Energy

In much the same way that Trinity Exploration and Production operates under the motto that “it’s not just about oil”, Joel “Monty” Pemberton has lived most of his working life with the belief that it’s not just about how much money one can earn.

Located in Century City, a business development within the suburbs of Cape Town, the office will act as a regional hub for the company’s activities in Sub-Saharan Africa, which covers various territories including Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, South Africa, Namibia, Angola, Cameroon, and Tanzania. The opening comes on the eve of the 20th Africa Oil Week, starting on the 25 November.

Following a lacklustre second quarter for the European oil and gas sector, there were distinct signs of improvement in the three months to September, with eleven disclosed value deals taking place, between them worth $2.96 billion. While it is true that the lion’s share of this is accounted for by just one deal, the $2.65 billion purchase of North Sea assets from Statoil by Austrian company OMV, analysts feel that this could be a sign that the second quarter was an exception and stimulate a greater volume of deals going forward.

The Ancient Mariner complained abut the lack of drinking water on his ship in 1798 but fails to mention (perhaps Coleridge didn’t know) that Samuel Pepys had requested one of his naval captains to carry out “… an Experiment of producing fresh water (at Sea) out of Salt” as early as 1684. The outcome of that is not known, but it can’t have been that successful as onboard desalination doesn’t seem to have progressed much until the invention of the multi-stage flash (MSV) distillation process in 1955.

“If you ask me what factors have contributed most to our success,” says SOS Safety International’s Managing Director, Carmen Nieves, “I would have to say it is a healthy combination of hard work and effort, a lot of negotiating, a lot of sales and ultimately a lot of satisfied customers.”

While the name, SPX Cooling Technologies, has only been in use since 2005, the company that bears this title actually possesses over a century of experience, during which time it has become amalgamated with some the best known names within the cooling industry including Marley, Ceramic, Recold and Hamon Dry Cooling. This has resulted in the company possessing more than 250 global patents in the power generation, industrial, refrigeration and HVAC markets.

In the last four decades no fewer than 698 offshore fields have been discovered in the UK Continental Shelf, producing in that time some 41 billion barrels of oil and gas. With another 20 billion barrels estimated to remain untapped it comes as little surprise that the North Sea continues to be a huge boon to the UK and other surrounding nations.

A chemical compound whose molecules are made up of one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms connected by covalent bonds, it covers 71 percent of the earth’s surface and is a vital ingredient to all known forms of life. I am of course referring to water, a commodity that can all too often be taken for granted for people living in developed societies.

The group, also made up of Total, Shell and two Chinese firms has won the right to explore the Libra oilfield’s estimated 8-12 billion barrels of recoverable oil reserves for the next 35 years.

Already entitled to a 30 percent stake in the project, as stated in the rules governing the auction of the Libra rights, Petrobras also obtained a further ten percent stake in the field. French oil giant Total and Anglo-Dutch Shell will hold 20 percent each, while Chinese state companies CNPC and CNOOC take ten percent each.