A second production well on Nexen Petroleum's Blackbird field in the UK North Sea has reached 7000bbl/d under a constrained production test, according to partner Atlantic Petroleum. The well, 20/02a-B3, was constrained by surface equipment…
Dragon Oil secured its first operatorship outside Turkmenistan and expects production to reach up to 90,000bo/d by the end of the year. Dr Abdul Jaleel Al Khalifa, Dragon Oil's CEO, said: 'We are pleased to report that the contract has been signed for Block 19 East Zeit Bay…
Karoon Gas Australia Ltd. reached an agreement with QGOG Constellation S.A. to contract the semisubmersible drilling rig Olinda Star. The contract includes the drilling of up to four wells offshore Brazil, in Karoon’s S-M-1037, 1101, 1102…
African Petroleum Corporation has agreed a farm-out deal with Buried Hill Africa on Block CI-509 offshore Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast), west Africa. Buried Hill will get a 10% interest in the block in return for funding 21.1% of the…
UK-based independent explorer EnQuest has taken over a 70% stake in the Didon concession offshore Tunisia from Sweden's PA Resources for US$23 million. A deal to take over a stake in the Zarat permit, agreed at the same time as the deal on Didon…
Baker Hughes issued the June 2014 international rotary drilling rig count this week, showing a total of 1344 rigs operating outside the US & Canada in June. International activity was down 6 rigs from the 1350 rigs drilling in May 2014…
On 9 July, Norway's Petroleum Safety Authority granted consent for Statoil to use the semisubmersible drilling rig Transocean Spitsbergen to drill exploration well 7125 4-3 Ensis at Production Licence 393 in the Barents Sea. The drilling location is about 42 km from the nearest land…
Oil production began today at the Dua oil project, operated by Premier Oil offshore Vietnam, 40 years after the field was discovered. The Dua field discovery well, Dua-1X, was drilled in 1974 and flowed 1500 bo/d. Premier Oil acquired…
VNG Norge has discovered oil on the Bue well, in production license (PL) 586, offshore Norway, and increased its resource estimate for the nearby Pil discovery, in the same license. The combined resource of both finds has been estimated at 80-200MMboe by partner Faroe petroleum…
Kongsberg Oil & Gas Technologies, a wholly owned subsidiary of Kongsberg Gruppen, has signed a four-year, multi-million dollar drilling data contract with Vienna-based OMV Group for all of its global drilling activities. The contract…
AP Moller-Maersk subsidiary Maersk Olie og Gas (Maersk Oil) will take a US$1.7 billion impairment on its Brazilian assets, it announced 9 July. The Danish company specifically cited disappointing appraisals as one of the reasons it has “revised…
The Spanish Point appraisal well in Frontier Exploration Licenses 2/04, 4/08 and 1/14 in offshore Ireland's northern Porcupine Basin will not now be drilled in 2014, according to Dublin-based Providence Resources. However, a 3D seismic survey in the area is due to go ahead this summer…
First production from an appraisal well has extended the southern limits of the high-pressure/high-temperature (HPHT) Jade gas condensate field in the UK Central North Sea, Houston-headquartered ConocoPhillips announced today. The Maersk…
KCA Deutag group company RDS has been awarded a US$10 million contract to carry out front-end engineering design (FEED) work on Statoil’s Johan Sverdrup development in the Norwegian North Sea. The FEED work will be undertaken by the RDS team in London…
Concept select to develop the Butch discovery in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea is due to be made by Centrica in early 2015, according to partner Faroe Petroleum. The move follows an unsuccessful well on the Butch South West exploration well 8/10-6S…