Royal Dutch Shell has completed the sale of its upstream assets in Egypt's Western Desert to a consortium of independent E&P operators focused on revitalizing mature oil and gas fields, Cheiron Petroleum Corporation and Cairn Energy, both UK-based. Having received final government and regulatory approvals completing the sale, Shell said it will focus its Egyptian business on the offshore, including the West Delta Deep Marine (WDDM), the Harmattan Deep Project, and exploration acreage in seven new blocks in the Nile Delta, West Mediterranean, and the Red Sea, according to a 24 September news release. Shell's midstream focus will remain on its Egyptian LNG joint venture; downstream the company still retains Shell Lubricants Egypt. Shell subsidiaries Shell Egypt NV and its affiliate, Shell Austria GmbH, sold off the 13 onshore concessions in the Western Desert as well as Shell's share in the Badr El-Din Petroleum Company (Bapetco) to a consortium of Cheiron Petroleum and Cairn Energy for a base consideration of $646 million and additional payments of up to $280 million between 2021 and 2024, contingent on the oil price and the results of further exploration. Shell announced the sale on 9 March 2021 with a 1 January 2020 effective date when the economic interest moved to the sellers.

Michael Lynch has been analyzing energy markets for over four decades, including as a student and researcher at MIT. His work has been published in six languages and he is the author of 2016’s The Peak Oil Scare and the Coming Oil Flood. He served as president of the US Association for Energy Economics and is a Distinguished Fellow with the Energy Policy Research Foundation in Washington as well as president of Strategic Energy & Economic Research.

There is currently a groundswell of optimism about the prospects for battery electric vehicles (BEVs) to replace the internal combustion engine (ICE) in passenger transport, with stories about numerous countries proposing a ban on the sale of new oil-fueled cars and manufacturers planning to release multiple models as they transition to a new, all-electric future. Skeptics note that such enthusiasm is not new, and that many past companies and vehicles have excited proponents and the media while ultimately failing. The GM EV1, the Fisker, Solectria, Better Place, and others come to mind. But past failures are no guarantee of future failure, to invert the standard brokers' caveat. Wind and solar were not viable during the 1970s energy crises but are much more attractive now.

The UK's Oil & Gas Authority (OGA) has launched a £1-million (approximately $1.4-million) competition to advance widespread electrification of offshore installations on the UK Continental Shelf (UKCS). Most of these facilities are currently powered by gas or diesel. Organizers of the competition are looking for technical, engineering, and commercial studies that will move electrification projects a step closer to reality. The prize will be allocated among winning ideas to complete the proposed work by 31 March 2022. Key results from the studies will be published for others to benefit from and to build on the ideas generated.

Winners of the SPE Student Paper Contests were announced during the Student Awards Ceremony held during the 2021 SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition in Dubai recently. Below are the winners of the 2021 contests. He cited a recent study which identified 3,200 new startups in oil and gas and $1 billion investment funds in the top startups. "The industry is going through strong times in terms of capability," said Ben-Naceur while applauding all the participants as winners for "having shared their research with the wider oil and gas community."

Rockdale Marcellus Holdings LLC and Rockdale Marcellus LLC filed voluntary petitions for relief under Chapter 11 of the US Bankruptcy Code in the Western District of Pennsylvania on 21 September. The entities are seeking to have their cases jointly administered for procedural purposes. Rockdale Marcellus LLC was formed with the acquisition of Shell's operated Marcellus properties in Tioga, Lycoming, and Bradford counties in Pennsylvania in 2017. In 2020, the company purchased EOG Resources' Marcellus holdings. Rockdale Marcellus owns and operates roughly 66 producing wells on a contiguous acreage position of 48,000 gross acres with 100% working interest.

A pair of active water management players have completed separate deals to expand their individual offerings in the Permian Basin of west Texas. Lagoon Water Midstream has closed a deal to acquire Double Drop Resources, a water management company located in the Midland Basin. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed. With ongoing support from Macquarie Infrastructure Partners, the purchase expands Lagoon's operations and establishes it as a multibasin water management company with a presence in the heart of the Permian. Founded in 2017, Lagoon had previously operated only in the Anadarko Basin.

We know that predictive models developed by artificial-intelligence (AI) and machine-learning (ML) algorithms are based on data. And, because we know how this data is used to build AI-based models, the main target of AI ethics is addressing how AI models become biased based on the quality and the quantity of the data that is used. This first part of this two-part series discusses the nonengineering applications of AI and ML and how human biases such as racism and sexism can be included in AI models through the inclusion of biased data during the training of the algorithms. Because engineering applications of AI and ML are used to model physical phenomena, Part 2 of the series will discuss how AI ethics can determine and clarify how human biases of traditional engineers--assumptions, interpretations, simplifications, and preconceived notions--can be revealed in the engineering applications of AI and ML. Introduction The reasons nuclear weapons did not end up destroying our planet (at least so far) had much to do with worldwide treaties and agreements on how to handle nuclear bombs.

Los Angeles County supervisors voted unanimously recently to phase out oil and gas drilling in unincorporated parts of the nation's most populous county in what advocates hailed as a victory in a years-long movement for environmental justice. But thousands of derricks within city limits are unaffected by the new ordinance, and advocates say the fight is ongoing, with hopes that the vote will be a model for other places. "This decision is a huge deal because it can potentially impact a very large number of people," said Rachel Morello-Frosch, an environmental health scientist at the University of Berkeley, "and can also influence a statewide conversation about the regulation of upstream oil and gas production in California." Led by County Supervisor Holly Mitchell, who represents large portions of central and south Los Angeles, the motion sets the county on a path to shutter the roughly 1,600 active and idle oil and gas wells that span its unincorporated communities. Drilling the vast oil fields that sit below Los Angeles was the city's first big industry.

Egypt says it is stopping gas supplies to the Egypt Liquefied Natural Gas (ELNG) export terminal at Idku near Alexandria immediately and that it will supply gas to the Damietta LNG plant only until year end as it prepares to redirect surplus gas exports to Lebanon via the Arab Gas Pipeline. Jordan's Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources announced in early September it would deliver Egyptian gas to Lebanon after oil ministers of nations responsible for the Arab Gas Pipeline (Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon) met in Amman to agree on a regional response to Lebanon's ongoing fuel and electricity crisis, local media reported. Lebanon is in a state of economic collapse that the World Bank has called one of the worst on record, and, because it lacks foreign currency to pay for energy imports, the country was forced to switch off its two main power plants in July for lack of fuel, plunging the country into a near total blackout. US sanctions prohibiting transactions with the Syrian government had blocked earlier attempts to deliver Egyptian gas to Lebanon because the gas has to traverse Syrian infrastructure; likewise, electricity from Jordan flows to Lebanon through Syria. Washington now, however, appears to be willing to issuing waivers to facilitate transit of not only Egyptian gas but also electricity from Jordan; the US is also said to be leading talks to secure World Bank financing to enable Lebanon to pay for these imports, the international news outlet France 24 has reported.