodity until prices rise. Global demand for supertankers is already growing as companies look to take advantage of the weakest oil prices in years. The price of a barrel of Brent crude has plunged nearly 50% since June due to a global supply glut but the economics for storing crude at sea have until just recently remained unfavourable.
The boss of Danish conglomerate A.P. Moller-Maersk has warned the group’s oil division will have to close some sites and cut operating costs if oil prices remain at their current level. Nils Smedegaard Andersen, chief executive, said that if prices stay around $60 per barrel, it will reduce revenue in the oil unit by one-third from the level of 2013. He added: “As all costs, except taxes, are fixed it is obviously something we have to take very seriously. And we would have to do some things.”
BP has claimed any gulf spill compensation payments by it should be less to reflect the oil price plunge. The oil giant is currently in a legal wrangle over what civil penalties it should make following the Deepwater Horizon rig disaster in 2010. The company said in legal filings before the final round of the case next month that penalties – which could beup to $18billion – would have a “very significant economic impact” on BP and its exploration and production business. BP claims any future ruling should take into account the fall in the oil price, the company’s clean-up efforts and the environmental improvement in the Gulf of Mexico.
Iraq’s cabinet approved a smaller 2015 spending plan than the government expected because of the collapse in oil, which provides most government revenue. The budget, based on a $60 a barrel price for oil, stands at 123 trillion dinars ($103 billion), Saad Al-Hadithi, spokesman for the office of the prime minister, said. The budget deficit was set at 23 trillion dinars and total revenue at 99.8 trillion dinars, including oil revenue of 84 trillion dinars, Obaid Mahal, deputy secretary general of the cabinet, said.
Lundin Petroleum has come up dry on a wildcat well at the Storm prospect in the North Sea. The company said it encountered hydrocarbons in the Cretaceous and Jurrasic reservoir sequences but not in “commercial quantities”. The wildcat well 33/2-1 on PL555 is located 200km north west of Floro on the Norwegian west coast and 65km from the Snorre field.
The force defending oil ports in eastern Libya pushed back an onslaught that Islamist militias had started 11 days ago to capture the facilities. “We pushed them back and it’s we who are now attacking them,” Ali al-Hasy, a spokesman of the Petroleum Facilities Guard, said by phone from Es Sider, Libya’s largest oil port. “The oil ports are safe and they suffered no damage. All the fighting took place well outside the ports.”
APR Energy said the suspension of operations in Libya will have an effect on its financial performance for the year. The company decided in November to temporarily suspend on going work in the North African country while it awaited final parliamentary ratification of the contract addendum signed by the customer and Ministry of Electricity in July. It said revenues for the year are expected to be $490million, offset by $30million which has arisen from the planned disposal of two turbines in Uruguay.
Score Group has unveiled plans to spend around £80million on new headquarters and other buildings in its home town of Peterhead. But a further plunge in oil prices could kill off the project, the company’s owner has warned. The proposals are at an early stage and no approach has been made to Aberdeenshire Council for planning approval.
Fighting in Libya that’s pushed oil production below consumption in the holder of Africa’s largest reserves is a reminder that not all OPEC members are in a position to defend market share by maintaining output. As Iraq plans to boost supplies next year amid repeated pledges by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to keep pumping the same amount of crude, Libya’s National Oil Corp. said output has dropped to a “very low point.” Conflict between the government and Islamist militias has spread to the region of Mellitah, where the country’s fourth-largest oil port is located, after disrupting two other export terminals, according to the state-run company.