The pop princess and the billionaire: how Grimes and Elon Musk became the worlds strangest power couple – Telegraph.co.uk

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Last week a pair of liberated nipples almost burned the internet to the ground. As is perhaps mandatory if youre an interstellar pop star with a reputation for artisanal wackiness, Canadian musician Claire Grimes Boucher ushered in the new year by posting a photograph of herself in the buff (more or less) to Instagram. The image of a foetus in her womb was added in post-production. She later affixed the hashtag freethenipple.

Being knocked up is a very feral and war-like state of being, Boucher wrote. Might as well be what it is. Plus most of my friends told me not to post them so then I was afflicted with reverse psychology. Interrogated my shame on it and decided it was sum [sic] weird internalised self hatred to feel uncomfortable abt [sic] my body.

The snap was highly stylised. But Bouchers exposed nipples were very much raw and unvarnished. At least for a few hours Instagram inevitably removed the picture. So Boucher, who is 31,put up another, the offending bits and bobs obscured this time. Twenty-four hours later she was back on Instagram, cradling what appeared to be a pregnancy bump.

A dayglo snap of a semi-disrobed pop star is not that unusual, but one with a superimposed baby is. Was Grimes, whose new album, Miss Anthropocene, is released next month, announcing that she is expecting? If so, the father is probablyElon Musk, her partner of over two years. The Silicon Valley entrepreneur and Boucher have both, lately, become better known for theirpublic eccentricities than the day jobs that made them famous.

We say pop star. Grimes is, however, more accurately described as critical darling. She hasnt sold very many records but has enjoyed five star reviews since her breakthrough Visions LP in 2012. And since going public with her relationship with Musk, 48 at the 2018 Met Gala in New York she has found a second calling as one half of the influencer version of John and Yoko. The big question of course is: which of the couple is John and which Yoko?

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The pop princess and the billionaire: how Grimes and Elon Musk became the worlds strangest power couple - Telegraph.co.uk

All aboard the Starship! Elon Musk aims to send 10 lakh people to Mars by 2050 – Hindustan Times

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SpaceX CEO Elon Musk aims to send 10 lakh people to Mars by 2050 and in a series of tweets, has revealed how is he going to achieve the daunting task of colonising the Red Planet and make humans beings multiplanetary.

Throwing more details about his Starship programme, Musk said the rocket would carry many megatons of cargo per year to the Red Planet to prepare Mars for a human presence by mid-century.

Megatons per year to orbit are needed for life to become multiplanetary, he tweeted.

Starship design goal is 3 flights/day avg rate, so over 1,000 flights/year at over 100 tonnes/flight, so every 10 ships yield 1 megaton per year to orbit, Musk explained to his 30.7 million followers.

The orbital Starship prototype, designed SN1 is currently under construction at SpaceXs Texas facility.

Building 100 Starships/year gets to 1,000 in 10 years or 100 megatons/year or maybe around 100k people per Earth-Mars orbital sync, the SpaceX CEO further explained.

That translates to a schedule of once every two years when Earth and Mars are closest to one another.

SpaceXs goal, according to Musk, is to finally send 10 lakh people to Mars by 2050.

In September last year, SpaceX requested NASA to provide it with potential landing sites on the Red Planet.

SpaceX is building the Starship (formerly known as the BFR), a fully reusable vehicle designed to take humans and supplies to Mars.

Musk earlier floated the idea that making Mars warmer would be crucial for making it habitable for humans and one way of doing it would be launching thermonuclear weapons in order to create tiny suns over the regions.

The idea is to convert any frozen carbon dioxide into gas, thereby engineering a greenhouse gas.

Musk has already estimated the cost of having a self-sustaining civilization on the Red Planet which is between $100 billion and $10 trillion.

He arrived at the figure after estimating the approximate future cost of sending a minimum payload to Mars to nearest order of magnitude, at $100,000 per tonne. So if building a self-sustaining city on Mars requires a million tonnes of cargo, the cost would be around $100 billion, Musk calculated.

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Elon Musk’s Tesla journey started as an investor – The Times

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Elon Musk became chairman of Tesla after investing $6.5 million in 2004 and took over as chief executive when the co-founder Martin Eberhard was removed by the boardEPA

Elon Musk has become so much the public face of Tesla that many people are surprised to hear that he did not create the company. In reality, he became involved a year into Teslas founding, initially only as an investor. By that time, he was already a billionaire.

Tesla Motors was founded in July 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning, two American engineers with an interest in global warming. The pair were inspired to create the company after General Motors recalled all its electric cars in 2003 and destroyed them, having decided that electric vehicles occupied an unprofitable market niche.

Mr Musk led a so-called series A round of investment for Tesla in February 2004 with $6.5 million of personal funds out of a

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Microsoft patches Windows 10 after NSA finds vulnerability

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Satya Nadella, chief executive officer of Microsoft Corp., pauses while speaking during a Microsoft product event in New York, U.S., on Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2019.

Mark Kauzlarich | Bloomberg | Getty Images

The National Security Agency alerted Microsoft in recent weeks to a significant issue affecting its Windows 10 operating system, ubiquitous within corporations and among consumers, two senior federal cybersecurity officials told CNBC.

The flaw affected encryption of digital signatures used to authenticate content, including software or files. If exploited, the flaw could allow criminals to send malicious content with fake signatures that make it appear safe. The finding was reported earlier by The Washington Post.

"Patching like this, in general, should always be important, but the fact that the NSA is the one that disclosed this to Microsoft as well gave it some more importance," said Satnam Narang, a senior research engineer with cybersecurity company Tenable. Attackers often will steal security certificates in order to send a victim a malicious file that appears to be trustworthy, but with this flaw, the attacker can simply spoof the Microsoft certificate, making the process much easier, Narang said.

It is unclear how long the NSA knew about the flaw before reporting it to Microsoft. The cooperation, however, is a departure from past interactions between the NSA and major software developers such as Microsoft. In the past, the top security agency has kept some major vulnerabilities secret in order to use them as part of the U.S. tech arsenal.

In a statement, Microsoft declined to confirm or offer further details. "We follow the principles of coordinated vulnerability disclosure as the industry best practice to protect our customers from reported security vulnerabilities. To prevent unnecessary risk to customers, security researchers and vendors do not discuss the details of reported vulnerabilities before an update is available."

Jeff Jones, a senior director at Microsoft said in a statement Tuesday: "Customers who have already applied the update, or have automatic updates enabled, are already protected. As always we encourage customers to install all security updates as soon as possible." Microsoft told CNBC that it had not seen any exploitation of the flaw "in the wild," which means outside a lab testing environment.

"I do want to stress that this information just dropped in the last hour, and it is still pretty fresh. So we are trying to fully grasp how this plays into the grand scheme of things," said Narang at Tenable, who wrote further about the flaw in a blog post today. "In the grand scheme of things, this is just another tool in the toolbox for attackers."

Follow @CNBCtech on Twitter for the latest tech industry news.

