In the last thirty years or so, a number of offshore workers have lost their lives in helicopter crashes. The need for better offshore helicopter safety is paramount for UK organisations, such as the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), which have worked to improve regulations and protect the 18,000 UK oil rig workers during their risky commute. What are the worst offshore helicopter crashes and how have industry authorities attempted to improve matters?

In the last thirty years or so, a number of workers have lost their lives in offshore helicopter crashes. The need for better helicopter safety is paramount for UK organisations, such as the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), which have worked to improve regulations and protect the 18,000 UK oil rig workers during their risky commute.

Frameworks to prevent offshore helicopter crashes

Alistair Carmichael, Liberal Democrat and MP for Orkney and Shetland, has thrown his support behind Parliamentary Motion 553 aiming for urgent improvement in the safety of North Sea transport helicopters.

“The same few mechanical failures have been the cause of crashes time and time again, and lifting the restrictions on Super Puma L225s without working with unions and restoring confidence is a mistake,” he said on his constituency website.

“It is vital that the CAA improve helicopter transport safety arrangements in order to halt the worrying trend in crashes, and restore faith in not only the helicopters, but the robustness of the regulations. Offshore workers need to know that their safety is in the mind of the regulator.”

So, how is the CAA driving offshore safety? After publishing its comprehensive review of offshore helicopter operations, in collaboration with its Norwegian counterpart and the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), the CAA announced updated measures.

First and foremost, it prohibits helicopters to fly during the most severe sea conditions in order to speed up rescue operations and reduce the risk of a ditched vessel capsizing. It also requires all passengers to sit next to an emergency exit on board and all helicopters to be equipped with better breathing apparatus to increase a passenger’s underwater survival time.

The CAA also said it would engage with trade unions, industry leaders, helicopter manufacturers and operators, the government and independent experts to build future projects enhancing safety and mitigating future offshore helicopter crashes.

For the full article: https://www.oilandgaspeople.com/news/17385/offshore-helicopter-crashes-improving-safety-and-saving-lives/ 

While oil and gas CEOs recognize the benefits of technology, many still haven’t mastered how to bolster that technology to become a disruptor in the industry.

Data from KPMG’s 2018 Oil and Gas CEO Outlook, released Oct. 10, reveals that globally, 97 percent of oil and gas CEOs believe new technology creates opportunities. Eighty-five percent are piloting or have already implemented Artificial Intelligence (AI).

But realized benefits don’t always equate to confidence.

The report also finds that 59 percent of oil and gas CEOs feel their organization is an active disruptor in their sector and 57 percent believe lead times to achieve significant progress on transformation can be overwhelming.

This indicates there is still work to be done in this space.

“Technology is disrupting the status quo in the oil and gas industry,” Regina Mayor, global sector head, energy and natural resources, KPMG, stated in a release. “AI and robotic solutions can help us create models that will predict behavior or outcomes more accurately, like improving rig safety, dispatching crews faster and identifying systems failures even before they arise. This level of predictability can have a profound impact on our industry.”

Benefits and Long-Term Growth

According to respondents, 46 percent said acceleration of revenue growth is the biggest long-term benefit of AI, followed by increased agility as an organization (39 percent) and improved risk management (39 percent). They anticipate this within a three-year time frame.

And 58 percent of oil and gas CEOs believe AI and robotics technologies will create more jobs than they eliminate. Ninety-three percent expect headcount in the oil and gas industry to increase over the next three years.

The companies are poised for growth, as indicated by the report. Eighty-five percent of oil and gas CEOs are confident or very confident on growth in the industry and 88 percent are confident or very confident on growth in their companies.

And how do the CEOs plan on achieving this growth?

According to the report, 83 percent anticipate a moderate to high appetite for M&A activity over the next three years, largely driven by the need for cost reduction through synergies/economies of scale, a speedy transformation of business models, increased market share and low interest rates.

“Executives are really honing in on ways they can improve internal efficiencies through strategic M&A moves and the use of robotics, AI and other means of digitalization across the industry,” Mayor said.

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Woodside Energy Ltd has awarded KBR the Concept Definition engineering contract for the two gas floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) facilities for the proposed Browse to North West Shelf Development offshore Western Australia, KBR reported Thursday.

