What does diversity look like at Saudi Aramco?

US Job Numbers Up for OFS and Equipment Industry, But Outlook Remains Unclear The increase in OFS and equipment sector jobs over the past 2 months came amid higher oil and gas production. But increases in COVID-19 cases are causing uncertainty about when and how much demand will rise. Texas Regulator To Place New Limits on Allowable Flaring Oil and gas producers in the state are being asked to submit data and economic analysis on why they cannot sell natural gas before they are granted permission to flare it. UAE Has Become World’s Newest Producer of Unconventional Gas The first delivery of shale gas in the UAE marks a major milestone toward its goal of reaching 1 Bcf/D by 2030. It also signals the expansion of hydraulic fracturing in the UAE’s conventional fields.

In the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the oil and gas industry, regulators, and other stakeholders recognized the need for increased collaboration and data sharing to augment their ability to better identify safety risks and address them before an accident occurs. The SafeOCS program is one such collaboration between industry and government. It is a voluntary confidential reporting program that collects and analyzes data to advance safety in oil and gas operations on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). The US Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) established the program with input from industry and then entered into an agreement with the US Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) to develop, implement, and operate the program. As a principal statistical agency, BTS has considerable data-collection-and-analysis expertise with near-miss reporting systems for other industries and the statutory authority to protect the confidentiality of the reported information and the reporter’s identify. Source data submitted to BTS are not subject to subpoena, legal discovery, or Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.

In this 27 November 2007 file photo, a rough-legged hawk feeds on a rodent in a field near Great Falls, Montana. Down to its final weeks, the Trump administration is working to push through dozens of environmental rollbacks that could weaken century-old protections for migratory birds, expand Arctic drilling, and hamstring future regulation of public health threats. Down to its final weeks, the Trump administration is working to push through dozens of environmental rollbacks that could weaken century-old protections for migratory birds, expand Arctic drilling, and hamstring future regulation of public health threats. The pending changes, which benefit oil and gas and other industries, deepen the challenges for President-elect Joe Biden, who made restoring and advancing protections for the environment, climate, and public health a core piece of his campaign. The proposed changes cap 4 years of unprecedented environmental deregulation by President Donald Trump, whose administration has worked to fundamentally change how federal agencies apply and enforce the Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, and other protections.

A polar bear sow and two cubs are seen on the Beaufort Sea coast within the 1002 Area of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in this undated handout photo provided by the US Fish and Wildlife Service Alaska Image Library on 21 December 2005. The Trump administration on Thursday proposed to loosen Obama-era safety regulations for the oil industry in the Arctic Ocean off Alaska to ease the way for petroleum extraction in the region, an effort that President-elect Joe Biden will likely throw out once in office. The proposal would revise a suite of Obama-era rules crafted to improve safety in the extreme conditions of the Arctic after a Shell drilling rig ran aground in the Gulf of Alaska in 2012. The company later abandoned oil exploration in the Arctic, and there are no active drilling operations there. Now, much of the US portion of the Arctic Ocean—the Chukchi Sea and part of the Beaufort Sea—is off-limits to new oil and gas leasing under a 2019 judge’s order that overturned President Donald Trump’s effort to open vast areas of the Arctic and Atlantic oceans to oil leasing.

The United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) chief energy regulator has announced that the country holds a substantial volume of newly discovered unconventional resources as it approved a 5-year spending plan for the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC). The Supreme Petroleum Council, which also serves as ADNOC’s board of directors, placed the estimated reserves of unconventional oil within the Emirate of Abu Dhabi at 22 billion bbl, according to a government news release on 22 November. The figure would place the UAE’s tight reservoir potential on par with that of some of the biggest plays in North America. The government also said that an additional 2 billion bbl of reserves was also recently discovered, raising the UAE’s total conventional reserve estimate to 107 billion bbl. Both the conventional and unconventional estimates were independently verified by Houston-based reserves specialist Ryder Scott.

New Mexico’s state treasurer is calling on state environmental regulators to close loopholes in proposed rules aimed at reducing emissions of methane and other pollutants from the oil and natural gas industry. State Treasurer Tim Eichenberg confirmed that he has joined with a long list of socially responsible investment groups that are citing gaps in proposed regulations from the Environment Department and the state Energy, Minerals, and Natural Resources Department. They outlined their position in a letter sent to Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham. Lujan Grisham’s administration has said New Mexico stands to have some of the most expansive rules for addressing methane and other emissions from the oil and gas industry after many meetings with industry experts and environmentalists. The draft rules released by the environment department target oil and natural gas equipment that emit volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides.

The Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) announced that it has completed the first phase of its large-scale multiyear predictive maintenance project, which aims to maximize asset efficiency and integrity across its upstream and downstream operations. ADNOC says its predictive maintenance platform uses artificial intelligence (AI) technologies such as machine learning and digital twins, ADNOC’s to help predict equipment stoppages, reduce unplanned equipment maintenance and downtime, and increase reliability and safety. The company said it expects use of the platform to result in maintenance savings of up to 20%. The predictive maintenance project, which was announced in November 2019, is being implemented over four phases. ADNOC’s predictive maintenance project is part of the company’s digital acceleration program, which focuses on embedding advanced digital technologies across the company’s operations.