GLOBAL OFFSHORE UPDATE

A fire broke out aboard the partially scrapped ACES FPSO at a shipbreaking plot in Gadani Pakistan.

The Nigerian Navy in Port Harcourt says it has discovered a massive illegal bunkering depot which served as a dump site and transit point for illegally refined petroleum products.

Maersk Supply Service has sold two more vessels, the Maersk Seeker and the Maersk Supplier, as part of the company’s recently announced divestment plan.

Stone Energy Corp filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Wednesday to eliminate about $1.2 billion in debt by transferring control of the offshore oil producer to its noteholders in the face of a two-year slump in energy prices.

Azerbaijani oil officials say one worker has been killed and nine others are missing after part of their offshore oil installation broke off in strong winds.

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari is eyeing an increase to his country’s oil production to 2.2 million bpd, the volume it had pumped before militant attacks in the Niger Delta started crippling the country’s output and exports in early 2016.

Libya is preparing this week to reopen two of its biggest oil fields and ship the first cargo from its largest export terminal in two years, as the war-torn OPEC state pursues plans to almost double crude output in 2017.

An investigation has been launched by Total after an electrical fire broke out on it's North Alwyn Installation at around 22:10 on Friday the 9th of December. The fire which was described by Total as a "small electrical fire" broke out in a control cabinet in an electrical equipment cupboard on the North Sea Installation.

A pipeline in North Dakota spilled over 176,000 gallons of oil before it was shut down, state officials say. The spill happened 150 miles from the Dakota Access pipeline protests, with thousands of people rallying against the construction for months.

China National Petroleum Company plans to cut staff at its Beijing headquarters by 20 percent, the company said in a post on its social media blog on Tuesday, the latest move in an efficiency drive by the country's top state energy group.

OSHA is investigating the Monday morning explosion at an oil-drilling site near Sharon Springs that left five injured, two critically. Fire officials say crews were adding pipe on a rig for the Murfin Drilling Company when the explosion happened.

EnerMech has been awarded its first contract by Subsea 7 in the Australian oil and gas market. The mechanical engineering group will perform a range of subsea flowline and umbilical pre-commissioning on the Woodside-operated North West Shelf (NWS) Project’s Persephone project and North Rankin Complex in Western Australia.

OPEC’s agreement to cut production for the first time in eight years has the potential to balance the oil market, as long as everyone sticks to it, former Saudi Arabia Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi said. "The only tool they have is to constrain production," al-Naimi said of OPEC at an event in Washington, D.C. "The unfortunate part is we tend to cheat."

International oil & gas service provider, Petrofac, is set to build on its provision of integrated support services on the Cygnus gas field following the award of a four and a half-year contract extension.

Drilling has begun on a North Sea oil field that will eventually support about 700 jobs. The first oil is expected to be produced from the Mariner field in 2018, Statoil said.

India plans to invest US$20 billion in deepwater natural gas development in the next five to seven years, the country’s Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said this week, according to news reports. The multi-billion investment is expecting to target 20 Tcf of reserves, and will primarily go to developing natural gas discoveries by India’s own ONGC and the Reliance Industries and BP-led joint venture off the east coast, Pradhan said in New Delh on 30 November.

Bibby Offshore, a leading subsea services provider to the oil and gas industry, announced that it has secured a significant contract with Shell. The campaign, due to commence in Q1 2017, will see Bibby Offshore provide engineering and subsea construction activities in the Gannet G field in the Central North Sea.

A worker died on Thursday after a fire broke out on a platform off the Republic of Congo, Italian energy firm Eni has said.

One of 14 sailors stranded in Scotland because they have not been paid in four months has spoken out about the ordeal. Indian shipping giant GOL Offshore reportedly owes the crew of the Malaviya Seven about £80,000.

Norway expects Royal Dutch Shell Plc to go forward with a shelved project to boost recovery of natural gas at the Ormen Lange field, and warned it will start pushing the company for progress from next year. “A clear message to Shell is that we expect that it seizes the opportunities that exist at Ormen Lange and comes to a decision to take this forward,” Bente Nyland, the head of the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate, said in an interview in Oslo on Wednesday. “There are a lot of resources at Ormen and we have to get them out.”