British Prime Minister Gordon Brown launched a major new UK offshore bonanza with a third licensing round for wind farms around the UK coast in nine different zones with the aim of providing capacity to generate up to 25% of electricity demand from offshore wind by 2020.
Drilling on the UK Metis prospected firmed up with a farm-in deal, Lundin gained consent for a new well offshore Norway and Daewoo appears to have won a US $2  Bn deal to build ships to carry liquefied Shtokman field gas.

EXPLORATION

Extension for Metis drilling
Explorer Rheochem had a licence on its 392 m bbl UK North Sea Metis prospect extended through subsidiary Zeus Petroleum.
Rheochem said the initial term on the PL1289 licence covering block 14/11 containing Metis has been extended to 21 December this year, with an obligation to drill one well.
An independent assessment by RPS Energy in April 2008 indicated a range of reserves on Metis from 90 m to 356 to 1400 m bbl, based on stock tank oil initially in place, and recoverable prospective resources of between 20 and 392 m bbl.
Zeus holds 50% equity in the licence and that company is currently seeking a farm-in partner drill on Metis in block 14/10 this year. A site survey has already been carried out in advance of drilling the well.

Drilling permit to Lundin
The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate granted Lundin Norway a drilling permit for wellbore designated 16/4-5 in Production Licence 359 .
Transocean Winner will drill the well after completing appraisal well 16/1-13 for Lundin Norway in production licence 338, said the NPD.
Lundin is the licence operator with 40 per cent equity and Premier and Statoil, each have 30 per cent.

Drilling north east of Snorre
Statoil received drilling consent from the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate in the North Sea relating to the Ocean Vanguard to drill well 34/4-12 A north east of Snorre, after finishing drilling of exploration well 34/4-12 S.

Oates well agreement
A new North Sea exploration well is due to be kicked off in the middle of this year on the UK Central North Sea Oates prospect by Premier Oil.
Operator Premier is due to drill the well in block 22/19c, to a depth of 3,050 m (10,000 ft) to test the Paleocene prospect.
The news comes after Serica Energy – which operates block 22/19c with 100% - announced that it concluded a farm-out agreement with Premier Oil. Premier will earn a 50% stake in the block in exchange for drilling the Oates well.

Dry well near Sleipner
Operator Det Norske Oljeselskap completed drilling of a wildcat well in the North Sea, and reports that the well was dry.
Well 15/9-23 on production licence 408 was drilled just south of the Sleipner Øst field, aiming to explore the hydrocarbon potential in a prospect called Skardkollen.
The Bredford Dolphin drilled the well to a total depth of 3200 metres and terminated in the Skagerrak formation in strata from the Upper Triassic, the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate reported.

Tanzanian Ruvuma Basin well to start
African explorer Aminex signalled the imminent start of the first deepwater well offshore Tanzania in the Ruvuma basin.
Aminex has said that the Likonde 1 well, the first well in the Ruvuma PSA, should kick off later this week on 7 January and will be drilled to a programmed depth of 3,200 metres (10,500 ft) with drilling time estimated at two months.
Likonde 1, described as a robust faulted rollover structure, is targeting multiple Tertiary, Cretaceous and Permo-Trias Karoo targets and oil in place in the prospect is put at 500 m bbl of oil and P10 recoverable reserves are estimated at 150 m bbl of oil with a one in four chance of success.
UK-based Tullow Oil is operating Likonde 1

Logbaba well looks good
London-listed Victoria Oil and Gas reported that a well on its Logbaba gas and condensate field onshore Cameroon hit gas-bearing sands which correlated with a previous discovery at the field 44 years ago.
VOG said the La 105 well reached total depth of 2,719 m (8,920 ft) and encountered multiple gas-bearing zones between 1,834 m and 2,539 m (6,017 and 8,330 ft) – totalling  91.46 m (300 ft) of gross pay – and which correlates with finds made in the La 103 well which flowed at between 5 and 12 Mmcf/d from individual sands when it was drilled back in 1956.

