New Joint Venture between Petrobras and Murphy

Brazilian Petrobras and the U.S. oil company Murphy Oil have formed a Gulf of Mexico-focused joint venture company. Murphy has an 80% stake and Petrobras a 20% stake. In detail, Petrobras and Murphy also signed an “LLC Agreement, a Master Service Agreement (MSA) and a Transition Services Agreement (TSA). The JV will have an estimated average production of approximately 75 thousand barrels of oil equivalent per day.

Qatar is set to leave OPEC

Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi, the Qatari Minister of State for Energy Affairs, announced Qatar’s withdrawal from OPEC effective 1 January 2019. Qatar joined the oil cartel back in 1961 but the withdrawal decision reflects Qatar’s desire to develop a new plan for increasing production without external interference. The ambitious national plan is set to increase natural gas production from 77 million tons per year to 110 million tons in the coming years.

Aker Solutions / Siemens new team will develop digital solutions for oil & gas

Siemens and Aker Solutions have teamed up for the development of advanced digital solutions in engineering, operations, and services. The collaboration focuses on software applications and joint service offerings for the oil and gas sector also based on Siemens’ Comos engineering platform. These solutions will reduce engineering and operational cost and improve the decision-making process.

Saudi Aramco signs $27.5 B in deals with suppliers

The Dhahran Expo Center in Dammam has been theatre of the Saudi Arabian oil and gas giant Saudi Aramco deal show during the 4th IKTVA Forum & Exhibition. $27.5 billion deals have been signed for 31 commercial collaborations with offshore energy specialists. In late October the Saudi company already signed fifteen deals with main oil companies valued at more than $34 billion.

Three-year extension for Subsea 7 in the North Sea arrangement.

Subsea 7 has secured a three-year extension of services with the following North Sea clients: Chevron North Sea, Dana Petroleum (E&P), Hess Denmark, Nexen Petroleum U.K., Repsol Sinopec Energy UK, Shell UK, and TAQA Bratani, for up to 50 offshore facilities. This agreement will improve efficiency through sharing of services ranging from inspection, repair and maintenance, construction and decommissioning.

GE speeds up Baker Hughes sale

GE moved to scale its stake in Baker Hughes down to 50,4% but also signed new agreements for BHGE long-term collaboration on critical rotating equipment, including aero-derivative and heavy-duty gas turbine technology. This change of strategy reflects the need by GE to raise $4 billion cash by year end due to the deep financial crisis of the American giant, started in 2008.

Eni drills in Barents Sea

Eni Norge gets a drilling permit for an appraisal well in the Barents Sea offshore Norway. The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD) has granted the permit for well 7122/7-7 S from the West Hercules drilling rig. Eni Norge is the operator with an ownership interest of 65 percent while its partner Equinor owns the remaining 35 percent. The area covers blocks 7122/7, 8, 9 and 10 at about 2.4 kilometers west of the discovery well 7122/7-1 on the Goliat field.

Norwegian authority PSA allows removal of emergency response vessel from Edvard Grieg field

Lundin Norway has received by PSA the consent to change the contingency planning on the Edvard Grieg field in the North Sea. This allows removal of the emergency response vessel dedicated to the Edvard Grieg field and is made possible by Lundin signing an agreement to participate in the vessel part of the area contingency planning scheme for the Sleipner-Utsira. The agreement was signed in January 2017 by Equinor (then Statoil), ExxonMobil and Gassco. Recently Aker BP joined the group.

Siemens launches SIAERO AI UAV for line inspections

UAVs are increasing more and more their influence in the industrial world. An important step beyond is the launch by Siemens of unmanned aerial vehicle technology incorporating artificial intelligence (AI) for transmission lines inspection. The new product, called SIEAERO, was unveiled at European Utility Week in Vienna and is expected to sensibly cut costs down. Indeed, this UAV is designed to replace traditional helicopter inspections of overhead lines and combines an off-the-shelf CAMCOPTER S-100 supplied by Austrian drone company Schiebel with hi-tech sensors and software specifically developed by Siemens.

UK oil reserves enough for other two decades of production

UK has 5.4 billion of oil equivalent at the end of 2017, a level that should keep the UK producing for at least two more decades. This statement from the UK Oil and Gas Authority also adds that remaining UK recoverable petroleum resources is in the range 10 to 20 billion boe, including discovered and undiscovered petroleum resources. UK Continental Shelf (UKCS) petroleum reserves and discovered resources are 70% oil and 30% gas, when expressed in oil equivalent terms. A total of some 44.1 billion boe had been produced to end 2017 from the UKCS.