North Sea oil and gas companies must continue to promote the sector to young people or face a shortage of workers in the coming years, a Statoil official said yesterday.
Low oil prices have hit the industry hard with many companies forced to let staff go in order to free up funds for new projects, but Statoil appears to be taking a longer term view on employment.
The company plans to increase its Aberdeen-based headcount to 200 from 130 when it moves into a new office in Kingswells next spring, with hundreds more working offshore on its Mariner development.
A record number of firms are flying the flag for Scotland at the Oil and Gas Asia show in Malaysia this week. South-east Asia is fast becoming a strategically important market says Neil McInnes, who looks after the region for Scottish Development International (SDI).
The size and scale of south-east Asia suggests it has the potential to one day rival some of the other leading markets in Asia Pacific.
Together, the 10 countries in the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) represent Asia’s third largest economy – and the world’s seventh largest – with a combined GDP (gross domestic product) of £1.6trillion.
A new international research programme is being launched to make renewables cheaper than coal within 10 years.
The scheme’s backers, who include leading figures from business, government and academia, warn that cheap clean energy is crucial to keeping global temperatures from rising by more than 2C - seen as the threshold for dangerous climate change.
Like the US programme in the 1960s to put a man on the moon, the Global Apollo Programme has a clear goal, in this case to make electricity from solar and wind cheaper than power from coal in every country and to do so within a decade.
Energy firms are facing increased pressure from the Government to pass on a fall in wholesale costs to consumers by slashing household bills.
Amber Rudd, the Energy and Climate Change Secretary, has written to the Big Six energy companies asking them to alter their prices now a pre-election pledge by Labour to impose a freeze was off the table.
The latest analysis by regulator Ofgem found firms could increase their profit margins to up to £118 on an estimated annual dual fuel deal this year, while wholesale gas and electricity costs were £80 lower than they were estimated at a year ago.
A body responsible for training North Sea workers is working to ensure that skills development does not fall off the agenda due to the oil price slump.
Yesterday Opito launched schools week, a work experience taster programme for 70 north-east pupils. The students from 27 schools across the region will get a chance to learn about and engage with 22 oil and gas companies across the supply chain.
The number of companies participating in the week-long series of events has risen from nine last year which was the first time the scheme was trialled.
Trade body Energy North has named Stuart Deed as its new chief executive.
Having worked with many of the industry’s leading names, including ExxonMobil and SSE, Mr Deed brings more than 25 years’ experience to the post.
Most recently he has been operating as a consultant, supporting young and evolving businesses to navigate the sector.
A record number of companies are taking part in the latest Scottish trade mission to the Oil and Gas Asia (OGA) industry showcase in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
The Scottish Enterprise (SE)-led delegation at the event, being held from today until Thursday, has 15 firms on board.
As you might expect, there is a strong presence from the north-east as businesses in the energy sector look to expand overseas.
A worker has been injured following a light hydrocarbon release at oil major Shell's refinery in Ontario, Canada.
According to reports, the worker sustained burns and was in a stable condition.
The incident comes after the family of a worker killed in an explosion were given an estimated $5million as part of a settlement deal.
Nigeria’s Red Cross says a runaway oil tanker truck exploded in a crowded bus station in the south of the country, igniting 11 other vehicles and burning 69 people to death.
Red Cross chairman Peter Emeka Kathy said Monday that about 30 other victims have been taken to hospital with severe burns.
Despite the intense negativity that currently grips the UK North Sea, international marine & offshore engineering consultancy Aqualis Offshore has decided to open for business in Aberdeen.
“We know that job cuts currently is a common theme in the oil industry, but we are taking a long-term approach,” the Norwegian firm’s CEO David Wells told Energy.
“Entering Aberdeen was the obvious next step of our expansion strategy. The city is the oil & gas centre of the UK and packed with oil companies, rig operators and oil services players who constantly need support from senior engineers and mariners for challenging offshore projects and integrity problems. That is exactly what we offer.”
The Aberdeen office is located in Grandholm Village, which is on the site of the famous Grandholm Mill.
It is led by general manager Martin Brown, a chartered naval architect with 25 years’ experience from offshore projects on the UKCS and elsewhere around the world. He has worked as a consultant for many years, lately for Noble Denton.
The UK’s Energy Technologies Institute (ETI) has chosen a consortium led by north-east consultancy Pale Blue Dot Energy to identify future potential carbon dioxide (CO2) storage sites beneath the North Sea.
The 12-month project is being delivered by the ETI and funded with up to £2.5million from the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC). The aim is to identify five credible carbon capture and storage sites on the UK Continental Shelf.
It will progress the appraisal of selected storage sites towards readiness for “final investment decisions”, de-risking these stores for potential future storage developers.
The institute says the project will make use of CO2 Stored – the UK’s CO2 storage atlas – which was created from the ETI’s UK Storage Appraisal Project.
