Egdon Resources said it has recorded further encouraging flow test results from its Wressle-1 oil and gas discovery in England.
The company said test operations have been carried out on the first set of perforations in the Penistone Flags reservoir, the last of three hydrocarbon zones identified in the well.
The Penistone test produced gas at restricted flow rates of up to 1.7million cubic feet of gas per day (mmcfd) with associated oil of up to 12 barrels of oil per day (bopd).
Wood Group chief executive Bob Keiller has backed the development of a skills-matching “dating service” for thousands of oil and gas industry workers in the north-east who fear losing their jobs.
Through Wood Group’s recruitment team, Altablue, workers facing redundancy can start searching for jobs in the public sector, including at Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire councils, the NHS, the fire and police services and at Robert Gordon University.
The offshore oil and gas industry is reaching an inflection point. As the oil reserves in shallow waters reach the end of their production lives, operators must take the long view and drill in deeper waters to find new recoverable resources.
Doing this economically presents some significant challenges – a feat which will require serious innovation if firms which grew up with the North Sea are to successfully export their skills.
Using conventional methods is not an option – it’s simply not feasible to place a production rig above a well in water that’s thousands of metres deep. For that reason, the industry is thinking differently about how it works and how it uses technology.
German utility RWE yesterday closed the sale of oil and gas production arm RWE Dea to Russian billionaire Mikhail Fridman, ending months of uncertainty over whether the £3.7billion deal would go ahead.
But it causes embarrassment for the UK Government, which tried to block part of the transaction at the 11th hour, citing possible sanctions against the new owner.
It remains to be seen how Westminster will respond to RWE Dea’s UK North Sea assets – now owned by new company L1 Energy – falling into Russian hands.
Scotland has benefited enormously from the huge oil wealth produced by the people of Aberdeen and the north-east.
Over 40 years, 42billion barrels have been taken out of the North Sea by an oil industry that worked out of Aberdeen and Peterhead.
And over many years in visits to Aberdeenshire to see my parents, or simply to visit the industry, I have seen how the skills developed in the north-east have boosted the British economy and kept the country ticking through thick and thin – and in decade after decade – since oil was first discovered.
Over 30 years oil, has averaged around 17% of the Scottish economy.
But now in a year when oil prices have fallen 40%, we face what is more than a normal trough in the oil production cycle as some of the industry’s great experts, Sir Ian Wood and Lord Browne, formerly of BP, have recently reminded us.
The fall in world oil prices comes at a time when extracting oil from the North Sea is more challenging than ever and has brought us, earlier than we could have expected, near to a tipping point for the industry.
BP Plc double dipped by taking a total of more than $33 million from an Ohio compensation fund and insurers to clean up leaks from underground storage tanks, according to the state’s attorney general.
Attorney General Mike DeWine and Ohio’s Petroleum Underground Storage Tank Release Compensation Board sued London-based BP’s North American affiliate on Monday in a state court in Columbus, demanding restitution.
“BP has to follow the same rules as other businesses and can’t engage in misconduct without consequence,” DeWine said in a statement announcing the filing.
Quality testing giant Intertek saw revenues and profits decrease on a drop off in oil and gas project work.
But the firm, which has testing facilities in Aberdeen, said it expects “near-term negative headwinds” in its oil and gas business to “ease”.
In note to investors, the FTSE 100 company said that around 40% of its annual revenues in the first half of the year were linked to the oil and gas industry - through technical inspection (capex), asset integrity management and non-destructive testing, as well as cargo inspection and testing.
Energy research company Wood Mackenzie is preparing for an initial public offering on the stock market which could give it a valuation of up to $3.09.
According to reports, Wood Mac, which is owned by private equity firm Hellman & Friedman, has hired Lazard in recent week to advise on its proposed listing.
Tullow Oil Plc, an energy explorer in Africa, fell to a one-month low in London trading after saying Ghana could be ordered to suspend drilling in an offshore area where it operates.
Tullow dropped as much as 8.6% to 354.1 pence, the lowest intraday price since January 30, and was at 363.1 pence at 1:14 p.m. local time.
Ivory Coast, which disputes sea boundaries with neighboring Ghana, has asked an arbitration panel to order Ghana to halt drilling in an area where Tullow operates its Tweneboa-Enyenra-Ntomme project, the company said Monday in a statement.
The TEN project is set to produce its first oil in mid-2016.