Delay for Kurdistan drilling
Middle Eastern explorer Sterling Energy has reported a delay to its planned drilling programme in Kurdistan due to unexpected heavy rain.
London-listed Sterling said today that “unseasonal heavy rain” during  December in its Sangaw North Production Sharing Contract area has delayed well site construction work and the company says an exploration well there is  now likely to be delayed until the end of this month.

WEATHERFORECAST

Week 2
High pressure gives calm conditions to the Norwegian Sea and northern parts of the North Sea. Eventually increasing southeasterly winds.
A high pressure will in the beginning of the week be centered over southern Scandinavia and southeastern parts of the Norwegian Sea. This gives calm weather conditions to these areas, but further south in the North Sea a somewhat stronger southeasterly wind field. The high pressure will move eastwards on Wednesday towards the Baltic States and Russia, but still high pressure ridge over Scandinavia and eastern parts of the Norwegian Sea. Between the high pressure and low pressure area in the Atlantic sea a southeast to southerly wind field will be set up and it will be periods of gale in the North Sea, first in the southern parts and later in the week also in the northern parts.

COMPANY NEWS

Senergy makes strategic US move
Scottish energy services group Senergy is seeking to expand in North America by acquiring a firm there with an eye on the renewables market.
Senergy, through its subsidiary Senergy Alternative Energy - which was established in 2008, says it is in the final stages of buying SGC Engineering LLC in Maine, which provides consultancy to power generation companies including wind power developers, encompassing electrical and civil engineering, global information systems and project planning.

Wellstream upbeat but cost cutting comes in
Flexible pipeline producer Wellstream issued an upbeat end of year trading statement highlighting long term industry fundamentals.
British-based Wellstream said it has delivered revenue ahead of the previous year, “...against difficult trading conditions.”
Nevertheless the company said it had to implement a cost reduction programme but pointed out: “The long term fundamentals of the sector remain positive and the actions the company has taken in 2009 have positioned it well to capitalise on the significant growth opportunities these provide.”

Ex Shell exec. appointed by OMV
Austria's OMV hired a former Shell Expro UK operative as its new head of Exploration and production to replace outgoing executive vice president Helmut Langanger.
Jaap Huijskes, 44, who was head of construction and engineering at Shell Expro in the UK between 1988 and 1994 was appointed to join OMV's executive board by 1 April to succeed Langanger as head of Exploration and Production.
Langanger is leaving OMV on reaching the age of 60 and has previously indicated his wish to end his active career with the Austrian energy group.

CONTRACTS

Daewoo snares Shtokman ships
Asia's Daewoo shipyard looks set to win a huge order to deliver gas carriers for Russia's offshore Shtokman development.
According to the Tanker Operator website, the order for the four Liquefied Natural Gas Carriers is already in the bag, with a contract value in the region of US $2 Bn.
Daewoo is due to deliver the new vessels between 2015 and 2016, according to the website, which cited Aleksander Ananenkov, a Gazprom deputy chief as it source, after a meeting attended by Daewoo management.
Furthermore another two supply ships are to be ordered from Daewoo to service the project, for a combined value of 2 Bn Russian roubles – about US $669m, the website reported.

SeaDragon deal sealed
A UK based firm has been tapped to supply sealing systems for new SeaDragon offshore rigs being built in Singapore.
Roxtec based in Bury in the UK's northwest has been selected to supply the seals to the Jurong Shipyard in Singapore for the SeaDragon rig project, which follows on from an earlier deal to provide cables and piping for the SeaDragon units while their hulls were constructed in Russia.

OMS benefits BP's PSVM project
BP's PSVM deepwater project in block 31 offshore Angola has been benefiting from pipe  measurement technology supplied by a UK-based firm which has been used to optimise selection of pipes for offshore project construction work.
Optical Metrology Services (OMS), in Bishops Stortford, Hertfordshire, just north of London, was sub-contracted by BP's main offshore construction contractor Technip to provide a sample survey of pipe ends and then detailed laser inspection of 12,000 pipe-ends for flow line sections.