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NSA goes public with Windows security vulnerability – Technical.ly DC

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The Fort Meade, Maryland-based National Security Agencys cybersecurity work typically operates out of view. After all, it famously earned the nickname No Such Agency.

But this week, the NSA went public with a security flaw it found. The serious vulnerability was flagged in Microsoft products including Windows 10 and Server 16. The bug traces to a weakness in a cryptography function that verifies whether a system is downloading software that is legitimately from Microsoft.

You can use that weakness to make Windows [10] systems download and install software that appears to be coming from Microsoft that is not, said Edward Stanford, CTO of Columbia-based Zuul, which works with customers on certificate management and cryptography management for industrial controls and Internet of Things systems.

This could lead attackers to develop new exploits that take control of systems. The NSA alerted Microsoft to the vulnerability, and the company released a patch to fix systems. NSA then went public with a key message: Update systems with a patch.

This is bad, Stanford said. If you do it right then you can take over most networks or computers that are Windows-based. The faster they get patched, the less true that statement will be.

This could affect a broad group of systems, from personal laptops to corporate servers. But installing a patch on a home laptop is a fix on a different scale from making sure an entire companys network is protected.

Now that its a widely known exploit, everyones got to defend against it. Most home systems have an easy button, most corporate systems dont, Stanford said. However, he said of the company systems, that doesnt mean it cant be done.

Plenty of companies have been taking action, as well, including Columbia-based cybersecurity company Tenable,which works with released plugins to identify the vulnerability.

This vulnerability, and the attention its received from various government agencies, is unprecedented. It calls into question our very trust in todays digital world the trust that our encoded communications are secure, said Renaud Deraison, cofounder and CTO of Tenable, in a statement. We implore organizations to patch their systems immediately.

For NSA, the public announcement isnt unprecedented, but its also not a move thats made often. For one, that indicates the severity of the threat posed by the vulnerability. At the same time, Wired noted that its distinct from how the NSA approached a hacking tool known as EternalBlue, which also centered on a Microsoft vulnerability. In that case, NSA did not disclose the flaw publicly. This squares with actions of an intelligence agency looking to gain an edge on the cyber battlefield. But it was later leaked online, and used in attacks. Going forward, NSA Cybersecurity Directorate head Anne Neuberger told reporters this week that the agency will disclose more findings to the public.

Stanford said this weeks public disclosure shows a willingness by NSA to embrace another part of its mission: protecting the countrys infrastructure.

Im really glad they stepped up, saw a problem and helped everyone fix it, he said.

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NSA tips off Microsoft to security flaw | TheHill – The Hill

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The National Security Agency (NSA) found and notified Microsoft of what it called a serious vulnerability inthe company's Windows 10 operating system that could potentially expose computer users to significant breaches, surveillance or disruption, officials announced Tuesday.

The public disclosure is unlike the NSA's usual approach of using such flaws to build hacking toolsthat allow the agency to spy on adversaries networks, according to The Washington Post. Rather, officials released a fix.

This is ... a change in approach ... by NSA of working to share, working to lean forward, and then working to really share the data as part of building trust, Anne Neuberger, director of the NSAs Cybersecurity Directorate, which was launched in October, told the Post.

The NSA discovered an error in the Microsoft code that verifies digital signatures, which could enable a hacker to forge the signature and breach a computer.

The patch is the only comprehensive means to mitigate the risk, the NSA's statement read. While means exist to detect or prevent some forms of exploitation, none of them are complete or fully reliable.

Microsoft said it addressed the flaw promptly andreleased a security updateTuesday. Customers who have already applied the update, or have automatic updates enabled, should be protected.

Microsoft told the Post that it has seen no active exploitation of the flaw.

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Work starts on world’s ‘largest offshore wind farm’ that could power 4.5 million homes – CNBC

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GE's Haliade-X wind turbine has a 12 megawatt generator and stands 260 meters tall.

GE Renewable Energy

Construction work for a huge offshore wind farm in the North Sea is underway.

In an announcement Friday, energy firm SSE said that onshore work for the 3.6 gigawatt (GW) Dogger Bank Wind Farms project had begun near Ulrome, a coastal village in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England.

Dogger Bank Wind Farms which SSE described as "the world's largest offshore wind farm" will be made up of three 1.2 GW offshore sites: Creyke Beck A, Creyke Beck B and Teesside A. The project is a joint venture between SSE Renewables and Norwegian energy major Equinor.

The construction work is being carried out by Jones Bros Civil Engineering U.K., a firm headquartered in North Wales.

The scheme is set to use GE's Haliade-X wind turbine, which has a 12 megawatt generator and stands 260 meters tall. According to SSE, the project will have the capability to produce enough renewable energy for more than 4.5 million homes per year.

"Getting the first spade in the ground is a significant milestone on any project, but for what will be the world's largest offshore wind farm, this is a major moment for a project that has already been over a decade in the making," Steve Wilson, who is managing director of Dogger Bank Wind Farms, said in a statement.

The U.K. is a major player in the offshore wind sector. It is home to projects such as the 659 megawatt Walney Extension facility, in the Irish Sea, which was officially opened in 2018.

The scale of that project is considerable: it is capable of powering more than 590,000 homes, has 87 turbines and covers an area of around 20,000 soccer pitches, according to Danish energy company Orsted.

Europe as a whole is home to a significant offshore wind sector. According to industry body WindEurope, 409 wind turbines were connected to the grid in 2018. The average size of offshore turbines in 2018 was 6.8 MW, which represents a 15% rise compared to 2017.

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Work starts on world's 'largest offshore wind farm' that could power 4.5 million homes - CNBC

Offshore wind spending reaches record high in 2019 – Windpower Monthly

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Total investments in renewables capacity increased last year, but was still only the third highest annual spend on record (pic: Bloomberg New Energy Finance)

In total, $138.2 billion was invested in wind power in 2019 while total renewable energy spending rose to $282.2 billion, according to BloombergNEF (BNEF).

Despite a subdued start to 2019 renewable energy investment activity picked up in the second half of the year, with increased interest in US onshore wind, and offshore wind in China and Europe.

With multi-billion-dollar financings for projects in UK, Taiwanese and Chinese waters in the fourth quarter, spending on new offshore wind farms rose 19% to a record-high $29.9 billion.

We expect the (offshore wind) sectors global momentum to continue in 2020, with the focus on gigawatt-scale projects in the UK North Sea and the first commercial arrays off the US East Coast," saidTom Harries, head of wind research at BNEF.

Wind power spending outstripped solar investments in 2019, according to BNEFs analysis.

The $138.2 billion spent on wind power in 2019 $108.3 billion on onshore, $29.9 billion on offshore marked a 6% increase from the previous year.

Fourth quarter financings of the $3.4 billion,448MW Neart na Gaoithe Neart na Gaoithe (448MW) OffshoreFirth of Forth, Scotland, UK, Europe Click to see full detailsoff the north coast of Scotland, the$2 billion,376MW Formosa 2 Formosa 2 (376MW) Offshoreoff Miaoli, Taiwan, Asia-Pacific Click to see full detailsoff the west coast of Taiwan, and $1.5 billion for the500MW Fuzhou Changle C in East China Sea, helped nudge offshore wind annual spending to record levels.

