Oil major Shell has appointed a new managing director to lead its operations in Nigeria. Osagie Okunbor will lead the company's subsidiary after its current head, Mutiu Sunmonu, announced his retirement. Mr Okunbor has also been named the country chair of Shell companies in Nigeria.
Petroamerica Oil has completed a stabilized test rate of 760 barrels of oil per day at its Langur-1X exploration well in the Llanos Basin of Colombia. The company said the LLA19 block was cased to evaluate 14.5feet of Gacheta Coil pay. Two intervals were perforated and the well was tested for 15 days under flow-assistance by coiled tubing and nitrogen.
Northern Offshore has issued a Notice of Contract termination to Oceanic Consultants Nigeria for the Energy Searcher drilling contract. The company has alleged that Oceanic breached various terms of the drilling contract and said it will be filing a claim of $50million associated with the matter.
The shortlist for the 2015 Offshore Achievement Awards is unveiled today, revealing 34 contenders for 11 of the 12 honours on offer. It is all hush-hush for the 12th award, which recognises significant achievement in the oil and gas industry, and will be presented along with the others in formt of about 500 guests at Aberdeen Exhibition and Conference Centre on Thursday, March 12. Sponsored by Taqa in association with rigzone.com, the annual awards are organised and hosted by the Aberdeen section of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE).
Expro has won a $200million contract from Statoil to provide well testing and fluid sampling services in the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS). The agreement which started this month, will last an initial four years, with options to extend for a further six years. It will include the provision of downhole tools, gauges, tubing, surface well testing, rig cooling and subsea services.
The Russian rouble is edging further down amid a continuing slump in oil prices. The currency was down about 2% in morning trading in Moscow, floating around 62.8 roubles per dollar. The rouble has been plunging under a combined blow of slumping oil prices and Western sanctions over Ukraine. Last year, it was the world’s worst performing currency along with the Ukrainian hryvnia.
Fresh pressure on energy stocks failed to derail the FTSE 100 Index today, even as oil prices slid further away from the $50 dollars a barrel mark. BP was 1.9p lower at 396.6p and Royal Dutch Shell dipped 15p to 2145p but the top flight index clung to positive territory - up 24.6 points at 6525.6.
Former First Minister Alex Salmond has called for an agenda to be set out by Westminster in order to save jobs in the oil industry. Speaking to Energy Voice as his first exclusive column is published in its sister publication, The Press and Journal, the SNP politician called for action as oil prices head below the $50 mark. He said:"If you listen to Westminster politicians the debate is all about what prices are going to be and what revenues are going to be because they've never been concerned about anything else, but how much revenues they'll get from Scotland's resources.
A selection of the country’s most successful subsea businesses have made it on to the shortlist for the industry’s annual awards gala. Fisher Offshore, Proserv and ROVOP are all in contention for the annual Subsea UK Awards event’s top honour, the subsea company of the year award. Express Engineering Oil & Gas, Flowline Specialists and Tekmar Energy have been short-listed in the Global Exports Award category, while ToolTec, Ocean Installer and Cambla are vying for the New Enterprise award.
Scotland’s economy finished 2014 on a “solid footing”, according to a new report. The monthly survey findings by the Bank of Scotland (BoS) found employment and business output grew in December, continuing at the same rate as the previous month. It is forecast that the economy will expand during 2015 but at a slower rate than last year.
Chancellor George Osborne has hinted that further tax breaks will be introduced to help the UK offshore industry amid growing pressure for urgent action to address tumbling oil prices. Mr Osborne will use his March Budget to unveil a tax “bailout”, it was reported yesterday.sun He is working on emergency measures to reverse a worrying decline in investment which threatens the future of the UK oil and gas sector, the report said.
Iraq, OPEC’s second-largest producer, raised the selling price for February shipments to Asia of its main Basrah Light crude by 30 cents a barrel, after Saudi Arabia boosted its pricing to the region. Iraq set Basrah Light at a discount of $3.70 a barrel to the average of Middle Eastern benchmark Oman and Dubai grades, the country’s Oil Marketing Co. said yesterday in an statement.
Goldman Sachs said US oil prices need to trade near $40 a barrel in the first half of this year to curb shale investments as it gave up on OPEC cutting output to balance the market. The bank cut its forecasts for global benchmark crude prices, predicting inventories will increase over the first half of this year, according to a report. Excess storage and tanker capacity suggests the market can run a surplus far longer than it has in the past, said Goldman analysts including Jeffrey Currie in New York.
