BP PLC (LSE:BP.) chief executive officer Bernard Looney saw his annual salary rise to around £10mln last year.
This marks more than a 100% increase from the £4.5mln the oil giant’s boss took home the year before.
88 Energy Ltd (AIM:88E, ASX:88E, OTC:EEENF) has now begun drilling the hotly anticipated Hickory-1 exploration well on Alaska’s North Slope.
The well, located on a site in a licence adjacent to Pantheon Resources discoveries, is targeting six potential reservoir zones for a combined prospective target of some 647mln barrels of oil.
A pair of exploration stocks were in focus on Thursday as an independent report bolstered the prospectivity for project in the waters off South Africa, in the neighbourhood of major new hydrocarbon discoveries.
Africa Oil Corp (TSX:AOI) leads the project and is operator, whilst London AIM-quoted Eco (Atlantic) Oil & Gas Ltd (AIM:ECO, TSX-V:EOG) retains 25% of the venture.
Pantheon Resources named David Hobbs as an independent non-executive director, effective 21 March 2023.
The AIM-quoted oil and gas company said Hobbs graduated as a petroleum engineer from Imperial College in 1984, initially starting his career as a drilling engineer at British Gas.
Africa Oil Corp (TSX:AOI) told investors that an independent review of the company's prospective resources has been completed as it prepares for environmental impact surveys of its oil prospects offshore Namibia ahead of possible drilling in 2024.
The company noted that the review was completed by RISC Advisory (UK) Limited in accordance with Canadian National Instrument 51-101 – Standards for Oil and Gas Activities (NI 51-101), the Canadian Oil and Gas Evaluation Handbook, and the Petroleum Resources Management System (PRMS) 2018.
Harbour Energy PLC (LSE:HBR) said it plans to expand outside the UK after the windfall tax “all but wiped out” its profits for last year, though it still churned out piles of cash to increase shareholder returns and slash debt.
While profit after tax fell to US$8mln from US$101mln, the company still generated US$2.1bn of free cash flow, up from US$0.7bn a year earlier and guidance of US$1.8-2bn in August, after shelling out US$0.9bn of capital expenditure and US$551mln on tax payments.
Eco (Atlantic) Oil & Gas Ltd (AIM:ECO, TSX-V:EOG)'s hand in its farm-out process offshore South Africa has strengthened significantly as a new independent review of Block 3B/4B has confirmed an exploration hotspot and potential for dramatic discoveries.
The new competent person's report (CPR) authored by consultant RISC Advisory, commissioned by project operator Africa Oil, estimated prospective resources in the order of some 4bn barrels of oil equivalent (boe).
Zephyr Energy PLC (AIM:ZPHR, OTCQB:ZPHRF) told investors that it has now finalised its planning for the completion and production testing of the State 36-2 well, which is part of the Paradox project in Utah.
It comes after Zephyr in January reported that the well had intersected a major natural fracture network in the Cane Creek reservoir leading to a significant influx of hydrocarbons into the wellbore.
Chariot Ltd (AIM:CHAR, OTC:OIGLF) told investors it has now completed the Front-End Engineering and Design (FEED) on the key components of its flagship Anchois gas development project, offshore Morocco.
Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) commercial proposals have now been requested, it added.
Challenger Energy Group PLC (AIM:CEG, OTC:BSHPF) said it entered into a formal agreement for the sale of the Cory Moruga licence in Trinidad after the buyer, Predator Oil & Gas Holdings PLC (LSE:PRD), completed due diligence.
Terms of the deal remain unchanged from the original sale agreement announced in December.
Predator Oil & Gas Holdings PLC (LSE:PRD) shares were on the backfoot in Tuesday morning’s deals after the company gave investors insight into the bureaucracy involved in obtaining explosives through Casablanca.
The company seeks to stimulate and then test its reservoirs within the Guercif project area onshore Morocco, though it is presently engaged more in paperwork to get the green light from the authorities.
San Leon Energy PLC (AIM:SLE, AQSE:SLE, OTC:SLGYF) has acknowledged an emerging story in Nigeria where it is claimed the company’s associate Eroton Exploration & Petroleum has been removed as the operator of the OML 18 asset.
The company told investors that it has been made aware of a statement on the website of the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company which indicates that the non-operating partners of OML 18, NNPC and OML 18 Energy Limited have removed Eroton as operator of OML 18 on the basis of, amongst other things, zero production from the field at present.
88 Energy Ltd (AIM:88E, ASX:88E, OTC:EEENF) has put its excitable investor base on notice with a social media post telling them that the spudding of the Hickory-1 exploration well is now imminent.
It shared an image of the mobilisation of the Nordic Calista Rig 2 at the Hickory-1 well location, part of 88 Energy’s Project Phoenix, and said that the rig is now “all set ahead of the imminent spud”.
Europa Oil & Gas (Holdings) PLC (AIM:EOG) told investors it has published a third-party report which details the results of a study calculating the emissions associated with the development of a future 1 trillion cubic feet indigenous gas discovery in Ireland, within the company’s offshore Licence FEL 4/19.
It is independently researched by consultant ‘sustain:able’, which specialises in forecasting greenhouse gas emissions associated with the upstream oil and gas industry.
BP plc US chair David Lawler has shot back at claims that the British energy giant is abandoning its transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy, despite scaling back its climate goals after delivering record annual profits for 2022.
Lawler told the Financial Times over the weekend that BP’s transitional strategy “has not changed at all”.
Over a thousand offshore UK oil and gas workers have backed proposals for public ownership of production facilities, as part of a host of demands they say would benefit the public.
Workers called for better conditions, pay and training, alongside a “fairer” energy system that would see profits placed in the hands of the public and boost renewable production, responding to a survey from climate group Friends of the Earth Scotland.
Touchstone Exploration Inc (AIM:TXP, TSX:TXP, OTC:PBEGF) has shared with investors details of its annual reserves statement, confirming a 33% increase in PDP (proved developed producing) following its advancement of the Ortoire block discoveries in 2022.
The company had 4.8mln barrels of PDP reserves at the end of December 2022, representing a 308% rate of reserves replacement as the Coho field came online. The reserves statement valued PDP reserves at US$62.6mln.
Genel Energy PLC (LSE:GENL, OTC:GEGYY) told investors it has received a total of US$33mln of net payments for oil sales from the Tawke PSC for the month of September 2022.
The company, in a statement, noted that oil sales for September 2022 were priced by the Kurdish authorities using a new pricing formula based on the realised sales price for Kurdistan blend crude during the delivery month, rather than on dated Brent as it was previously.
TomCo Energy PLC (AIM:TOM, OTC:TMCGF) told investors that its subsidiary Greenfield Energy has extended the deadline of its option deal to acquire the Tar Sands Holdings II LLC property in Utah.
The new deadline is set at 5 April 2023, extended from 28 February.
Pantheon Resources PLC (AIM:PANR, OTC:PTHRF) told investors that the Alkaid-2 well, which has returned to test production, supports the case for a commercial development of the project in Alaska.
The well has now been in production since 21 February under test conditions and has been yielding some 505 barrels of oil per day of liquid hydrocarbons (180 barrels oil, 325 barrels condensate and natural gas liquids) plus 2.3mln cubic feet per day of gas.