Prosecutors in China have charged a former senior official at the National Energy Administration with corruption.
Wei Pengyuan was the deputy director of the administration's coal department.
Oil and gas companies including BG Group, Statoil, Shell, BP, Eni and Total have called on governments around the world to introduce carbon pricing systems in a bid to create a clearer framework which could eventually connect national systems.
They have also called on the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) to back the move.
Manufacturing is growing at a slower rate than expected amid a loss of momentum in the industry, new research has revealed.
The EEF said its latest survey of firms showed that demand for goods in the UK had weakened in the past few months, while exports remain “flat.”
Confidence was said to be slipping, leading to “softer” recruitment plans.
Oklahoma has signed a bill into law which means cities and coutnies will no longer be allowed to ban fracking within the US state.
The move means the process of hydraulic fracturing and other oil and gas operations will be prohibited in towns and cities.
It comes after a similair bill was also signed into law in Texas last month.
Oil major Chevron has reached a settlement with the family of a worker who was burned to death in a gas well fire in the US.
Ian McKee died aged 27-years-old when he had gone to investigate the hissing sound of gas which was escaping under high pressure at the Chevron Lanco 7H well in Greene County, Pennslyvania.
Atlantic Offshore Rescue is to unveil the third vessel of its modernisation programme.
The standby vessel operator will showcase the Ocean Falcon, which totals £300million, at a ceremony in Aberdeen today.
Ocean Falcon is a new H820 design from Havyard Ship Design. It was built and developed in Passai, Spain by Zamakona shipbuilders, in close collaboration with Atlantic Offshore Rescue over an 18 month period.
Tickets have almost sold out for a one-day business event which will link two of Europe’s leading energy hubs next month.
The second annual Aberdeen-Stavanger Gateway will be hosted by Aberdeen-based Granite PR in association with Statoil at the city’s Norwood Hall Hotel on Tuesday, June 2nd.
The event will feature an array of speakers, joined by participants who will benefit from knowledge sharing and networking between these key locations.
A tornado in Texas has left three people injured after hitting a natural gas drilling rig in Texas.
According to reports, one victim suffered minor injuries, another had non-life threatening injuries to his face and a third had suffered an injury to their abdomen.
Northern Alberta firefighters are battling a wildfire that has moved within 5 kilometers of Cenovus Energy Inc’s oil sands operations.
The Cold Lake Air Weapons Range blaze is spreading in the direction of oil and gas operations and threatens plants run by Cenovus and Canadian Natural Resources Ltd., Scott Long, an executive director at the Alberta Emergency Management Agency, said in a press conference Wednesday.
Firefighters put in containment and protection guards to keep it from getting closer, he said.
Wildfires have prompted the shutdown of 230,000 barrels a day of oil-sands output, about 10 percent of Canada’s production.
He made his fortune and reputation by recognising the massive potential of the North Sea, and by his own estimation did “incredibly well” during the oil and gas industry’s boom years.
Now Sir Ian Wood has pledged an incredible £4.5million to ensure that Aberdeen and the rest of the region has a bright future long after the lifeblood of the area’s economy runs dry.
The huge donation from the Wood Foundation to Robert Gordon University will be spent on turning the institute and the city into “world leaders” in the oil and gas industry for teaching, research and technology. It should also keep the sector anchored in the north-east long after operators have filled their last barrel.
The camera pans up with a slight jerk, and lingers for a moment on the oddly familiar woman in the pink dress, splayed on the grass, holding herself up on her arms. Did she trip? What is it that she's trying to see?
We follow her gaze to the two weathered farm houses and back, have a second or two to recall that this woman Andrew Wyeth painted back in 1948 was his neighbor, Anna Christina Olson. Next we're transported to William Bradford's depiction of Melville Bay, before skipping to the pastiche of Highway 138 in David Hockney's Pearblossom Highway.
By the time we jump back seconds later, Christina's World has caught fire.
A collaboration between Aberdeen Formation Evaluation Society (AFES), Petroleum Exploration Society of Great Britain (PESGB) and the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) Aberdeen Section jointly organised the seminar ‘How can young professionals cope during a reduced oil price?’ during DEVEX 2015 last week.
The aim of the seminar was to provide young professionals working in the oil and gas industry in Scotland with the advice and guidance they require to professionally survive the current downturn.
A panel of leading industry, recruitment and political professionals, who all had been affected at a point in their careers by a low oil price, answered a series of questions asked by the young professionals present at the event.
The University of Edinburgh is taking steps to withdraw its investments in fossil fuel producers, in response to pressure from student groups and activists.
Students staged pickets and occupied a building after the university said two weeks ago it would only divest from companies that produce coal and tar sands if they are found not to be investing in technologies that address climate change.
But yesterday the university said it is informing “three of the world’s biggest fossil fuel producers” of its intentions to divest from them within the next six months, giving them four weeks to respond.
