TOTAL has signed an agreement with Nigerian company Conoil Producing to farm into deep offshore block OPL257 for a 40% interest, leaving Conoil as operator with a 50% interest, while another Nigerian company holds the remaining 10%.

STATOILHYDRO has struck oil and gas with the first well drilled on the Obesum prospect in the Norwegian sector of the Barents Sea.

IRAN has told Total and Shell that it will not extend the deadlines for completion of their South Pars development contracts beyond the present June, 2008, deadline.

AMINEX has found gas offshore Tanzania in the Nyuni/East Songo-Songo block with its Kiliwani North-1 (KN-1) exploration well. This is an offshore milestone for East Africa as there has been little drilling to date.

UK PRIVATE equity fund Epi-V has taken an 18% stake in Tarblaster, a Norwegian company that specialises in technology designed to increase the efficiency of the oil recovery process for oil sands. The business was launched in 2006 by Olav Ellingsen, an entrepreneurial developer of innovative oil-recovery technologies. Epi-V’s investment will enable Tarblaster to scale up its new technology and begin successfully commercialising it for the global oil sands market.

PERENCO has been granted five new exploration blocks offshore Brazil in the deepwater sector of the Espirito Santo Basin. The company will operate blocks ES-M-416, ES-M-418, ES-M-472, ES-M-529 and ES-M-531 with 50% interest in partnership with Brazilian companyOGX Petroleo e Gas.

A TOTAL of 148 BP employees working for TNK-BP have been recalled from Russia due to problems with registration, the joint venture has said.

ADDAX Petroleum reports the successful appraisal of, and addition to, its Kita Marine discovery offshore Nigeria on block OML123. The KTM-6 well, drilled with Transocean’s GSF High Island IX jack-up drilling rig, encountered an aggregate gross oil column of 52m (173ft) over four zones.

IT SEEMS that the long-awaited award of the last two blocks (5 and 6) in the licensing round for concessions in the Nigeria-Sao Tome and Principe Joint Development Zone (JDZ) will now be made in May, according to Patrice Trovoada, prime minister of Sao Tome. The round had been suspended 18 months ago.

STATOILHYDRO is to drill its first offshore prospect as operator in Canada during Q4 this year. The target is the Mizzen prospect (Flemish Pass Basin) off the east coast of Newfoundland and Labrador and the Transocean rig, Henry Goodrich, has been secured for the operation.

NORWEGIAN company Awilco Offshore has taken delivery of its fifth ultra-premium jack-up drilling rig from the PPL Shipyard in Singapore.

TULLOW Oil plans to launch a new exploration drilling campaign on block 2 of its acreage in Uganda this month.

ITALIAN energy giant Eni has reported a new oil discovery in the Timor Sea in the jointly administered area held by Timor Leste and Australia. Eni said the exploration well, Kitan-1, was drilled in block JPDA06-105, some 500km off the Australian coast, to a total depth of 3,568m (11,707ft) and encountered a “significant” column of hydrocarbons.

DELOITTE has seconded a member of its global Petroleum Services Group based in London to Aberdeen. For the first time, Aberdeen companies will have direct access to the specialist support and advisory services offered by the group to help them compete in today’s fast-paced oil and gas industry.

THE UK Government has approved three new windfarm projects. They are:

CAMERON acquired Austrian group SBS Oilfield Equipment, which designs, builds and instals in-well rod lift pumping and progressive cavity pumping systems and provides associated services. Cameron says the addition of SBS will increase the size and geographic reach of its artificial lift businesses based in eastern Europe and will broaden its scope of products and services.

BP says it intends to produce a further 2billion barrels of oil from its Prudhoe Bay asset in Alaska by implementing a range of production enhancement procedures over the next two or three years. More than 11billion barrels have been extracted to date.

“THE crew of the multipurpose tug boat, Svitser Korsakov, signalled the seizure from the Gulf of Aden, off Somalia, at 1.17pm, on February 1,” sources at Sakhalin port authorities told Interfax.

IRISH company Providence Resources has contracted the semi-submersible drilling rig, GSF Arctic II, for its Celtic Sea drilling programme of two firm wells plus an option offshore Ireland this summer. The company said it confirmed the presence of a significant oil accumulation at the Hook Head structure with the drilling last autumn of the 50/11-3 appraisal well. Providence logged a total of 75ft of net hydrocarbon-bearing reservoir in a 484ft gross hydrocarbon-bearing interval.

Norwegian company Seawell Management has stated its intent to order a new well service unit (WSU) from German company Streicher at a cost of $50million. If options for a further two units are exercised, this will bring the bill to $150million.

Perry Slingsby Systems (PSS) has secured a contract with DOF Subsea to supply 10 new-generation Triton XLX ROV (remotely operated vehicle) systems – five in 2009, the rest in 2010. This order brings the number of PSS systems contracted by DOF in the last 30 months to 21.