Oil and Gas Industry

CMB.TECH and Golden Ocean merge in $1.5-billion deal

Under the agreement, initially announced on April 22, 2025, Golden Ocean will merge into CMB.TECH Bermuda, a wholly-owned CMB.TECH subsidiary, with Golden Ocean shareholders receiving 0.95 CMB.TECH shares for each Golden Ocean share. Upon completion, CMB.TECH will issue approximately 95 million new shares and, following the transaction, CMB.TECH shareholders will own around 70% of the combined company.

Wood Secures $2B of Contract Awards Across APAC in Last 12 Months

Wood noted in that statement that it will provide maintenance services and shutdown support to optimize operational performance of the Gippsland Basin Joint Venture’s offshore assets in the Bass Strait and the Longford and Long Island Point facilities. The company highlighted in that statement that the Bass Strait is the largest single source of natural gas for the domestic market in Australia and pointed out that it supplies approximately 40 percent of the country’s east coast demand.

NesmaKent Bags PMC Contract from Aramco

Kent said this initiative will significantly enhance project value by streamlining the transition from the Design Basis Scoping Paper to the Front-End Engineering Design (FEED) stage. This integrated approach reduces traditional bidding periods, enabling earlier planning and execution of critical activities, which in turn boosts scheduling efficiency and accelerates project delivery, it said.

Aramco Raises $5 Billion in Dollar-Bond Sale

The company’s net debt rose to the highest in almost three years during the first quarter as it spends tens of billions of dollars on operations and a massive dividend amid softened oil prices. Aramco’s gearing ratio – a measure of its indebtedness – of 5.3 percent is far below that of most other oil majors, giving the firm room for increased borrowing.

Oil Slips Despite Easing Trade Tensions

Crude briefly flipped to positive earlier in the session after CNN said fresh penalties on Moscow may be announced in the coming days, potentially bolstering the risks to crude supplies in one of the world’s largest producers. US President Donald Trump said he’s considering new sanctions against Russia after large drone attacks on Ukraine in recent days.

B.C. Port Seeks to Draw More Tanker Traffic

The port of Vancouver last year saw a surge in petroleum cargo flows thanks to the completed expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline. The expansion tripled the pipeline’s capacity, boosting oil flows from the east to the west. Earlier this year, Canadian media reported that the port handled a record amount of goods in 2024 thanks to the surge in oil exports. These exports alone soared by 527%.

Refiners Expect Saudi Arabia to Cut Oil Price

The reason for these expectations is the decision by OPEC+ to keep returning supply to the market. OPEC+ is meeting later today and most observers appear to have assumed it will announce yet another monthly hike of 411,000 barrels daily for July. It is this expected hike that, according to the Reuters refining sources, will drive lower prices for Saudi oil.

Elon Musk Says Oil Is “Small-Time”

The statement from Musk, however, doesn’t mean that fossil fuels are irrelevant. Musk warned in 2022 that the world would need to continue extracting oil and gas lest civilization start to crumble. “Realistically, I think we need to use oil and gas in the short term because otherwise, civilization will crumble,” adding that the transition to sustainable energy would “take some decades to complete.”