2016 was a year of huge challenges for the offshore drilling rig sector as the low oil price environment and reduced E&P spending continued to bite. Stephen Gordon, of Clarksons Research, charts the state of the market, which is arguably facing some of its toughest times since the 1980s…
A multi-skilled team of north east-England based subsea engineering experts has made it to the semifinals of Shell's US$7 million Ocean Discovery XPrize. XPrize is an international competition which aims to create the next generation tools…
Noble Energy is moving forward with the development of its giant Leviathan project offshore Israel, with first gas targeted for the end of 2019. Image of Tamar operations, from Delek Group. The estimated 22 Tcf gas field…
British subsea companies are expecting to increase overseas activity in the next 12 months, according to a survey conducted by industry body, Subsea UK. Of the 300 member companies surveyed, 27% are predicting increasing exports by 50% or more in 2017…
Culzean. Image from Maersk Oil. IKM has secured a pre-commissioning contract, courtesy of Subsea 7, for the Culzean gas field, offshore the UK in the central North Sea. Subsea 7 has won the award from Maersk Oil for subsea…
Norwegian geoscience firm Spectrum has made an offer to acquire fellow Norwegian outfit MultiClient Geophysical for US$13.94 million (NOK 116 million). The offer trumps an earlier offer made by UK-based geoscience firm Geoex by about…
Schlumberger disclosed a 22% decline in its full-year 2016 revenue, despite gaining US$4.2 billion from the Cameron Group, which the oil services giant took over in April 2016. Image of Kibsgaard…
Offshore exploration could, finally, soon be on the agenda in Lebanon after the country's first offshore licensing round was opened. Lebanon’s Energy Minister Cesar Abi Khalil announced on 26 January the opening and timetable for the round…
Apache’s FNT development may appear a bit “vanilla” on the surface, but a fit-for purpose and fast-to-first-oil ethos under the Apache Projects Group Mission Command management system meant the difference between production and stranded reserves…
Premier Oil's Catcher North Sea floating production project is on schedule for startup later this year with a 29% reduced capital budget compared to when it was sanctioned, at US$1.6 billion. The Catcher area is expected to produce 96 MMboe…
Production on 10 January 2017 from the Beibu Gulf fields, offshore China, reached a total of 13.9 MMbbl, according to Horizon Oil. Up until this point, the Block 22/12 participants have been paying a fixed operating tariff of US$4.75/bbl to China National Offshore Oil Corp…
UK Independent Serica Energy is targeting a development plan for the long-dormant North Sea Columbus field this year, the firm said today. Serica is also firming up plans to drill its Rowallan prospect in North Sea block 22/18c in 2018…
Ithaca Energy is further delaying its Stella field offshore the UK to February 2017 due to an electrical inspection program on the FPF-1 floating production facility. First oil was anticipated at the end of November 2016, and was pushed back to January 2017…
The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD) has granted Statoil Petroleum a drilling permit for well 16/2-22 S, cf. Section 8 of the Resource Management Regulations. Well 16/2-22 S will be drilled from the Deepsea Atlantic drilling facility in position 58°55’33…
The National Iranian Oil Co. (NIOC) has released a list of 29 foreign oil and gas firms which have been pre-qualified for its upcoming upstream projects tender round. NIOC is planning to put to a round of tenders several upstream oil…