Category: United Kingdom

The Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010 was the largest oil spill in U.S. waters. The announcement by top officials at the Justice, Commerce, Agriculture and Interior departments, along with the Environmental Protection Agency, puts the final touches on the biggest pollution penalty in U.S. history. A consent decree was filed in federal court in New Orleans Monday morning outlining the settlement terms. When the tentative terms of the deal were announced by the Justice Department in July, the company put the total price tag at $18.7 billion, while Justice Department officials said it was $20 billion. Monday’s announcement explained that discrepancy, which was due to the government counting money BP has already paid and because the parameters of some compensation are still being calculated. Attorney General Loretta Lynch on Monday called the settlement “a strong and fitting response to the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history.’’ She said […]

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Royal Dutch Shell Plc is “pulling out all the stops” to safeguard its dividend in a world where oil prices remain “lower for longer,” Chief Executive Officer Ben Van Beurden said. Europe’s biggest oil company is also protecting a plan to buy back shares and keeping its investment program “steady for the future,” Van Beurden said in e-mailed comments before a speech in London on Tuesday. Oil’s collapse in the past year has forced Shell and its peers to reduce costs, defer projects and hunker down for a prolonged period of low prices. Even with crude trading for about $50 a barrel, Van Beurden and BP Plc boss Bob Dudley have made dividends their top priority. Shell has weathered market ups and downs for seven decades — including oil at less than $10 in the 1980s and 1990s — without cutting shareholder payouts. The company is “geared to generate […]

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Rolls-Royce Holdings Plc said it will cut another 400 jobs at its marine-engines arm as the oil-price decline continues to weigh on demand for the specialist offshore vessels that the business helps power. The cutbacks will save 40 million pounds ($61 million) a year, with incremental benefits from 2016 onwards, the London-based company said in a statement Monday. Most of the early savings will be invested in increased research and development, the company said. Profit and revenue guidance for the marine unit remains unchanged, according to Rolls-Royce, which is cutting more than 3,000 jobs across its entire business. The cuts announced Monday follow the elimination of 600 factory posts at the division announced in May, mostly focused on Norway, where Rolls-Royce’s marine manufacturing operations are based. Rolls-Royce is slimming down the marine unit from a workforce of 5,800 as Chief Executive Officer Warren East undertakes a review of the […]

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British oil and gas sector planner Ian Wood said low crude oil prices will endure through at least 2018. File photo by A.J. Sisco/UPI LONDON, Sept. 28 (UPI) — The British oil and gas sector is in a short-term decline with no chance of recovery for at least two years, an industry planner told the Financial Times. Low crude oil prices, down about 50 percent from last year, has forced energy companies to cut spending on exploration and enact layoffs in an effort to reserve capital. Ian Wood, a retired businessman who last year charted a North Sea recovery, told the Financial Times crude oil prices would likely stay low for at least two more years. "Oil at $35 to $55 [per barrel] is the likely scenario into 2017, and I think the best guess right now for a recovery in the North Sea is 2017-18," he said. Operating […]

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UK petroleum consumption is growing at some of the fastest rates for a decade, as strong economic growth and cheaper fuel prices spur increased use. Consumption of petroleum products rose by 1.6 percent in the first six months of 2015 compared with the same period a year earlier, according to the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) ( link.reuters.com/zud75w ). Consumption has been growing consistently since the third quarter of 2014, coinciding with a maturing economic recovery and a sharp drop in oil prices ( link.reuters.com/wud75w ). Like most of the other advanced industrial economies, Britain’s consumption of petroleum products peaked in 2005, then declined sharply as oil prices climbed to more than $140 per barrel in 2008. The recession took another big chunk out of oil consumption, but even as the economy recovered between 2010 and 2014, demand mostly continued to fall as high prices encouraged […]

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Oil giant BP Plc, which was said to be readying defenses for potential takeover offers, has a little-known ace in the hole: a disclaimer in its Macondo spill settlement that could tack $12.6 billion onto the price tag. A potential buyer might be forced to accelerate the payment of up to two thirds of the $18.7 billion in penalties the company agreed to pay the U.S. and several states, according to company filings. As it stands, BP has more than 15 years. An option that gives the federal government and some states the ability to demand faster payment in a takeover effectively hands them a veto power over any deal. Together with the company’s exposure to Russia amid sanctions and the worst oil crash in decades, it amounts to a powerful deterrent to suitors, said William Arnold, a former banker and executive at Royal Dutch Shell Plc. “This would […]

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The man tasked with saving the UK’s North Sea oil industry says it will take two years or more to recover from its problems and that Britain should start preparing for life without oil. Last year Sir Ian Wood wrote a report, commissioned by the government , into how to maximise the North Sea’s oil and gas, which has been a big driver of the economy since the 1970s but has been in long-term decline since the late 1990s. In an interview with the Financial Times, Sir Ian Wood warned: “Oil at $35 to $55 [per barrel] is the likely scenario into 2017, and I think the best guess right now for a recovery in the North Sea is 2017-18.” The North Sea today produces about 1.5m barrels of oil per day, compared with 4.5m at its peak. Its problems have increased significantly over the past year, however, as […]

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British Geological Survey begins new baseline studies at potential hydraulic fracturing site just as the government aims to accelerate the industry. Photo courtesy of the BGS LONDON, Sept. 23 (UPI) — Natural gas from shale can be the energy bridge toward a greener future while at the same providing economic stimulus, the British government said. The British government estimates shale basins in the country may hold more than 1.3 quadrillion cubic feet of natural gas, a level the government said could help an economy with natural gas imports on pace to increase from 45 percent of demand in 2011 to 76 percent by 2030. Andrea Leadsom, minister of state at Department of Energy and Climate, said a shale gas industry would help ensure energy security and potentially add 65,000 new jobs to the British economy. "Operators will pay communities $150,000 for each exploration well site plus 1 percent of […]

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British energy sector should brace for further staff cuts, industry body warns in an annual report. File photo by Maryam Rahmanian/UPI LONDON, Sept. 9 (UPI) — The British energy sector should brace for more staff reductions as companies take steps to endure the weak crude oil market, industry body Oil & Gas U.K. said. The industry’s lobbying group in its annual report said new spending in exploration and production is expected to fall by up to $6 billion per year over the next three years for its lowest levels since the 1970s. "This great industry of ours is facing very challenging times," the group’s chief executive, Deirdre Michie, said in a statement. Michie’s group in an early 2015 report said the market outlook was "bleak." The government’s overseer, British Oil and Gas Authority, this week called on companies to consider "all possible alternatives" to layoffs. Job losses in the […]

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Investment in U.K. North Sea oil and gas projects could drop as much as 80 percent by 2017 as the collapse in oil prices forces the industry to cut back. Capital investment across the industry of 14.8 billion pounds ($22.8 billion) last year will probably decline by 2 billion to 4 billion pounds annually to 2017, Oil & Gas U.K., an industry lobby group, said in its annual economic report Wednesday. “This great industry of ours is facing very challenging times,” Deirdre Michie, Oil & Gas U.K.’s chief executive officer, said in a statement. “Exploration for new resources has fallen to its lowest level since the 1970s” and few new projects are gaining approval from “hard-pressed” companies, she said. The decline in crude prices of more than 50 percent over the past year has forced the oil industry to review projects and reduce operating costs. The U.K. North Sea […]

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