“We are delighted to be awarded the Concept Definition engineering of the two FPSO facilities delivering our operational agility in the execution of projects strong base business and world class asset performance to the project,” KBR President and CEO Stuart Bradie said in a written statement.

Woodside awarded the contract in its capacity as operator of the Browse Joint Venture (JV), a proposed offshore development that would use North West Shelf (NWS) infrastructure to process natural gas produced from the offshore Browse Basin. According to Woodside’s website, the Browse proposal would use two gas FPSO (gFPSO) facilities to deliver 10 to 12 million tons per annum of gas from Browse to the NWS complex via an approximately 1,000-kilometer pipeline. Contingent Browse resources include 16 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 466 million barrels of condensate, the website also states.

In addition to Woodside subsidiary Woodside Browse Pty Ltd, which owns a 30.6-percent interest in the Browse JV, other partners include:

• Shell Australia Pty Ltd (27 percent)
• BP Developments Australia Pty Ltd (17.33 percent)
• Japan Australia LNG (MIMI Browse) Pty Ltd (14.4 percent)
• PetroChina International Investment (Australia) Pty Ltd (10.67 percent)

According to KBR, Woodside has launched the engineering services contract in order to define the two gFPSOs’ hull and topsides elements. The contract recipient added that engineering work should be performed through the first half of 2019.

“KBR is uniquely positioned to offer our proven technology, digital delivery platform and our global portfolio of expertise,” Bradie stated. “Alignment and collaboration are vital in this dynamic environment and with the increase in global energy demand, we are committed to strengthening our relationship with Woodside.”

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Freight rates for Aframax tankers to Asia have reached their highest level so far this year, as China’s small refiners received new crude import quotas and as Asian refiners are hastening to hire ships to transport more crude oil from the Middle East to Asia in view of dwindling supply from Iran, market participants tell S&P Global Platts.

Demand for Aframaxes has increased in recent months amid higher oil supply from Saudi Arabia and Russia and the freshly issued import quotas for China’s independent refiners—the so-called teapots—which are larger than before, S&P Global Platts quoted Ole-Rikard Hammer, an Oslo-based senior analyst with Arctic Securities, as saying in a report.

According to a Platts source with an owner of an Aframax, the current supply of good ships is tight, and special requirements at some Asian load ports have further tightened the Aframax market.

Over the past three months, tanker tracking data suggested that Iran’s crude oil and condensate exports started to drop considerably in August, and the slump continued through September. According to preliminary tanker tracking data compiled by Bloomberg, observed exports of Iranian crude oil and condensate plunged in September to 1.72 million bpd, down by 260,000 bpd month-on-month and the lowest level since February 2016.

At the same time, China has raised by 42 percent the oil import quota for its non-state refiners—most of which are the independent refiners—for 2019 as new refinery capacity is planned to enter into operation next year. China is allocating a total of up to 202 million tons, or 4.06 million bpd, in import quotas to non-state refineries for next year, S&P Global Platts reported earlier this month, citing a communication by the Chinese Commerce Ministry. Companies have until November 10 to apply, and those who haven’t imported crude oil in 2018 will not be allocated quotas for next year, the ministry noted.

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Cyber attacks in the oil and gas sector increased over the past year, according to Mike Spear, industrial cyber security global operations director at Honeywell.

“You’re looking at about 365,000 new malware every year … that’s like four per second,” Spear told Rigzone during a briefing at a recent conference in Madrid.

“What we’re seeing is in the space, or in what we call the process industries … the level of the malware, the more sophistication that’s coming up,” he added.

“Some of it now is being very targeted, which is kind of different than it was say five years ago. Everybody was focused on the financial systems, the Walmarts … that type of chain, now we’re seeing a significant increase targeting the critical infrastructure of the process industries,” Spear continued.

Oil and gas cyber security is lagging behind cyber security in other sectors, according to Mark Littlejohn, Honeywell’s global leader in cyber security managed services, who spoke to Rigzone during the same conference in a one-on-one interview.

“Financial of course is doing much better … and then hospitals I think are doing a pretty good job. They still have a bit to go, but they’re still way ahead,” Littlejohn said, providing examples of fields the oil and gas sector was trailing behind in terms of cyber security.

