Time is the most critical factor when dealing with an Arctic oil spill, says Steve Potter, principal consultant, SL Ross. Small spills can usually be handled by onsite personnel with rig- or platform-based boats and booms. Larger spills require more resources…
Statoil receives 14 licenses during APA roundMinister of Petroleum and Energy Ola Borten Moe (Photo: Lise Rist / OED)Forty companies walked away with shares in 51 new production licenses as part of Norway’s 2012 APA Round, the country’s…
OE talked to Steve Knowles, president and CEO of Wood Group Mustang, asking ‘what will be the most important things in the coming years?’Knowles: I think that, although it’s not the expected subsea technology of big projects, rather, it’s data integrity associated with the projects…
The challenges of drilling in the Arctic have become so multifaceted it’s hard to know what position folks line up behind. If it were just the usual environmentalist vs oil companies – and that fight is perennial to be sure – things would be clearer…
'The most disappointing part of the empty energy pledges made by both candidates is that cutting oil imports does very little to address oil prices.'The US election is now over. However, from what the candidates said during the long campaign…
For years the oil & gas industry has faced a looming skills shortage: older, more experienced personnel are leaving the business while an influx of new blood with limited experience is coming onboard. Finding solutions for this skill shortage was on the minds of attendees at the Galveston forum…
Transocean pleads guilty for Gulf spill role Deepwater Horizon response efforts (Photo: USCG)Transocean has agreed to plead guilty for its role in the 2010 Deepwater Horizon accident and pay $1.4 billion in both criminal and civil fines, the U…
Lisa Jackson speaks at the WaterSense conference in Cleveland, OH (Photo: EPA)Jackson to leave EPA after State of the UnionHead of the US Environmental Protection Agency, Lisa P. Jackson, will resign next month, the EPA announced on 27 December 2012…
President-elect Enrique Pena NietoPena-Nieto wants private investment in energyOilPrice.com - Big potential changes south of the border. Mexican President-elect Enrique Pena Nieto has announced that he wants increased private investment in the nation's energy industry…
UK to resume fracking with control measures The UK's Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) announced on 13 December that hydraulic fracturing can resume although the practice will be subject to new controls.The new controls announced…
In October 2012, the government of the Comoros Islands issued a statement that only one company, Mozambique Channel Discovery Ltd. (MCD), a subsidiary of Luxembourg-based Boulle Mining Group, has oil and gas exploration and production rights throughout the territorial waters of the Comoros…
Robert Bachman, a friend and a distinguished reservoir engineer from Calgary, sent me an e-mail on 11 November 2011: ‘Michael, I am really looking forward to your comments on the Keystone debacle. You know as well as I do that the US has just stabbed their best friend in the back…
‘BW Offshore's Yùum K'ak' Náab FPSO has been producing Pemex' KMZ field in the Mexican sector of the Gulf of Mexico since 2007. BW is also supplying the first FPSO for the US sector of the Gulf of Mexico. The BW Pioneer is moored at Petrobras'…
As 2011 drew to a close, yet another Deepwater Horizon report surfaced, this time from the National Academy of Engineering. Russell McCulley reports on the findings, as well as other late-year news involving ongoing legal wrangling between BP and its Macondo contractors…
Citing a ‘renewed culture of safety' taking hold in the offshore oil & gas industry, the co-chairman of the presidential commission set up to investigate the Macondo disaster told attendees at the March CeraWeek conference in Houston that the…