Despite a reputation for ‘cumbersome’ contract processes, recent oil & gas sector reforms have created a more favorable investment climate at Mexican state oil company Petróleos Mexicanos, a Pemex official told the 2011 Petroleum Exposition & Conference of Mexico in Villahermosa…
Dozens of obsolete offshore platforms have been successfully converted to artificial reefs under the US ‘rigs-to-reefs’ program. But an independent Houston operator is pushing for rule changes that, its CEO says, would preserve far more delicate ecosystems…
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…
As the jacket for Statoil's Gudrun development went in last month, confirmation that there was communication between the Norwegian operator's high-impact Aldous Major South discovery and Lundin's Avaldsnes oil find was generating much excitement…
‘We don’t see ourselves as just the crane people, we want to be seen as a lifting solutions provider.’ So says Doug Sedge, the highly regarded and much travelled chief executive of Sparrows. He talks to Meg Chesshyre.As a company we have a significantly large engineering resource base…
Discovering Arctic EuropeResources and business conditions in Arctic Europe will be the subject of a mini-seminar during Offshore Europe organized by the cities of Aberdeen, Bodø and Kirkenes.A large new area became available when the delimitation…
OE's popular annual guide to oil & gas developments on the Northwest European Continental Shelf returns, fully updated.Operators in the UK sector of the North Sea were taken aback in March this year by UK Chancellor George Osborne's decision to raise the supplementary tax rate from 20% to 32%…
With Canadian environmental regulators tightening their monitoring and control of fluids used offshore, Castrol's Jason Vallier and K+D Pratt's Andrew Bell review existing guidelines elsewhere and the implications for Canada's E&P sector.The…
One of the key performance indicator’s of an installation’s integrity performance is the number of hydrocarbon releases, along with the importance of workforce competency in managing these risks. While North Sea statistics had shown a continued…
In its drive to improve and align safety and competence standards in the global oil and gas industry, Opito International has commissioned new research to discover how companies are assuring the workforce is competent, rather than simply compliant…
Two Engineering Construction Industry Training Board (ECITB) initiatives have been launched in the UK for offshore companies looking to address the skills gap through the reskilling of adult trainees. The first 16 learners recently completed their training…
Serial offshore innovator Fraser Innes, a familiar face from early North Sea days through his stewardship of Petroline, is continuing his technology-stretching ways today as CEO of the Dutch-based Paradigm Group and chairman of its two UK offshoots…
Integrating several imaging and modeling technologies can reduce exploration risk. Ian Bryant (Schlumberger) and Paul Xu (formerly of Ipex) present an integrated basin and petroleum system study that predicted many oil and gas accumulations in a relatively unexplored region offshore Brazil…
The accurate application of torque in both installation and maintenance of pipeline and wellhead assets is vital to ensuring equipment is fully operational in remote and hostile subsea locations. Norbar Torque Tools' technical manager Mark Woodward discusses recent advances in this sector…
Ever-alert to the need to hone its competitive edge, the drilling technologies business unit of Aker Solutions is looking to take its service offering to an unrivalled level of sophistication with the new drawworks extended test facility in Erkelenz…