When asked if the oil and gas industry could learn from these sectors, the Honeywell representative said, “absolutely”.

Earlier this week the US Department of Energy announced awards of up to $28 million to support the research, development and demonstration of next-generation tools and technologies to improve the cybersecurity and resilience of the nation’s critical energy infrastructure, including the electric grid and oil and natural gas infrastructure.

Funding is being provided by the Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security and Emergency Response’s Cybersecurity for Energy Delivery Systems Division.

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Australia’s upstream sector will see greater integration of technology over the coming years, according to a new report from Fitch Solutions Macro Research.

“As one of the few developed markets in the [Asia Pacific] region with a fully-liberalized upstream industry, stable operating environment and a relatively tech-savvy workforce, Australia’s oil and gas sector offers an ideal environment for technology and innovation to prosper,” Fitch Solutions Macro Research said in the report, which was sent to Rigzone.

“A forecast upturn in industry-wide capital spending is expected to drive stronger spending on technology, as firms’ near-term strategies shift to focus on maximizing production from existing assets to capitalize on stronger oil prices, following years of subdued prices,” the company added.

Fitch Solutions Macro Research said industry sources estimate $22.5 billion of upstream capital expenditure will be spent in Australia over 2018 to 2020.

“Offshore and deepwater projects will account for 85 percent of this amount, led by spending on Inpex’s newly commissioned Ichthys LNG and brownfield works across Western Australia and Northern Territory,” Fitch Solutions Macro Research stated.

“By comparison, onshore investment will be kept relatively modest, amid tightening environmental regulations, continued state-level opposition towards hydraulic fracturing, and geographic challenges to connecting remote onshore reserves to major consumer markets,” the company added.

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MUMBAI (Bloomberg) — Rising oil prices may hurt demand in some of the world’s fastest-growing nations unless producers take steps to boost supplies, according to the International Energy Agency.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if we revise our numbers,” Fatih Birol, the executive director of the Paris-based adviser, said in a phone interview, referring to the IEA’s forecast for demand growth this year of 1.4 MMbpd. High energy prices are hurting consumers today, and could hurt the economies of exporting countries tomorrow, he said. Brent crude, benchmark for half the world’s oil, has gained more than 20% since mid-August due to concern over supply losses from Venezuela and Iran. Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest exporter of crude, is comfortable with Brent above $80/bbl as the global market adjusts to the loss of Iranian supply from U.S. sanctions, according to people familiar with the kingdom’s view. Brent traded near $86/bbl this week, the highest in almost four years.

“We are rather worried that the expensive energy is back, which may be hurting the global economy at a vulnerable time,” Birol said. “The oil exporting countries must, in my view, take these developments into consideration and it is high time for those countries to put more oil in the markets and comfort the markets.”

India is among emerging market economies struggling with a combination of a weakening currency and rising oil prices. The nation, which enjoyed a 12th straight month of demand growth in August, could see its trade deficit worsen because of the high crude, according to Birol. The nation moved to cut retail fuel prices on Thursday.

“With these prices, I would expect that the demand growth in India, other parts of Asia and in the Americas will be negatively affected,” Birol said, adding that there may be slowdown in demand growth.

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Oil giant Shell has selected C3 IoT with Microsoft Azure as its artificial intelligence (AI) platform to “enable and accelerate digital transformation on a global scale.”

According to a statement by Microsoft, Shell expects to realize substantial economic value by rapidly scaling and replicating AI and machine learning applications across its upstream and downstream businesses and improving operational performance.

Yuri Sebregts, executive vice president for technology and CTO of Shell: “Digital technologies are core to our strategy to strengthen our position as a leading energy company.”

“Our collaboration with Microsoft gives us a solid digital platform to make our core business more effective and efficient and supports our ambition to provide more and cleaner energy solutions through technology.”

“Shell is demonstrating AI and IoT [the Internet of Things ] leadership in selecting C3 IoT and Azure for the Shell AI Platform,” said Thomas M. Siebel, chairman and CEO of C3 IoT. “This will enable Shell to rapidly realize the vision of digital transformation across all lines of business, including upstream, midstream, retail, and finance.”

