Thursday, 20 August 2026

Norway's combined oil and gas production came in 2.5% below an official forecast in July, the Norwegian Offshore Directorate said on Thursday.

Total output of oil, condensate, natural gas liquids and gas reached 0.665 million standard cubic metres per day, equivalent to 4.18 million barrels of oil equivalent. That marked a decline of 1.5% against the same month a year earlier.

The shortfall was driven by crude. Oil output slipped to 1.78 million barrels per day from 1.97 million bpd in July of the previous year, undershooting a forecast of 1.82 million bpd, according to preliminary data from the directorate.

Gas moved the other way but still missed its target. Production climbed to 350.6 million cubic metres per day from 329.8 mcm a year earlier, 1.8% short of the 357 mcm the regulator had projected, the Norwegian Offshore Directorate said on its website.

Monthly variation is built into the country's output profile. Norway is Europe's largest supplier of natural gas and a major oil producer, with volumes shifting month to month across close to 100 offshore fields depending on maintenance needs and other stoppages.

SLB expects to reactivate as many as 15 oil rigs already sitting in Venezuela, William Antonio, the company's president of Mexico, Central America and Venezuela operations, said at a conference in Houston reported by Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

Up to four of those rigs could restart this year, Antonio told Reuters, with the timing hinging on whether contracts are signed with oil producers.

The oil service provider is working alongside private equity firm Formentera Partners either to bring idle rigs back into service or to import additional units into the country in the coming months, executives from both firms said on Wednesday during the conference, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

The starting point is close to zero. Baker Hughes data cited in the same report put the number of active onshore drilling rigs in Venezuela at two at the end of July.

Venezuelan oil minister Paula Henao, speaking earlier at the conference, called on companies to invest in the country and to help expand its supply chain so that oil production is sustainable and profitable over time.

That appeal has not yet moved the largest international producers. ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips have not rushed to return, saying more work needs to be done to protect contracts and investments, Offshore Engineer OEDigital reported.

The split matters for how any recovery in Venezuelan drilling would be financed. Service companies and private equity capital are positioning first, while the majors that would underwrite large-scale field development hold back on contract security grounds. Antonio's conditional framing points the same way: the rig count moves when producers sign, not before.

Eneva has begun commercial operation of the first asset in its Azulão Complex in Brazil, according to Power Magazine. The company, described by Power Magazine as the largest natural gas operator in Brazil, confirmed the start of operations.

Officials announced the Azulão installation on August 19, Power Magazine reported.

The complex sits within Eneva's "Reservoir-to-Wire" (R2W) model, which links gas production directly to power generation.

Transocean has landed a two-year binding Letter of Award from India's Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) covering the Dhirubhai Deepwater KG2 ultra-deepwater drillship offshore India, according to World Oil.

The contract carries an approximate value of 300 million dollars, a figure that includes additional services and mobilization fees, World Oil reported. Drilling is expected to start in the first quarter of 2027.

Attached to the award are two years of priced options, per the same report. Should ONGC exercise them in full, the Dhirubhai Deepwater KG2 would remain at work in India into early 2031.

Petroleo Brasileiro SA and Petroleos Mexicanos are jointly evaluating a pre-salt play beneath the Gulf of Mexico offshore Mexico, a zone World Oil describes as older, deeper and potentially richer in oil than many producing fields.

The acreage in question sits off Mexico's Campeche state, where Pemex drilled without success in 2018, according to World Oil. That well went more than 7,800 meters below the seabed and punched through the Campeche salt layer.

The two companies are chasing rocks formed roughly 160 million years ago, World Oil reported.

The work programme reaches past the pre-salt interval itself. Sylvia Anjos, Petrobras exploration and production chief, said at an Aug. 7 media briefing that the partners also intend to explore beneath sedimentary rocks formed by deepwater mud and sand flows, and beneath younger, shallower salt formations.

Petrobras brings a production record from the geological analogue that made its name. Tupi, which the company discovered in 2006 and brought online in 2010, has yielded approximately 4 billion barrels of crude, per World Oil.