The offshore industry briefing
The latest news, trends, and data you need to know about this month
News in Numbers
$1.4bn
Egypt has announced plans to explore for oil and natural gas at nine new sites in the Mediterranean and Red Sea, which will see around $1.4bn invested into the country’s offshore sector.
3
An eleventh-hour auction for drilling leases in the US Arctic has attracted three bidders across 50% of its available leases. The three bidders completed 13 bids across 11 leases.
50%
UK-based Energean has completed its acquisition of French oil major Total’s entire 50% working interest stake and operatorship in Block 2, offshore Western Greece.
2023
The $4.8bn Grand Tortue Ahmeyim gas field, located in the offshore waters of Mauritania and Senegal, is expected to generate its first gas in 2023, instead of 2022 due to delays caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
330
Royal Dutch Shell has announced plans to cut 330 jobs from its UK North Sea operations as part of its global restructuring. The majority of the job cuts are expected to take place in Aberdeen.
Project updates
Exxon Mobil has reportedly failed to find hydrocarbon resources following drilling at the Hassa-1 exploration well in the Stabroek block offshore Guyana.
The Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy has awarded 30 oil companies with ownership interests in 61 production licences for exploration acreage on the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS).
Spirit Energy Norway has signed agreements with Subsea 7, TechnipFMC and DNV GL for the development of future projects offshore Norway. The deals are the extensions of a new type of supplier collaboration, which was started in 2015.
Oil and gas company Hess Corporation has allocated $1.9bn of its 2021 exploration and production capital and exploratory budget for project developments offshore Guyana and the Bakken.
Norwegian firm Equinor and its partners are planning to increase daily production capacity at the Johan Sverdrup project in the Norwegian North Sea for the third time.
Further reading
Q&A: Gender disparity in the legal oil and gas sector
While gender gaps in employment differ across the various sub-sectors, according to a 2019 study by the International Renewable Energy Agency, women in the oil and gas sector only account for 22% of the workforce, despite making up to 48% of the global labour force.
With a visible lack of female participation in the industry, which is also replicated in the legal side of oil and gas, we explore the reasons behind this disparity and how close the recruitment sector is to bridging these gaps, especially noticeable at a senior level.
Read more: Offshore-Technology
