Oil giant BP has become the latest North Sea company to make cost-cutting moves in the tougher financial environment.

INTERNATIONAL offshore-accommodation specialist Ferguson Modular, part of Inverurie-based Ferguson Group, announced the release of 50 new units into its hire fleet yesterday.

THE man due to take charge of energy-related activities at Scottish Enterprise (SE) next month is well equipped for the job despite being a newcomer to the oil and gas industry, his boss said yesterday.

International oil and gas facility service provider Petrofac said yesterday it was increasingly confident that 2009 would be another year of strong growth.

THE UK’s new energy minister, Lord Hunt, will address the country’s subsea industry at an event in the House of Commons tomorrow.

Urgent government action is needed to prevent a decline in North Sea oil and gas revenue that could lead to the loss of 50,000 jobs, MPs warned last night.

Oil depots in the north and north-east are among those at high or medium risk of causing a major environmental accident because safety measures have not been fully implemented.

Forth Ports, which operates six harbours in Scotland and one on the River Thames, said yesterday it had made good progress with several renewable-energy initiatives.

Energy firm BP unveiled the identity of its new chairman yesterday, surprising the market and ending a two-year search for Peter Sutherland’s successor.

Two major West of Shetland development projects are gathering momentum, with Houston-based INTECSEA having secured the facilities engineering services contract for the first stage of Chevron-operated Rosebank/Lochnagar, while Doris has started front-end engineering for Total-operated Laggan/Tormore.

A just published study commissioned by Rockhopper Exploration shows just how tantalisingly close the late-1990s exploration drilling campaign to the north of the Falkland Islands was, especially one of the two operated by Shell.

DNV is launching a joint industry project designed to overhaul existing industry guidelines for the safe design of both fixed and floating structures in Arctic offshore regions.

We’ve read the headlines, perhaps even attended February’s launch, but how is the CEO of Britain’s shiny new National Subsea Research Institute going to actually make this bold ambition happen?

BP has handed UK group Amec the engineering services contract covering development of the Tubular Bells and Kodiak discoveries in deepwater Gulf of Mexico.

THIS year’s Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) was the setting for another global technology summit, led by Aberdeen-headquartered ITF. Key technology organisations from the world’s major oil&gas provinces came together for a breakfast on the second day of the show in Houston to share updates on current programmes.

Norwegian company Electromagnetic Geoservices (EMGS) is restructuring and cutting its workforce in the hope of riding out the recession successfully.

Hemmingsen urges operators to work co-operatively with drilling contractors to further develop standards

ABERDEEN’S Robert Gordon University and Stavanger University are forming a collaborative partnership covering education and research across a number of disciplines, but which will especially capitalise on their strong positions in energy-related activities – most of all North Sea oil&gas.

BUT surely the difference between academia and industry is that they would say academia leans too much towards blue skies and doesn’t understand the corporate world.

CLEARLY, the NSRI has a business plan, but what are the guts of it? The core is a five-year plan, but with annual waypoint targets.

SAUDI Aramco’s EXPEC Advanced Research Center (EXPEC ARC) claims to have found a better and cheaper way to control hydraulic fracturing in open-hole horizontal wells to improve reservoir contact and enhance production.

SEVAN Marine and Premier Oil have signed up to a firm contract for the continued provision and operation of the floating production, storage and offloading vessel (FPSO), Sevan Voyageur, on the Shelley field in the Central North Sea (blocks 22/2b and 22/3a).

PRIDE International has admitted to Chevron that its semi-submersible, Pride Venezuela, has an unacceptable level of corrosion. This has precipitated cancellation of a contract for use of the rig by Chevron off Angola.

NORWEGIAN group Aker Solutions has been awarded two key contracts, in partnership with Saipem, from Agip KCO, operator of the Kashagan field, on behalf of the North Caspian Operating Company (NCOC).

DONG Energy is inviting companies to acquire up to 20% of its UK Atlantic Margin Licence P1195.

The US Gulf of Mexico is mature and on a slide that can only be reversed through a concerted effort by the industry backed by sufficient fiscal and other incentives to turn the tide.

The global financial crisis has, without question, taken its toll on upstream investment.

After years of waiting for the moment, Faroe Petroleum expects to get two cracks at drilling the UK Atlantic Frontier this summer.

