Strategic Appointment for Carlton Resource Solutions
Carlton Resource Solutions has strengthened its senior management team with the addition of a highly experienced director to a key strategic role.With 22 years’ experience in oil and gas recruitment, Doug Robertson has joined the Aberdeen-based business as operations director with a remit to enhance the firm’s capabilities through his expertise both in the UK and internationally.Carlton, part of the Maxwell Drummond Group, supplies engineering, technical and commercial personnel to the energy industry…
Sibur Says New Gas Chemical Complex Will Cost up to $8 Bln
Russian petrochemical company Sibur said its plans to build a gas chemical complex in Russia's Far East will require preliminary investments of up to $8 billion and it is still looking for Asian partners.Sibur said a year ago that it had been in talks with a number of Chinese investors about participating in the project to build the complex in Amur.Sibur's Chief Executive Officer Dmitry Konov told Reuters in a recent interview, that the company, Russia's largest petrochemicals company, was still talking to investors…
OPEC: Oil Markets Tightening Even as U.S. Shale Booms
The global oil stocks surplus is close to evaporating, OPEC said on Thursday, citing healthy energy demand and its own supply cuts while revising up its forecast for production from rivals who have benefited from higher oil prices. U.S. shale oil output has been booming over the past year since OPEC reduced its own production in tandem with Russia to prop up global oil prices. But as oil production collapsed in OPEC member Venezuela and is still facing hiccups in countries such as Libya and Angola, the oil exporters' group is still producing below its targets meaning the world needs to use stocks to meet rising demand.
OPEC Sees Higher 2018 Supply from Rivals, Stronger Demand
OPEC on Thursday revised its forecast for supply growth from its rivals for 2018 by nearly three times more than its revised projection of growth in global oil demand. It said growth in non-OPEC oil supply was forecast to rise by a further 80,000 barrels per day this year to 1.71 million bpd, driven largely by higher-than-anticipated growth in the first quarter in the United States and the former Soviet Union. At the same time, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries increased its forecast for global oil demand growth for this year by 30,000 bpd to 1.63 million bpd.
Fuel Oil Margins Rise to Five-Year High
Fuel oil profit margins have surged to their highest in more than five years on lower supplies and rising demand from electric power generators, which may push some refiners to increase their runs. Fuel oil, the residue left over after initial crude refining, has become scarce in Asia as refiners make their plants more complex by upgrading their plants to change the fuel into gasoline and diesel. However, analysts caution that new supply should begin flowing to the region from Europe and South America, eventually driving margins back towards their typical levels.
OPEC Should Heed Achnacarry Lessons: Kemp
OPEC members are struggling to protect their revenues in the face of renewed competition from U.S. shale producers and other suppliers outside the organisation. OPEC's revenues from petroleum exports have fallen to just $446 billion in 2016 from $1.2 trillion in 2012 ("Annual Statistical Bulletin", OPEC, 2017). But past experience strongly suggests OPEC's effort to stabilise oil inventories and prices while protecting its market share will fail. Since the beginning of the modern petroleum industry, periods of high prices and concern about supplies running out have alternated with episodes of low prices and oversupply.
BP Sees Potential for Gas Purchases from Rosneft
Global oil major BP may receive gas supplies of between 7 billion and 20 billion cubic metres per year under an agreement last year with Russia's largest producer Rosneft, a BP official told Reuters on Wednesday. Vladimir Drebentsov, chief economist for BP in Russia and the former Soviet Union, said these were hypothetical supplies because Kremlin-controlled gas giant Gazprom currently holds exclusive rights for pipeline gas exports for Russia. "This is only an intention, there are no concrete plans," he said on the sidelines of European Gas conference in Vienna. BP owns a 19.75 percent stake in Rosneft.
Gazprom 2016 Exports to Germany at Record High
Russian gas producer Gazprom said on Monday its gas exports to Germany hit a record high last year and have surged since the start of this year. It said it exported 49.8 billion cubic metres (bcm) of gas to Germany in 2016, surpassing a record 45.3 bcm in 2015. Germany is the biggest overseas market for state-run Gazprom, which currently supplies a third of Europe's gas. That has raised concern in Europe that the region is too reliant on Russian gas, and those concerns have risen since pricing spats between Moscow and Kiev disrupted supplies in the wake of Russia's seizure of Crimea from Ukraine in March 2014.
Gazprom Reports Record Gas Exports as Europe Shivers
Russia's Gazprom said on Saturday its daily supplies of natural gas to countries outside of the former Soviet Union have reached a record high due to cold weather in Europe. Gazprom pumped 615.5 million cubic metres of gas to countries outside the former USSR borders on Jan. 6, beating its previous record hit on Jan. 5 by nearly 1 million cubic metres. "We have reached a totally new level of gas exports in conditions of a cold snap, lower extraction volumes in Europe and higher demand for gas on the energy market," Gazprom's CEO Alexei Miller said in a statement.
Azerbaijan extends BP's deal for giant oilfields until 2050
Existing deal was meant to expire in 2024; production to date exceeds 3 billion barrels of oil. Oil major BP has agreed with Azerbaijan to extend a contract to develop the country's biggest fields by a quarter of a century to 2050 in a move to unlock billions of dollars of fresh investments in the Caspian Sea deposits. The existing production sharing deal was due to expire in 2024 and talks to extend it have been slow because of disagreements between partners in the BP-led consortium, sources told Reuters earlier this year.
