Weatherford has taken delivery of the first ten of 14 Atlas Copco XAS 186 portable energy compressors ordered for Middle East cementing operations offshore and onshore. Eight of them feature special skid frames and additional ‘add ons’ specified…
Offshore rig and vessel repair continues to produce attractive returns for yards that are well placed strategically and geographically. OE checks out the latest developments at two players – one in Bahrain, the other in Gibraltar – still relatively…
The big news coming out of Europe is that it is running out of money, but is Europe also running out of gas? Infield Systems' Peter Kiernan(left) and Dr Roger Knight discuss the future of Europe's gas supply in the light of the growing need to secure energy from Russia and the Middle East…
Marin Subsea was called out recently for an operation central to allowing Iraq – the world's fifth largest holder of crude oil reserves – to properly exploit its estimated 143 billion barrels. David Morgan looks at how the job was planned and painstakingly executed…
Iraq's large oil-production potential could put it in a position to vie for leadership with Saudi Arabia in the world oil scene in the coming decades.But a study released by Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy finds that in the near term…
For Fluor, America is only one land of opportunity. Recent contract wins for work offshore Australia, Southeast Asia and the Middle East have buoyed Fluor's backlog. Jennifer Pallanich talks to Fluor executives about recent contract wins and Fluor's offshore strategy…
Companies across the offshore supply spectrum used the recent downturn to take stock – either out of necessity or for strategic reasons – in order to reposition themselves for when the upturn finally kicked in. OE looks at one such company,…
The days may be numbered for resource nationalism, Robert Johnson told the Houston World Affairs Council at the Mayer Brown offices late October. ‘Not every country is equally capable of exercising a campaign of resource nationalism,’ said Johnson…
Worldwide utilization for the mobile offshore drilling fleet averaged 72% over the last month. Of late the global utilization rates for semisubmersibles have held steady at approximately 83% while rates for drillships have bounced around the mid-to-low 80% range…
With Superior Energy Services in expansion mode, most recently adding Hallin to its group, OE revisits one of Superior’s more colorful acquisitions of the past decade: well control expert Patrick Campbell, who last year was picked to head up the company’s technical solutions group…
Last December, OE carried a report by the National Iranian Gas Company on the key facets and status of its massive, 24-phase South Pars gas field development in the Persian Gulf. Here, with the help of local contractor IOEC, we put together…
With industry interest reawakened by recent deepwater, sub-salt gas finds offshore Israel, the eastern Mediterranean and Levantine Basin today loom large on the frontier exploration agenda. Here, Øystein Lie, Thore Sortemos and Per Helge Semb…
It was, and still is, an unassailable dogma throughout the Middle East, among barely beneath-the-surface anti-American European intellectuals, and certainly, the American left: the United States went to war in Iraq in 2003 just for oil. For those people…
An array of world leaders, policy makers and energy officials gathered in Abu Dhabi last month to debate the response to global climate change and to rehash the failures, and promise, of last December’s UN Summit in Copenhagen. Delegates gather…
Over the last few years, Baker Hughes has invested heavily in technology R&D and the infrastructure to support the search for innovative technologies. At the same time, 2009 saw the service company change the way it endeavors to provide technology solutions to its clients…