Karolin Schaps News

SBM Offshore, a Dutch provider of floating oil and gas production vessels, raised its core earnings guidance on Wednesday citing clients slowly spending more on deepsea projects. "Deepwater is becoming attractive again. It's on a par from an economic standpoint with shale oil," said Chief Executive Bruno Chabas, in reference to a recovery in spending which fell after a sharp drop in oil prices in 2014. Due to low production costs, the shale oil market has attracted huge investments, especially in the United States, and outperformed investor interest elsewhere in the oil market.

Statoil, Shell, DONG Energy turn to U.S. offshore wind; oil firms bring big budgets, offshore tech and risk experience. Some European oil majors have made inroads into the emerging U.S. offshore wind energy market, aiming to leverage their experience of deepwater development and the crowded offshore wind arena at home. Late entrants to the offshore wind game in Europe, which began with a project off Denmark 25 years ago and is now approaching maturity, they are looking across the Atlantic at what they view as a huge and potentially lucrative new market. Norway's Statoil has won a licence to develop a wind farm of the New York coast, is marketing its new floating turbine to California and Hawaii and is retraining some oil and gas staff to work in its wind division.

Royal Dutch Shell's Prelude floating liquefied natural gas (FLNG) ship has left a shipyard in South Korea for its destination offshore northwest Australia, the company said on Thursday.   Shell's $12.6 billion Prelude project is expected to start operating next year, the company said, after long delays since the oil major first decided to go ahead with the project in 2011.   Once the facility arrives in Australia, it will be secured to the seabed by mooring chains before it can be connected to the gas field and start operating, Shell said.   The Prelude FLNG was built by a Technip Samsung Heavy Industries consortium in the South Korean shipyard of Geoje.   Reporting by Karolin Schaps

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.

BP's oil trading business, one of the biggest in the sector, reported a rare loss in the fourth quarter after it lost a $70 million lawsuit over an oil cargo delivered to a Moroccan refinery. BP's Chief Financial Officer Brian Gilvary said due to flat trading positions ahead of a crucial OPEC meeting at the end of November, and the lawsuit, the company's oil trading division made a "small loss" in the fourth quarter. "There was a natural inclination to flatten up all of the books and there was also an adverse court ruling against us which is a $70 million hit," he told analysts on Tuesday.

Royal Dutch Shell has been shortlisted by the U.S. government to make a bid for an offshore wind project licence in the waters off North Carolina, as it comes under pressure from shareholders to diversify into green energy. Shell, as well as Norway's Statoil, qualified to participate in the upcoming leasing round offshore Kitty Hawk, the U.S. interior ministry said on Tuesday. The lease award is set for March 16. Shell's core business of producing oil and gas is reeling after more than two years of weak prices. The company has limited experience in building offshore wind farms but last month won a bid to build a 700-megawatt offshore wind farm in the Netherlands, together with more experienced partners.

Britain's first shale gas delivery from the United States sailed into a heated European political debate on fracking on Tuesday and immediately ran into its first practical problem - the Scottish weather. The huge "Ineos Insight" tanker had entered the Firth of Forth at sunrise, a lone Scots piper playing on its bow, as it headed for the Grangemouth refinery, west of Edinburgh. But gusty squalls prevented it from unloading its controversial cargo before an assembled crowd of dignitaries. "The Insight vessel was unable to dock at the port due to high winds," said a spokesman for Zurich-based chemicals giant Ineos. It would arrive at the port as soon as wind died down, he added. Ship tracking data on Reuters showed the vessel had turned back into deeper waters.

The first shipment of gas fracked from U.S. shale will arrive in Britain next week, upping pressure on Scotland to reassess its opposition to fracking. Chemicals giant Ineos will be importing ethane, obtained from rocks fractured at high pressure, in a foretaste of larger deliveries of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from shale set to reach Europe in 2018. The shipment of ethane, used to make plastics, anti-freeze and detergents, will arrive in Scotland's Firth of Forth on Tuesday, accompanied by a lone Scots piper at sunrise, the company said. The Zurich-headquartered group is against a Scottish moratorium on fracking. It is Britain's biggest shale gas company in terms of acreage and it has promised to share six percent of future shale gas revenue with local residents.

Two Turkish sailors were jailed for a total of 42 years on Friday after their attempt to smuggle a huge haul of cocaine into Europe was thwarted, partly due to some swift international co-operation between Britain and Tanzania. Some 3.2 tonnes of cocaine, the biggest class A drug find ever made in Britain, was found on a ship intercepted off the east coast of Scotland last year. Drugs worth 512 million pounds ($664 million) were being shipped over to the Netherlands, prosecutors said, after travelling from South America via Guyana and Tenerife. British authorities intercepted the cargo off the coast of Aberdeen in April 2015 after the go-ahead from Tanzania, where the ship was registered, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said.

Oil prices closed 2 percent higher after a volatile session on Thursday, with investors less worried about prospects for the global economy after the last pre-vote opinion polls showed Britain was likely to remain in the European Union. Oil prices were also supported by market intelligence firm Genscape's report of a drawdown of nearly 1 million barrels at the Cushing, Oklahoma storage base for U.S. crude futures during the week to June 21, traders who saw the data said. Brent crude settled up $1.03, or 2.1 percent, at $50.91 a barrel. U.S. crude settled at $50.11 a barrel, up 98 cents. Both contracts shot up in the last few minutes of trading. Commodities and other financial markets have been on tenterhooks ahead of Britain's referendum on EU membership.

