U.S. Offshore ///
The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement recently conducted its final pre-production inspection of Chevron’s Big Foot tension leg platform, moored in the Gulf of Mexico about 225 mi south of New Orleans.
Oil edged higher after a U.S. industry report signaled a bigger-than-expected draw in crude inventories last week.
While oil prices remain stubbornly low despite a pledge by OPEC to curb global output, the head of one U.S. conglomerate is eyeing a rebound that’ll bring crude back to $75/bbl.
Michele Cowart, World Oil
Companies in the news
Jim Redden, Contributing Editor
Sleepless in the Gulf
The arrest of a Chinese technology executive means the tariff war that ensnared LNG may not have reached a cease-fire.
Attention operators! World Oil has launched its 2018 year-end drilling survey, and we need your input to make the upcoming World Oil first-of-year Forecast a success.
Saudi Arabia’s energy minister emerged from days of heated OPEC talks joking that he wasn’t an easy man to be friends with.
OPEC ended talks without a deal on oil production cuts for the first time in nearly five years as Russia flexed its muscles by so far refusing to commit to the big output curb that Saudi Arabia is demanding.
Saudi Arabia, Russia and other members of the OPEC+ group recommended an oil production cut, defying a Twitter plea from President Donald Trump to keep the taps open, but their meeting didn’t agree on how big any reduction should be.
The immediate question raised by Qatar leaving OPEC is, of course, what to call this? Qatarexit, or even Qatexit, sound wrong. Qatar-ta-for-now has a nice ring to it, even if it’s a tad unwieldy. Maybe just go with Qatout.
Oil surged the most in more than five months as Saudi Arabia and Russia extended a cooperation pact and U.S.-China trade tensions cooled. Unprecedented supply cuts in Canada also drove prices higher.
Rowan Companies plc has announced that ExxonMobil has exercised the first two options for the Rowan Relentless, an R-Class ultra-deepwater drillship.
OPEC and friends meet in Vienna later this week, and the backdrop isn’t pretty. Oil prices are their lowest in over a year, and there’s the prospect of a glut in 2019 if the group doesn’t make a new deal to cut production.
Russia and Saudi Arabia agreed to extend into 2019 their deal to manage the oil market, known as OPEC+, although Moscow and Riyadh have yet to confirm any fresh output cuts.
Oil explorers expanded drilling in American fields as OPEC and allied crude exporters prepared to discuss production controls and cratering prices.
The Trump administration is taking a major step toward allowing a first-in-a-generation seismic search for oil and gas under Atlantic waters, despite hard-line environmental protests that the geological tests involve loud air gun blasts that might harm whales, dolphins and other animals.
EnVen Energy Corporation has announced that it spud its King Crab well on Ewing Bank Block 873, in its Lobster field.
RWE AG plans to buy more U.S. liquefied natural gas after signing two contracts this year in a strategy to bulk up the utility’s sources of the super-chilled fuel.
McDermott International, Inc. has announced a sizeable contract from Shell Exploration and Production Company, a subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell plc, for new subsea umbilical and flowline installation at the Great White Frio development in Alaminos Canyon Block 857 in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico.