José Miranda Formigli Filho (pictured) is the new head of E&P at Petrobras, replacing Guilherme de Oliveira Estrella. Formigli, a civil engineer, has served the Brazilian state oil company in E&P roles for 29 years, latterly as Pre-salt E&P executive manager…
Joseph Devoltz (pictured) has joined Environmental Drilling Solutions in Lafayette, Louisiana, as HSE/QA manager. He was previously with MI-Swaco.
Albert Skiba has been appointed Gulf of Mexico VP for safety training and skills body OPITO International. Back at Aberdeen headquarters, Larraine Boorman (pictured) has taken over the OPITO reins from David Binnie.
Malcolm Brinded (pictured), a 37-year veteran of the Royal Dutch Shell group, is stepping down as an executive director with effect from 1 April. Andrew Brown, currently EVP Qatar, will take over Brinded’s responsibilities for Shell’s upstream…
Stephane Constant (pictured) has taken up the newly created, full-time post of CTO to lead the Xodus Group’s integration of surface and subsurface services. Constant worked as a reservoir engineer for Elf and Agip in the UK and Premier Oil…
Stephen Colville has been named as president of the International Association of Drilling Contractors following the retirement of Dr Lee Hunt.
Steve Preston (pictured) and John Smith join the Offshore Installation Group (OIG) this month as CEO and executive vice chairman, respectively. Preston joins OIG from Heerema Marine Contractors where he served as EVP, commercial & technology…
Now in its 43rd year, the Offshore Technology Conference returns to Houston’s Reliant Park 30 April-3 May. Almost as old as the offshore industry itself, the annual gathering has thrived throughout an E&P era marked by peaks, valleys, tremendous…
It was supposed to be the renewable ‘green jobs success story’ to be emulated by the United States. President Barack Obama pilloried skeptical Americans with it on several occasions way before he took office. Obama may be the loudest but he is not the only megaphone social engineer politician…
BOEMRE director Michael Bromwich vows that deepwater drilling will return to the US Gulf of Mexico in the coming months, marking a return of exploration all but shut down after the Deepwater Horizon disaster. But the oil & gas industry remains skeptical…
In a world where two things are certain – death and taxes – Arctic exploration does offer a certain amount of certainty: just a little bit of information can completely alter the way the industry views a specific Arctic area. Industry leaders…
Merger and acquisition activity in the oil & gas industry rebounded in 2010, up 35% over the previous year, Ernst & Young said last month. Global transaction value hit $270 billion last year, up from about $200 billion in 2009, the company said…
The 'Obamatorium' – what Ron Neal, the co-founder and co-owner of Houston Energy calls the continuing de facto drilling moratorium in the Gulf of Mexico – is only one component of the political risk that has arisen in what was once a thriving oil & gas activity center…
Barely recognizable from the Gulf of Mexico saturation diving company that emerged from a three-way merger back in 1969, Oceaneering is today in fully fledged dynamic growth mode. In the US, Russell McCulley looks at the company's plans to…
A new thinner-walled pipeline concept developed by DNV is claimed capable of significantly reducing the cost of a deep- and ultra-deepwater gas pipeline while still complying with the strictest safety and integrity regime. Meg Chesshyre reports…