Russia to Cut Oil Exports Outside FSU by 380,000 T in Q1
Russia will cut oil exports to foreign markets outside the former Soviet Union (FSU) by 380,000 tonnes in the first quarter of 2017 from the fourth quarter of 2016, oil pipeline monopoly Transneft said on Tuesday. However, overall supply, which includes non-Russian oil transit from Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan as well as deliveries to Belarus, will increase by 200,000 barrels per day, as reported last week. Oil exports to countries outside the FSU will total 50.98 million tonnes in January-March, down from 51.36 million tonnes planned for the fourth quarter, Transneft said.
Russian Oil Output Jumps 4% in September
Russian oil output jumped by almost 4 percent in September from the previous month to 11.11 million barrels per day (mbp), a new post-Soviet record-high, as companies ramped up drilling amid improved oil prices, Energy Ministry data showed on Sunday. The oil output rose amid the talks between the leading global producers, including Russia, to curb production in order to support oil prices, depressed by oversupply. output. His comments were aired as OPEC agreed on Wednesday modest oil output cuts in the first such deal since 2008…
Steep Declines to Precede Land Rig Recovery
The global land rig market is predicted to see further compression in 2016, with the recovery forecast for the next four years. The international rig fleet is a critical enabler of global energy production but the quantity and quality of available information on both the international rig fleet and demand has historically been limited, particularly in core markets such as the Middle East, Asia and Russia. The new Douglas-Westwood (DW) World Land Drilling Rig Market Report addresses this problem by providing…
Douglas Westwood: Keep on Drillin’?
This year has seen US land drilling activities fall to the lowest levels on record. Globally we are seeing a very nuanced and regional reaction to the current oil price downturn. Examination of the global land rig fleet (which Douglas-Westwood tracks on a rig-by-rig basis) reveals some key themes. Having dominated the global land drilling market for living memory, the number of US rigs drilling has been eclipsed by activity in other regions. In terms of absolute rigs working, Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union now occupies the top spot.
Is It Time for the US to Dump Saudi Arabia?
After the recent execution of Shi'ite cleric Nimr al-Nimr by Saudi Arabia, the Middle East once again risks devolving into sectarian chaos. A mob torched the Saudi Embassy in Tehran, prompting Saudi Arabia and a number of its Sunni allies to break diplomatic relations with Iran. In response to the unfolding chaos, the Wall Street Journal responded by asking "Who Lost the Saudis?" - fretting that the lack of support from the United States could lead to the overthrow of the Saudi regime. This is a provocative query…
Baltic States Look to Cut Energy Cord with Russia
Baltic states are looking to synchronise their electricity grids with Nordic countries, away from Russia, in a move that has angered the Kremlin and could cost hundreds of millions of euros, government and energy officials said. More than 20 years after splitting from the former Soviet Union and joining the European Union in 2004, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia still depend on Russian power grid operators. They have begun reducing their dependence on Russian gas imports after Lithuania opened a floating liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal last year…
OPEC Sees Higher Demand for its 2016 Output
OPEC Joins IEA in saying non-OPEC supply to fall in 2016. OPEC forecast on Monday that demand for its oil in 2016 would be much higher than previously thought as its strategy of letting prices fall hits U.S. shale oil and other rival supplies, reducing a global surplus. In a monthly report, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) forecast the world would need 30.82 million barrels per day (bpd) from the group next year, up 510,000 bpd from the previous prediction. OPEC's forecast, if realised, would be a further indication its strategy is working.
Glaciers Thawing Fast in Threat to Hydro Power, Farms
Mountain glaciers in Central Asia have shrunk four times faster than the world average, threatening river flows vital for agriculture and hydro power from Uzbekistan to western China, scientists said on Monday. Global warming is likely to quicken the thaw in the vast Tien Shan range in coming years, melting half the remaining ice by the 2050s, according to the study led by the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences. A local rise in temperatures, perhaps linked to climate change in the north Pacific and north Atlantic oceans…
No Repeat of Fukushima Under New Safety Rules - Japan's NRA
Japan's nuclear regulator said an accident on the scale of the 2011 Fukushima disaster would not occur under new safety rules imposed on reactors such as Kyushu Electric Power's Sendai No.1, set to be the first to restart since Fukushima, Japan's Nikkei business daily reported on Saturday. Sendai No.1 reactor is set to restart as early as next week. The Fukushima reactor meltdowns led to the eventual closure of all of Japan's reactors in September 2013 for checks and costly safety upgrades. "We will make completely sure that the reactor is operating as it should…
Workstrings Announces Global Expansion
Workstrings International (Workstrings), a provider of drilling and tubular handling equipment and a Superior Energy Services company, announced the completion of global expansion projects in Africa, the U.S. and the U.K. These expansion projects include relocation and expansion of its Takoradi, Ghana, facility; expansion of inspection amenities at its global headquarters in Broussard, Louisiana; and opening of a purpose-built inspection facility within its Aberdeen, U.K., campus. Workstrings has relocated and expanded its Takoradi, Ghana, facility.
