Thursday, 13 August 2026

Two Letters of Award from Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited (ONGC) have gone to Shearwater Geoservices for large offshore 3D seismic surveys in India, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

The East coast work runs six months. A separate campaign off India's West coast is set at nine months. Together the two awards represent roughly 15 vessel months of backlog for the contractor, OEDigital reported.

Work on both surveys is due to begin in the opening weeks of the fourth quarter of 2026. Neither award has reached contract signature yet: the projects sit at Letter of Award stage, and OEDigital reported that execution of the final contracts is anticipated in the third quarter.

Shearwater chief executive Irene Waage Basili pointed to the company's record in the country, saying it has "built a strong position in India with continuous presence since 2016".

Iran is responding to an oil spill off Qeshm Island in the Persian Gulf, according to World Oil, which said the incident underscores the environmental risks of attacks on tankers in the waterway.

Satellite images show a dark, elongated trail in the water off the coastal village of Shib Deraz, with black deposits visible on the beaches, World Oil reported. The semi-official Iranian Students' News Agency reported that a cleanup was underway, using absorbent sheets to contain and collect the pollution.

The cause has not been established. TankerTrackers.com suggested in a post on X that the slick resulted from an Iranian attack on a bulk carrier earlier this month. Qeshm itself has repeatedly been hit by U.S. airstrikes during the conflict.

The International Maritime Organization, which keeps a tally of damage to ships, counts 65 confirmed incidents in the Strait of Hormuz and across the Middle East since the beginning of March. That figure sets the backdrop for a shipping corridor where hull damage now translates directly into coastal pollution.

Iran is not the only Gulf state cleaning oil off its shoreline. Oman is dealing with a separate slick near its southeastern coast after a tanker ran aground, according to World Oil.

Norwegian oil and gas companies have raised their planned 2026 spending to 275 billion Norwegian crowns, up from the 266 billion crowns they projected in May, according to a survey by the statistics office SSB reported by Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

The survey also lifted the outlook for the following year. Investments are expected to fall to 227 billion crowns, but that is above the 207 billion crowns previously indicated, as a wave of major offshore developments approaches completion and starts production, OEDigital reported.

SSB attributed the upward revision for 2027 primarily to higher cost estimates in production drilling, particularly at operating fields, and also in field development.

Norway produces more than 4 million barrels of oil equivalent per day, split almost equally between crude and natural gas, according to the same report.

Seatrium Limited has signed a Letter of Intent with Golar LNG Limited covering a potential third floating liquefied natural gas conversion, with Seatrium carrying out the work for Golar, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

The two companies plan to run technical design development and project definition work together, targeting a signed Engineering, Procurement and Construction contract in the second half of 2026. The LOI itself commits only to advancing the project, not to building it.

The pairing has two completed conversions behind it. Offshore Engineer OEDigital reported that Seatrium delivered FLNG Hilli Episeyo, rated at 2.4 mtpa, in 2017, followed by FLNG Gimi at 2.7 mtpa in 2023.

Hilli is heading back to the yard. Golar chief technology officer Morten Skjong said the vessel is "on its way to Seatrium for vessel upgrades ahead of its 20-year charter in Argentina," and that the LOI is intended to widen the FLNG collaboration further.

The 20-year charter term sets the commercial frame for that upgrade scope, and the sequencing matters: Seatrium takes on upgrade work on an existing unit while defining the engineering package for a third conversion in parallel.

The capacity step between the two delivered units, from 2.4 mtpa to 2.7 mtpa, is the only published guide to how the pair have scaled the design between projects. Whether the third unit follows that trajectory depends on the design development stage now beginning.

ExxonMobil has pinpointed four fresh exploration opportunities in the Stabroek Block offshore Guyana using artificial intelligence and advanced subsurface tools, World Oil reported, as the operator widens its offshore drilling program.

The method runs historical discoveries, drilling results and subsurface data through deep learning, machine learning, high-performance computing and advanced seismic imaging to flag potential hydrocarbon prospects and sharpen exploration decisions, according to World Oil.

John Ardill, ExxonMobil's Vice President of Exploration, said the company was expanding its use of these technologies to analyze seismic data and identify prospects that had previously been harder to evaluate.

Separately, the operator sought environmental authorization for the Haimara gas-condensate development, proposing a 35-well drilling campaign running from 2028 through 2033, World Oil reported.

The drilling plans sit against national output ambitions. Guyana is targeting crude production of roughly 1.3 MMbpd by 2027 and 1.7 MMbpd by 2030, according to World Oil.