Meanwhile, solar spending dipped 3% to $131 billion, as wind power overtook it as the best financed renewable energy source in 2019.

Investments rose 9% year on year to$9.7 billion in biomass and waste-to-energy, but fell 3% to$1.7 billion in small hydro, 56% in geothermal to $1 billion, and 43% in biofuels to $500 million, BNEF found.

Renewable energy investment in the worlds biggest-spending market slipped 8% in 2019, BNEF noted, with $83.4 billion spent in China.

Wind accounted for $55 billion of this total up 10% year on year while solar spending fell 33% to 25.7 billion.

Harries said 15 offshore wind projects were brought forward in China last year, as developers moved to exploit the countrys expiring feed-in tariff support scheme.

Meanwhile, in the US a record-high $55.5 billion was spent on renewables in 2019, as wind and solar developers rushed to qualify for the tax credits scheme, which was due to be scaled back in 2020.

BNEFs head of Americas, Ethan Zindler, said wind and solar being more cost competitive than ever also helped drive investment despite the Trump presidency being not particularly supportive of renewables.

In Europe, the total renewables spend of $54.3 billion was down 7% from 2018, despite investments increasing 25% in Spainto $8.4 billion, its highest spend since 2011.

TheNetherlandsalso saw a 25% increase to $5.5 billion.

Investment was up 3% to $4.4 billionFrance, while the $3.4 billion spent in Ukraine was56% more than the previous year.

However, renewable energy investment of $5.3 billion in the UK was down 40% its lowest spend since 2007.

Germany saw spending fall 30% to $4.4 billion, its lowest since 2004, and a 19% decrease in Swedenmeant just $3.7 billion was invested there.

Renewables investments fell in other key Asia-Pacific markets, including a 10% drop in Japanto $16.5 billion, a 40% decrease in Australia to $5.6 billion, and 14% decline in Indiato $9.3 billion.

However, annual spending reached a record-high for renewables in the United Arab Emirates, where most of the $4.5 billion spent there last year was on a 950MW solar thermal and photovoltaic complex.

Finally, several South and Central American markets saw spending increase in 2019, with renewables investments up 74% in Brazilto $6.5 billion, and up 17% in Mexicoto $4.3 billion.

Financings in Chile totalled $4.9 billion and were up four-fold from the previous year.

However, renewables spending in Argentinaof $2 billion was down 18% year on year.

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National Academy of Sciences awards grants to advance safety culture in offshore oil and gas – WorldOil

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1/16/2020

WASHINGTON The Gulf Research Program (GRP) of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine today announced $7.25 million in grant awards for eight projects focused on strengthening safety culture in the offshore oil and gas industry.

Oil and gas production in deepwater are inherently hazardous activities that can fail in complex, catastrophic ways, as tragically shown by the Deepwater Horizon explosion in the Gulf of Mexico and the 87-day oil spill that ensued 10 years ago. While many factors led to this disaster, several reports issued in the aftermath emphasized the need for an improved safety culture within the offshore oil and gas industry. A robust safety culture has many dimensions, including leadership commitment to safety values and actions, a safe environment for raising concerns or reporting incidents and near misses, and organizational policies and practices that encourage employees to make safe decisions.

The GRPs Safer Offshore Energy Systems (SOES) Grants 4 supports projects that produce datasets, strategies, and tools for measurement that will promote a culture of safety in the oil and gas industry. As the industry will continue to be a vital part of the Gulf Coast economy, this work is urgently needed to ensure protection of people and the environment.

A culture of safety has many characteristics, said Kelly Oskvig, senior program officer for the Gulf Research Programs SOES initiatives. Through this grants competition, we hope to provide the tools to help strengthen some of those characteristics as well as answer a few critical questions: What best practices can oil and gas adapt from other high-risk industries? How can an organization measure improvement of its safety culture? How can data be used to better understand the dangers?

The eight SOES projects are:

Bringing High-Reliability Safety Culture Decisions into Focus: Training with Interactive Fuzzy Cognitive Mapping

Overview: Several studies have called for offshore oil and gas workers to adopt best practices from other high-risk industries, including the nuclear power plant and air traffic control industries. However, frontline managers remain unaware of these external best practices, or have trouble customizing them for offshore oil and gas operations. Inspired by so-called management flight simulators, this project creates an interactive online platform that allows users to model responses to everyday safety threats. The platform, FOCOS (Fuzzy Operational Cognition of Safety Culture), lets users add, intensify, or stop interventions, and see how their decisions impact the overall system and safety culture. To inform future research and pilot programs, FOCOS will also collect data on uncertain and controversial safety practices and differences in training needs among different users (by role, professional background, and years of experience).

Employee Well-Being and Mindfulness as Predictors of Process and Personal Safety

Overview: Mindfulness exercises are shown to improve employee mental and physical health, but there has been limited work to leverage mindfulness exercises for offshore safety. This academia-industry partnership project will examine how mindfulness affects safety culture, focusing on perceptions of supervisory safety culture, worker situational awareness, employee burnout and well-being, and employee participation in and compliance with safety behaviors. The team will develop 90 minute train-the-trainer programs, along with survey tools to measure program effectiveness so supervisors can guide their employees through mindfulness techniques they can use before their shifts and before high-risk situations.

Safety Reporting Action Program for Offshore Oil and Gas Industry in the Gulf of Mexico

Overview: In the offshore environment, minor workplace accidents tend to go unreported because individuals fear blame. However, several minor unreported safety risks can be precursors for catastrophic accidents, as was the case with the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster. Offshore oil and gas safety regulators have recognized the need for a more proactive reporting system and a culture shift that encourages workers to report mistakes and near misses, identify the potential for error, and even stop work when needed. This project will assess the viability of an offshore safety action reporting system modelled after the aviation safety action program (ASAP) by using focus groups, interviews, and a quantitative survey of about 1,500 personnel. It will also assess gaps between the perceived level of safety reporting culture and the actual level of safety reporting in the Gulf of Mexico oil and gas industry.

Measuring and Improving Blended Project-Safety Culture in Operations of Offshore Oil and Gas Facilities

Overview: Measuring organizational commitment to safety is particularly challenging in the offshore oil and gas industry, as 80 percent of personnel are third-party contractors. The industrys reliance on external contractors means team members may not share the same training, experiences, and even language. Rather than measuring safety culture in broad terms, this project aims to develop quantifiable measurements of safety culture improvements that are specific to three categories: activity, team (for example, contractors versus onshore-based specialists), and the type of offshore installation. It will also provide a tool for measuring safety culture while work orders are being planned and executed; and a tool to help offshore plant managers specify project requirements (for example, communication requirements) that could improve safety culture.

