Upstream Capital Costs News

The cost of producing oil and gas has risen about 53 percent the past two years, and the trend is expected to continue this year, according to a report released Monday. Business Week reported that those same costs have climbed 67 percent since 2000, but most of the increase has come since the end of 2004, according to an analysis by Cambridge Energy Research Associates and its parent, IHS Inc., which together have created what they call the Upstream Capital Costs Index. The index tracks nine key cost areas for offshore and land-based projects such as construction, equipment and personnel. The rising cost of doing business in the oilfield is expected to be a hot topic when dozens of industry leaders, academics and analysts gather this week for CERA's annual energy conference in Houston.

A chronic shortage of rigs and workers has doubled the cost of producing oil and gas in the North Sea, threatening to make the UK’s domestic oil industry uncompetitive, warned UKOOA, the association of North Sea offshore operators, according to Times Online. Signs that costs are crimping investment emerge in the association’s survey of North Sea activity. Further evidence of the dramatic worldwide oil industry cost escalation emerged in a new index showing a 53 per cent increase in project costs over just two years. The Upstream Capital Costs Index, launched by IHC and Cambridge Energy Research Associates (Cera), climbed 13 per cent in the six months to the end of October because of soaring inflation in hiring rigs, shipyard fabrication and labour.