By Eddie Spence (Bloomberg) --The U.S. oil boom changed the petroleum industry forever. Now its philosophy is being adopted by conventional producers in the North Sea. Motivated by lower crude prices and higher volatility, many companies are favoring smaller and nimbler investments known as “short-cycle projects.” That term -- first coined in American shale fields -- is now … [Read more...]
Equinor Again Delays Start-Up of Britain’s Mariner Offshore Oilfield
By Nerijus Adomaitis OSLO, April 10 (Reuters) - The operator of the Mariner heavy oil field, one of Britain's largest offshore developments in years, postponed its start-up to summer 2019 on Wednesday for safety checks on the platform's electrical couplings. Originally due to come on stream in 2017 and with an estimated 300 million barrels of recoverable reserves, the 4.5 … [Read more...]
Dismantling the Oil Industry: Rough North Sea Waters Test New Ideas
By Shadia Nasralla LONDON, Nov 27 (Reuters) - Scottish marine salvage group Ardent is adapting the tanks it used to refloat the Costa Concordia, the cruise ship wrecked off the Italian coast in 2012, to decommission North Sea oil platforms. It is one of several companies trying new ideas to win business in the market for dismantling disused oil platforms. In … [Read more...]
BP Sees First Clair Ridge Oil Helping to Double North Sea Output
By Kelly Gilblom (Bloomberg) -- BP Plc has seen first oil from its giant Clair Ridge development in the North Sea, helping arrest decades of decline in a region where drillers have already produced most easy-to-reach resources. The project increases output from the broader Clair field, which started producing oil in 2005. Clair is by far the biggest oil field in … [Read more...]
Watch: 18,000-Tonne BorWin Gamma Platform Installed in North Sea
The 18,000 tonne topside of the BorWin gamma High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) platform has been installed on its jacket foundation in the German sector of the North Sea, where will soon be used to supply green power to more than one million German households. The giant converter arrived on board the heavy lift vessel Xiang He Kou which was used in the float-over … [Read more...]