Audun Martinsen News

Scientists warn that climate change is the greatest peril that humankind has ever faced. Yet oil and gas exploration is set to clock the highest growth for more than a decade this year and next. Protesters cause disruption but, for the moment, hydrocarbon energy underpins life as we know it“Offshore oil and gas production probably matters now more than ever,” said Audun Martinsen. The Rystad Energy Partner and Head of Energy Research told Maritime Reporter & Engineering News.“It…

Heavyweight oilfield service providers like Saipem and Baker Hughes are moving past just oil and gas projects and embracing more renewable energy projects going forward.In 2014, non-upstream oil and gas activities accounted for 22% of revenues among service suppliers. This share grew to 27% in 2018.According to Rystad Energy, the trend to accelerate in the next decade.“If pure-play contractors within drilling, well services and seismic – which don’t have much to offer outside the upstream oil and gas industry – are removed from the equation, activities outside of upstream accounted for nearly 30% of last year’s revenues,” says Audun Martinsen…

The global oil and gas industry can save as much as $100 billion through automation and digitalization in the 2020s, energy research firm Rystad Energy said."As much as $100 billion can be eliminated from E&P upstream budgets through automation and digitalization initiatives in the 2020s. Service companies are reinventing themselves to help operators unlock these savings," said the study by  Rystad.In 2018, $1 trillion was spent on operational expenditures, wells, facilities and subsea capital expenditures across more than 3,000 companies in the upstream space. There are varying degrees of potential savings within offshore, shale and conventional onshore activity budgets…

The multi-billion capital investment by Equinor at its new Dogger Bank Offshore Wind Farm will see it rival its major oil and gas projects, according to Rystad Energy."The offshore wind project Dogger Bank in the UK North Sea will not only be Equinor’s largest project through 2026, it will also rank as the sixth largest offshore development project in the world during this period," said the energy research firm.UK authorities announced on Friday that Equinor and joint venture partner SSE have been chosen to develop the world’s largest offshore wind farm, Dogger Bank, with an expected $11 billion in capital investments from 2020-2026.Audun Martinsen…

Lower oil prices will push the global oilfield services (OFS) sector into a recession in 2020 after three successive years of growth, according to Rystad Energy.In a new sector outlook update, Audun Martinsen, head of oilfield services research at Rystad Energy, forecasts a 4% decline in global oilfield service revenue if oil prices stay flat next year.“Lower oil prices call for negative growth in the service market in 2020,” says Martinsen. “For suppliers, this means that a three-year growth story will come to an end regardless of which market segment you look at.”The service market will likely achieve a 2% growth in 2019, to $647 billion.

Oilfield services companies are in bullish mode. They are now able to raise prices for their products and services, after several years of gloom.“Oil and gas investments are on the rise, and so too is the pricing power of service companies. After losing pricing power in 2015 and 2016, oilfield service companies have since regained some of the lost ground, thanks first and foremost to industry consolidation among players that has concentrated the market over the past couple of years,” said Audun Martinsen, head of oilfield service research at Rystad Energy.“Pricing power is likely to be further strengthened within the service industry…

Total greenfield project sanctioning, summed up to the present day, only accounts for 40% of estimated volumes of offshore projects ever being sanctioned, said Rystad Energy, the  energy research and consultancy headquartered in Norway."Likewise, the brownfield market has only begun, with total historical expenditures accounting for only about 20% of estimated brownfield spend over the projects lifetime, leaving 80% of brownfield spending to the future. And the decommissioning market is still in its nascent form,” says Audun Martinsen, head of oilfield services research at Rystad Energy.It estimates that around 800 billion undiscovered barrels of oil and gas equivalents exist globally…

With the global offshore decommissioning industry expected to reach $36bn over the next 3 years, several hundred offshore oil and gas wells could cease production by 2021 in the face of today’s bearish oil market.As a consequence, so-called decommissioning obligations in the global oil and gas industry rose to $11.7 billion last year and are projected to hold steady at an average of about $12 billion per year from 2019 through 2021, according to Rystad Energy.“2018 was an all-time high, and the next years are set to break this record,” said Rystad Energy partner Audun Martinsen. “To put this into context, the global oil and gas industry…

Spending on the offshore service sector will outpace spending on the onshore shale sector this year, said Rystad Energy.According to Rystad's Oilfield Service Research report, service companies exposed to the offshore subsea market and the maintenance, modifications and operations (MMO) sector are set to benefit from this trend reversal.At current oil price levels, spending on land rigs, fracking and other services for the shale industry is likely to stay essentially flat in 2019. The offshore service market, too, will feel the effects of the recent oil price slide, but this sector is nevertheless projected to grow by a robust 4% this year…

Offshore engineering firm McDermott International Inc will close its acquisition of Chicago Bridge and Iron Co NV on Thursday, creating an integrated onshore and offshore services group that will expand its presence in the Middle East.McDermott's offshore engineering and construction work will combine with CB&I's onshore skills including liquefied natural gas (LNG) and power plants. McDermott will bolster its service offerings in Saudi Arabia, where it is already adding facilities and has contracts with national oil company Saudi Aramco.David Dickson, McDermott's chief executive officer who this week met with Saudi Aramco executives in Houston, said on Tuesday the kingdom "is going to be a big part of our future.

Offshore oil services firm Subsea 7 has made an unsolicited offer worth about $2 billion for U.S. rival McDermott, potentially breaking up the U.S. company's agreed deal with onshore engineering firm Chicago Bridge & Iron (CB&I).The deal could make Oslo-listed Subsea 7 the market leader in supplying and installing subsea equipment for oil and gas firms with a combined market share of 24 percent, followed by TechnipFMC with 20 percent and Saipem with 15 percent, an Oslo-based consultancy…

Singapore’s shipyards are looking to recent investments in capacity, design and newly acquired technology to combat order declines after a decades-long offshore buildup. Sembcorp and peer Keppel are making the most of partnerships in FLNG and showing signs they’ll be okay through the downturn, helped by their gas-hungry Australasian backyard and renewed ties with old charterer parties and suppliers. With drilling contractors unable to pay for the offshore rigs they’ve ordered, Singapore’s heavyweight yards have had to defer deliveries and become defacto rig owners.