Shell will deploy the C3 IoT Platform on Azure for a broad set of AI applications, starting with predictive maintenance for hundreds of thousands of critical pieces of equipment globally, and aims to expand to support other machine learning, machine vision, and natural language processing (NLP)-based use cases in upstream, downstream, unconventional, refining, and retail operations, Microsoft said on Thursday.

Setting pace for the industry

Judson Althoff, executive vice president of Microsoft’s Worldwide Commercial Business: “As one of the energy sector’s largest and most prominent players, Shell’s wide-scale adoption of AI, machine learning and IoT technologies sets an example of how digital transformation can help the industry address resource challenges, improve asset performance and promote safety,” said  “We are excited to deepen our relationship with Shell as the company continues to be a digital pacesetter for the industry.”

According to C3 IoT, its platform enables Shell’s developers and data scientists to integrate and process Shell’s data into a unified data image kept current in real-time and to rapidly develop, deploy, and operate advanced AI and IoT applications across millions of Shell assets, its supply chain, and markets globally.

“With the C3 IoT Platform, we’re looking forward to significantly enhancing the productivity and scope of our advanced analytics capabilities to create greater economic value across Shell’s operations,” said Jay Crotts, Shell Group CIO. “C3 IoT allows us to optimize our existing investments in data and cloud infrastructure while accelerating time to value of AI-based applications, so Shell can better serve our customers with even more agility and efficiency.”

“Shell’s AI- and IoT-enabled enterprise transformation will create significant customer and economic impact,” said Judson Althoff, executive vice president of Microsoft’s Worldwide Commercial Business. “We are excited to play a role in this transformation and look forward to partnering with C3 IoT on cooperative development and marketing efforts across other sectors globally.”

“Shell’s selection of the C3 IoT Platform on Microsoft Azure reflects the growing macro-market momentum towards platform adoption for accelerated digital transformation,” said Thomas M. Siebel, C3 IoT CEO. “We are excited to partner closely with Azure to support Shell’s digital transformation journey and are jointly committed to Shell’s success in applying AI and machine learning across its global business.”

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Following last week’s news that three U.S. oil companies would join the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative, OGCI on Monday announced a target to reduce by 2025 the collective average methane intensity of its members’ upstream gas and oil operations by one fifth to below 0.25%, with the ambition to achieve 0.20%, corresponding to a reduction by one third.

Launched in 2014, OGCI is made up of 13 oil and gas companies: BP, Chevron, CNPC, Eni, Equinor, ExxonMobil, Occidental, Pemex, Petrobras, Repsol, Saudi Aramco, Shell and Total.

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SINGAPORE (Oct 5): DBS is maintaining its average Brent crude oil forecasts of ~US$75/bbl for 2018 and US$75-80/bbl for 2019, with the intention to monitor developments in the coming weeks.

The move comes despite growing optimism on the possibility of oil prices rising above US$100/bbl due to talks of Saudi Arabia and Russia striking a private deal to raise production and US inventory buildup.

In a report on Friday, analyst Suvro Sarkar says he believes any sign of supply shortfall will continue to keep an upward pressure on the price of oil, while capex looks like it is set to rise to subsequently filter down the sector value chain as well as drive the recovery of service providers and rig builders.

As such, he recommends investors to go for key oil and gas (O&G) proxies like Sembcorp Marine, rated “buy” with a target price of $2.50, as they have been rising about 30% since mid-August 2018.

“Oil and gas stocks had a good run alongside oil price and equity market rebound,” observes the analyst. Despite this, he also notes that stocks like Sembcorp Industries, rated “buy” with a target price of $3.90, are trading on undemanding valuations.

“While it is difficult to ascertain how much of the 2.5 million barrels of oil per day (mmpbd) of exports from Iran will be affected when US sanctions kick in on 4 Nov, it is becoming more apparent that the rest of the OPEC cartel may not have enough spare capacity to ramp up sufficiently to fully offset the loss from Iran,” says Sarkar.

“Looking beyond the imminent supply shock from Iran, the drastic plunge in capex since 2014 has resulted in lower discoveries, which will lead to a supply gap in the medium-term. This should prompt global oil majors to raise capex in the next few years… We believe sustained high oil prices and low new discoveries will eventually lead to a decision to raise capex from 2019 and beyond, which would filter through the value chain” he adds.

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