The rumours of Shell buying BG GROUP have been floating around for so long - the first time may have been as along as 20 years ago - that they now fall in the category of industry legend.

The recommended deal, valued at £47bn which creates an enlarged company put at £180bn, gives Shell some opportunities, as well as some headaches. The upside is that BG has some very good assets on its books and very solid cashflow which was one reason Shell moved on this deal. On the downside, it will have to decide how to deal with the structural problems in Egypt as well as dealing with the current political and legal issues facing Petrobras in Brazil. Certainly, the projects down in Rio will offer lots of scope for Shell’s deepwater team - if Petrobras actually listens to other companies’ ideas.

And, of course, the big winners here will be separate from the participants. The advisers to BG and Shell are said to have earned upwards of $100mn for their sage words, while BG ceo Helge Lund, only recently on the scene, could earn upwards of £25mn, partly from share options, for a very short period at the helm. Nice work if you can get it.

From the North Sea (NT): Norwegian consultant Rystad Energy sees ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ for the beleaguered OIL SERVICE SECTOR, forecasting an upturn in its fortunes at end 2016. That is more optimistic than the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate’s prognosis of 2018 before improvement kicks in.

It acknowledges that four developments have been delayed – Johan Castberg, Snorre 2040, Tommeliten Alpha and Vette (ex-Bream) - and that investments of more than NOK100bn ($12.5bn) have been postponed until after 2020. On the plus side, there are upcoming projects on Johan Sverdrup, Maria, Zidane, Snadd and Rutil (which has just been approved), as well as hook-up and commissioning on Martin Linge, Aasta Hansteen and Gina Krog.

It also expects falling rig rates to give impetus to development drilling on Troll, Gullfaks and the Åsgard area. It sees the service market declining 2% in 2016 on top of a 12% fall this year, before gaining 5-6% annually in 2017-2020. It’s been worse in the past - between 1998 and 2000, the market plummeted by no less than 23%.

From the editor: The Norwegians do like a nice bit of optimism, but this year could hardly be more dire. Only this week, the ONS Foundation which organises the biannual ONS event announced the cancellation of its between years event ONS Norway, an exhibition planned for 17-19 August, as a result of too few companies signing up to take stand. This must be a first for Norway.

From Australia (RW): Woodside Petroleum has completed its $2.8bn acquisition of APACHE CORP’S Australian LNG and oil assets. A related $854mn deal for the company’s Canadian interests is expected to be closed this week.

Woodside will now emerge as a 13% partner in the Chevron-operated Wheatstone (31/22) gas-to-LNG project which is nearly 60% completed and due onstream late next year. The deal also provides Woodside with an immediate increase in production via Apache’s 65% stake in the Julimar-Brunello fields that will supply gas to the Wheatstone project and a 65% stake in the producing nearby Balnaves oil field on the North West Shelf.

Apache is also in negotiations for the sale of most of the remainder of its petroleum interests in Western Australia that include interests in the Varanus Island oil and gas hub and the Devil Creek gas processing hub, along with fields such as Van Gogh, Coniston and Pyrenees (oil) plus the Halyard, Macedon, Stag and Reindeer gas fields.

Later this year, it will drill the Roc-1 wildcat to follow its success in the Phoenix South-1 (31/12) oil find in the offshore Bedout sub-basin.

From the editor: As SEN went to press today (Thursday), Apache announced a deal to sell off the remainder of its Australian upstream assets for $2.1bn to a consortium of private equity funds, managed by Macquarie Capital Group.

This gives balance to Apache’s strategy to focus on its US onshore assets - it has sold assets worth $17bn and acquired others for a similar amount.

Subsea UK’s raison d’etre is to support the subsea sector here. To wit, it has launched SubseaIntel, an online database to help British companies take advantage of opportunities on the world market.

As a significant number of its members are SME’s - that is, small to medium sized firms - this service is meant to provide market info to those who cannot afford to buy such background data from specialist companies, such as Infield, Quest Offshore, Douglas Westwood, Petrodata, et al. In fact, according to Subsea UK chief executive Neil Gordon, introducing companies to SubseaIntel’s ‘high level’ data could make firms more interested in market information and send them in search of more detailed material from the specialists. Sounds like ‘win-win’.

HALLIBURTON said this week that it will sell off a number of existing specialist drilling services, ie directional drilling and logging-measurement while drilling, while it awaits final regulatory approval of its acquisition of Baker Hughes (SEN, 31/21)...CORTEZ SUBSEA has signed an exclusive agreement with Oceancare Corp of Malaysia to provide the use of its modular pipelay system...SUBSEA MASTERS is setting up a rig repair and maintenance facility in the Canary Islands to service the West Africa market...Saipem has formed a joint venture with the DANGOTE GROUP to provide engineering and construction services in the Nigerian and other central and west African markets.

THE EZRA GROUP has weathered the current rocky times and reported revenue slightly down, but EBITDA up (10%) from the same period last year. Its backlog is $2.3bn running through the next two years and it is anxiously awaiting the first operations of its newbuild SURF vessel Lewek Constellation.

SBM OFFSHORE has denied rumours that it has agreed a $1.7bn settlement figure with authorities in Brazil over alleged bribes and corruption. It said talks are ongoing. Meanwhile, PETROBRAS has secured a $3.5bn credit facility from China Development Bank Corp.

Ben Charbit has been named vice-president, marketing and technology, with OneSubsea. Charbit moves over from Schlumberger and takes the seat of Justin Rounce who has been named chief technology officer and veep for marketing with Cameron.

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