Analyst expects improvement in upstream sector
Energy research firm Wood Mackenzie's latest report has revealed the impact of the depressed economic conditions on activity in the UK's upstream oil and gas sector during 2009.
Energy research firm Wood Mackenzie's latest report has revealed the impact of the depressed economic conditions on activity in the UK's upstream oil and gas sector during 2009.
AN ABERDEEN-BASED hydraulic-engineering company has completed an upgrade project for Diamond Offshore Drilling (UK).
International offshore accommodation specialist Ferguson Modular said yesterday it had landed one of its most significant contracts to date.
Decom North Sea, the Aberdeen-based industry forum set up last year to maximise new business opportunities presented by offshore decommissioning, has confirmed Brian Nixon as its first chief executive.
The boss of ScottishPower said in Aberdeen last night that, 35 years on from first North Sea oil a new chapter could be opening with carbon capture and storage (CCS).
Talisman Energy said yesterday it planned to increase capital spending this year by more than 10% on 2009 to £3.15billion.
MARINE Current Turbines (MCT) has raised £3.5million from an investor group led by Carbon Trust Investments Limited and including Bank Invest, EDF Energy, High Tide and a group of significant private investors. The funding is intended to help MCT in its plans to deploy what it hopes will be the UK's first commercial tidal energy farm in domestic waters within the next two years.
A DEAL between a US company and the Chinese threatens European dominance of offshore-capable wind turbines.
2009 was a very important year for Sterling Resources thanks to a deal that allowed the Scottish petroleum minnow to remain a stakeholder in Breagh, which ranks as the largest natural-gas discovery made in the UK Southern North Sea for at least 10 years.
Ensuring that the UK oil&gas industry operates in the safest manner possible is a top priority, but so too is sustaining an environment in which others can do the same.
As this column was being written, world leaders were meeting in Copenhagen to try to agree targets for reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions.
Refining margins and profitability of E&P activities are in decline across Europe and post-Soviet Russian energy infrastructure remains in need of significant investment to be able to service all contracted clients.
New year, new horizons, new challenges. It is sound business advice to say that if you stand still for too long you get left behind.
In announcing changes to the tax rates and personal allowances for high earners in the UK's 2009 Budget, the Chancellor said that the measures were "necessary to build our recovery and secure our country's economic future".
Something of a tradition has grown in Aberdeen over the past few years whereby a number of student prizes and scholarships are awarded in the run-up to Christmas.
COLLEGE student Mark Wigginton is top of the class after being named oil&gas industry Apprentice of the Year by OPITO - The Oil & Gas Academy.
A NEW type of gas-fired power station could provide electricity with zero carbon-dioxide emissions to the atmosphere and at costs comparable to, or less than, conventional gas and even coal-fuelled plant, it is claimed.
ETHANOL, which is often promoted as a clean-burning, alternative and renewable fuel capable of partially weaning Euro-motorists and their American counterparts off crude oil-based products such as diesel and petrol, may not be so green after all.
A boat tail, a tapering protrusion mounted on the rear of a lorry, can lead to fuel savings of up to 7.5%, according to road tests carried out by PART (Platform for Aerodynamic Road Transport), a Dutch public-private partnership.
ADVANCED technologies offer ways of reducing the quantity of nuclear waste, scientists in Finland claim.
In the mid-1970s, the first British oil was brought onshore and, within 10 years, there were more than 100 installations in the North Sea. Technology has evolved over the decades, allowing companies to drill deeper and deeper under the sea to harvest oil from reserves that were considered to be exhausted
The start of 2010 sees just four mobile units and a single platform rig active on UKCS exploration and appraisal drilling.
SHELL and Oceaneering International have set a new industry record in subsea well intervention by successfully replacing a failed subsurface-controlled subsurface safety valve in the US Gulf of Mexico using an "openwater wireline" technique at a water depth of 815m (2,673ft). This sets the bar for producing wells. Openwater wireline has previously been deployed only in shallower waters.
NATIONAL Oilwell Varco has acquired Hochang Machinery Industries Company, a manufacturing and fabrication business with facilities in Ulsan and Geoje, South Korea, and its joint-venture partner, South Seas Inspection (SSI), a Singapore-based inspection, repair and maintenance provider.
PETROBRAS has completed formation tests on its appraisal well drilled offshore Brazil in the Santos Basin block BM-S-11 - the so-called Iara block.