A consortium of north-east businesses set up to tap into the lucrative multibillion-pound offshore decommissioning industry is close to securing its first contracts.

Shares in Aberdeen oil and gas firm Dana Petroleum hit new highs yesterday after it announced another discovery in the UK northern North Sea.

CRAIG International Supplies (CIS) announced expansion of its operations yesterday.

Michael Engell-Jensen has left Aberdeen to take on a new, highly strategic role at Moller Maersk – to create a team of CO specialists reporting to Maersk Oil & Gas.

Aberdeen-headquartered subsea project management and engineering company CSL has opened in London and is planning to set up satellites in Houston and Stavanger, most likely before the end of 2008.

Ron Clark has become a “weel kent” face in the Houston oil & gas community and always turns up at the Post Oak Hilton when the Scottish group makes its annual pilgrimage to the Offshore Technology Conference in Houston.

A British oil-industry leader has stressed the importance of the North Sea to the continued success of the country’s energy service companies in overseas markets.

Subsea project-management and engineering company CSL is to open an office in Houston this year as part of its expansion plans.

OFFSHORE accommodation and container specialist Ferguson Group continues to invest heavily and will soon announce record results for 2007.

ABERDEEN-BASED global oil and gas industry service provider PSN is growing its presence across the Atlantic.

OFFSHORE logistics company ASCO is to expand its Houston operations.

THE largest oil and gas event in the Middle East is among the exhibitors at OTC.

Budget airline easyJet said yesterday that soaring fuel costs caused half-year losses to more than double and added that rocketing oil prices would put many carriers out of business.

NORTH-EAST members of the Institute of Directors (IoD) will hear about the region’s renewable-energy potential during their next get-together in Aberdeen.

Amec has made a strategic acquisition in Canada designed to reinforce its already strong position in helping the extraction of oil and gas from the tar sands of Alberta.

Aberdeen company Electro-Flow Controls (EFC) sees great growth potential across the Atlantic.

ATR Group reveals its latest acquisition at OTC today. It has bought Bridon International’s Aberdeen-based lifting service division for an undisclosed sum.

OTC is a platform for Scottish companies to show off some of the world-beating technology being developed in the country.

A NEW training centre is to be officially opened in Houston today by international oil and gas facility-service provider Petrofac.

ABERDEEN subsea technology business Triton Group is ramping up its presence in the US with the launch of Sub-Atlantic Inc, one year on from the acquisition of Granite City firm Sub-Atlantic.

Upstream oil & gas merger and acquisition (M & A) total transaction value in Europe slumped to just $171million in the first quarter of 2008 after more than doubling to $5.5billion in 2007, according to US analysts John S Herold.

A major decision about the surface facilities for the giant Barents Sea Shtokman development will be made this year.

The Shtokman Development Company, comprising Gazprom, Statoil Hydro and Total, is planning three development stages, each with subsea production complexes.

Danbor, an offshore logistics subsidiary of AP Moller Maersk, is quietly establishing itself in Aberdeen next door to Maersk Oil’s UK HQ at Altens Industrial Estate.

Aberdeen company Nautronix has just delivered a NASNet acoustic positioning package to Wick in preparation for a pipeline bundle tow-out from Subsea 7’s fabrication yard.

SEADRILL of Norway has won an unconditional letter of award from Petrobras for contracts with a total revenue potential of about $4.1billion over 18 rig years for three new-build deepwater drilling rigs, the West Eminence, West Taurus and West Orion.

I AM absolutely convinced that the UK oil&gas market remains a key and exciting place to invest.

A tanker loaded with fuel docked in Aberdeen early this morning to deliver vital supplies to keep the north-east moving while Scotland’s only oil refinery sits idle.

THE boss of Aberdeen-based oilfield products company Stable Services yesterday said it was continuing with its aggressive growth strategy, including more overseas expansion.

THERE were no reports of any significant fuel shortage problems in the Highlands and Islands yesterday.

First Minister Alex Salmond and Prime Minister Gordon Brown are expected to hold their first face-to-face talks today since the SNP seized power at Holyrood nearly a year ago.

A LEADING pensioners’ group last night came out in support of Grangemouth’s striking workers, comparing them to the pioneering British protesters who campaigned for a universal state pension more than 100 years ago.

SPECIALITY chemical company Champion Technologies has invested £120,000 in a new acid blending plant and acetic acid bulk-storage facility at its European headquarters in Aberdeen.

HUNDREDS of angry and defiant workers gathered at the Grangemouth oil refinery yesterday as they prepared to go on strike.

ABERDEEN energy-services company Wood Group is to be elevated to the prestigious FTSE 100 index.