Three deals to Farstad
Farstad Shipping has entered three charter contracts worth approximately 390 million kroner.
Farstad has received extensions on two existing contracts with Statoil. The contract for PSV Far Searcher is extended with 2 years, with start up in March 2010, whilst the contract for PSV Far Symphony is extended with one year, with start up during April 2010. The extensions are made on a lower rate level than existing contracts, according to Farstad.
The third contract has been entered into with Petrobras, Brazil, for a large new AHTS. The two-year contract starts 25 February 2010. AHTS Far Santana is already located in Brazilian waters, and will service as a front runner until June 2010. 

Cosalt latches on to new lifeboat hook
Offshore contractor Cosalt landed an exclusive supply deal for its approved lifeboat release hooks which meet a new safety standard for the North Sea while it says many others do not.
Cosalt, based in Aberdeen, Lowestoft and Stavanger,  landed an exclusive agreement for the supply of its SH50 lifeboat release hooks to Vanguard which meets the latest International Maritime Organisation and MSC 1327 guidelines on fall prevention devices, and which have been approved both by the UK's Maritime and Coastguard Agency as well as the American Bureau of Shipping.

ENVIRONMENT

CCS FEED study bid decision nears
Secretary of State Ed Miliband confirmed to the UK House of Commons that the government is still evaluating bids to select two organisation for Front End Engineering and Design studies for Carbon Capture and Storage projects.
Each bid winner will receive some of the £90 m set aside by the government for the FEED studies to prove up CCS technology for commercial use.
Miliband said the results of the evaluation process were due shortly, responding to a question in the UK Parliament from a Conservative MP.

Quota record in 2009
Norway's climate quota trade increased 68% in 2009 compared to 2008, and totalled €94 Bn in 2009.
These figures were published by Point Carbon, a company specialising in analytical data on climate quotas.
Senior analyst Endre Tvinnereim told NTB why the sale increased. “A climate quota is simply explained as emitting one ton [of] CO2. The stark decline in industrial production in 2009, resulted in companies having emission quotas they were not using. Therefore they were sold as a security. Many companies therefore secure cheaper emission quotas whilst waiting for better financial time", he said.

LICENSING

Crown Estate announces Round 3 wind licences
Britain's Crown Estate awarded a raft of new offshore licences for the development of wind farms across nine regions which could provide up to 32 Gigawatts of new generating capacity.
Generation capacity from this Third Round is designed to provide up to one quarter of the UK's electricity demand by 2020.
Each zone licensee has an exclusive agreement with the Crown Estate to plan and gain consent for developing the wind resource in that region, and they include many of the existing wind power players in the UK offshore market, including Scottish and Southern Energy, Centrica, Germany's EoN, RWE Npower, and Siemens, plus Statoil and Statkraft of Norway.
Earlier the Crown Estate which controls the rights to seabed development in territorial waters up to 12 nautical miles offshore had confirmed it would announce the awards for Round 3 last Friday..

DECC refuses North Sea licence transfer
Britain's offshore licensing authority – the Department for Energy and Climate Change – has refused permission to transfer licences to a North Sea company led by some of the executives of Oilexco which went into administration at the end of 2008.
Velo Energy's subsidiary North Sea Oil Exploration Ltd, was seeking to obtain interests in the Caledonia and Sheryl fields and in the Catcher and Banks prospects.
But the DECC has turned down the application and refused consent for the proposed transfer of the licence interests.
Velo, which is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange announced: “Velo Energy Inc.  has been advised ….that the UK Department of Energy & Climate Change ….has refused to consent to the proposed transfer to Velo's wholly owned subsidiary, North Sea Oil Exploration Ltd., of certain interests in the Caledonia, Sheryl and Catcher blocks in UK North Sea to Velo's subsidiary North Sea Oil Exploration.”

GAS MARKET

Gas warning again
Britain's gas distribution authority National Grid warned large users for the second time last week to reduce consumption but the authority also cut back the number involved as UK gas demand surged in continuing cold weather.
“The number of large gas users on interruptible contracts, who were told to stop using gas, will be reduced from 95 to 27 tomorrow (Friday, 8 January,” National Grid said.
The disruption to supplies goes across the UK with National Grid telling 95 large gas suppliers from the East Midlands and East Anglia to the North West, to stop using gas because of high demand in those regions.
“The use of interruptible contracts is one of the standard tools National Grid uses to balance the gas network in the conditions we expect to see in a severe winter,” the authority explained.

