ABB has signed a project specific agreement for the safety and automation system with Statoil for the Johan Castberg offshore oil field development. Statoil has issued the first call-off from the agreement covering front-end engineering and design (FEED)…
In his final month as US president, Barack Obama announced today (20 December) that he will ban offshore areas in the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans from future mineral extraction. The decision comes one month after the Department of the Interior…
While it seems most Arctic exploration activity has slowed, it really depends on where you look. Bruce McMichael reports. Gazprom Neft’s Prirazlomnoye facility, in the Russian Arctic. Photos from Gazprom Neft…
Orga, design and manufacture of helideck lighting systems, announced that its Circle-H touchdown positioning and heliport identification marking (TD/PM) system has been certified by CAA International (CAAi) to all UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) CAP 437 standards…
The Russian government is temporarily banning new licenses for offshore field development on the Russian Arctic shelf, the Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Minister Sergei Donskoi has said. The move appears to be aimed at focusing investment on existing development projects…
China Oilfield Services Ltd. (COSL) completed a 3D seismic survey in the Barents Sea using its 12-streamer seismic vessel HYSY 720. The operation, over two blocks, had taken 100 days and signified a new monthly seismic data acquisition record of 1820…
The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) staff recently participated in the Alaska Regional Response Team (RRT) meeting to update attendees on BSEE’s Arctic spill response database project. Image from BSEE…
Earthjustice, on behalf of eight conservation groups, filed to intervene in a case before the Interior Board of Land Appeals to defend the Department of Interior’s (DOI) decision to deny Shell’s request for an extension of the terms of its oil drilling leases in the Arctic Ocean…
The US is losing its opportunity to lay claim to Arctic exploration, falling behind countries such as Norway and Russia. Now with Shell and Statoil exiting Alaska’s offshore, many in the industry and in politics are wondering how to salvage Alaskan offshore exploration…
Arctic drilling has made headlines since the announcement of Shell’s 2015 summer drilling campaign. Paired with the low oil prices due to a surplus of supply, many people wonder why we even need to drill in the Arctic when there is so much oil right now…
The last pipe in Statoil’s Polarled pipeline has been laid this week in the Norwegian Sea, with the project coming in at 32% under budget. The pipeline was laid by the world's largest pipelaying vessel: Solitaire from Allseas…
Magadanmorneftegaz, Lisyanskmorneftegaz (joint ventures of Rosneft and Statoil) and China Oilfield Services Ltd. (COSL) signed a contract to drill two exploration wells in 2016. The wells will be drilled in the Magadan-1 and Lisyansky areas of the Okhotsk Sea…
Shell disconnected the Noble Discoverer drillship from its anchors in the Chukchi Sea after weather temporarily put a halt to its Arctic operations over the weekend. The Noble Discoverer. From Shell Flickr…
On 21 August the Polarled gas pipeline crossed 66° and 33 minutes north of the equator becoming the first pipeline to take the Norwegian gas infrastructure across the Arctic Circle. This will open a new gas highway from the Norwegian Sea to Europe…
The US Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) has given Shell final approval to drill into deeper into hydrocarbon-bearing zones at its Burger J prospect in the Chukchi Sea, off Alaska, in the US Arctic. “After extensive review and under a robust array of safety requirements…
