Texas-based Fluor has bagged a contract from Royal Dutch Shell for the engineering, procurement and fabrication of a floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel for the latter’s Penguins redevelopment project in offshore UK.
As per the contract, the engineering firm will be responsible for the design, fabrication and delivery of the pre-commissioned FPSO to the UK North Sea. The contract value has not been disclosed by the two parties.
The FPSO’s production capacity has been planned to be 45,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day. On the other hand, the vessel will have a storage capacity of up to 400,000 barrels.
Further, the FPSO will be designed to deliver operations continuously for 20 years without dry docking. Fluor said that the FPSO will help extend the life of the Penguins oil and gas fields.
Fluor Energy & Chemicals business president Jim Brittain said: “We are pleased to partner with Shell in the UK as they make this significant investment in their North Sea operations.
“We leveraged Fluor’s full range of integrated solutions to drive down the project’s costs and our fabrication capabilities were a clear differentiator. This award demonstrates Fluor’s ability to design, fabricate and deliver high-quality, capital-efficient offshore facilities globally.”
Fluor’s office in Manila, Philippines, which had recently delivered the Malampaya Phase 3 project in the country, will lead the FPSO project for Shell.
The Penguins oil and gas field, which is located about 241kms north east of the Shetland Islands, is owned 50-50 by Shell and ExxonMobil. It was first developed in 2002 and this week, Shell had made final investment decision on its redevelopment.
The Penguins field will be redeveloped using the new FPSO. Currently, oil and gas production at the field is being done from four existing drill centers that are tied back to the Brent Charlie platform.
After the Brent Charlie platform is decommissioned, Shell plans to drill an additional eight wells that will be tied back to the new FPSO.
Iraq signed a contract last Thursday with British energy giant BP aimed at more than doubling production from oil fields in the northern province of Kirkuk that were retaken from the Kurds last year.
The agreement was signed by Iraqi Oil Minister Jabbar al-Luaybi in Kirkuk, north of Baghdad, where the North Oil Company has its headquarters, AFP reporters said.
Iraqi forces reclaimed a string of major oil fields in Kirkuk after Iraqi Kurds in September voted for independence in a controversial referendum opposed by Baghdad.
The Kurds had taken over the fields in 2014 during the chaos of the Islamic State group's rampage across the country and exported oil to Turkey through their own pipeline.
Experts say work to renovate a parallel Iraqi pipeline could take up to two years.
Kirkuk province now has a production capacity of 420,000 barrels a day (bpd), according to Baghdad, but only 120,000 barrels a day are being pumped and exports from the region are at a halt.
The oil ministry said Thursday's deal aims "to increase production by 750,000 barrels per day".
Luaybi added that he would visit Turkey "soon, to study ways of reaching a deal on the pipeline from Kirkuk to the Turkish port of Ceyhan".
Iraq, the second largest producer in the OPEC cartel after Saudi Arabia, signed a consultancy contract with BP in 2013 to help the state-owned North Oil Company to develop the Havana and Baba Gurgur fields in Kirkuk province.
But it was never implemented as Baghdad lost control of the fields to Kurdish forces the following year.
Iraq reported its oil exports hit 109.6 million barrels a day in December, the same month that the government announced victory over IS.
Iraq in 2017 earned around $6.5 billion (5.3 billion euros) from crude sales, at $59.3 per barrel.
Blockchain technology is no longer limited to innovative startups with grand intentions of changing the world. Massive multinationals are also looking to use the technology to improve their operations and boost productivity. The latest in the lineup to get on board the blockchain train is petro corporation Shell.
According to industry portal OilPrice, the energy giant has bought up a minority share in Gartner-listed startup Applied Blockchain. Details of the deal have yet to be disclosed, but the move will enable the London startup to help Shell explore how the technology might be applied to its business.
Operating for around three years now, Applied Blockchain has clients from the banking, telecoms, carmaking, manufacturing, and aerospace industries. This its first foray into energy. The technology is slowly entering into the energy sector with, according to Reuters, a consortium involving Shell, BP, and Statoil already working on the development of a blockchain-based energy commodity trading platform.
Shell chief technology officer Johan Krebbers highlighted the huge potential blockchain tech has for business:
Blockchain applications have huge potential to shake up how we do things in the energy industry from streamlining process, to simplifying how we work with our suppliers and serve our customers. Investing in Applied Blockchain is part of our commitment to use digitalisation to create value in our core business and develop new business models.
Shell is not the only energy company with eyes on blockchain technology. Last year, it was reported that trading house Mercuria started working with banks ING and Societe Generale on the first large oil trade based on blockchain technology. According to analysts, the marriage of blockchain and the oil and gas industry presents a number of opportunities for streamlining and improvements in cross-border payments, record management, supply chain management, and smart contracts as potential applications.