Troll saves UK bacon
Energy sector commentator Evolution Securities in London suggested Norway's Troll gas field has saved the UK again while the country is gripped by cold weather and a surge in gas demand.
Evolution noted that National Grid's second gas supply alert within three days this week could not have come at a worse time as output from Statoil's Troll gas field – which can supply up to 10% of UK gas demand – went down as the alert was issued.
“Fortunately for the UK the downtime was limited to just a few hours meaning that we didn’t have to forgo our bacon sandwiches,” the commentator noted.

HSE

New troubles for Troll
Operation of the Troll A-platform in the North Sea halted due to technical problems on Thursday morning. But it was not related to a gas leakage which happened the previous Sunday.
“There was a short halt in the operation on Troll A around 9.15 am Thursday,” spokesperson Gisle Johanson in Statoil said.
He did not want to comment on details concerning the cause of the halt in operations, but said  they did not consider sending employees to life boats, and that operation returned within  an hour.
But, Johanson added: “It'll be some time before operation is back at full speed.”

PSA sets 2010 priorities
Major accident risks and prevention of acute pollution will be two of the major priorities for the Norwegian Petroleum Safety Authority this year.
The government's offshore regulatory management organisation led by director Magne Ognedal spelled out that these two subjects will be given priority in 2010 and they have been identified by the PSA from its previous experience of operations on the Norwegian Continental Shelf.

PRODUCTION

Geesbrug gets going for Northern
More gas has been brought into production by Northern Petroleum in The Netherlands totalling  more than 300 Bcf with the start of output from the Geesbrug gas field.
Gas from Geesbrug is being pumped to a NAM operated gathering centre,  and initial output is expected to peak at 200,000 cubic metres a day (7.4 Mmcf/d).

ENVIRONMENT

Norse reaches goal
Norse Energy reports that the company has reached its goal of a daily production threshold rate of 2,137 boe by the end of 2009.
"After delivering on our  promise to replace in 2008 the Medina production sold at the end of 2007, the Company set as a goal to double its overall production to a rate of 2,137 BOE per day by the close of 2009.  It is with great pleasure that I report that we have met our year end production goal for 2009, in the meantime also achieving a new production record", noted Norse Energy CEO, Øivind Risberg.  

SHIPPING

Skagerrak conversion goes to UK yard
Britain's Cammell Laird shipyard has landed a major deal to carry out a conversion work on Norway's Nexan's Skaggerak cable lay ship which involves inserting a new hull section to extend the ship by 12 metres.
Cammell Laird Shiprepairs and Shipbuilders Ltd on Merseyside in the UK's northwest is expecting to start work on the Skagerrak conversion later this month when the vessel arrives.
Already the shipyard has received 750 tonnes of steel ready to commence the conversion which is designed to extend the vessel's operating capability.

Extension for Solstad's flower
Solstad Offshore has received an extension of a current charter contract with DeepOcean.
The charter for CSV Normand Flower has been extended with six months from 1 April 2010, Solstad reports.

Three year deal for Siem Dorado
Siem Offshore and Adams Offshore have signed a contract for Siem Dorado. The three-year bareboat contract which commenced this month is valued at US $22 million.

SEISMIC

Namibia offshore shoot done
Acquisition of seismic data was completed offshore Namibia reported London-listed Chariot Oil and Gas, covering 600 sq. km over the Zamba prospect area. Chariot says interpretation of the data from the survey covering in blocks 1811 A and B has already commenced and should be complete by mid-year.

TECHNOLOGY

Ormen Lange extends wirelessly
Norway's Ormen Lange gas field took a further step towards a wireless world with the start up of a two-way telemetry system which can be used to control downhole hardware.
Field operator Shell introduced the wireless technology on two wells on the Ormen Lange field which has been developed by UK-based Expro.
Expro's Cable-less Telemetry System – dubbed CaTS – has been used on Ormen Lange's A5 and B7 wells after being installed at the start of last year and the system was commissioned last October.