Gas Uk News

The maritime industry’s movement toward remote vessel operations will not only build a more diverse workforce, it will benefit from it, argues marine robotics company Ocean Infinity.Greater workforce diversity, whether it be considered along lines of ethnicity, gender identity, sexuality, age, socioeconomic status, neurotype, physical ability or any other parameter, has shifted over the course of the last decade from a ‘nice to have’ to a fundamental value. The modern view of society that the thought leaders at Ocean Infinity subscribe to, is often characterized as ‘intersectionality’.

As offshore market activity recovers and continues to increase through the next decade, as we expect it to, oilfield service (OFS) capacity is expected to tighten.As offshore market activity recovers and continues to increase through the next decade, as NorthStone Advisors expect it to, oilfield service (OFS) capacity is expected to tighten. In NorthStone Advisors’ view, this will create a period of increased scarcity and cost inflation, presenting significant cost and schedule risk to decommissioning programs.Many eyes are on the UK…

The “new normal” is a phrase tossed around often in offshore energy circles today as those servicing and operating in the sector grapple with the harsh realities of the prolonged industry downturn. Operators, service companies and equipment suppliers have been forced to adjust to oil selling at prices well below the $100+ per barrel mark seen in years past. As of this writing, Brent oil was hovering around $62 per barrel, and analysts expect prices will remain in this range for some time into the future.On top of this…

Reacting to the latest Oil and Gas UK Economic Report, to be published on Wednesday 6 September, Graham Hollis, Senior Partner for Deloitte in Aberdeen, said: “A cautious optimism has returned to the industry, as it weathers the storm of the past three years. “Nevertheless, challenges still remain for the North Sea and its recovery needs to be carefully fostered. The report shows there are a potential £40 billion worth of developments in companies’ business plans – it’s up to all of those involved in the industry to help these come to fruition, requiring a collaborative approach between government, the business community, the supply chain, and wider stakeholders. “The UKCS is vitally important to our economy and still supports more than 300,000 jobs.

Britain will look at ways of making it easier to sell North Sea oil and gas fields by changing tax rules in order to keep them producing for longer, the finance ministry said. The move, which is due to be announced in finance minister Philip Hammond's budget on Wednesday, follows a call by the industry's oil lobby group for a change to decommissioning tax rules that have prevented deals in the North Sea. Owners of oil and gas assets get tax relief on the future costs of dismantling them, but as assets are sold the relief cannot be passed on to new owners. "The UK government will publish a discussion paper and establish a panel of industry experts to consider how tax can assist sales of oil and gas fields, helping to keep them productive for longer," the ministry said in a statement.

Cyberhawk Innovations, the world leader in aerial inspection and survey using Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS), otherwise known as drones, has welcomed Oil & Gas UK’s new guidelines on the use of drones in offshore environments. Cyberhawk played a key role in the drafting of the ‘Unmanned Aircraft Systems Operations Management Standards and Guidelines’, which were produced by Oil & Gas UK in conjunction with a working group. As well as Cyberhawk, this group included duty holders who have used UAS, industry and aviation safety experts and a limited number of additional UAS operators. Cyberhawk were the first company to operate UAS in the North Sea back in early 2012, and has been one of the most significant contributors to the development of the guidelines.

From a helicopter, it looks like just another North Sea oil rig, a grey cube supported by massive yellow pillars, 90 kilometres (56 miles) off western Denmark. But the DanTysk facility is the world's first accommodation platform for offshore wind, which is borrowing techniques and labour from the crisis-hit oil sector as it tries to cut costs and end an addiction to state subsidies. The wind industry is moving further offshore and into the deeper waters tamed long ago by oil companies to increase scale and capture stronger and more constant winds. "There's a lot of new-generation technology in the offshore wind industry, but when I'm out there…

Since 2004, well construction costs in the UK Continental Shelf (UKCS) have doubled, directly impacting drilling activity which is currently at an all-time low. However, collective industry efforts are already focusing in on how a reduction in core drilling costs of 50 per cent could potentially unlock around five billion boe of known reserves over the next decade. The significant work the industry is doing through the Technology Leadership Board (TLB) to address the well cost reduction challenge, will feature in a forthcoming event organized by the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) Aberdeen section on September 21 at Aberdeen’s Douglas Hotel.

Petrofac, Faroe Petroleum and Eni Hewett have established a cost-saving partnership to drive efficiencies and commercial synergies across U.K. operations in the Southern North Sea. The tripartite agreement sees collaboration between Petrofac (Duty Holder) and the respective equity owners and operators of the Hewett, Schooner and Ketch gas fields to share logistics and accommodation services across the facilities. Faroe Petroleum is operator and 60 percent equity holder in the Schooner and Ketch fields, and Eni Hewett is operator and 89 percent equity holder in the Hewett complex.

The need for mooring integrity monitoring has of late come back under the spotlight, not least because the use of floating production systems in the offshore oil and gas industry has been predicted to grow at a significant rate between now and 2017 with a peak in the number of new builds expected to occur in 2016/2017. Recently, an updated industry guideline on mooring integrity has been issued by Oil & Gas UK with the support of operators, contractors and vendors. The guideline…

Investment in British North Sea projects is expected to fall below 8 billion pounds ($12.35 billion) in 2016 from 14.8 billion last year, and could shrink further due to a rise in costs and fall in prices, industry lobby group Oil & Gas UK said in an annual survey on Tuesday. Falling investment means much of Britain's remaining oil reserves will not be extracted, said Malcolm Webb, chief executive of Oil & Gas UK, casting doubt on a North Sea revival which the government hopes will help fill its coffers. "Without sustained investment in new and existing fields, critical infrastructure will disappear, taking with it important North Sea hubs, effectively sterilising areas of the basin and leaving oil and gas in the ground," Webb said.

