Smit Lamnalco has renewed its marine support services contract with oil major Shell in Gabon, in a deal that has triggered investment in three auxiliary vessel newbuildings.The five year contract renewal extends an uninterrupted relationship…
The need to help small companies in a French offshore industry that has always punched above its weight was a key factor behind the recent amalgamation of the country’s leading oil & gas trade bodies. Meg Chesshyre reviews this and other talking points at the latest Subsea Europe gathering in Paris…
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…
When a major operator with extensive holdings on the US Gulf of Mexico shelf wanted to scale back the use of divers while ramping up decommissioning and platform removal activities, it turned to contractor Versabar, the company behind the Bottom Feeder heavy lift system…
‘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'…
Tullow has reached an agreement for 40% operating interest in Houston-based Hyperdynamics' offshore Guinea concession, the two companies announced on 20 November 2012.In late October, Tullow expressed interest in joining the concession. Hyperdynamics…
Photo: Harald Pettersen / StatoilProduction at Statoil's Hammerfest LNG plant in Melkøya was shut after a power failure on Monday, the company announced on 19 November 2012.The power went down just before 2:30 p.m. and remained down for approximately 20 minutes…
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…
China is on track to reach levels of oil use on par with today’s US demand by 2040, according to a new study by the James A Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University in Houston.The study, The Rise of China and Its Energy Implications…
Global upstream spending ballooned by 47% in 2010, driven by substantial investments in the US and Latin America, IHS reported. In the IHS Herold 2011 Global Upstream Performance Review, the information service said capital spending among 221 oil & gas companies reached $558 billion in 2010…
The annual average oil price of global benchmark Brent crude for 2011 is poised to be the highest (in both real and nominal terms) since 1860, the year after the birth of the modern oil industry in Titusville, Pennsylvania, according to a report by IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates…
Rolls-Royce is betting big on Brazil, where the company's energy business, recently bolstered by lucrative contracts with Petrobras, is setting up a $100 million-plus purpose-built gas turbine assembly and test facility. Russell McCulley reports…
U.S. Coast Guard photo of the Black Elk Energy production platformHouston-based Black Elk Energy vowed to continue searching for a missing contractor after the U.S. Coast Guard suspended efforts on Saturday offshore Louisiana, the company announced on 18 November 2012…
Total has finalized an agreement to sell its 20% contractor interest in OML 138 block to a wholly owned subsidiary of China Petrochemical Corporation (Sinopec), for approximately US$2.5 billion in cash, the company announced on 19 November 2012…
Production on the Troll C platform in the North Sea has been resumed, following a shutdown on 15 November due to corrosion found in some tanks on the auxiliary system for treating gas.'A great effort has been made during the weekend to plan the repair work…