Day: November 23, 2022

Like the first cuckoo of spring, the annual autumn refrain from senior Iraqi oil officials of new production targets has that pleasant ring of the familiar about it to seasoned oil industry watchers. Sometimes it is 6 million barrels per day (bpd), sometimes 7, and sometimes 8, but it always prompts an analysis of the facts and figures that invariably lead to the same conclusion: it could be done but not without some basic changes to Iraq’s oil industry. Last week was heard a similar call as Europe faces an…

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Refinery workers at BP’s biggest refinery in Europe are on a partial strike over demands for higher wages and will not cooperate in efforts to restart the Rotterdam refinery, which is currently offline. Employees at the 400,000-bpd refinery, a major supplier of diesel to northern Europe, threatened earlier this month to go on a strike if their pay rise demands are not met. The Rotterdam refinery accounts for almost 3% of northern Europe’s refining capacity, and delays to its restart could exacerbate the diesel crunch in Europe.    In early November,…

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UK oil and gas companies are facing a bill of some $24 billion, or 20 billion pounds, for plugging unused wells, Reuters has reported, citing figures from Offshore Energies UK, the industry body. There are more than 2,000 old wells and related facilities that would need to be put out of commission over the next ten years. What’s more, the bill will swell particularly fast in the next three to four years, OEUK said, as more and more wells will be shut down. The average cost of decommissioning a well is…

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