Specialists at multinational professional services network Deloitte stated:
A secure system that mitigates risk, increases transparency, provides an audit trail, and speeds up transactions at a significantly reduced cost may be appealing to oil and gas companies.
As the crypto space expands and more companies develop blockchain solutions, the entire industry will benefit from a technology which is revolutionizing the way the world does business.
Despite the EU’s best efforts to diversify suppliers, Russian gas exports to Europe grew by 8.1 percent to hit a record high of 193.9 billion cubic meters last year. More than a decade after Russia first shut off the spigot to Europe over a pricing dispute with Ukraine, Gazprom’s share of the EU gas market has increased from a quarter in the 1990s to a stunning one-third today. This worrying development comes at the same time Bulgaria, a country sitting squarely in Moscow’s long shadow, assumes the presidency of the EU Council and considerable sway over European affairs. What do the next six months have in store for Europe’s shaky energy security? And could the US help?
Indeed, other than Brexit and the refugee crisis, the Nord Stream 2 file is the trickiest dossier Sofia will have on its lap for the next six months. Bulgaria now has a key role to play in the potential expansion of a gas pipeline that would allow Gazprom to send more gas to Europe. There is still no agreement on whether to give the European Commission a mandate to negotiate the project with Russia at present. The US has been pushing Poland and other states to ask for the negotiating mandate, while Germany – the pipeline’s final destination – thinks there is no need to involve Brussels.
As the bloc’s umpire for the next six months, Bulgaria’s position will be key – but it’s unclear whether Sofia has the mettle to go toe-to-toe with Moscow.
Russia has been harboring ambitions to build the Nord Stream 2 under the Baltic Sea (alongside the Nord Stream 1 pipeline) to Germany for years, much to Washington’s understandable chagrin. Nord Stream 2 wouldn’t just grant Russian gas an almost impregnable position on the European market; it would also deal a blow to the Ukrainian economy, which makes over a $1 billion a year from gas transiting its territory to reach Europe. The expanded pipeline would also offset the need to use the Soviet-era “Brotherhood” route connecting Western Siberia to Slovakia via Ukraine.
As president of the EU Council, Bulgaria will have to perform a high-flying balancing act on this thorniest of energy questions. It will need to grapple not only with various intra-EU disputes, but also with internal dynamics and its own relations with Russia and the US. In addition to American concerns, Poland and other EU member states remain highly distrustful of Moscow and the threat posed by Russian gas dominance.
The Nordic states have also raised security questions about plans to construct the pipeline along their coasts, where Moscow is strengthening its military footprint. To hedge against Russia’s growing control of the market, both Poland and Lithuania have built new terminals to receive liquefied natural gas from the US and other suppliers. In July, Poland received its first shipment of US LNG at the new terminal. In August, Lithuania obtained its first spot shipment via its floating LNG terminal in Klaipeda.
Bulgaria itself would see minimal impact from Nord Stream 2, but Sofia remains highly dependent on Russian gas and is perfectly conscious of Moscow’s ability to switch off the valve. Gazprom is the only natural gas supplier in the country, which was hit by a price disagreement between Russia and Ukraine that caused Gazprom to halt gas supplies to Eastern Europe for nearly two weeks last winter. The Kozloduy nuclear power plant in Northern Bulgaria is entirely dependent on Russian fuel and equipment. Lukoil also maintains a heavy presence in Bulgaria and owns the only oil refinery in the country. While the government is currently negotiating the construction of several cross-border interconnectors with its neighbors, energy independence remains years away.
Russian business interests have penetrated other sectors deeply as well, warping Bulgaria’s investment climate. According to a recent study by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, investment with direct or indirect Russian origins accounts for more than 22% of Bulgaria’s GDP. According to those findings, the country qualifies as a “captured state.”
That captured state will now be asked to stand up to Vladimir Putin’s ambitions and preserve Europe’s energy independence.
Unsurprisingly, these oligarchic networks are closely entwined with domestic politics up to the highest levels of government. According to a collection of leaked US diplomatic cables, Prime Minister Boyko Borissov himself has been implicated in a series of criminal dealings and has longstanding ties with Lukoil and the Russian embassy.
Russian government interests have their own history of bankrolling questionable campaigns in Bulgaria. In 2015, Bulgarian and international observers identified Kremlin-backed Orthodox priests as a main instigator behind environmentalists’ successful campaign to enact legislation banning fracking for oil and gas. The rules eventually drove out Chevron, dealing a setback to Bulgaria’s hopes for weaning itself off Russian gas. Related: $70 Oil Cripples European Refiners
Moscow is not the only outside player Bulgaria will have to be conscious of when it comes to negotiating the Nord Stream 2 project. Despite President Trump’s pro-Russian rhetoric, the US remains strongly opposed to the proposed pipeline and has not hesitated to make its feelings known. New sanctions against Russia have already made financing major projects like Nord Stream 2 incredibly difficult, and the State Department has said European companies involved in the project could face US sanctions depending on the “contours” of the deal.