Motorists across Scotland ignored pleas not to panic-buy fuel yesterday as offshore operators warned the closure of the country’s only oil refinery would cost the economy £50million a day.

There was widespread rationing of fuel at filling stations across the north-east yesterday as forecourts tried to eke out their supplies.

Aker Solutions in Aberdeen has been awarded a three-year North Sea contract by Fairfield Energy which will create about 100 posts, most of them new recruits.

ON FEBRUARY 21, Gazprom, Total and StatoilHydro signed a historic shareholder agreement for the creation of a company to develop phase one of the giant Shtokman gas field in the Russian sector of the Barents Sea.

Chevron is working on a project designed to boost the recovery rate from the UK North Sea Captain heavy oilfield to 50%. If successful, this could deliver up to 160million additional barrels of oil and boost recoverable reserves past the 450million barrels mark.

The appetite for mergers and acquisitions in the global oil & gas industry remained robust in 2007, despite the credit crunch sparked by the US sub-prime mortgage lending debacle.

AGR will soon be on the move to a new Aberdeen home. The company has outgrown the current premises at Queens Terrace, where it started life as Peak Well Services some years prior to being acquired mid-2006 by Norwegian group AGR.

Dutch group IHC Merwede has taken over The Engineering Business (EB), one of the UK’s best design, engineering and construction outfits serving the needs of the offshore industry.

THE value of oil & gas asset deals in Europe climbed above $5.5billion in 2007 after two straight years of decline, driven by a rise in both corporate and asset deal value. Total deal count was flat for the third consecutive year and four of the top eight buyers in Europe were state-owned or controlled, according to analysis by John S. Herold, Inc. and Harrison Lovegrove & Co.

ARTHUR Millholland, the founder and president of exploration and production independent Oilexco, will deliver the keynote address at DEVEX 2008, which takes place in Aberdeen next month.

An innovative internet-based system designed to help verify worker competence in the offshore industry has attracted the attention of the UK’s Offshore Contractors’ Association.

ONE of the upstream petroleum industry’s premier charity fundraising events, the BG Energy Challenge, this year takes place in Plymouth on July 10-12.

SCHLUMBERGER has inaugurated a $100million-plus training facility in Tyumen, Siberia, the gateway city to many of Russia’s oil&gas resources.

Amec has made an acquisition calculated to deliver huge leverage to its oil & gas engineering and project management capabilities worldwide.

THE Press and Journal and Munro’s Travel Group of Aberdeen have teamed up to launch their first Middle East oil & gas conference and exhibition initiative.

UK independent Rockhopper says it has identified five oil and gas plays with a recoverable reserves potential of billions of barrels offshore the Falkland Islands and that there is a “substantial increase” in drillable targets.

THE International Marine Contractors Association (IMCA) has issued a warning about false diving qualifications and the threat this poses to safety. It says there is a growing number of cases where divers have used, or attempted to use, falsified qualifications to gain employment or as a prerequisite for further training.

ExxonMobil has claimed a new world record for extended-reach drilling with its Z-12 well drilled on Sakhalin 1 in the Russian Far East.

FUGRO-ROVTECH, created as a result of the growth in the subsea sector and the strength in inspection services, is gathering momentum in its second year of operations.

A large number of new UK and international jobs will be created this year as Petrofac’s mature oil&gas assets (brownfield) business accelerates and internationalises.

Fifty billion dollars will be needed to get Iraq’s oil industry back on its feet – $40billion for developing already discovered, but undeveloped, oilfields, and $10billion for exploration.

LUNDIN has started the process of assessing potential farm-in partners for its SW Heather discovery in the UK Northern North Sea.

Launched in December to a very receptive audience, the Oil & Gas Academy has the ambitious task of delivering a skilled workforce for the UK oil & gas industry now and in the future.

Well construction technology company Caledus has secured a milestone contract to provide bespoke equipment for some of the most complex extended-reach wells in the world.

SINTEZNEFTEGAZ is set to start drilling its Kunene-1 exploration well offshore Namibia in Block 1711 early this month, according to partner EnerGulf Resources.

ExxonMobil is looking for farm-in partners to its multi-trillion cu ft of natural gas potential Dunquin blocks in the Porcupine Basin.

2008 has begun with a flurry of exploration, with 12 of the 14 wells spudded to date targeting prospects, and only two appraisal wells.

NORWAY’S Ocean Rig has set a record $637,000 per day for premier-division semi-submersible rigs by securing a three-year $723million contract with UK-listed independent Tullow. There are two one-year options on offer that must be exercised before the end of 2008.