Fergus Ewing News

A new battery storage solution for offshore wind energy will be piloted in the world’s first floating wind farm, the Hywind pilot park off the coast of Peterhead in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Batwind will be developed in co-operation with Scottish universities and suppliers, under a new Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed in Edinburgh on 18 March between Statoil, the Scottish Government, the Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult and Scottish Enterprise. Battery storage has the potential to mitigate intermittency and optimise output. This can improve efficiency and lower costs for offshore wind. The pilot in Scotland will provide a technological and commercial foundation for the implementation of Batwind in full-scale offshore wind farms…

Oil majors BP and ConocoPhillips will cut over 500 jobs in the North Sea following similar moves by rivals to reduce costs in one of the world's most expensive exploration areas as oil prices tumble. Although the cuts are relatively small for companies with dozens of thousands of employees, they come at a politically sensitive time in Britain as the Scottish independence debate continues and a May parliamentary election looms. BP said the cuts of 200 onshore staff and 100 contractors were part of a previously announced $1 billion reorganisation aimed at simplifying the company's structure after it sold billions of dollars of assets.

Reuters - Royal Dutch Shell has become the second energy heavyweight to urge Scotland to stay in the United Kingdom as the campaign for Scottish independence battles mounting opposition from businesses. Shell is a key player in the North Sea oil and gas fields off Scotland and its Chief Executive Ben van Beurden said a vote for independence on Sept. 18 would mean greater uncertainty for the energy industry. Last month, the boss of BP warned Scottish independence could cause "uncertainties" for his company. Other oil companies in the North Sea on Thursday stressed the importance of predictability for their operations, joining a growing number of financial services companies voicing concerns about the impact of independence but avoiding political comment.

The most thorough analysis of the North Sea oil and gas skills landscape ever undertaken will commence next week with nine of the U.K.’s leading energy, business and skills organizations involved. The major study is the first to examine in depth exactly how many people and what skills are needed in order to address the critical shortage in the industry both now and in the future. Senior representatives from more than 1,000 operators, contractors and organizations throughout the…

Fergus Ewing, the Minister for Energy, Enterprise and Tourism opened a new learning center this week which makes practical, classroom and eLearning training available to the regions North Sea oil and gas industry for the first time. The 3,800sqft Mintra Learning Center at Kingseat Business Park, Newmachar, has capacity to train up to 65 people per day across more than 200 industry-critical courses. The facility, which marks a five-figure investment for the company, provides traditional classroom-based facilities…

Subsea UK and OPITO have each been awarded part of a £2million fund aimed at attracting vital new entrants into the industry and helping people to diversify their skills. Scotland’s leading diver training facility, The Underwater Center in Fort William, has also secured a share of The Energy Challenge Fund, set up to help tackle the current skills shortage in the oil and gas industry. The Fund, managed on behalf of the Scottish Government by Skills Development Scotland (SDS), will support employers’ skills needs to build on the talent pool in Scotland’s burgeoning energy sector. The training is aimed at helping people to gain the qualifications necessary for working in oil and gas, including the subsea sector, as well as renewables and micro-renewables.