Aggregating Essential Exposure Data to Enable Meaningful Analysis of Safety Incident Rates Around the World

Overview: Historically, government agencies, industry groups, and companies from around the world have collected offshore incident data to help understand and improve safety conditions. However, these datasets were collected at different times and used different terminology and data languages. This project aims to provide recommendations for viable data science technologies that could be employed to aggregate these disparate datasets, and establish common goals and metrics, to improve understanding of safety risks and trends in the Gulf of Mexico. The desired final product a comprehensive global offshore incident dataset will help set a foundation for predictive modeling initiatives. The data could inform government and industry decision-making processes such as permitting emerging technologies, setting new regulations or policies to mitigate risk, and choosing exploration projects.

Development of an Evidence-Based, Multilevel Safety Culture Assessment Battery for the Offshore Industry

Overview: Safe behavior in the oil and gas industry is influenced by individual safety readiness; the teams safety assumptions, values, and beliefs; team leader and team member behaviors; and the organizations safety practices and policies. This project will develop a set of evidence-based assessment tools to diagnose, measure, and track these four factors. It will also provide actionable tips and guidance for addressing potential deficiencies, which existing measurement tools lack. The teams deliverables will be made publicly available to interested organizations, associations, and researchers.

EMPOWER Safety Dashboards: Evaluate, Measure, and Promote Offshore Worker Engagement and Readiness

Overview: Traditionally, safety culture is measured with a lengthy annual employee survey. Survey methodology is fraught with limitations including low response rates, considerable time required to summarize and interpret data, and failure to capture meaningful changes between surveys. This project aims to develop and test field-friendly measurement tools, including experience sampling methodology and wearable devices; and to design, develop, and evaluate the value of a dashboard called EMPOWER (Evaluate, Measure, Promote Offshore Worker Engagement and Readiness). The EMPOWER dashboard will display worker psychological (safety culture) and physiological (lack of fatigue or readiness) data on an interactive interface that supervisors can access daily to support organizational decision making. The research team will evaluate the extent to which supervisors value and anticipate using such previously unavailable data in real time; as well as the datas impact on hypothetical offshore scenario-based decision-making.

Developing an Integrated Offshore Energy Industry Safety Culture Evaluation, Benchmarking, and Improvement Toolbox

Overview: There is a general perception in the offshore industry that more rules, regulations, and procedures are unlikely to improve safety performance. Instead, the industry needs a better understanding of the social and organizational factors that foster professionalism during routine and emergency situations. This project aims to develop a roadmap that the industry can use to evaluate and improve organizational safety culture, reduce unsafe behaviors, improve individual performance, and reduce management system failures, near misses, and accidents. Deliverables will include a safety culture evaluation toolbox, and data gathering and analytic methods to identify what actions have been, or could be, successful in improving safety.

All projects selected underwent an external peer-review process. These projects are the winners of the Gulf Research Programs Safer Offshore Energy Systems (SOES) Grants 4 funding competition. For more information about the Gulf Research Programs grant opportunities, visit nationalacademies.org/gulf/grants.

The National Academies' Gulf Research Program is an independent, science-based program founded in 2013 as part of legal settlements with the companies involved in the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster. It seeks to enhance offshore energy system safety and protect human health and the environment by catalyzing advances in science, practice, and capacity to generate long-term benefits for the Gulf of Mexico region and the nation. The program has $500 million for use over 30 years to fund studies, projects, and other activities in the areas of research and development, education and training, and monitoring and synthesis. Visit nationalacademies.org/gulf to learn more.

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine are private, nonprofit institutions that provide independent, objective analysis and advice to the nation to solve complex problems and inform public policy decisions related to science, technology, and medicine. The Academies operate under an 1863 congressional charter to the National Academy of Sciences, signed by President Lincoln.

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Is This The Start Of A New Offshore Oil & Gas Boom? – Yahoo Finance

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In retrospect, 2019 was another strong year for offshore exploration and production companies. Free cash flow remained strong and telltale signs have emerged that we are entering a new offshore investment cycle. This trend was perhaps illustrated most profoundly by the rising swell of offshore project approval activity by operators in 2019. Globally, the amount of oil and gas resources approved for development last year surpassed 20 billion barrels of oil equivalent (boe), the highest level seen since 2011.

A quick look at free cash flow (FCF) levels in recent years confirms that 2019 was a strong year for the offshore sector. Figure 1 shows the total offshore FCF from all public E&P companies globally. This shows that 2019 was the third best year on record, with FCF reaching nearly $90 billion. This represented a slight reduction compared to 2018, but compares very favorably with the previous investment cycle from 2010 to 2014. This shows that the cash flow situation for offshore players is very robust, underlining the point that E&Ps have enough cash in hand to invest in new projects after several years of restrained capital expenditure.

This trend is clearly reflected when looking at project approval activity in 2019. Figure 2 provides an overview of total approved offshore resources each year over the past decade, split by liquids and gas. Last year saw the approval of 12.3 billion barrels of liquids projects, along with 8.3 billion boe of new gas projects, thus bringing total approved resources to 20.6 billion boe. Given that the total amount of offshore production in 2019 was 10.1 billion barrels of liquids and 7.0 billion boe of gas, this implies a replacement ratio of 1.2 for both oil and gas. The approved volumes in 2019 were 110% higher than 2018, and the highest number since 2011.

Figure 3 shows approved offshore greenfield investments (designated for the development of new projects) by year of sanctioning. Once again, a strong increase in activity is seen in 2019. Total greenfield investments approved last year increased by 50% versus 2018. This significant rise in approved resources and investments was driven by several very large developments that were approved last year, such as the massive Marjan and Berri expansion projects in Saudi Arabia. These projects feature very large resource bases and offer lower greenfield investment cost per boe compared to smaller projects. Measured in dollars, comparing last years investment levels with the years during the previous investment cycle from 2010 through 2014 does not tell the whole story, as cost levels within the E&P industry have come down significantly since 2014.

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Related: The Battle For Surinames Oil Is About To Begin

Figure 4 shows the 15 largest offshore projects approved last year, measured by total greenfield capex. The expansion phase of Saudi Aramcos Marjan field in Saudi Arabia was by far the largest project approved last year, with close to $12 billion in investments. The project aims to add 24 new offshore platforms to handle initial oil and gas processing and water injection. These platforms will tie into the onshore expansion of the Tanajib oil facilities, as well as other newly built onshore gas facilities. The second largest project on the list is the first phase of Totals Area 1 development in Mozambique. This gas project will be developed as a subsea tieback to an onshore LNG plant. Chevrons Anchor field development in the US is the largest project within the Atlantic region, just ahead of the second phase of Equinors Johan Sverdrup field in Norway.

Unsurprisingly, this rising tide of approval activity has carried with it an increase in offshore investments in 2019. Total offshore capex grew by 5% versus 2018, with a 7% rise in deepwater spending and a 3% boost in investments on the continental shelf. For 2020, offshore investments are on track to grow 8%, with deepwater up 12% and shelf spending up 2% (see Figure 5). This illustrates that a new offshore investment cycle is in the making.