Oil at $50 a barrel or less is having a huge impact on the North Sea industry. Thousands of jobs have been shed already or are vulnerable.
Cutbacks are to the fore . . . capex and opex and while it is claimed that safety will never be compromised, offshore workers are worried and, as should be clear from this exclusive Q&A with Susan Mackenzie, director of the Hazardous Installations Directorate, the HSE will be uncompromising.
Mackenzie: Our basic approach won’t change. The key objectives in our strategy including asset integrity, competence, workforce engagement and leadership are as important now as they have ever been.
Operators and contractors must still control risks to their workers, especially those risks that could give rise to a major accident. Failure to do so threatens workers, production and profitability.
My inspectors will continue to focus on major accident risk control and take action if they find standards are inadequate. I want to see safe production maintained, and I believe my inspectors have a key role in stimulating the industry to achieve this.
Wood Group Kenny (WGK) has appointed a North Sea regional director with 20 years of experience in the oil and gas industry as their new chief executive.
WGK's new chief executive, Bob MacDonald, succeeds Steve Wayman who has now become the company's new head of strategy and development.
He is replacing Ali Green who will step down from his current role but will continue to provide support to the team as he transitions out of the business in 2015.
Subsea 7 has been awarded a two-year extension by Shell for two Underwater Services Contracts (USCs) worth $240million.
The company said the Life of Field contract extensions for Diving Support Vessel (DSV) and Remotely Operated Vehicle Support Vessel (ROVSV) services will both commence in 2016.
Subsea 7 will also continue to provide subsea construction, inspection, repair and maintenance and decommissioning services to Shell’s UK offshore fields and facilities.
Near-to-market technologies and world-class research capabilities will be highlighted to the oil and gas industry in Aberdeen this week.
The Oil and Gas Innovation Centre (OGIC) and Innovation Centre for Sensor and Imaging Systems (CENSIS) are to jointly host an innovation pavilion during the 2015 Technology Showcase conference and exhibition on Wednesday.
OGIC chief executive Ian Phillips said: “The innovation centre pavilion will highlight the expertise and capabilities of Scotland’s academic and SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) technology communities which can address the showcase theme of making technology reduce cost and improve efficiency.
Oil fell after the first monthly gain since June as Saudi Arabia stepped up production, lifting OPEC’s output beyond its collective quota for a ninth month.
Futures decreased as much as 1.4% in New York. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries pumped 30.6 million barrels a day in February, according to a survey.
Oil sank almost 50% in 2014 as Saudi Arabia led the group’s decision in November to maintain its output target at 30 million a day, exacerbating a global glut.
West Texas Intermediate’s discount to European prices settled at the widest in more than a year on Feb. 27 as US crude stockpiles expanded to the highest level in weekly data that started August 1982.
The oversupply has driven US drillers to cut the number of rigs in service for a 12th week to the fewest since June 2011, Baker Hughes Inc. data showed.
Gordon Brown is calling for the creation of a North Sea reserve fund to help the oil industry in one of his final speeches before stepping down as a politician.
The former prime minister believes the fund would help maintain and upgrade infrastructure and could provide last-resort debt finance for companies who want to keep fields open.
He believes the Government could even take over fields in partnership with some firms in order to keep them open and viable in future.
The Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath MP, who is stepping down from Westminster at May’s election, also wants to see young people encouraged to work in hi-tech medical, environmental and engineering jobs as traditional manufacturing work continues to decline.
One of Russia’s richest men is expected to become the owner of a string of UK North Sea assets today, despite a last-minute move by the UK Government to block part of the £3.6billion deal.
The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) said Energy Secretary Ed Davey was worried about the effect “possible future sanctions” could have on the continued and safe operation of the assets.
Billionaire Mickhail Fridman and business partners in the LetterOne investment fund are buying RWE Dea, the international exploration and production arm of German utility RWE, including operated stakes in the Breagh, Cavendish, Clipper South, Topaz and Windermere gas fields.
The four horsemen of the apocalypse are not about to show up in Aberdeen but Europe’s energy capital is facing a serious downturn” in its fortunes, an oil and gas expert said last night.
Alan Kennedy, UK oilfield services lead partner in the Aberdeen office of professional services firm KPMG, was speaking in advance of an energy industry breakfast “summit” in the Granite City.
The event will be hosted by trade body Oil and Gas UK (OGUK) and KPMG at Aberdeen Exhibition and Conference Centre, and will focus on the impact of lower oil prices on the north-east economy.