These competing dynamics leave Bulgaria in a tight spot, caught between sparring EU states but also between Moscow and Washington. How it performs in navigating these competing interests could impact Europe’s drive to achieve energy independence and wean itself off reliance on Russian gas for years to come.
CB&I today announced it has entered into a Joint Development Agreement with Saudi Aramco that includes Chevron Lummus Global (CLG), CB&I's joint venture with Chevron U.S.A. Inc., for the development, commercialization and marketing of innovative crude-to-chemical technologies.
Together, Saudi Aramco, CB&I and CLG will develop a unique integration of advanced technology processes for the production of high-value petrochemicals from crude oil. Specifically, CB&I's ethylene cracker technology and CLG's hydroprocessing technologies combined with Saudi Aramco's proprietary Thermal Crude to Chemicals (TC2C™) technology will provide the platform for this joint development.
"It is an honor to partner with Saudi Aramco to develop the most competitive processing solution for crude to chemicals," said Daniel M. McCarthy, CB&I's Executive Vice President of Technology. "There is a lot of attention in the market to more efficiently produce higher value petrochemical products such as ethylene, propylene, butadiene and aromatics directly from crude oil. CB&I and CLG's breadth of technologies and catalysts are unmatched in the industry spanning essentially all relevant refinery and petrochemical processes, which provide a strong foundation for this joint development."
Neste's NAPCON product family is bringing about the next industrial revolution with products that utilize modern artificial intelligence. And since this is the process industry, where operators are the true stars of any production facility, they are collaborating with the smoothest operator there is - an American actor, Mr. David Hasselhoff, who is well known as the Knight Rider with his car KITT, incorporating artificial intelligence into everyday life.
"For decades, we have been pioneers in creating solutions that bring production facilities to the present day, and our newest products are set to revolutionize the entire industry. To celebrate this, we wanted to create something similarly legendary, and what could be more suitable than having the world's smoothest operator meet with the new era of sophisticated artificial intelligence. Just like KITT, NAPCON is the smooth operator's main man", says Joanna Viileinen, Communications and Marketing Specialist, NAPCON.
Building the next industrial revolution with artificial intelligence
In practice, NAPCON solutions tap into the information network of facilities, read all inputs and optimize the facility in real-time. Everything happens in a matter of seconds, immeasurably exceeding human capabilities in optimization. Artificial intelligence is utilized to model and understand physical reactions and phenomena within a production process.
The newest addition to the NAPCON product family is the ground-breaking NAPCON Games. By applying simulations that are based on real-life phenomena, NAPCON Games are able to make the best operators even better.
In the first part of the series, NAPCON and David Hasselhoff are on the lookout for that special Industry Champion. They are challenging operators around the world to prove their skills by playing NAPCON Games Distiller, a revolutionary process operator game.
The finals of Operator World Cup 2017 will be held in Houston on 8th February 2018 between operators from Neste and MOL Group, which is a leading integrated Central & East European oil and gas corporation headquartered in Budapest, Hungary.
The Operator World Cup 2018 will start in the spring, more information will follow. To encourage all operators to join, the game will be available for a free 30-day trial.
Statoil has won interests in 31 exploration licences on the Norwegian continental shelf (NCS), 17 of these as operator, and 14 as a partner in Norway’s Award in Predefined Areas (APA) for 2017.
Statoil Norway and the UK exploration senior vice president Jez Averty said: “The NCS is the core of Statoil’s business, and we are pleased with the awards in the 2017 APA round. Licenses awarded through the APA-rounds give access to acreage that can provide important resources.
“We saw that in 2017 when we made a significant discovery in the Norwegian Sea – Cape Vulture – in a license awarded in the APA 2015 one year before we made the discovery. The APA-rounds are important to maintaining the exploration activity on the NCS. New discoveries are needed in order to offset the declining production on existing fields on the NCS.”
The award is on a level with APA 2015 and APA 2016, which both gave a significant increase in the Statoil’s license portfolio.
The offer this year includes three commitment wells. Two of these wells are in the North Sea and one in the Norwegian Sea.
In license PL921 Statoil will through drilling the Gladsheim prospect test if oil can have moved eastward from the Troll area. In PL942 in the Norwegian Sea we are aiming through drilling of the Ørn prospect to discover new resources that can be produced through the Norne installation. Statoil is also participating in the drilling a well in the PL916 at the Utsira High operated by AkerBP.
Averty said: “Over the past two years we have replenished our portfolio with a number of interesting prospects. This eanbles us to maintain and increase the exploration efforts. We will this year drill or participatin in between 25-30 exploration wells on the NCS. This is an increase from the 19 we operated or participated in 2017.”
In APA 2017 Statoil was awarded new production licences in all of the three provinces on the NCS.