At a time when the world’s offshore industry is seeing huge changes in the way it does business, against a background of recession and tight-fisted banks, the need for strategic insight in upstream petroleum has perhaps never been greater, especially offshore where the highest stakes are being played.

Petrobras is totally reshaping Brazil’s offshore petroleum industry with a string of spectacular pre-salt (sub-salt) oil discoveries which have, in less than two years, catapulted South America’s leading producer up the international hydrocarbon reserves league table.

Leader of the South American petroleum pack by miles is Brazil, its ascendancy largely down to the driving ambition of state-owned Petrobras, the reputation of which is legendary in upstream petroleum, especially deepwater. A measure of that determination is the company’s latest five-year investment plan, rolled out early this year. At $174billion through 2013, it is 55% up on the previous $112.4billion five-year plan.

A battle for control of a huge slice of Antarctic waters is about to get under way, with the UK and Argentina laying claim to substantially the same piece of territory.

Aberdeen-based Nautronix and Cameron’s Drilling Systems division in Houston have been awarded an OTC Spotlight on New Technology Award for the NASMUX (Nautronix Acoustic Subsea Multiplex) system.

JUST days before standing down as US president, George “Dubya” Bush issued a directive claiming a vast area of the Arctic on behalf of the United States.

CALEDUS is teaming up with its Malaysia agent to forge a joint-venture company in a bid to better capitalise on South-east Asia market opportunities.

Canada-Newfoundland Offshore Petroleum Board has put the proposed $5.7billion Hebron heavy oilfield development on the Grand Banks out to public consultation.

In the future, natural gas derived from frozen methane-based hydrates extracted from the ocean floor and beneath the Arctic permafrost may fuel cars, heat homes and power industry, according to the American Chemical Society.

AT A time when water supplies are scarce in many areas of the US, scientists in Minnesota are reporting that production of bio-ethanol may consume up to three times more water than previously thought.

PETROFAC has been awarded a £10million contract extension by Venture Production covering the UK North Sea Kittiwake field until the end of March, 2010.

A web-based safety alert index system has been created by an Aberdeen company in a bid to improve safety in the upstream oil&gas industry through learning from past mistakes.

STATOIL is mounting a massive North Sea campaign this year that will necessitate 21 production shutdowns on the Norwegian Continental Shelf. The shutdowns will allow for required maintenance and inspection, and many of its installations will be upgraded to expand capacity, implement technical improvements and extend their economic life. All this will be accomplished during the planned shutdowns, says Statoil.

AFGHANISTAN has launched its first oil&gas bidding round after many years of exile from the petroleum community.

STX Norway Offshore has been contracted to construct three North Caspian capability icebreaker tugs for JSC Circle Marine Invest.

MAERSK Olie has made what is described as a significant gas discovery in the Danish sector of the North Sea on block 9/06.

THE best ways to improve energy security, mitigate global warming and reduce the number of deaths caused by air pollution are blowing in the wind and rippling in the water, not growing energy crops on a grand scale or glowing inside nuclear power plants, says Mark Z. Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University in the US. He says that currently fashionable “clean coal” – which involves capturing carbon emissions and sequestering them in the earth, and which is currently flavour of the political month here in Britain – is not clean at all.

STATOIL is calling it a day with the Lufeng field after more than 12 years of production.

NORWAY has stood back from potential conflict with other Arctic territorial claimants such as Russia by defining its continental shelf to end in deep waters 550km south of the North Pole.

SIMMONS & Company International Limited has appointed Ken Murray as a non-executive adviser.

CHINA National Offshore Oil Company (CNOOC) has launched the first batch of offshore blocks in its 2009 licensing round, with 17 blocks in the South China Sea open to bidding by foreign operators.

SEVAN Marine of Norway has signed a technology licence agreement with Eni Norge for the Sevan 1000 floating production, storage and offloading vessel (FPSO) which will be used for exploitation of the Goliat field in the Norwegian sector of the Barents Sea. It will be renamed Sevan Goliat.

NATIONAL Oilwell Varco has acquired oilfield equipment manufacturers and suppliers ASEP Group Holding and Anson.

NORWEGIAN company Electromagnetic Geoservices has secured a multi-client data-licensing contract with a major international exploration and production operator for Clearplay 3D electromagnetic (EM) data from the eastern Gulf of Mexico. The deal is worth about $5.8million.