By Rystad Energy

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The offshore industry needs to move to a more collaborative model – Offshore Oil and Gas Magazine

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The future growth and relevance of the global offshore oil and gas industry is reliant on us to continue to reduce project total expenditure (TOTEX). With the rise of onshore production, particularly in the United States, and clean energy technology, the energy landscape is changing with unstoppable momentum. Therefore, the industry must evolve to remain a competitive option as part of the complete energy mix.

The offshore industry of years gone by allowed us to be selfish. With high margins and operators competing for resources, there was little incentive to collaborate or share. But the market has irrevocably changed, and it is only through collaboration that the biggest challenges of our sector will be overcome. We must recognize that we need a step change in how we collaborate. We will all win if we embrace commonality, share expertise and knowledge, and create a paradigm shift within the paradox of cooperation in a competitive environment.

Despite the fierce competition and single-minded approach of the past, there has been collaboration. Joint industry projects (JIPs) are a beacon of hope that we can collaborate for the advantage of all. However, they tend to focus on solving specific technical challenges, and as such can be formal and contractually sensitive. Our challenge is to find a mechanism to fundamentally change behaviors and a culture of self. JIPs can be long-term projects we need a nimble and wide-reaching solution to keep pace with the technological change in the world in which we now operate and address systemic cultural issues.

The four main areas of change and challenge facing our industry which can be helped by collaboration are: evolving contracting strategies; efficiency; TOTEX mindset; and digital enablement.

Today, customers often choose to approach installation contractors far earlier in the project life cycle and as such the traditional market of FEED (front-end engineering design) and detailed design has decreased. Where it is in the best interests of the customer and the combined offering is stronger, the opportunity is there for service organizations to establish collaborative partnerships with installation contractors and equipment vendors. While their business models are different, it is possible to co-exist in partnerships by playing to core strengths without being confrontationally competitive in what is already a tight market. Then its win-win for operators, service companies, and the supply chain.

Focusing on efficiency is essential to counteract the market forces which are driving engineering costs down. Collaborating internally by delivering more accurately, managing iterations and change more quickly and ultimately accelerating the engineering schedule, lead to greater efficiencies throughout the project lifecycle, ultimately lowering TOTEX costs for the operators.

While accepting some intellectual property exists, in general, organizations are overly protective of their data. Imagine a situation where all performance data is collated on an open source platform for every facility or every piece of equipment, and then experts are invited to help solve bottlenecking issues who would be paid when increased performance was realized? If we dont share data openly, then we will never realize the true potential of digitalization.

How can we improve collaborative efforts to build the pathway toward solving these biggest challenges? In simple terms, I believe there are five fundamentals required for strong collaboration a common goal, openness, transparency, sharing, and empowerment.

The common goal for the subsea industry must be three-fold to stay relevant in the changing energy picture, to grow and be successful, and to build a sustainable and enduring industry. In order to do this, we must open-up and let peers see our knowledge and expertise to share insight and alternatives a real attitude shift in oil and gas.

Transparency is about building trust with your fellow collaborators. Building integrity as a business means offering up everything you have with no surprises, no fear of exploitation or repercussion.

Encouragingly, there is a growing mindset shift in the oil and gas industry toward more agile methods. We live in a want it now culture, so we must empower our people at all levels to be able deliver on that demand; to take action with safety and assurance.

For its part, Wood strives to realize the benefits of collaboration. We aim to do this through both strategic partnerships, such as with IBM for digital products and services, or with Honeywell for delivering connected operations for downstream technology, and through developing more focused relationships, for example, in subsea engineering where we have collaborated with smaller technology companies to develop and deliver advanced visualization systems to our customers.

We recognize that, as an industry, we still need to take significant steps before we can fully operate collaboratively. However, the opportunity for quick wins exists. Look for partners who complement your services, enter into partnerships with a trusting attitude, keep partnering contracts simple, do not be afraid to try and fail, be bold about innovation, and empower others to take the lead. Set people free and you will be amazed what happens.

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The offshore industry needs to move to a more collaborative model - Offshore Oil and Gas Magazine

We Only Have One Chance: Ocean City, Md. Mayor Urges Residents To Share Thoughts On Offshore Wind Farm – CBS Baltimore

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OCEAN CITY, Md. (WJZ) Ocean City, Maryland, Mayor Rick Meehan is asking residents to weigh in on a plan to build an offshore wind farm off the towns coast.

Current plans call for the turbines, which would be between 600 and 800 feet tall, to be built as close as 13 miles from the beach; town officials want to see the towers moved at least 33 miles from shore to protect the natural view.

Two companies, US Wind and Skipjack Energy, are seeking to build the wind farm.

Ocean City officials are hoping to get the project moved out farther to sea.

In an email to residents on Thursday afternoon, Meehan said the region only (has) one chance to do this, so we need to do it right.

Making sure these turbines are out of the viewshed of Ocean City is not only a benefit to our residents and property owners, but also to the 8 million people who visit our beach each year, Meehan wrote. Most importantly, it is our responsibility to protect the natural beauty of our beach so that our children, grandchildren and their grandchildren can enjoy the same pristine horizon that we enjoy every day in Ocean City.

The towns website said it supports green and unseen wind farms.

A public hearing is scheduled for Saturday at noon at the Roland E. Powell Convention Center.

The Maryland Public Service Commission is also accepting public comments both online and in writing. For more information, click here.

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We Only Have One Chance: Ocean City, Md. Mayor Urges Residents To Share Thoughts On Offshore Wind Farm - CBS Baltimore

Norway issues 69 offshore exploration licences in the Norwegian shelf – Offshore Technology

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]]> Equinor was awarded most contracts by the Norwegian government. Pictured: An Equinor rig in the Johan Sverdrup field.

Norways Ministry of Petroleum and Energy has issued licences and operatorships to companies drilling in the Norwegian shelf.

The new licences, known as Award in Pre-Defined Areas 2019 (APA 2019), cover production across 69 different areas in the North Sea, the Norwegian Sea and the Barents Sea.

Production licences were split between 28 oil companies, with 19 also being given operatorships. Equinor, one of Norways largest operators, was awarded the largest number of licences across 23 areas with 14 operatorships.

Equinor is currently studying importing power to the Troll field from onshore.

The ministry awarded Vr Energi, Aker BP, Neptune and Lundin 17, 15, 13 and 12 licences respectively, and another 23 companies were awarded the remaining licences.

Lime, Lotos and Total were awarded licences two areas each and Repsol one licence in PL 055 E.

The offering was designed to allow reserves to be identified quickly. As the licensed waters are better-explored, there is an expected decline in discovery size.

In November 2019, the Norwegian shelf produced an average of 1.71 million barrels of oil per day, a 14.4% increase on the year before.

The ministry said: Smaller discoveries may not be able to carry standalone developments, but can have good profitability when making use of existing and planned infrastructure.

