Dragon Oil has three drilling rigs operating in the Cheleken Contract Area of the Turkmen sector of the Caspian Sea, with Land Rig 2 expected to start drilling before mid-year.

Tracerco, part of the FTSE 100 Johnson Matthey PLC, has won a patent for its oil and gas flow measurement technology, which allows empirical measurement of hydrocarbon flow from individual stages in a well.

The Total-operated Saphir-1XB exploration well on block CI-514 has proved the presence of liquid hydrocarbons in the deep offshore west of Ivory Coast.

An exploration well has spudded on the Muridava prospect in the Romanian sector of the Black Sea, according to operator Sterling Resources.

Shell has reported an exploration discovery offshore Malaysia. The Rosmari-1 well is located 135 km (443 mi) offshore Malaysia in block SK318, and was drilled to TD of 2,123 m (6,965 ft).

Production has been shut down at the Breagh facilities in the UK southern North Sea to remove fouling within the slug catchers and to replace level control instrumentation.

Drilling is under way on exploration well FAN-1 offshore Senegal, in which FAR Ltd. (ASX: FAR) holds a 15% interest.

PA Resources is close to finalizing a target for the Elyssa 4 appraisal well offshore Tunisia.

Cameron has received an order from Freeport-McMoRan Oil & Gas to supply a 25,000-psi blowout preventer stack and 25,000-psi manifold.