Tuesday, 7 July 2026

PTTEP has agreed with Thailand's Departments of Fisheries and Mineral Fuels to convert decommissioned offshore wellhead platform jackets in the Gulf of Thailand into artificial reefs, Offshore magazine reported.

The Fisheries Department will receive nine repurposed jackets for marine habitat work, according to Offshore magazine. Installation of the structures in their new role is due to begin in Q4.

Engineers picked jackets whose components had never contacted liquid petroleum during production, to prevent contamination, Offshore magazine reported.

The agreement grew out of a 2022 feasibility study, according to Offshore magazine. That research brought together the Fisheries Department, PTTEP, Kasetsart University, Prince of Songkla University, and the Training Department of the Southeast Asian Fisheries Development Center (SEAFDEC).

Equinor ASA aims to raise its production by 150,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day to 2.3 million boed within the decade, according to Rigzone.

The company has increased its outlook for Norwegian continental shelf production by 100,000 boed to 1.35 million boed by 2030, and 1.3 million boed by 2035, Rigzone reported. To support that domestic output, Equinor plans to develop 6 to 8 new tie-back projects annually towards 2035.

Outside the shelf, Equinor expects to grow its international oil and gas output by about 30 percent to 950,000 boed, according to Rigzone.

In the power sector, the company expects to increase generation fourfold to over 20 terawatt hours by 2030, mainly from ongoing projects, Rigzone reported.

Equinor pegged 2027 capital expenditure at around USD 12 billion, or about USD 10 billion when including tax credits for its Empire offshore wind project in the United States, according to Rigzone.

On shareholder returns, Equinor said it intends to double its share buyback program for 2026 to USD 3 billion. The company expects its annual return on average capital employed to exceed 15 percent from 2026 to 2030, Rigzone reported.

bp has awarded DeepOcean a subsea decommissioning and recycling contract for the Foinaven field, west of Shetland, according to Offshore Magazine.

Under the scope, DeepOcean will remove 10 flexible process risers and three dynamic subsea umbilicals from the former Foinaven floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel, and will retrieve a static umbilical.

Foinaven was discovered in 1992, 190 km west of the Shetland Islands in the Faroes/Shetland Trough, in water depths ranging from 330 to 530 m, according to Offshore Magazine. Between start-up in 1997 and the FPSO being taken off-station in 2021, the field produced 440 million barrels of oil.

DeepOcean said this is the second sale and purchase agreement between bp and the contractor, following earlier decommissioning work at the Don and Miller fields in the North Sea under a similar commercial model.

"We have established a robust framework that delivers greater efficiency, cost optimisation, and operational flexibility for both parties," said DeepOcean CEO Oyvind Mikaelsen.

Beacon Offshore Energy reached a total depth of 32,250 ft on the first Monument development well in Walker Ridge Block 315, logging 245 ft of net oil pay across Lower Wilcox reservoirs and matching pre-drill estimates, according to offshore-mag.

First oil at Monument is targeted before the end of 2026, offshore-mag reported. A 17-mile subsea system will connect the field to the Beacon-operated Shenandoah floating production system.

Production from the Zephyrus #2 well in Mississippi Canyon Block 759 started in late April 2026, Beacon reported.

Combined, the Zephyrus #1 and #2 wells are forecast to reach peak output above 20,000 boe/d, according to offshore-mag.

The Zephyrus wells route through Shell-operated subsea infrastructure, with processing on the Olympus platform in the Mars corridor.

Navitas Petroleum and Talos Energy hold stakes in the Monument project alongside Beacon, according to offshore-mag.

A 7,500-tonne steel jacket for the Neptun Deep gas project has sailed from Saipem's yard at Arbatax on Sardinia, headed for the Romanian waters of the Black Sea.

The structure rises roughly 135 m and sits on a base of 50 by 50 m, according to Saipem. It was built lying flat and is making the voyage in that same horizontal position.

Once on site, the Saipem 7000 crane vessel will raise the jacket upright onto the seabed and secure it with eight steel piles, each 2.5 m across.

The topside that will sit on the jacket is still being fabricated at Saipem's Karimun yard in Indonesia.

Saipem's scope runs deeper offshore too. The contractor will handle subsea work at the Domino Field, where water reaches 1,000 m, and at the shallower Pelican Field at 125 m.

Running back to shore, Saipem is installing a 160-km, 30-inch gas pipeline alongside a fiber-optic cable that links the platform to the Romanian coast.

The first coastal segment is already underway. OMV reported that the Castoro 10 vessel reached the area last month to lay that opening stretch through the microtunnel.

Zululand Energy Terminal (ZET) signed a preliminary agreement with ExxonMobil to supply liquefied natural gas (LNG) to the facility, which Rigzone describes as South Africa's first LNG receiving terminal.

Rigzone reported that Phase 1 calls for a floating storage unit rated at 170,000 cubic meters, paired with an onshore regasification system. That regasification capacity runs to roughly 400 million cubic feet a day, equal to 3 million metric tons per annum.

