Friday, 14 August 2026

BP plc has secured a license to explore and develop the second phase of Venezuela's offshore Loran gas field in partnership with United Arab Emirates firm XRG and a unit of Qatari conglomerate UCC Holding, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

The award carries the right to produce 4 trillion cubic feet of gas at Loran, Offshore Engineer OEDigital reported.

BP said it will operate the second-phase project, holding equal interests with the oil and gas unit of UCC Holdings and with XRG, which is owned by Abu Dhabi National Oil Company.

The first phase of Loran went to Shell plc, which was awarded that license in June, according to the same report.

Loran and the Manatee field together hold about 10 TCF of recoverable gas.

Separately, BP and Venezuelan officials signed a memorandum of understanding to evaluate exploration opportunities in the Carupano East Block, part of the Mariscal Sucre marine area off Venezuela's northeastern coast.

The Tupi field in the pre-salt layer of the Santos Basin has produced 4 billion barrels of oil equivalent since start-up, the first asset in Petrobras' 73-year history to reach that volume, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

The field also moved back above an average of 1 million barrels of oil per day, a level it first hit in 2019, the same report said. Tupi was the first pre-salt system to enter commercial production, in 2010.

Petrobras operates the asset alongside partners Shell and Petrogal Brasil, with PPSA acting as the Union's representative in the Tupi Shared Field.

The pre-salt now carries the bulk of the company's output plan. Petrobras' Business Plan for 2026-30 says the area could account for up to 82% of total company production over that period, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital. Total oil and gas production until 2030 is estimated at between 3.1 million and 3.4 million barrels of oil equivalent per day.

The hardware behind that projection is already concentrated offshore. Of the 57 production platforms Petrobras operates, 28 sit exclusively in the pre-salt layer, which passed cumulative production of 7 billion barrels of oil in January 2025, the report said.

Measured against that basin-wide total, Tupi alone accounts for a large share of everything the pre-salt has delivered since Petrobras brought the play into commercial service.

Nigerian President Bola Tinubu told the leadership of the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) on Thursday that government-owned refineries will return to operation once ongoing reforms are complete, according to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).

The reforms are aimed at making the state-owned plants commercially viable and sustainable, NAN reported.

Tinubu gave the assurance while receiving the union's leadership, according to the same report.

Rystad Energy now expects Russian crude production to average 8.95 million barrels per day in 2026, before slipping to around 8.6 million bpd in 2027, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

The revision cuts 90,000 bpd from the consultancy's earlier projection. Rystad Energy attributed the downgrade to renewed disruptions at western Russian export terminals and rising risks to seaborne exports.

Russian crude output has declined further in the second half of 2026 after a year of tighter sanctions and Ukrainian attacks on refineries, ports and tankers, Offshore Engineer OEDigital reported.

UK geophysical company Metatek has won a contract from the Philippines Department of Energy for an initial airborne geophysical survey spanning 40,000 km², according to World Oil. The work is aimed at identifying areas with potential for future energy resource development.

The first stage targets Mindanao's Agusan-Davao basin and the adjacent Davao Gulf, World Oil reported.

That block forms the opening phase of a two-year airborne mapping campaign that is expected to reach roughly 120,000 km² in total, according to World Oil.

Metatek is preparing to move its systems into the Philippines and start operations in the fourth quarter of 2026, World Oil reported.

Seventeen operators have committed to share vessels and coordinate work programmes under a charter signed with the North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA), aimed at clearing the well decommissioning backlog on the UK Continental Shelf at lower cost, World Oil reported.

Roughly GBP 200 million could be saved on remaining subsea wellhead removal, a cut of about 30%, if operators deploy vessels rather than rigs for the final removal step, according to industry estimates cited by World Oil.

Pauline Innes, NSTA supply chain and decommissioning director, said the plan "has the potential to be a win-win-win for operators, suppliers and taxpayers".

The queue behind the charter is substantial. More than 1,000 wells are expected to require decommissioning over the coming five years, on top of some 500 inactive wells already waiting on final abandonment, World Oil reported.

Work touched 257 wells during 2025, and 114 of those reached final abandonment, according to the NSTA's latest UKCS Decommissioning Cost and Performance Update. Both counts were higher than the previous year, when operators worked 238 wells and completed 103 final abandonments.

Decommissioning spending across the UKCS set a record at GBP 2.6 billion in 2025, against GBP 2.4 billion the year before, per World Oil.

Higher spending has done little to the total bill. The NSTA now puts the cost of remaining UKCS decommissioning at GBP 43.4 billion, down marginally from GBP 43.6 billion.