BG Group has spun the bit on a wildcat in a block off Tanzania, with drilling set to take 55 days. The UK major spudded the Taachui well on the north-west margin of Block 1 on Monday with the drillship Deepsea Metro 1, block partner Ophir Energy said. BG is [...]

US-based Gateway Royalty has raised funds to snap up oil and gas acreage in the Utica shale play in Ohio. The company has raised $35 million through a private offering to invest in shale acreage in eight counties on the play in south-eastern Ohio. The counties where the assets – [...]

Petrofac has won an engineering and procurement contract worth more than $1 billion from Petroleum Development Oman (PDO) for work on cluster of fields in the south of the country. The contract to provide services for the Rabab Harweel Integrated Project (RHIP) on the Harweel cluster also includes commissioning and [...]

Subsea 7 has signed a deal with Shell covering subsea installation at a project off Brazil. The deal, worth around $110 million, will see Subsea 7 install jumpers, umbilicals and associated subsea structures at the Parque das Conchas (BC-10) Phase 3 project in the Campos basin. Project management and engineering [...]

Kentz subsidiary Valerus has won a $38 million contract for work at the Punto Fijo in Venezuela. The group’s oil and gas handling company in the US was awarded an engineering and procurement contract for a simplified early production plant for Cardon IV- the joint operating company of Italy's Eni [...]

Rome-headquartered Mediterranean Oil & Gas has renewed its “take and pay” gas sales agreement with Italian utility, Repower Italia. Mediterranean’s subsidiary Medoilgas Italia will sell all gas production from the Guendalina gas field and its onshore gas facilities to Repower for a year. The contract will start on 1 October [...]

US Navy Seals have stormed a mystery tanker that escaped from a rebel-held Libyan port last week in a case of oil theft that cost Ali Zeidan his job as prime minister. A stealth mission by operatives supported by the guided-missile destroyer USS Roosevelt saw the North Korea-flagged vessel Morning [...]

London-listed North American Petroleum has gained a 30% interest in the producing Zink Ranch project in Oklahoma. North American revealed its farm-in to the 1520 gross acre project in Osage County on Friday which includes 15 vertical wells producing from the Skinner formation. It added that production from the Zink [...]

AIM-listed Sound Oil has received approval from the Italian Ministry of Economic Development for the San Lorenzo production concession. The approval of the onshore Italian concession located in the Marche region permits the company to start commissioning operations at the Casa Tiberi gas field. In 2011, a discovery well was [...]

Australia-listed Wolf Petroleum has received an independent resource report for its wholly-owned SB block in Mongolia. Wolf said the assessment found a “substantial prospective oil resource” for the block and identified five potential drilling leaders on the UU and TV sub-basins located on the larger Toson Tolgoi basin. An independent [...]

Indian coalbed methane company Great Eastern Energy has received a boost to its reserve numbers in the Raniganj Block. Independent reserve engineers Advance Resources International has reported a 45% in proved reserves to 77.9 billion cubic feet. Original gas-in-place increased 1.7% to 2.4 trillion cubic feet. Great Eastern president Prashant [...]

Seadrill is cutting its asset exposure by shifting ownership of an ultra-deepwater drillship to a subsidiary through an internal sale at the rig giant, backed by shipping and offshore billionaire John Fredriksen. The Oslo-listed company said in a statement it would sell the sixth-generation unit West Auriga to Seadrill Capricorn [...]