ACE Winches has appointed Colin Black as chief commercial officer, a newly created board of management position. Black is responsible for leading and managing the firm’s overall commercial strategy and the management of the ACE Winch Academy. Colin Black stated: “ACE Winches has an enviable reputation as the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) and market leader in deck machinery solutions, and with my operational background I fully understand the demands of an industry facing the challenges of low oil price.

Claxton, an Acteon company, has released an infographic guide to well abandonment costs in the North Sea. Released on the eve of the Oil and Gas UK Offshore Decommissioning Conference, held annually in St Andrews, Scotland, to discuss decommissioning in the region, the infographic highlights the costs operators are facing as they plan future campaigns. Abandonment cost reduction is an area where Claxton helps operators in the North Sea and beyond, via a proven suite of rigless technology. Claxton has experience in platform well abandonment and conductor recovery, having completed the world’s first rigless platform well abandonment in 2003. More recently, Claxton carried out the first rigless recovery of a stuck BHA for Maersk on the Tyra East field.

DNV GL, the global provider of risk management services, is extending a offshore safety training program which aims to advance the role of elected safety representatives (ESRs) in minimizing the risk of accidents and improving safety. The course, which is accredited by OPITO, will now be available at DNV GL’s Manchester offices from October to complement and add capacity to the training already provided in its Aberdeen office. DNV GL said it is the only accredited provider of this training, which was started last year and is available to more than 2,000 ESRs working across the industry. It is the first recognized standard applied to any safety representative training since the creation of the basic course, introduced in 1989.

When Aberdeen-based Diamond Offshore wanted to add new functionality to the existing helideck monitoring system on the Ocean Guardian drilling rig in the North Sea, Fugro developed and delivered a fully integrated, user-friendly solution to fulfill the requirements. Severe weather conditions in the North Sea can cause major disruption to offshore operations so Diamond Offshore and its client wanted to better understand the direct correlation between the wind, waves and the performance of the rig anchoring system, as well as accurate station keeping, particularly during storm events.

Britain's North Sea oil and gas industry faces a bleak future where more fields are likely to become uneconomic and shut in as platforms close - unless costs can be controlled, operators say. For some elderly platforms in the Northern North Sea, time is running out. If the industry does not get to grips with costs quickly, fresh investment is likely to dry up, forcing unsaleable rusting rigs to be abandoned. "From a cost point of view, the chickens are coming home to roost," said Tim Walsh, senior vice president, asset integrity services at Lloyd's Register Energy.

Speakers set to fuel energy debate at Unconventional Gas Aberdeen 2014. Leading figures from industry and government speaking at Unconventional Gas Aberdeen 2014 will tomorrow highlight the impact U.K. shale development could have on reducing costly gas imports but admit that more needs to be done to reassure communities on aspects such as fracking. With more than 50 percent of U.K. gas supplies now coming from imports, predominantly from Norway and the Middle East, shale gas is being promoted as part of the solution in creating a secure and affordable energy mix.

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.

UK offshore industry welcomes the news that EnQuest’s £4-billion Kraken development is to go ahead, a project set to recover around 140 million barrels of oil from the North Sea, secure thousands of jobs and generate billions of pounds of revenue for the Treasury over the next 25 years. The project, EnQuest’s sixth production hub in the UK North Sea, will benefit from heavy oil allowances which the Government has provided to stimulate investment in the UK North Sea. “This is yet another clear sign that opportunity remains in the North Sea. This project reiterates the importance of the measures that need to be taken to secure the continued success of our industry.

Singapore-based Epic Gas Ltd. say that following their recent order of two LPG 11,000cbm vessels from Kyokuyo Shipyard Corporation in Japan, it will add two more similar-sized newbuilds to its expanding fleet. These two 11,000 cbm vessels will be long term bareboat chartered in from Kumiai Senpaku Co., Ltd., of Japan. The first vessel will be built by Sasaki Shipyard Co., Ltd. for delivery in 2015 and the second vessel by Kyokuyo Shipyard Corporation to be delivered in 2016. “We are glad to have formed a strong partnership with a prominent ship owner like Kumiai Senpaku Co.…

Decom North Sea (DNS), the offshore oil and gas decommissioning forum, will host a lunch and learn event to share valuable insight into decommissioning, including lessons learned from recent projects. The event will take place on Wednesday, January 15, at the Doubletree by Hilton Hotel, Aberdeen, from 12-2 p.m. The event will include a presentation from Offshore Installation Services (OIS), a contractor specialising in decommissioning project management that recently completed its 17th offshore campaign by permanently abandoning six wells in the Central North Sea.

Britain urgently needs its oil and gas companies to pay for a new regulatory body to encourage industry collaboration and counter plunging North Sea production rates, a government review, the first since the mid-1990s, said on Monday. Britain's oil and gas output has fallen about two thirds since its peak at the turn of the century, but reforms could lead to 200 billion pounds ($330 billion) worth of extra oil and gas being extracted, the government said. The North Sea is thought to contain billions of barrels of hard-to-reach oil but with many platforms and pipelines coming to the end of their working lives, time is fast running out to get at them. The review's task was outlining how to make that easier.

In its annual Activity Survey for 2014, trade association Oil & Gas UK says only 15 exploration wells were drilled in 2013, according to figures from the Department of Energy & Climate Change (DECC), continuing a steep downward trend. Exploration over the past three years has been at its lowest in the history of the UK Continental Shelf (UKCS) and in 2013 replaced just 80 million barrels. Oil & Gas UK chief executive, Malcolm Webb, reflects widespread concern on exploration: “Even if currently planned wells proceed…