Oil Contract News

China's Shanghai International Energy Exchange (INE) said on Thursday it had signed an agreement with PetroChina International Co Ltd to cooperate on the overseas delivery for its low-sulfur fuel oil futures contract.Both parties have reached a consensus on cross-border overseas delivery for the marine oil and see the move as an "important foundation" for China's first futures delivery "going global", Shanghai Futures Exchange-owned INE said in a statement.This would be the first time a Chinese futures contract would be deliverable outside of China, which could boost the liquidity and increase

China's marine fuel futures contract that debuts on Monday on the Shanghai International Energy Exchange (INE) is likely to attract strong interest, despite weakened ship fuel demand amid the coronavirus pandemic, industry participants said. The new low-sulphur fuel oil (LSFO) contract features marine fuel meeting stricter international emissions rules and is the latest commodity futures product - and second oil contract after Shanghai crude - open to foreign investment. With few competitors…

Premier Oil’s Catcher project remains on pace to achieve first oil before the end of this year with the arrival and hook up of the Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessel BW Catcher last week in the U.K. North Sea. BW Catcher arrived at the Catcher field on October 18, and the hook up of the Submerged Turret Production (STP) buoy mooring system was completed on October 19 with the vessel completing a rotation test around the buoy on October 20, Premier Oil said. Final pull-in of the risers and umbilicals is underway, and commissioning activities have commenced in parallel.

Stock markets in the Gulf may be weighed down by soft oil prices and the aftermath of a mediocre corporate earnings season on Sunday, while Egypt's index may be boosted slightly as its currency strengthens on the black market. The September Brent oil contract settled at $42.46 a barrel on Friday, down 0.6 percent on the day and 14.5 percent lower on the month. It was the biggest monthly drop for Brent since December. Earnings season is now over in Saudi Arabia and mostly finished in the rest of the Gulf. In general, earnings were mediocre and in line with analysts' expectations. Many Saudi petrochemical companies beat expectations because of higher operating margins, but retail and consumer-focused firms were sluggish, a sign of weak economic growth.

Harkand won a multi-million dollar contract with Maersk Oil North Sea UK Ltd to deliver subsea support services to the operator including a commissioning support campaign for the Flyndre development located in the south-eastern part of the Central Graben Basin in the North Sea. The Aberdeen office of the global inspection, repair and maintenance (IRM) company will oversee the mobilization of its sister dive support vessels the Harkand Atlantis and Harkand Da Vinci. The Flyndre…

Oil prices extended their freefall on Friday, flirting with 11-year lows, after the International Energy Agency (IEA) warned that global oversupply of crude could worsen next year. Brent and U.S. crude's West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures fell as much as 5 percent on the day and 12 percent on the week as mild pre-winter weather and a plummeting U.S. stock market added to the toll on oil prices. Oil traders and analysts alike have been perplexed by oil's decline since the Dec. 4 meeting of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries which all but abandoned price support for crude by removing OPEC's production ceiling in an oversupplied market. "It's very tough to find a cause to get bullish here," said Peter Donovan, broker at Liquidity Energy in New York.

Iran will boost its crude oil production within one week once international sanctions are lifted and is determined to regain its lost market share, senior Iranian oil officials reiterated on Monday. Iran will raise production by 500,000 barrels per day in the first week after sanctions are lifted, Rokneddin Javadi, general manager of the National Iranian Oil Company, was quoted as saying by oil ministry news agency Shaha. "A 500,000-barrel increase in Iran's oil production will take place in less than a week after the effective lifting of sanctions," Shana quoted Javadi as saying. On Sunday, the United States approved conditional sanctions waivers for Iran…

In recent years, oil & gas production in Iran has been largely defined by the impact of international sanctions. Here the prospects for the country with a large share of the world's oil reserves are reviewed by Douglas-Westwood in their 'DW Monday' focus. The nation possesses the world’s fourth largest proven oil reserves and second largest gas reserves. However, despite this, production has faltered. Sanctions enacted by the United States and European Union in 2011 and 2012 have crippled an otherwise promising energy sector. The economic impact has been severe — oil & gas export revenues dropped by almost 53% due to significantly decreased liquids export. This figure may make for sobering reading, but all is not lost for the oil & gas industry.

Brent crude held near $115 a barrel on Friday, close to a nine-month high, and was headed for its second weekly gain on increased risks of disruption to supply from Iraq. Iraqi government forces battled Sunni militants for control of the country's biggest refinery on Thursday. If the 300,000 barrels per day refinery stays closed, Baghdad will need to import more oil products to meet its own domestic consumption, further tightening oil markets. Fields south of Baghdad, where most of Iraq's 3.3 million barrels per day (bpd) of oil is produced, as well as exports remain unaffected. But heavy fighting north of the capital and foreign oil firms beginning to pull out staff pose a risk to supplies from OPEC's number two producer.

Expro won a multi-million dollar contract with Maersk Oil. The contract involves providing surface well testing, clean-up services and large bore subsea safety systems for Maersk Oil UK’s contracted mobile offshore drilling unit(s) in the UK North Sea. Running for the duration of three years with a possible two year extension, the contract has a value of £3.2 million. UK business development manager Tim Horsfall said: “Over the past few years, our team has built up a strong relationship with Maersk Oil and this contract award further cements this. More importantly it allows us to continue supporting Maersk Oil UK’s North Sea operations.”…

According to a Nov. 10 report from CBC News, A major contract has been awarded to start work on Newfoundland and Labrador's Hebron offshore oil project. U.S. construction company Peter Kiewit has won a $70m contract for engineering and site preparation. The work will be done at Bull Arm fabrication site in eastern Newfoundland. Kiewit is sharing the work with Aker Solutions, and Exxon Mobil is leading the consortium to develop Hebron. (Source: CBC News)

Exxon Mobil plans to drill three exploratory wells in an Indonesian offshore oil block over the next three years, a company official said on Wednesday. Exxon Mobil signed an oil contract with the Indonesian government last month 2,062 sq mile of the offshore Surumana block in the Makassar Straits. The government had said that in the case of Surumana, any oil find would be split 65:35 percent between government and contractor. Meanwhile, any gas find would be split 60:40 percent. Officials say Indonesia still has around 4.1 billion barrels of proven oil reserves and about 4.5 billion barrels in potential reserves. Currently Exxon Mobil has several oil and gas working areas in Indonesia, including in Cepu block on Java island.