Norways Minister of Petroleum and Energy Sylvi Listhaug said: Hopefully, the exploration in the awarded acreage will result in new discoveries. This is important to ensure employment, value-creation and future government revenue for Norways largest industry.

A full list of the awards can be found on Norwegian ministrys site.

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Norway issues 69 offshore exploration licences in the Norwegian shelf - Offshore Technology

Centre waives green clearance for onshore and offshore oil and gas exploration – The Hindu

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The Environment Ministry has exempted oil and gas firms, looking to conduct exploratory drilling, from seeking an environmental clearance. The clearance is for both on-shore and offshore drilling explorations and the process is an ecologically-intensive exercise that involves digging multiple wells and conducting seismic surveys offshore.

Until today, even exploratory surveys have merited the highest level of environmental scrutiny called category A that required project proponents to prepare an environment impact assessment (EIA) plan, have it scrutinised by a Centrally constituted committee of experts and subject the proposal to a public hearing involving the local residents of the proposed project site. While public hearings, even for category A projects are frequently exempted if they are offshore, the new amendments demote exploratory projects to the category of B2. This means it will be conducted by the States concerned and will not require an EIA. The move is part of a larger process of decentralisation by the Centre in that it seeks to farm more regulatory actions to State and local units. Environmentalists aver that this can mean lax oversight.

Developing an offshore or onshore drilling site as a hydrocarbon block will however continue to merit a category A treatment, the Ministry notification, made public on January 18, clarifies.

In 2019, the ONGC and the Vedanta group were granted permission to conduct exploratory oil surveys in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry and this had led to protests led by the Opposition DMK and the Congress, which argue that the exploratory drilling will lead to destruction of agricultural fields in the Cauvery delta.

Neduvasal controversy: the story in pictures

Chennai-based environment activist Nityanand Jayaraman has argued that offshore drilling operations can possibly effect fish, lead to a build-up of heavy water contaminants, disorient whales and sea life that rely on sonar for navigation and exacerbate the risk of oil spills.

This is part of a continuing trend by the larger lack of oversight by the Environment Ministry, said Debi Goenka, of the Conservation Action Trust and who deals with coastal ecology issues.

The government in 2019 relaxed rules that incentivises companies conducting oil exploration surveys in less-explored oil fields to keep a greater share of revenue if they chance upon viable hydrocarbon blocks. This has led to a spurt in interest in oil and gas exploration with the Cauvery basin registering a spurt in activity.

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Centre waives green clearance for onshore and offshore oil and gas exploration - The Hindu

New offshore investment cycle is in the making: Rystad Energy – Oil Review Middle East

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The rising tide of approval activity has carried with it an increase in offshore investments in 2019. (Image source: haymarketrebel/Flickr)

This trend was perhaps illustrated most profoundly by the rising swell of offshore project approval activity by operators in 2019, he said.

Globally, the amount of oil and gas resources approved for development last year surpassed 20bn boe, the highest level seen since 2011.

A quick look at free cash flow (FCF) levels in recent years confirms that 2019 was a strong year for the offshore sector. The total offshore FCF from all public E&P companies globally. This shows that 2019 was the third-best year on record, with FCF reaching nearly US$90bn.

This represented a slight reduction compared to 2018 but compares very favourably with the previous investment cycle from 2010 to 2014.

This shows that the cash flow situation for offshore players is very robust, underlining the point that E&Ps have enough cash in hand to invest in new projects after several years of restrained capital expenditure.

The rising tide of approval activity has carried with it an increase in offshore investments in 2019. Total offshore capex grew by five per cent versus 2018, with a seven per cent rise in deepwater spending and a three per cent boost in investments on the continental shelf.

For 2020, offshore investments are on track to grow eight per cent, with deepwater up 12 per cent and shelf spending up to two per cent. This illustrates that a new offshore investment cycle is in the making.

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New offshore investment cycle is in the making: Rystad Energy - Oil Review Middle East

Draft Polish offshore wind act aims to award more than 10GW by 2027 – Recharge

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Polands ministry of state assets has published a much-anticipated draft of legislation to promote offshore wind power, aiming to award more than 10GW in the Baltic Sea by 2027, the Polish wind power association (PWEA) said.

Time will come for a detailed analysis of the draft act. Today, on behalf of all companies who are already part of the supply chain for offshore wind, I would like to express my satisfaction with the publication of the bill, PWEA president Janusz Gajowiecki said.

Up to 4.6GW from pre-developed wind projects could be granted support by Polish energy regulator ERO by the end of 2022 under a contract for difference (CfD) system with a fixed price set by the government.

Andrzej Kazmierski, director for renewable and distributed energy at the Polish ministry of energy, in late 2018 told Recharge that the complex legal situation for pre-developed offshore wind projects called for different treatment in regards to support than future projects to be developed from scratch.

The projects in an advanced stage of development that will be entitled to a CfD with a fixed price must fulfill certain criteria, such as a grid link permit and a valid environmental permit, PWEA told Recharge.

Projects that are likely to fulfill those criteria are two projects owned by private Polish utility Polenergia and Norways Equinor (Batyk II and III, which have a combined planned capacity of 1.44GW). The consortium also jointly owns the less developped Batyk 1 project with up to 1.56GW.

Two projects by Polish utility PGE (Elektrownia Wiatrowa Baltica 2&3 with a joint capacity of 2.5W) may also be in line for the first batch of projects receiving support. Denmark's Orsted is in advanced talks to buy half of the PGE projects.

A smaller, 350MW project (FEW Baltic 2) that German utility RWE in October bought from Baltic Trade and Invest, will also likely feature among the first batch of projects to receive support. RWE also owns three early stage projects, bringing its total Polish offshore wind pipeline to 1.5GW.

Less developed projects by refiner PKN Orlen via its Baltic Power unit may also still be considered for the initial support regime, if the company still manages to fulfil those criteria. The refiner holds a 1.2GW offshore wind concession area in the Baltic Sea.

As not all of the pre-developed projects are in the same advanced stages of development, it is not entirely clear whether the government will be able to award the full 4.6GW under the initial mechanism.

The remainder of the capacity is slated to be tendered-off in competitive CfD auctions of at least 500MW in 2023, and 2.5GW each in 2025 and 2027.

Support will be granted for 25 years, compared to only 15 years for other renewable technologies. First electricity must be generated seven years after a successful bid.

The governments offshore wind plans according to PWEA could lead to the creation of about 34,000 jobs during the investment stage.

Job demand would come from both the energy sector and other industries, including construction, finance, transport and services.

PWEA also stressed that wind at sea will diminish the risk of future power shortages seen by Polish transmission system operator PSE and the countrys energy regulatory office.

The development of offshore wind farms in the Baltic Sea will significantly contribute to minimising the risk of capacity shortages, Gajowiecki said.

At the same time, the introduction of this large-scale, zero-carbon and increasingly cost-effective RES technology to our energy mix will help in the transition of the Polish economy.

The offshore act proposal will now be in public consultation for 30 days, and then go for approval to the Polish cabinet and parliament.

