Oil prices rebounded following last night’s fall, which marked a fifth straight down-day.
Crude futures were at their lowest since July after US stockpiles were reported to have increased three times more than expected.
Today, in London, Brent crude futures were up 90 cents trading at $108.65 per barrel, while US light sweet crude futures were up a similar margin at $86.5.
Elsewhere, it has been a fast moving 24 hours for the North Sea oil industry especially in terms of new ventures.
First was the news that Shell was rejuvenating its interests in the region through a US$525 mln deal with America’s Hess Corp to acquire stakes a cluster of 12 established oilfields.
This cluster has a far longer anticipated lifetime than originally thought and may produce for a further two decades.
Then a bumper set of new license awards was revealed by the Department of Energy & Climate Change (DECC).
Many of the new licences are going to major international oil companies like Shell (LON:RDSB), BG (LON:BG.) and Centrica (LON:CNA) as well as other large North Sea players like EnQuest (LON:ENQ), Premier Oil (LON:ENQ) and Cairn (LON:CNE).
The high profile awards further underline the change of fortunes for the North Sea, that has been helped in part by recent tax breaks from Westminster.
Licences were also offered to AIM quoted companies such as Trap Oil (LON:TRAP), Faroe Petroleum (LON:FPM), Xcite Energy (LON:XEL), Ithaca (LON:IAE), Valiant Petroleum (LON:VPP) and Parkmead (LON:PMG).
In other oil news today, a malfunction put a stop to drilling in the Falklands.
Falklands Oil & Gas’ (LON:FOGL) Scotia well has been delayed by two weeks because of malfunctioning equipment related to a blow out preventer.
The company had been drilling the Scotia well – its second and final well of the programme – for about a month, and it said that it was slightly ahead of schedule prior to the delay.
The Leiv Eriksson rig was fitted with an upgraded blow out preventer last year and it was working under contract to Cairn Energy in Greenland prior to the campaign in the Falklands which has included two wells for Borders and Southern (LON:BOR).
FOGL highlighted that problems had been encountered by a previous operator, and a decision was made to bring the equipment to the surface in order to replace the failed component.