Predicting oil price movements is as risky as exploring for oil itself. The average price for crude fell 10.3% from the start of 2014 to the date of the Scottish independence referendum on September 18. It fluctuated over this period – but few, if any, were predicting any major move in either direction in the months to follow. Yet during the past three months we have seen another 48.4% fall. Geopolitical factors involving OPEC, the US, Russia and Iran, as well as the economic decline of China and the Eurozone, have been touted as contributory causes.
This dramatic footage captured by an offshore worker in the North Sea shows waves crashing against the Borgholm Dolphin rig. Winds as high as 113mph hit Scotland earlier this week as a storms crossed the Atlantic.
An offshore oil consultancy with an operation in Aberdeen has bought a controlling stake in a Norwegian IT firm. Stavanger-based Ross Offshore took a 60% stake in Network Scenario for an undisclosed sum after working closely with the company for a number of years.
Each financial crisis seems to throw up its own new words and phrases – back in 2007 it was the term “credit crunch” and then came the dreaded phrases “sub-prime” and “collateralised debt obligations” or CDOs during the 2008-9 crash. The subsequent foreign exchange trading scandals meant that suddenly everyone knew that “Libor” stood for the London inter-bank offered rate and that it had exotic-sounding cousins called “Hibor”, “Sibor” and even “Tibor”. Now the plunge in the price of oil has brought another seldom-used word back into the headlines – “contango”.
TransCanada Corp.’s Keystone XL pipeline faces one less hurdle after Nebraska’s highest court cleared its path through the state, sending the matter back to Washington. The pipeline would funnel crude from Alberta’s oil sands to a network junction in southeast Nebraska, for transport to Gulf Coast refineries. While the ruling is a victory for energy independence proponents, the project’s fate remains uncertain.
Statoil has flown home more than 100 workers from seven installations in the North Sea. The company said the measure had been taken as a precaution due to "limitations" to lifeboats on board. The staff are expected to resume work this weekend and will be flown back out to work.
Intelligence services had information of terrorist threats to workers in Algeria just weeks before seven Britons were killed at a gas plant. An inquest heard details that the government failed to pass information onto BP about reports of terrorists seeking to kidnap foreigners. The Britons were among 40 staff killed when Islamist terrorists stormed the Amenas facility, which is jointly owned by BP, Statoil and Algerian state company, Sonatrach in January 2013.
Baker Hughes said the international rig count for December 2014 was 1,313, down 11 from the months before and 22 from the same month in 2013. The international offshore rig count for December 2014 was 338, down 3 from the 341 counted in November 2014, and up 32 from the 306 counted in December 2013. The company said the average US rig count was 1,882, down 43 from the 1,925 counted in November.
Norway is considering tapping reserve funds to shield western Europe’s biggest oil producer from the worst slump in crude prices in more than half a decade. Prime Minister Erna Solberg said the government is now “on alert” to respond to the rout. “If the economic situation requires it, we can react quickly,” she said yesterday at a conference in Oslo organized by Norway’s confederation of industry. A 56% plunge in the price of Brent crude since a June high has undermined Norway’s currency and beaten back its stock market.
If there ever was doubt about the strategy of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, its wealthiest members are putting that issue to rest. Representatives of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait stressed a dozen times in the past six weeks that the group won’t curb output to halt the biggest drop in crude since 2008. Qatar’s estimate for the global oversupply is among the biggest of any producing country. These countries actually want -- and are achieving -- further price declines as part of an attempt to hasten cutbacks by US shale drillers, according to Barclays Plc and Commerzbank AG.
Eni has signed a new concession agreement to operate in the South West Melehia block in the Western Desert of Egypt. It follows the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation’s (EGPC) 2013 international competitive bid round. The company said the new acquisition adds to the list of exploration successes achieved in the area over the past two years.
The pitter-patter of tiny feet could have an unexpected impact on offshore operations, according to oil and gas employment expert Katie Williams. New laws which allow the sharing of parental leave following the birth of a baby could disrupt shift patterns and lead to staff shortages in specialist roles. Traditionally men would take a few weeks off work following a birth but the new rules, introduced in December, mean couples can now share up to 50 weeks leave for any child born on or after 5 April 2015.