Special reports

To be competitive in today's oil and gas industry is first and foremost about upgrading the user experience and not by producing new rigs, says Andreas Grydeland Sulejewski, Neptune Software.

Rob Gill, Aquaterra Energy, asks why the industry is reluctant to adopt conductor-supported platforms for shallow water field developments.

According to Rystad Energy, BP has seen the most resource growth from mergers and acquisitions (M&A) across all supply segments, adding nearly 6.5 billion boe. Conversely, Shell has shed almost 11 billion boe since 2015 (excluding the effect of Shell’s 2015 acquisition of BG Group).

A report by IHS Markit attributes the decline in conventional discoveries to low oil prices, competition from short cycle-time unconventional projects, and financial investors questioning long-term, high-cost, frontier projects.

The Netherlands recently announced that production at Groningen – Europe’s largest gas field – will be halted in 2022, eight years earlier than initially planned.

The ideas proposed by the British government to replace the so-called Irish backstop are likely to be rejected by the European Union, said Adam Johnson, director of Tudor International Freight.

Mark Cattle at Surface Technology looks at how maintaining the integrity of assets can extend equipment life and play a critical role in protecting an ageing infrastructure - particularly in times of uncertainty.

Rystad Energy said that it expects further acreage restructuring and M&A activity in the industry, but emphasises that many operators have managed to combine production growth with balanced spending and debt reductions.

Markus Burianski and Christian M. Theissen, partners at White & Case LLP, explain the significance of war clauses, examine their benefits and propose useful drafting considerations that anyone working in the upstream oil and gas industry should be aware of.

Miller will be based in Houston and will focus on business development within the energy and private equity sectors.

Rystad Energy chief oil market analyst Bjørnar Tonhaugen has warned of a clear risk of a slower restart of oil production from Saudi Arabia following last week's drone attack, despite optimistic guidance from Saudi Aramco on Monday.

Brazil’s recent pre-salt rounds have attracted majors, with BP, ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch Shell, and Statoil all now operators.

The report has also found that that only 39% of asset managers already implement advanced digital methods of maintenance and risk management, of which 26% are using risk-based inspection (RBI) and 13% are using reliability centred maintenance (RCM).

60% of the top 50 oilfield service (OFS) contractors already improved margins and increased operational efficiency in the first half of 2019.

Wood Mackenzie VP for Refining, Chemicals and Oil Markets, Alan Gelder, has said that the loss of supplies from Saudi Arabia cannot be met for long by existing inventories.