UPDATED to add detail of legislation and advanced projects

Originally posted here:

Draft Polish offshore wind act aims to award more than 10GW by 2027 - Recharge

Global exploration and production – Offshore Oil and Gas Magazine

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NORTH AMERICA

DNV GL will oversee design review activities for Bay du Nord, Equinors first oilfield development offshore Newfoundland and Labrador. The location is in the Flemish Pass basin, 480 km (298 mi) northeast of St Johns, with an investment decision planned for summer 2021. Current plans call for an FSPO with a disconnectable turret mooring system and four subsea wells connected to subsea templates. Equinor aims for start-up in 2025.

Late last year Pemex was preparing to start commercial operations at its new Abkatun-2 platform in the Bay of Campeche offshore Mexico. McDermotts built the structure the largest project to date for the yard in Altamira to provide expansion/replacement capabilities for the offshore Ku-Maloob-Zaap, Cantarell and Ayatsil field facilities.

BP has discovered a new gas field 80 km (50 mi) offshore Trinidads southeast coast. The Ginger exploration well, designed to test two fault blocks east of the Cashima field in water depths of less than 91 m (300 ft), found hydrocarbon-bearing reservoirs in 15 separate segments.

The company has since engaged Aker Solutions to perform front-end engineering and design (FEED) for a minimal facilities platform for the Cypre project offshore Trinidad and Tobago. This could be the first of a series of unmanned facilities for BP in the region.

ExxonMobil has authorized SBM Offshore to start FEED work for a third FPSO for the Stabroek block offshore Guyana. The hull for the Payara oil development will be of SBMs Fast4Ward design, similar to the FPSO Liza Unity currently under construction for the Liza Phase 2 project. Following installation, SBM will lease and operate the vessel, to be named Prosperity, for up to two years before transferring ownership and operation to ExxonMobil. The vessel, moored in a water depth of around 1,900 m (6,234 ft), will be capable of producing 220,000 b/d of oil with associated gas treatment capacity of 400 MMcf/d. Saipem will have EPCI responsibilities for around 130 km (81 mi) of flowlines, risers and umbilicals for Payara, repeating its role in Liza Phases 1 and 2.

Tullow Oil and partners Total and Eco (Atlantic) Oil & Gas have agreed to enter the next phase of exploration on the Orinduik block, close to Stabroek, following their heavy-oil Jethro and Joe discoveries in 2019. They will likely target further prospects in the Tertiary and deeper Cretaceous intervals.

Petrobras was the sole major to lodge bids as operator for Brazils Transfer of Rights Agreement bid round in the presalt Santos basin late last year. The company secured a 90% operated interest in surplus volumes in the giant deepwater Bzios field, in partnership with CNODC Brasil and CNOOC Petroleum Brasil (5% each). In addition, Petrobras was awarded full rights to the Itapu fields surplus volumes in the same region. To date the company has installed four FPSOs on Bzios which collectively produce 600,000 boe/d, with a fifth floater set to join them in 2022.

Colombias Ecopetrol has agreed to farm into 30% of the BM-S-54 concession and the Sul de Gato do Mato production-sharing agreement, both in the presalt Santos basin and including the Gato do Mato oil discovery. Operator Shell would reduce its present stake to 50%. Three wells drilled to date on the blocks have encountered light hydrocarbons.

BP has discovered another potential gas giant offshore Mauritania. The Orca-1 well, drilled 125 km (77.7 mi) from the coast in 2,510 m (8,235 m) of water, targeted a previously untested Albian play. Results, according to partner Kosmos Energy, exceeded expectations with the well delivering 36 m (118 ft) of gas pay in good-quality reservoirs. It also extended the Cenomanian play fairway, intersecting 11 m (36 ft) of net gas pay in a down-structure position relative to the Marsouin-1 discovery. Kosmos estimated in-place reserves at 13 tcf.

The same partners have contracted McDermott International to fabricate the subsea production system and to manage the SURF scope for the Greater Tortue Ahmeyim project off Mauritania and Senegal at the companys Batam yard in Indonesia.

Woodside Energy has submitted the first-phase development plan for the deepwater Sangomar oil and gas field to Senegals government. The project, 100 km (62 mi) south of Dakar in the Sangomar Deep Offshore block, will eventually produce 485 MMbbl of oil and 160 MMboe of gas. Phase 1, targeting 230 MMbbl of oil, calls for a 100,000-b/d capacity FPSO with 23 subsea wells and is scheduled to come onstream in early 2023. The vessel will also be designed to accommodate extra facilities serving future phases, including gas export to shore and tiebacks from other reservoirs and fields. Sangomar, formerly known as SNE, was renamed after an island that is also part of the countrys Saloum Delta National Park.

Senegals state oil company Petrosen planned to inaugurate the countrys first offshore licensing round at this months MSGBC Basin Summit & Exhibition. On offer are 10 blocks, mostly in ultra-deepwater, with the round remaining open until the end of July.

TGS, which is supporting the round with 2D and 3D seismic, multi-beam and seafloor sampling data from across the MSGBC basin, is doing a similar job for Liberias Petroleum Regulatory Authority, which is targeting an April launch for Liberias next offshore round. This covers nine blocks in the little-explored Harper basin. TGS has identified syn-rift structural traps over much of the area with analogues to producing fields in neighboring basins.

Blocks on offer in Liberias Harper basin bid round.(Courtesy TGS)

Nigerias National Assembly has voted to replace the current water depth-based royalty with a uniform 10% royalty for all the countrys deepwater production-sharing contracts and to introduce a further royalty arrangement based on the oil price. According to consultant Wood Mackenzie, the measures could raise royalty payments on deepwater fields from the present 0-8% to 14%, hitting the industry with a loss of value of $2.7 billion over the assets remaining lifespans. Although the government might benefit in the short-term from higher revenues, the change could cause investors to switch capital to projects elsewhere offering better returns.

Equatorial Guineas Ministry of Mines and Hydrocarbons has awarded offshore blocks to African, European and North American oil companies under the countrys EG RONDA 2019 bid round. Successful bidders included Lukoil, VAALCO Energy, and Nigerias WalterSmith. In addition, the Ministry signed a co-operation agreement with Vitol on the Gas Megahub project, which involves developing new offshore gas hubs to monetize presently stranded gas resources offshore Equatorial Guinea. The government also hopes to extend the network to fields off neighboring Nigeria and Cameroon.

BW Energy has modified its Ruche development plan offshore Gabon to accommodate the recent Hibiscus oil discovery in the Dussafu license. Ruche Phase 1 production should now double from 15,000 to 30,000 b/d, with the planned wellhead platform moved 4 km (2.5 km) to the west to tie in production from Hibiscus, where four wells will be drilled in addition to the two Ruche wells. First oil is slated for late 2021; up to seven more wells could follow under Phase 2 in order to maintain plateau production. The estimated capex now stands at $445 million.

