Zalmay Khalilzad, a former US ambassador to Afghanistan and Iraq, has been appointed to the board of Tethys Petroleum. Tethys has interests in Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
During the last week of June in the US, anything that wasn’t ‘Obamacare’ didn’t get much news coverage. With that in mind, one had to wonder why ‘36 citizen organizations with more than 1.1 million combined members’ chose 27 June to release…
Against a background of continuing financial uncertainty the oil price remains reasonably high, as does the level of activity in the North Sea, particularly in Norway with the planned development of the substantial Johan Sverdrup find. Reserves estimated at 1…
Statoil and its partner Sinochem have agreed to purchase the Peregrino FPSO from A.P. Moller-Maersk Group. The floating production, storage and offloading unit has been in use at the Statoil-operated Peregrino field in Brazil since production start-up in 2011…
Oil & gas companies will spend roughly $135 billion on subsea hardware between 2012 and 2016, an increase of 14% over the preceding five-year period, according to a new report from Douglas-Westwood.Spending took a hit in 2010 and 2011 as the…
High demand for goods and services helped push up building and operating costs for upstream oil & gas facilities over the six-month period covering 3Q 2011 to 1Q 2012, according to two IHS cost indexes. The IHS Upstream Capital Cost index rose 2…
OE's analysis of current rig market data is updated monthly using statistics provided by Rigzone.comMaking a strong showing during the second half of 2012, North Sea utilization rates are leading the way with a 96% average.The worldwide competitive…
Overall, total capital investment on developing UK oil & gas reserves rose by 40% to £8.5 billion in 2011, according to Oil & Gas UK's 2012 Economic Report. Confirmation in the 2012 UK Budget of measures to promote activity in a targeted way…
French-owned utility group GDF Suez is stepping up its UK exploration and production operations with the goal of becoming a major player in the North Sea. The company's UK E&P arm has been involved in the sector for the past 15 years, but is now working up major expansion plans…
Mexico's latest licensing round only the second in state oil company Pemex's long history, made possible by recent exploration & production contract reforms failed to draw a successful bid for the offshore blocks on offer. Russell McCulley talks to Juan Carlos Zepeda Molina…
CGGVeritas marine seismic operations have undergone a major modernisation programme and the introduction of new technology. Andrew McBarnet reviews progress.Something of a Gallic flourish can be detected about the CGGVeritas multi-client survey in the Keathley Canyon area of the US Gulf of Mexico…
Offshore contractors have taken delivery of some pretty big pieces of floating hardware lately but the daddy of them all Allseas ultra-versatile platform installation/decommissioning and pipelay vessel Pieter Schelte won't be making its giant presence felt until early 2014…
Pieter Schelte will be capable of single-lifting topsides up to 48,000te and jackets up to 25,000te. Topsides will be lifted from a 122m long, 52m wide slot at the bow using eight sets of horizontal lifting beams, four on each side of the slot…
An impressive example of lean design and fast-track construction of a major offshore structure is now standing in 133m of water in the Norwegian North Sea. Adrian Cottrill looks at the technology-stretching jacket at the heart of Statoil's NKr20…
The Valemon gas and condensate accumulation, a 1985 discovery 160km off the coast from Bergen, has estimated recoverable reserves equivalent to 210 million barrels of oil. Development is currently priced at NKr20.4 billion by operator Statoil and its partners Petoro…