Commentary, 1/2 2014Feb 14, 2014 Half Full
We hear rumblings of how industry investment this year – and over the next few years to come – may not be growing at a pace that investors have come to expect. But we have to remember that the growth on the Norwegian Continental Shelf since 2007 has been phenomenal. While the rest of the world was taking slow, painful steps toward a new kind of “normal”, NCS investments were growing.
From the Editor, 1/1 2014Feb 14, 2014 What’s New?
Even though we go to press in February, we hope it’s not too late to wish everyone a very positive and productive New Year. And as we do each year, the magazine once again begins this new year by looking forward to how the year could shape up.
New Directions in Norway E&PFeb 14, 2014 Whatever survey you read, 2014 promises a record year of investments offshore Norway – with warnings, too, of a rig-crew crunch, narrower margins and the tripled costs since 2000. The contradictory “forecasts” tip in favour of the wealth of contracts in-store. The “threat” to projects of 110- dollar oil being “what 10-dollar oil was a decade ago” seems farfetched, when business now includes good old-fashioned asset swaps; new rig arrivals; an unchanged overall tax rate; big discoveries near infrastructure and the gold-rush of newcomer interest in frontier acreage. For the first time, the North Sea, the Norwegian Sea and the Barents Sea seem to offer equal promise.
Firefighting - Challenges in Arctic ConditionsFeb 14, 2014 Fire prevention, as known from land-based industry, is often based on separation of hazardous equipment, to prevent fire spread across this barrier. Explosion hazard is treated in a similar way, as the pressure wave from an explosion also diminishes dramatically with distance. If a fire occurs the firefighting activity on land will often be based on trained full-time fire brigade personnel that arrive with heavy vehicles and large amounts of water.
Advanced Completion Hardware Optimises Production ResultsFeb 14, 2014 Over the past decade the completions sector of the oil and gas industry has seen major improvements in the ability of speciality tools and hardware to reach production faster, more efficiently and ultimately in minimising life-of-well cost.
An Industry’s Mission PossiblesFeb 14, 2014 When politicians open a conference on competitiveness, things are serious. So, Norway-based offshore repairs specialist, Karsten-Moholt, invited suppliers and customers to an island off Bergen in western Norway and stirred the pot of opinion on how to rein in costs.
By William Stoichevski.
