GLOBAL OFFSHORE UPDATE

Uganda's oil success depends upon tapping the 6.5 billion barrels of crude which sits within Uganda’s Lake Albert Basin.

The offshore E&P sector is among the areas expected to see a hiring boost in Brazil

Aberdeen Coastguard has confirmed it has called off it's sea search off the coast of Aberdeen. A spokesperson for Aberdeen Coastguard has confirmed

The U.S. shale revolution that turned North American energy markets upside down is finally headed to the world’s largest consumer of LNG: Japan.

A sea search is ongoing off the coast of Aberdeen after the Coastguard received a man overboard distress from a Personal Locator Beacon at around 4:10pm yesterday. 

Operators in the U.S. added 27 rigs this week, according to the latest data from Baker Hughes. The number of rigs seeking oil rose 21 to 498, the highest level since January.

ONE of Scotland’s leading oil industry figures has attacked decommissioning plans by Shell that could see the giant legs of three offshore oil platforms left in the North Sea.

Saudi Arabia has told its U.S. and European customers it will reduce oil deliveries from January, as Russia said it was confident non-OPEC producers would fully join OPEC's output limits on Saturday in the first such move since 2001.

Around 500 people gathered on a Highland beach to protest plans for ship-to-ship oil transfers in the Moray Firth.

Italian energy company Eni will sell a 30 percent stake in its giant Egyptian offshore gas field Zohr to Russia's Rosneft for $1.575 billion, pressing ahead with asset sales to fund investments and offset weak oil prices. Eni, which owns 90 percent of the Shorouk concession containing Zohr, said on Monday that Rosneft would pay $1.125 billion and reimburse around $450 million for investments already carried out by Eni.

The U.S. government is slated to sell $375 million worth of crude oil from the country's emergency reserve this winter after Congress passed a temporary spending bill on Friday that contained a measure authorizing the sale. President Barack Obama's administration has pushed Congress to approve an up to $2 billion plan for a revamp of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, a string of heavily guarded underground salt caverns along the Gulf of Mexico filled with crude. The stash currently holds about 695 million barrels of oil.

Chevron has joined forces with Petroleos Mexicanos and Japan’s Inpex Corp. to bid next week for the right to explore for oil and natural gas, the first time the state-owned operator will partner with private companies to develop crude in the Gulf of Mexico. Seven groups and eight individual bidders have been qualified to participate in the Dec. 5 auctions that include the Trion field joint-venture with Pemex and 10 other deepwater blocks, Mexico’s National Hydrocarbons Commission announced in Mexico City on Monday. The regulator didn’t specify which bids were for the joint venture or for the other areas.

Two of the world’s fastest-growing economies have barely noticed the first year of unrestricted U.S. crude exports since the 1970s. In the first year since the U.S. lifted a 40-year-ban on most exports, less than 3% have gone to China and India even as their demand for oil grew. India hasn’t taken a drop, according to U.S. Census data.

Five people were killed after their helicopter crashed into the sea during an offshore rescue operation. The helicopter was sent out to medevac an offshore worker suffering from cardiac arrest on board the Amir Kabir offshore platform shortly before the tragedy unfolded.

When OPEC exempted Nigeria from its plan to cut oil output for the first time in eight years, it highlighted how far Africa’s biggest producer has fallen. From January to October, just over three wells a month were drilled in Nigeria, down from a monthly average of almost 22 in 2006, according to petroleum ministry data. While output rebounded to 2.1 MMbpd from the 27-year low in August, that’s just half the government’s goal at the start of the millennium.

Royal Dutch Shell expects to pump out all the fossil fuel reserves listed on its balance sheet, its chief executive said, dismissing concerns that production limits in the wake of the Paris climate accord could hit the energy giant's valuation. In an interview with Dutch newspaper Het Financieele Dagblad, Ben van Beurden said the issue of "stranded" reserves - deposits in the ground that cannot be used because of carbon emissions limitations - would have no impact on balance sheets.

The CI-GNL (Ivory Coast LNG) consortium led by Total has been awarded the rights to build and operate a liquefied natural gas re-gasification terminal in the Ivory Coast with a capacity of 3 mtpa. The decision was followed by the signature of the shareholders’ agreement in Abidjan between Total, which will operate the project with a 34% interest, PetroCI (11%), CI Energies (5%), SOCAR (26%), Shell (13%), Golar (6%) and Endeavor Energy (5%).

As the oil market anxiously awaits OPEC’s decision next week, some of the countries hardest hit by the biggest price crash in a generation may have found a lifeline outside of the group. India is the world’s fastest growing crude consumer whose appetite for fossil fuels is forecast to surge in the next two decades. The country is set to decide next month on whether to advance $15 billion to Nigeria for future supplies.

Corrosion on a North Sea oil platform caused an incident in which a man was injured, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has said.

OPEC will debate an oil output cut of 4.0-4.5 percent for all of its members except Libya and Nigeria next week but the deal's success hinges on an agreement from Iraq and Iran, which are far from certain to give full backing. Three OPEC sources told Reuters a gathering of experts from the oil producer group in Vienna had decided on Tuesday to recommend that a ministerial meeting on Nov. 30 debate a proposal from member Algeria to reduce output by that amount.