North Sea News


Safety from a design consideration

May 01, 2015

Preventing corrosion is necessary to avoiding production failures. Leokadia Rucinski and Genesis’ Binder Singh provide details. Fig. 1: A collage of somewhat unusual corrosion phenomena, many of…

Ivar Aasen jacket en-route

Apr 30, 2015

The 9000-tonne jacket for Det norske's Ivar Aasen field offshore Norway is in Rotterdam before it's final journey to the North Sea.  The 138m-tall jacket was built by Saipem at its Arbatax facility in Sardinia and is now sat on Heerema's H-627 barge at Franklin Offshore…

Ravn heading for Danish sector

Apr 30, 2015

Wintershall's unmanned Ravn platform is being towed out to the Danish sector of the North Sea ready for installation. The platform, which will produce the Ravn field, in License 5/06, is due to start up by the end of this year. Ravn…

SmartPlug used for inline isolation

Apr 29, 2015

Statoil Petroleum recently completed a North Sea inline isolation in order to facilitate the tie-in of its Valemon platform to its Huldra-Heimdal pipeline. The tie-in will require 27km (16mi) of pipe to be laid. Statoil chose SmartPlug isolation technology…

Total, BP report better than expected results

Apr 28, 2015

BP and Total beat analysts’ predictions by reporting better than expected results this morning, despite consistently low oil prices.  French oil major Total saw its fastest production growth in more than a decade and gains in its refining…

EIC: High value contracts awarded despite decline in overall quantity

Apr 27, 2015

The latest EIC Monitor report once again shows a significant decline in the levels of contracting activity across the global upstream sector in Q1 2015. Despite the overall number of contracts being awarded dropping, the value of some is substantial…

MOL takes first Norwegian steps

Apr 24, 2015

Hungarian exploration outfit MOL Group has made its first step into the Norwegian offshore sector, purchasing the Norwegian assets of UK-based North Sea exploration and production firm Ithaca Energy.  Ithaca will sell its Norwegian assets…

BP sells CATS

Apr 23, 2015

BP agreed to sell its equity in the Central Area Transmission System (CATS) business in the UK North Sea to Antin Infrastructure Partners for US$486million. BP is currently the operator of CATS. The sale of CATS will be as a fully operational business…

Trap Oil warns of possible insolvency

Apr 23, 2015

North Sea exploration minnow Trap Oil has warned that, without urgent additional funding, it is likely to become insolvent.  The firm, which has reduced its overheads from £5.1 million 2 years ago to £1.3 million/yr posted a pre-loss of £44…

Deepsea Aberdeen starts on Quad 204

Apr 22, 2015

Norway-based Odfjell's newbuild deepwater semisubmersible Deepsea Aberdeen has started drilling operations under a seven-year contract with BP on the Quad 204 field development project West of Shetland, UK. Deepsea Aberdeen (pictured)…

Gina Krog FSO ordered

Apr 22, 2015

Teekay has chosen Singapore-based Sembcorp Marine’s subsidiary Sembawang Shipyard to carry out a floating storage and offloading (FSO) conversion for the unit due to be deployed on Statoil's Gina Krog field in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea…

Maersk Interceptor reaps rewards for Det norske

Apr 22, 2015

The first well drilled using the new build jackup giant Maersk Interceptor (pictured) have reaped successful results for operator Det norske, the firm said this morning.  The new unit, operating in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea…

Enhanced spill detection and SAR comes to UK

Apr 22, 2015

A consortium of three companies has joined forces to bring enhanced oil spill detection and search and rescue capability to the UK North Sea. Using technology developed in Norway, Aptomar, working with Aberdeen's Briggs Environmental Services…

AziNor acquires UK North Sea license

Apr 21, 2015

AziNor Catalyst completed the 100% acquisition of license P1946, covering Block 15/12a in the UK North Sea from Stavanger Petroleum. The terms of the agreement will require AziNor to undertake all technical work commitments on the license…

Norway launches latest exploration round

Apr 21, 2015

Norway’s Ministry of Petroleum and Energy has opened its latest Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS) – Awards in Predefined Areas (APA) licensing round.  The area covered by the 2015 round, licenses from which are expected to be awarded in early 2016…

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