Global offshore activity takes a dive

摘要

Justin Jacobs, BEIJING: This year has been the worst for new offshore oil and gas projects since 1999 as a focus on cost cutting from oil majors and slumping oil prices have put the brakes on projects around the world. Just 26 new projects have been sanctioned through the first nine months of 2014, less than half the number of projects that were given the green light in each of the last three years, when an average of 58 new projects were approved, according to data from Bernstein Research, an investment bank. Bernstein expects around 39 projects, holding around 9.6 billion barrels of oil equivalent (boe), in total to be sanctioned by the end of the year, around the same number approved during the worst of the economic crisis in 2008 and 2009.