The site sits at the Port of Richards Bay, operating under a 25-year license granted in 2024, according to Rigzone.

ZET owners Vopak Terminal Durban and Transnet Pipelines are targeting a final investment decision in 2028, Rigzone reported.

ZET projects that South Africa faces a gas supply shortfall by 2030, tied to declining output from Mozambique's Pande-Temane fields.

MODEC and Norway-based Eld Energy have agreed to develop a 1.2-MW offshore power system that pairs solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) with carbon capture for future zero-emission floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) units, according to Offshore Magazine.

The memorandum of understanding splits the work between the two firms. Eld Energy takes charge of design, procurement, construction and testing of the SOFC-based power unit, while MODEC handles the carbon capture system and its integration into the FPSO, Offshore Magazine reported.

The partners aim to run onshore testing around 2029, ahead of a long-term demonstration. The companies have previously scaled SOFC pilots with carbon capture from 40 kW to 120 kW since 2025, according to Offshore Magazine.

The FPSO Baobab Ivoirien resumed oil production on June 4 after a life extension and refurbishment program carried out in Dubai, Offshore Magazine reported.

The unit returned to operator CNR International on schedule, with more than 6.7 million man-hours logged without a lost time injury, according to Offshore Magazine.

MODEC sold the FPSO to CNR in February 2025 and continues to provide operations and maintenance services through December 2026.

Oil flows out of the Strait of Hormuz could take at least six months to return to pre-conflict levels after the US-Iran ceasefire agreement, according to IEEFA.

Brent crude fell below US$80 a barrel to US$78.96, the first time it has traded at that level since early March, IEEFA said.

The strait carries a quarter of the world's seaborne oil trade and 19% of refined petroleum products, according to IEEFA.

A gradual restart is likely because damage during the conflict hit oil fields, refineries and pipelines across the Persian Gulf. More than 80 energy facilities were attacked, according to IEA executive chairman Fatih Birol.

The United Arab Emirates said full oil flows would not resume until 2027, even with an immediate end to the conflict, IEEFA said.

Liquefied natural gas supply also faces an extended outage. QatarEnergy said repairs at Ras Laffan will keep 12.8 million tonnes of LNG capacity offline for between three and five years, according to IEEFA.

IEEFA said oil and LNG should begin to flow again, but slowly.

Brent crude futures climbed 51 cents, or 0.64%, to reach $80.36 a barrel by 0645 GMT on Friday, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital. U.S. West Texas Intermediate added $1.28, or 1.7%, to $77.88 a barrel, with its front-month July contract set to expire on Monday.

The intraday bounce did little for the week. Both benchmarks were on track to close down about 8% over the week, OEDigital reported.

Diplomacy over the Middle East conflict slipped. Switzerland said U.S. talks with Iranian negotiators on a pact to end the conflict would not go ahead on Friday after Vice President JD Vance dropped his travel plans.

Analysts cited by OEDigital said the U.S.-Iran deal could push more than 85 million barrels of oil currently stranded in the Middle East Gulf back into global markets.

Crude shipments have already restarted. Three Saudi-flagged tankers loaded with 6 million barrels of crude passed through the Strait of Hormuz within hours of the Iranian and U.S. presidents signing an interim deal to end their war, according to OEDigital. The outlet said roughly a fifth of the world's oil and liquefied natural gas moved through the strait before the war.

Kuwait Petroleum Corp said on Thursday it had withdrawn all force majeure notices issued during the war.

OPEC expects global oil demand to climb from 105.1 million barrels a day in 2025 to 113.3 million by 2030, then to 124.1 million by 2050, according to Rigzone.

OPEC Secretary General Haitham Al Ghais put the price of meeting that demand at USD 17.7 trillion in oil investment across 2026 to 2050, which works out to more than USD 700 billion each year.

Among national markets, India leads demand growth, contributing an extra 8.1 million barrels a day between 2025 and 2050, according to Rigzone.

US tight crude, better known as shale oil, hit its high point in 2025 at just over 9 million barrels a day, OPEC said, per Rigzone.

Former International Energy Agency executive director Nobuo Tanaka told Semafor earlier this week that the current crisis is the third oil shock and a transformational moment. He said that just as the first and second oil shocks reshaped the global economy, the third marks a similar turning point.

Even with the US-Iran deal signed, Tanaka said full oil supply recovery could be two years away, according to Semafor.

On nuclear, Semafor reported that before the 2011 Fukushima disaster, Japan had 54 reactors providing 30% of its electricity, and now has 15 back online. The first reactor at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa in Niigata, the world's largest nuclear plant, entered full commercial operation in April under TEPCO, the same company that ran the stricken Fukushima plant.

Semafor also reported that only 2.5% of new car sales in Japan are electric, roughly half the rate in the United States.

On the supply side, Semafor noted the UAE's April decision to exit OPEC after 59 years of membership.