Every day, the world uses around one hundred million barrels of oil. The term “big oil” is used pejoratively to describe the industry’s lobbying power. But is big always better? This week, we look at both the biggest and the best, and the biggest and the worst of the oil industry. Big finds:...
Offshore World
COLUMN | Looking to the future: Petrobras newbuilds; James Fisher; Saudi Arabia’s NEOM plans; TotalEnergies and Sapura; wind bust timing [Offshore Accounts]
“Brazil is the country of the future,” goes the cliché that the Austrian writer Stefan Zweig declared in 1941 as the opening line of his book Brazil, Land of the Future. Zweig wrote in exile there, and a year later, he and his wife deliberately killed themselves with a drug overdose. Brazilians then began joking […]
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COLUMN | On the edge? McDermott, Petrofac, The Metals Company and Cadeler [Offshore Accounts]
Lady Gaga famously sang that she was “on the edge of glory”. This week, we look at four companies on the edge of….well, something. Let’s check in on two construction companies, a subsea mining venture, and our favourite wind turbine installer. McDermott on the edge Finally, a judge in the UK has...
COLUMN | Safety culture matters: Pemex and Perenco on the wrong side of history [Offshore Accounts]
Offshore is one of the industries with the biggest risk profiles in the world. When bad things happen in offshore, people die, often there are explosions and sinkings, fires and oil spills, and the environment can be badly polluted, killing seabirds, fish, dolphins and coral, and inflicting...
COLUMN | Correcting course: Aramco and jackups; Siem Offshore and Kristian Siem; Ferguson Marine; MMA Offshore; Maersk/Svitzer [Offshore Accounts]
Harold Macmillan was supposedly once asked what the most troubling problem of his time as British Prime Minister was. “Events, my dear boy, events,” was his reply. I thought I had this week’s column nailed well in advance, but offshore is an industry especially susceptible to unexpected and hard to predict “events”. So, we must […]
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COLUMN | Reaping what you sow: McDermott, Seatrium, Gunvor and Trafigura [Offshore Accounts]
It seems appropriate to get all biblical this week, just after Easter. When Saint Paul wrote in his letter to the Galatians that “a man reaps what he sows,” he probably wasn’t thinking about corruption in the oil and gas industry two millennia later. But the last month has seen no less than four...
COLUMN | Quick updates: PSVs changing hands; subsea newbuilds; Guyana booming; rigs fixing higher [Offshore Accounts]
Money is being made in offshore once again, but tragically lives are also being lost unnecessarily. Earlier this week, we examined how Perenco’s dysfunctional safety culture in Gabon, leading to six people dead or lost in an explosion. This is a sad backdrop for an industry booming at last. Stop...
COLUMN | Perenco’s shame and Gabon’s lax standards: a fatal combination [Offshore Accounts]
In an industry is awash with cash and record profits, it is tragic to see five people confirmed dead in an accident on a Perenco platform offshore Gabon, and one other worker still missing, presumed also killed, as per the most recent update. Last Wednesday, there was a fire on the Becuna platform...
COLUMN | Petrofac-ed, the Wood Group and Petroserv: restructurings and transformation [Offshore Accounts]
“Fix the balance sheet before you fix the business.” This was the sage advice we gave two weeks ago when we compared Tidewater to its moribund and indebted competitors. We noted that Hornbeck, Bourbon, and Edison Chouest still have some way to go in resolving their balance sheet problems. But if...
COLUMN | Winner takes it all: Boskalis binges with record profits, as Boluda takes silver and McDermott gets sued (again) [Offshore Accounts]
Whilst the first big consolidator of this offshore upcycle was Tidewater, rapidly followed by ADNOC and AD Ports of Abu Dhabi, Europe is also experiencing a quiet wave of consolidation. Driving this is the biggest of the “Big Four” lowlands dredging and offshore companies, Boskalis. But whereas the gains in Tidewater have been open to […]
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