Ian Wood News

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 North Sea needs continued investment from businesses and government through its current period of transition, according to a new report from Deloitte, the business advisory firm. Deloitte’s Petroleum Services Group’s latest North West Europe Review, which details drilling, licensing, and deal activity across the region for the whole of 2014, follows a year of change on the United Kingdom Continental Shelf (UKCS), along with volatility in commodity prices over the last five months. The report found that 40 wells were drilled offshore UK throughout the year. This is down on the 50 wells reported in 2013 but largely consistent with expectations given recent trends and market conditions.

Companies operating in the North Sea require a cultural shift to make the most of the its potential, according to a new report from Deloitte, the business advisory firm. The report, which gauges the oil and gas industry’s reaction to Sir Ian Wood’s Maximising Recovery Review, calls on the new regulator – the Oil and Gas Authority (OGA), the Government and companies operating in the North Sea to adapt to a new reality in the basin. Thought closer collaboration between companies would help drive efficiency and cut costs related to extraction, while tax incentives and possibly different ownership models could encourage the sharing of infrastructure.

Drilling activity offshore UK is now expected to increase over the next few years as government and industry reacts to the recommendations in Sir Ian Wood’s report – the “Wood Review” – to maximise UK offshore oil & gas recovery advises Douglas Westwood's 'DW Monday' study. From a peak of 396 in 1996, numbers of wells drilled offshore UK fell to 164 in 2013, a low not seen since 1979. Development wells were down from 289 in 1998 to 120 in 2013. Exploration & appraisal drilling, on which offshore production ultimately depends, saw numbers fall from 224 in 1990 to 44 last year. Of these the key driver is of course exploration wells, down from 157 in 1990 to just 15 last year.

Drilling and deal activity on the UK Continental Shelf (UKCS) will remain at ‘a steady low’ for at least the next year, suggests a new report from business advisory firm Deloitte. Poor weather and high costs have already had an impact on the amount of exploration and appraisal (E&A) work conducted by operators in the region during the first quarter. The report, which details activity across North West Europe over the first three months of 2014 and was compiled by Deloitte’s Petroleum Services Group (PSG), found a total of 12 E&A wells were drilled on the UK Continental Shelf (UKCS). Although that represents an increase of five wells compared with Q4 2013, it is a decrease of one well on the same period last year.

By John Kemp. The opinions expressed here are those of the author, a columnist for Reuters. Britain's North Sea exploration and production business is set to be transformed, with cooperation replacing competition and proactive, intrusive regulation replacing a light touch. On Monday, ministers promised to back fully the recommendations contained in Ian Wood's review on maximising oil and gas recovery from the UK Continental Shelf (www.woodreview.co.uk). A powerful new regulator will be spun out of Britain's Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), staffed by industry experts with salaries to match, to end the squabbling among offshore operators and promote a strategy based on shared infrastructure and regional development plans.

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.

The U.K. Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) issued a news release stating that the interim report on the economic and energy security opportunities still available from the U.K.’s offshore oil and gas resources has been completed. Among other things, the report recommends a new arm’s length regulatory body to oversee and develop a program to maximize the economic recovery of oil and gas for the U.K. Sir Ian Wood has published his interim report revealing the economic and energy security opportunities still available from the U.K.’s offshore oil and gas resources.

The equivalent of 41 billion barrels of oil have already been produced from the UK Continental Shelf, but production is declining. Improving the way the UK's offshore oil and gas industry is regulated could boost the economy by £200bn over the next 20 years, according to a new government-commmissioned report by retired oil tycoon Sir Ian Wood, reports BBC Scotland. The current regulator, which is situated within the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), is now significantly…

According to a Nov. 6 report from The Press and Journal, Scottish businessman, Sir Ian Wood, said the North Sea oil and gas industry could be the saviour of the UK economy and haul the country out of its massive debt. Sir Ian, chairman of Aberdeen-based global energy service business Wood Group, told an awards dinner held by industry body Oil & Gas UK that government policies needed to focus less on maximizing income and more on getting to the nearly $1,328.6b worth of oil and gas that remains untouched under the sea.   (Source: The Press and Journal)