At its annual investor meeting on March 9, Chevron Corporation announced plans to increase return on capital employed and lower carbon intensity to enable superior distributions to shareholders.

With delays and COVID-19 restrictions hampering oil and gas project timelines in 2020, 2021 is forecast to see a bump in both field starts and final investment decisions across the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region, says GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company. 

Crude Oil:

Shell has set out its strategy to accelerate its transformation into a provider of net-zero emissions energy products and services, powered by growth in its customer-facing businesses.

Aker ASA (“Aker”) has established Seetee AS (“Seetee”), a new company dedicated to investing in projects and companies throughout the Bitcoin ecosystem and which will keep all its liquid investable assets in bitcoin. Seetee is initially capitalized with NOK 500 million.

Energean plc has completed its acquisition of the 30% minority interest in Energean Israel Limited from Kerogen Investments No.38 Limited, an affiliate of Kerogen Capital ("Kerogen"). Energean now owns 100% of Energean Israel Limited.

Leading online valuation and data provider, VesselsValue, announces they are now covering Liftboats. 

While the global oil and gas industry witnessed a marginal decrease in the number of contracts, from 1,283 in Q3 2020 to 1,145 in Q4, there was an almost 28% increase in terms of value from $17.58bn to $22.55bn.

As of April 1, 2021, Damen Shipyards Group will start a specialized Financial Services division. This unit supports clients in the financing of new ships by means of both operational and financial lease constructions.

Chevron Technology Ventures, LLC (CTV) has announced the launch of its $300 million Future Energy Fund II focused on technologies that have the potential to enable affordable, reliable, and ever-cleaner energy for all.

February 16, 2021, marks the listing and first day of trading of shares of Technip Energies, a leading engineering & technology company, on compartment A of Euronext’s regulated market in Paris (ticker: TE).  

Following the release of BP’s Q4 2020 financial results, Daniel Rogers, Senior Oil and Gas Analyst at GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company, offers his view:

Offshore project commitments are expected to not only recover going forward, but their number is also set to reach a new record in the five-year period towards 2025, cumulatively almost 600 projects, a Rystad Energy report shows.

Global engineering and technology consultancy, Vysus Group, has completed its first acquisition following a strategic carve out from Lloyd’s Register at the end of 2020.  

 Professor David Elmes, Head of the Global Energy Research Network at Warwick Business School, said:

2020 will be remembered as one of the most challenging years in the history of the oil and gas sector.