The Irish government said on Thursday it had awarded oil and gas licences to companies including oil majors Eni, Exxon and Statoil , allowing them to explore for hydrocarbons off the coast of Ireland. The energy ministry has awarded 14 new licences as a first phase of a tender for offshore blocks that gives companies access to new exploration areas for two years, it said. The round attracted 43 applications. "This is by far the largest number of applications received in any licensing round held in the Irish offshore," said Joe McHugh, Ireland's minister for communications, energy and natural resources, in a statement. Oil prices have fallen around 70 percent since a peak in mid-2014 and many large oil companies…

BP shares slide 8 pct after results miss forecasts. BP slumped to its biggest annual loss last year and announced thousands more job cuts on Tuesday, showing that even one of the nimblest oil producers is struggling in the worst market downturn in over a decade. The British oil and gas company, which is still grappling with about $55 billion of costs from the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, said it would cut 7,000 jobs by the end of 2017, or nearly 9 percent of its workforce. BP said it lost $6.5 billion in 2015 and its fourth-quarter underlying replacement cost profit, which is the company's definition of net income, came in at $196 million, well below analyst expectations of $730 million.

BG Group and Energy Transfer Partners have gained approval from the U.S. energy regulator for their liquefied natural gas (LNG) production and export plant in Lake Charles, Louisiana, the companies said. The go-ahead is a key milestone for the project, one of an array of planned U.S. LNG export plants set to bring shale gas to gas-hungry consumers across the globe. The partners said they would take a final investment decision on the project, expected to export around 15 million metric tonnes of LNG a year, in 2016 and that first LNG exports from the plant could follow four years after construction starts. "Lake Charles LNG has the potential to create several thousand jobs during construction and if fully operational could result in approximately 250 long-term operational positions…

Royal Dutch Shell has abandoned its Arctic search for oil after failing to find enough crude in a move that will appease environmental campaigners and shareholders who said its project was too expensive and risky. Shell has spent about $7 billion on exploration in the waters off Alaska so far and said it could take a hit of up to $4.1 billion for pulling out of the Chukchi Sea for the "foreseeable future". The unsuccessful campaign is Shell's second major setback in the Arctic after it interrupted exploration for three years in 2012 when an enormous drilling rig broke free and grounded.

Oil explorer Cairn Energy  has dropped plans to drill near Spanish holiday island Ibiza, the company said, as it wants to focus on developing potentially huge reserves offshore Senegal. Cairn was set to carry out seismic testing on four offshore blocks in the Gulf of Valencia but has now decided its money will be better spent in Senegal where it said its oilfields could hold more than a billion barrels of oil. "Cairn has informed the Spanish Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Commerce that it intends to withdraw from four exploration permits in the Gulf of Valencia," a spokesman said. The company will maintain other projects in Spain, including applications for new licences offshore the Gulf of Lion and the Bay of Biscay, he added.

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.

The British government should review a supplementary tax charge on North Sea oil producers as it has made the operation of some fields unrealistic, Shell Chief Executive Ben van Beurden said on Thursday. "It needs to be looked at as the tax position is hindering viability," he told reporters at a conference in London. Britain is in the process of changing its tax regime to help North Sea producers deal with high costs and has promised to reduce taxes. Reporting by Karolin Schaps

Oil major Shell wants to revive its Arctic oil drilling programme this year after a near two-year suspension, angering environmentalists who say the risk of an oil spill is too high. Remote and costly to develop, the Arctic is estimated to contain 20 percent of the world's undiscovered hydrocarbon resources and despite fierce opposition, plans for drilling north of the Arctic Circle are under way in the United States, Russia and Norway. Shell, Europe's largest energy firm, is intent on restarting its Arctic drilling campaign in Alaska's Chukchi Sea this summer. It was suspended in early 2013 following the grounding of a drilling rig. "Will we go ahead? Yes if we can.

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.

Britain's energy ministry on Friday approved the expansion of Dong Energy's Burbo Bank offshore wind farm in the Liverpool Bay of northwest England, paving the way for the Danish company to build on its leading position in the UK market. Britain's Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change gave the green light to the project which will comprise up to 69 turbines totalling 250 megawatts (MW) in capacity, enough electricity for 170,000 homes. "Today's announcement is an important step in clearing the way for the company to make a final investment decision on Burbo Bank Extension," said Brent Cheshire, DONG Energy's UK chairman. Onshore construction on the project is expected to start in November…

A U.S. judge has decided that BP Plc was "grossly negligent" and "reckless" in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill four years ago, a ruling that could add nearly $18 billion in fines to more than $42 billion in charges the company took for the worst offshore environmental disaster in U.S. history. BP said it would appeal Thursday's ruling by U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier in New Orleans, Louisiana, who held a trial without a jury last year to determine who was responsible for the April 20…

Shares in BP fell sharply on Thursday after a judge in the United States said the oil major had been negligent in events leading up to the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. BP shares were down by 4.4 percent at 462.45 pence by 1435 GMT. BP declined to comment on the report. (Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta and Karolin Schaps; editing by Kate Holton)

Greece is planning to cut tax rates for oil and gas companies as it wants to attract them to help exploit its untapped offshore hydrocarbon resources, its energy minister said on Tuesday. Under the plan, oil and gas explorers will pay 25 percent tax, down from 40 percent currently, and 5 percent of the tax will go to local communities. "We have done this in order to incentivize our investors to invest in the future of Greece," Ioannis Maniatis, Greece's Energy Minister, said at a conference in London. He did not say when the new tax rates would come into effect.