Ecosse Subsea Systems (ESS) said yesterday it had signed a letter of intent with power and automation technology giant ABB for it to carry out work as part of a £1billion-plus transmission link project.
It is believed the contract – expected to create 20 jobs – could be worth up to £10million for ESS, which will perform boulder clearance and pre-lay trenching prior to the laying of a transmission cable running from Spittal in Caithness to Blackhillock in Moray.
ESS will then protect and conceal the 100-mile cable, which is part of the £1.2billion Caithness-Moray transmission link project, led by SSE subsidiary Scottish Hydro Electric Transmission, to create the infrastructure needed to carry an estimated 1.2 gigawatts of renewable-energy to the national grid.
A new maintenance support ship for Shell’s southern North Sea gas operations made its first appearance in UK waters at the weekend.
Shell said the vessel, named Kroonborg, would change the way the company and partner Nederlandse Aardolie Maatschappij (NAM) operated more than 50 gas producing platforms.
It is expected to reduce the cost of operating smaller gas fields, which are becoming increasingly prevalent, by improving the productivity and safety of maintenance engineers.
The boss of Maersk Oil UK will be returning to Denmark as the firm appoints a new head of its UK business.
Martin Rune Pedersen will become head of the Danish firm’s domestic oil business, while Morten Kelstrup will become managing director in Aberdeen from 1 April 2015.
Mr Rune Pedersen has been managing director of the business since 2010. He has worked for the firm for 17 years following a career as an officer in the Danish Army.
Oil prices could drop again later this year as a supply glut persists, according to Jason Kenney, a Banco Santander SA analyst who accurately predicted a rebound in prices after the 2008 slump.
The current oil shock caused by the boom in U.S. shale production is reminiscent of the mid-1980s, when development of fields in the North Sea and the Gulf of Mexico caused a supply glut, Kenney, the head of European oil and gas equity research at the Spanish bank, said by phone from Edinburgh Thursday.
It differs from the 2008 collapse, which was caused by slumping demand in a recession, Kenney said.
A few short weeks after Subsea Expo 2015 took place, delegates from all over the world will descend on Aberdeen once again for the ITF (Industry Technology Facilitator) Showcase.
Organised by ITF in partnership with Oil & Gas UK, the event at the Aberdeen Exhibition and Conference Centre on March 4, will discuss current technology challenges for the UKCS (United Kingdom Continental Shelf).
Petroliam Nasional Bhd., the Malaysian state oil company preparing for a leadership transition in April, reported a loss in the fourth quarter following crude’s plunge.
The loss was 9.9 billion ringgit ($2.7 billion) in the three months through December 31, compared with a 9.6 billion ringgit profit a year ago. Revenue dropped 6.4% to 79.4 billion ringgit.
Wan Zulkiflee Wan Ariffin will succeed Shamsul Azhar Abbas as president and chief executive officer at a time when the slump in crude is eroding earnings needed to narrow the state budget deficit.
Oil is rebounding from the lowest prices in almost six years as US-based drillers, pumping crude at a record pace amid a shale boom, reduce the number of active rigs.
“Petronas Group is taking steps to reduce its planned capital investments and operating expenditure in order to mitigate the potential adverse effect on its profitability and cash flows,” the company said in a statement today.
Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson has called for the Chancellor to act now on measures to support the North Sea oil and gas industry.
She said George Osborne “must go further” in the upcoming Budget and that billions more barrels could be extracted with the proper tax regime.
The industry has been calling for urgent tax cuts as it braces itself for further job losses amid falling oil prices.
Mr Osborne announced a programme of reform across the sector’s tax regime in December and implemented an immediate cut to the supplementary charge levied against oil firms.
Cast your mind back to your awkward teenage years and your first school disco; that uncomfortable rite of passage with boys on one side and girls on the other. It took insurmountable courage for someone to dig deep, walk across no-man’s land and ask someone to dance to the latest single from Wham.
Too often, nobody stepped up to challenge the accepted tradition, despite perhaps wanting to. The situation was left to the bravery of two poor teachers who unashamedly put their best foot forward and eventually encouraged others to do the same.
Fast forward to now. Our industry is at the unpredictable mercy of our economic circumstances and our collective efforts. It is standard practice to do anything that will prove our individual worth and value.
Take, for example, our safety standards and guidance.
