North Sea focussed EnQuest is cutting 25 staff and 20 contractor jobs because of the ongoing low oil price environment. EnQuest’s President Neil McCulloch said, “In so streamlining our operations, we are further strengthening EnQuest’s position, taking appropriate action to address its priorities in these market conditions.”

Weatherford International has announced about 6,000 job cuts for first-half 2016 as a steep drop in oil prices stifled drilling and exploration activity. The oilfield services provider, which had about 56,000 employees at year-end 2014, cut about 14,000 jobs in 2015. Weatherford has set capex of $300 million for this year, some 56% lower than its 2015 spending.

PA Resources has agreed to a deal to divest its portfolio of North Sea assets to Oman-headquartered Petrogas E&P. The sale includes the company’s 24% interest in licence 12/06 in Denmark, which holds the Broder Tuck (31/8) and Lille John (31/8) discoveries, as well as its exploration licences in the U.K., Germany and the Netherlands. The transaction, which is subject to regulatory approvals, is expected to close during first-quarter 2016.

Chevron has asked Wood group to continue supporting four U.K. North Sea assets. Wood Group PSN will deliver operations and maintenance services to the Alba Northern platform, Alba floating storage unit, Captain FPSO vessel and the Captain wellhead protector platform, under the one-year contract that extends an agreement in place since 2010. The contract will support more than 30 jobs.

From Houston (BN): In Mexico, Pemex has a new president. He is Joe Antonio Gonzalez Anaya, an MIT-educated engineer with a Harvard Ph.D. in economics. He previously headed Mexico’s Social Security Institute and worked for Mexico’s Treasury and for the World Bank. He replaces Emilio Lozoya, who resigned. Lozoya had held the job since late 2012 and had led Pemex as it struggled with energy reform opening Mexico’s energy sector to private investors and as it endured collapsed oil prices. Pemex has reported 12 straight quarterly losses.

Statoil reported a fourth-quarter adjusted operating profit of $1.78 billion, down 43% from a year earlier. It plans capital spending of about $13 billion this year. “The result in the fourth quarter is highly impacted by the weak commodity price. However, we continue to make strong progress on costs and efficiency. We are now further stepping up our improvement programme and tightening our capital and exploration expenditures. These are key elements in navigating the business during a period of low oil prices,” said President and CEO of Statoil Eldar Sætre.

McDermott has closed its business development office in Aberdeen. The company will continue to pursue European opportunities from its office in Epsom, Surrey. There have been no redundancies although 25 jobs went in Houston.

Petrobras announced a reduction in its proven reserves of oil, condensate and natural gas, attributing the decline mainly to divestitures and improved technical understanding of reservoirs’ potential. There were two sets of numbers, one according to Brazilian regulator standards and a second according to U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) standards. Using Brazil’s ANP/SPE standards, Petrobras said that as of Dec. 31, 2015, its proven reserves totalled 13.297 Bboe, down from 16.612 Bboe reported at year-end 2014. By SEC standards, Petrobras reported 10.516 Bboe at year-end 2015 compared with 13.141 Bboe at year-end 2014.

BP’s underlying replacement cost profit for the full year came in at $5.9 billion, compared with $12.1 billion reported for 2014, down 51%. The underlying result for the fourth quarter was $196 million compared with $2.2 billion for the fourth quarter of 2014. BP said it expects to reduce the number of staff and contractor roles in the upstream segment by about 4,000 during 2016 and by up to 3,000 from the downstream by year-end 2017.

Nobel Upstream has picked up a 7.59% non-operated interest in the U.K. North Sea Maclure (30/5) oil and gas field from Shell. Maclure—discovered in 1991 and put into production in 2002—is currently producing 8 Mboe/d and is operated by Maersk Oil. Maclure has been developed as a subsea tieback to the Gryphon FPSO located vessel 3 km to the west and also operated by Maersk. Maclure oil is comingled with Gryphon and exported by shuttle tanker. Nobel is owned by Azeri oil and gas entrepreneur Nasib Hasanov. The company has assets in Azerbaijan and the U.S.

A new oilfield services company, Ardyne, has been launched with £50 million (US$ 72 million) backing from Lime Rock Partners and has made its first acquisition. Headquartered in Aberdeen, Ardyne will specialize in the provision of downhole products and services for plug and abandonment and slot recovery operations in the global oil and gas sector. To accelerate its growth, Ardyne has acquired Wellbore, a Norwegian oil service company that is a leading provider of downhole tools for casing cutting and pulling.

Shell saw a steep fall in annual profits in 2015. Full-year 2015 earnings were $10.7 billion, compared with $22.6 billion in 2014. It made $1.8 billion for fourth-quarter 2015, compared with a $4.2 billion profit for the same period the year before. The company also confirmed it is cutting 10,000 jobs. Shell said it plans to cut operating costs by $3 billion this year.

Plexus Holdings has issued a major profit warning, stating annual results would be “very significantly” below expectations. Plexus, which develops wellheads, blamed the slump in oil prices for a slowdown in activity among its customers. In a trading update, the firm said revenues for the first half are expected to come in below £7 million (US$10 million), compared with £13.5 million (US$ 19.5 million) for the same period a year earlier. Second-half revenues are forecast to be about 20% lower than in the first six months of its financial year.

The European Commission has cleared the proposed merger of Schlumberger and Cameron without any conditions following a Phase 1 review. Merger clearance is now awaited from China towards the beginning of March.