First gas was due to flow early this month through the new Balticconnector pipeline between Finland and Estonia. Commissioning of the system finished in late November when the offshore section through the Baltic Sea, laid by Allseas, was filled with gas, pressurized and connected to Estonias gas transmission network. The system, which will be bi-directional, has a design capacity of 7.2 MMcm/d.

Hungarys MOL has agreed to pay Chevron $1.57 billion for its interests in the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG) oilfield in the Caspian Sea offshore Azerbaijan and the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline that transports the fields crude to Ceyhan on the Turkish Black Sea coast. If regulatory consents come through for the deal, MOL will become the largest partner in the six-platform ACG complex, which produced 584,000 b/d in 2018.

The jackup Foresight Driller IX was due to spud an appraisal well last month for Masirah Oil on the Yumna oilfield in block 50 offshore Oman. The contract included options for extended well testing and further drilling. Wings Offshore in Singapore is converting the Aframax tanker Mt Bull Papua to store the produced crude.

Late last year the first two jackets were loaded out for Qatar Petroleums North Field expansion project offshore Qatar. The company also revealed plans to further raise Qatars LNG production capacity, supplied by North Field gas, by 64% to 126 MMt/yr in 2027.

Singapore-based KrisEnergy has contracted PT Profab1 to construct a minimum facilities wellhead platform for the Apsara oilfield development in block A offshore Cambodia. The completed structures will be loaded onto a barge at Profabs yard in Batam, Indonesia, for transportation to the field location in the Khmer basin. Apsara is due to start production during the first half of this year at an initial rate of 7,500 b/d.

Vietnams government has approved Murphy Oils outline development plan for the Lac Da Vang oilfield in block 15-1/05 in the Cuu Long basin offshore southern Vietnam. FEED work is already under way.

CNOOC has started production from its Caofeidian 11-1/11-6 oilfield comprehensive adjustment project in 20-25 m (65.6-82 ft) of water in Chinas Bohai region. This involved connecting two new processing platforms to existing facilities at the Caofeidian oilfield. Twelve wells were onstream at start-up, and production should build to a peak of around 28,700 b/d in 2021.

Premier Oil has produced first gas from the Bison, Iguana and Gajah Puteru (BIG-P) fields in the Natuna Sea block A offshore Indonesia. The company expects to recover more than the 93 bcf targeted in its original project plan following a successful three-well drilling campaign. All production heads through existing block A infrastructure for export to Singapore.

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Global exploration and production - Offshore Oil and Gas Magazine

Keating, Kennedy Offshore Wind Jobs Act Advances to House Floor – Cape Cod Today

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Would provide financial support to institutions to develop training programs...

Congressman Bill Keating

Washington, DC On Wednesday, the House Natural Resources Committee advanced H.R. 3068, The Offshore Wind Jobs and Opportunity Act out of committee. This important piece of legislation, which was authored by Congressman Bill Keating and cosponsored by Congressman Joe Kennedy III, would provide financial support for educational institutions to develop and implement curriculum and training programs that support the creation of a workforce trained for the offshore wind industry.

H.R. 3068 would authorize $25 million dollars annually to eligible institutions including universities, community colleges, and union training programs to ensure that American workers stand ready to take these jobs of the future and to further prepare our workforce to participate in the burgeoning blue economy beyond the installation of wind.

Southeastern Massachusetts is one of the countrys preeminent hubs of the blue economy, said Congressman Keating. And, there are already important programs being launched to develop the workforce needed for the offshore wind industry. In my home town of Bourne, the unveiling of the first in the nation Offshore Wind Training Facility at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy put a unique piece of training infrastructure that will allow students a place to train on the specific safety procedures required by the industry. On Marthas Vineyard, an innovative partnership between Bristol Community College, Adult Education Marthas Vineyard, and Vineyard Power is about to launch a course of study to provide high school students, as well as continuing learners, with the opportunity to obtain college credit and job training for the offshore wind industry while on the island. Our community is setting the stage for the rest of the country as we look to a sustainable energy future in the offshore wind sector. The Offshore Wind Jobs and Opportunity Act aims to support and expand these programs here at home in Massachusetts, and to create opportunities for coastal communities across the nation to develop their own workforce as offshore wind projects advance.

Offshore wind energy wont only bring clean, affordable energy to our homes and businesses, it will create jobs and empower local economies throughout New England and across our country, said Congressman Joe Kennedy. As this emerging industry continues to grow, we must ensure American workers are prepared to capitalize on this economic opportunity with good jobs, worker protections and the strength and support of labor unions. With the Natural Resources Committees passage of the Offshore Wind Jobs and Opportunity Act, we are moving closer to building a Blue Economy that will lift up working families.

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Keating, Kennedy Offshore Wind Jobs Act Advances to House Floor - Cape Cod Today

IHC IQIP Clamps Down On Offshore Wind Order in Taiwan – Offshore WIND

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IHC IQIP has won a contract to provide 84 jacket pile grippers for an offshore wind project in Taiwan.

The company did not disclose the name of the project; however, it did say that the jacket pile grippers will be used to install the wind farms 21 jacket foundations in 2020.

Based on the information provided, the grippers will most likely be used on the 109.2MW Changhua offshore wind farm.

Located off the coast of Fangyuan in Changhua County, Central Western Taiwan, Taiwan Power Companys Changhua project comprises 21 Hitachi 5.2MW turbines installed on jacket foundations.

Jan De Nul and Hitachi are in charge of the overall work covering the manufacturing and installation of the foundations and the turbines at the wind farm.

Jan De Nuls scope of work includes the design, fabrication and installation of the foundations, wind turbine installation, the supply and installation of cables off- and onshore, as well as for the upgrading of the electrical substation.

Hitachi is in charge of manufacturing, assembly, operation and maintenance, and other work related to the 21 wind turbines.

The wind farm is scheduled to be operational by the end of the year.

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IHC IQIP Clamps Down On Offshore Wind Order in Taiwan - Offshore WIND

Total to Drill World’s Deepest Offshore Well in Angola – Rigzone

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(Bloomberg) -- Total SA will drill the worlds deepest offshore well in Angola, in waters more than 2 miles deep, as the African country works to reverse years of declining output.

The well in Block 48 will be 228 meters (748 feet) deeper than Totals Raya-1 well in Uruguay, completed in 2016, according to contractor Maersk Drilling A/S.

Any exploration is welcome in Angola, where production has slumped by a third in the past decade following years of underinvestment in new projects. French oil major Total has positioned itself to be the countrys top foreign operator as it mulls billions of dollars of future spending there.

Total has hired the Maersk Voyager rig for its drilling campaign in southern Africa, which comprises two wells in Angola and one in Namibia, with options for more. Work will start this month and last about 240 days, Maersk said.

A Total spokeswoman didnt immediately respond to a request for comment.

To contact the reporter on this story:Paul Burkhardt in Johannesburg at pburkhardt@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:James Herron at jherron9@bloomberg.netAmanda Jordan

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Total to Drill World's Deepest Offshore Well in Angola - Rigzone