"New" North Sea Oil Exploration Licences

[marcr]

Is anyone able to shed some light on the possible impact of the September licence issues on future job prospects? I'm sure that I'm not the only "North Sea Wannabe" to have had my hopes raised by the "biggest licence issue for four decades". No doubt the ensuing tendering processes etc are somewhat lengthy, but some sense of anticipated numbers and timescale would be very useful and much appreciated.

Also, with the issue of the Frontier Licences and further exploration of the area west of Shetland, is there likely to be any change, or increase, in the locations of operating bases ?

[Night Watchman]

I wouldn't get too excited about this. The licences can run for years with very little activity in the areas that they cover. Also there is a shortage of drilling rigs and helicopters in the North Sea so any exploration will either be very expensive or won't happen for a few years.

For example, oil companies have had licences to drill West of the Outer Hebrides for many years and to my knowledge there has only been two occasions in the last 10 or so years that they have and that was only for a few months at a time.

With regard to operating bases I doubt there would be any change. I believe Bristow and their EC225 will/is servicing a rig off Swansea direct from Aberdeen so if a rig off Wales can be serviced via an existing operating base in Scotland I can't imagine any new ones. Also setting up an operating base is an expensive exercise with a huge range of considerations from immersion suit/life jacket maintenance and storage, security, engineering/stores, customs/immigration, computer links etc. etc..

[Helinut]

The general NW Europe offshore picture is of reducing need for helicopters. The sector is in irrevocable decline, if you look over the period of a flying career. The only question is how rapid that decline will be. Most new developments are being done as tiebacks to existing installations. New platforms require fewer offshore workers, by design. All this means fewer people need to go offshore.

The major oil companies are looking to other parts of the world to satisfy the demand for $50+ per barrel liquid gold, and the equally important demand for natural gas.

Drilling exploration is likely to involve short-term blips in demand for helicopters.

Obviously, if lots of experienced offshore pilots go plank, spaces may become available in the short term. I understand that the main offshore helicopter operators have little slack - others will have more direct experience than me of this.

[marcr]

Thank-you both for your replies, much appreciated. Would it be possible to elaborate ?

Given the increase in oil prices, and the government's revenue raising enthusiasm for further North Sea exploration, I was imagining the potential drive towards increasing the available infra-structure. Especially as the rental charges for the drilling rigs appear to have increased so significantly. If, however, the trend should more correctly be seen as a slowing of the decline in production from this area, would you anticipate that new contracts would be served more or less from existing capacity ? But how does that square with the shortage of helicopters ?

Presumably it is the oil companies who mobilise the provision of extra exploration / production resources. And I'm guessing that they would be in discussion with their potential service providers regards viability etc. Are these discussions taking place ? Do you think it likely that the operators might increase their capacity in order to anticipate, and thus take advantage of, any ad hoc requirements ?