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The UK's oil industry is in "crisis" as prices drop, a senior industry leader has told the BBC. Oil companies and service providers are cutting staff and investment to save money. Robin Allan, chairman of the independent explorers' association Brindex, told the BBC that the industry was "close to collapse". Almost no new projects in the North Sea are profitable with oil below $60 a barrel, he claims. "It's almost impossible to make money at these oil prices", Mr Allan, who is a director of Premier Oil in addition to chairing Brindex, told the BBC. "It's a huge crisis." "This...

The Cimbrian flood (or Cymbrian flood) was a large-scale incursion of the North Sea in the region of the Jutland peninsula (Denmark) in the period 120 to 114 BC, resulting in a permanent change of coastline with much land lost. The flood was caused by one or several very strong storm(s). A high number of people living in the affected area of Jutland drowned, and the flooding apparently set off a migration of the Cimbri tribes previously settled there (Lamb 1991)... The Cimbri were a tribe from Northern Europe, who, together with the Proto-Germanic Teutones and the Ambrones threatened the...

The Opec meeting of Nov. 27 brought new strategic thinking to Opec's deliberations and redirected its fixation away from short-term oil pricing toward greater commercial transparency and market-based commodity pricing. This was due in no small measure to Saudi Arabia's determination to eliminate ill-advised oil price manipulations and restore Opec's credibility as the price setting leader of international oil markets. This reality check became inevitable when Opec finally focused on the stark facts of a weak global economy and soft oil demand at a time of abundant oil supplies and inflated prices. The kingdom was forceful in advocating the reality...

Norway's Statoil said it has postponed a decision to invest 40 billion crowns ($5.74 billion) in a mature field, saying that it needed more time to refine the project as its profitability was under threat. Statoil said it would decide in October next year instead of March whether to go ahead with a new platform at the Snorre field in the Norwegian Sea as it hoped to cut costs and get more precise cost estimates. The project, which could squeeze another 240 million barrels of oil out of the field, has been in doubt due to high costs, and uncertainty...

Scotland’s oil and gas sector is facing a bright future as half of oil reserves remain to be exploited, the Scottish Government's Minister for Energy, Enterprise and Tourism Fergus Ewing said Wednesday, commenting on a new study. Earlier, world leading oil expert Professor Alex Kemp, by using detailed financial modelling, predicted significant discoveries in Scottish oil sector made over the next 30 years. “His new predictions – based on that modelling – show a bright future for Scotland’s oil and gas sector for decades to come – with 99 new economic discoveries over the next three decades,” Ewing told RIA...

As a specialist in prehistoric underwater archaeology, Dr Jonathan Benjamin looks at rising sea levels differently from most people and his fascination with this global phenomenon began when as a PhD candidate at Edinburgh University he came across the work of the Danish archaeologists Anders Fischer and Søren H Anderson. In the 1970s and 1980s, Fischer and Anderson recovered some of the most well preserved material ever seen from sites such as the 6,500-year-old settlement at Tybrind Vig. This was the first submerged settlement excavated in Denmark and from 1977 was the scene of intensive archaeological activity. Lying 300m from...

Lost world warning from North Sea By Sean Coughlan BBC News education How a homestead might have looked in the flooded area Archaeologists are uncovering a huge prehistoric "lost country" hidden below the North Sea. This lost landscape, where hunter gatherer communities once lived, was swallowed by rising water levels at the end of the last ice age. University of Birmingham researchers are heralding "stunning" findings as they map the "best-preserved prehistoric landscape in Europe". This large plain had disappeared below the water more than 8,000 years ago. Scientists at the University of Birmingham have been using oil exploration technology...

Divers have found traces of ancient land swallowed by waves 8500 years ago Doggerland once stretched from Scotland to Denmark Rivers seen underwater by seismic scans Britain was not an island - and area under North Sea was roamed by mammoths and other giant animals Described as the 'real heartland' of Europe Had population of tens of thousands - but devastated by sea level risesBritain's Atlantis' - a hidden underwater world swallowed by the North Sea - has been discovered by divers working with science teams from the University of St Andrews. Doggerland, a huge area of dry land that...

Scientists in Leiden, in the Netherlands, have unveiled the specimen -- a fragment from the front of a skull belonging to a young adult male. Analysis of chemical "isotopes" in the 30,000-60,000-year-old fossil suggest a carnivorous diet, matching results from other Neanderthal specimens... The Neanderthal frontal bone is the first known "archaic" human specimen to have been recovered from the sea bed anywhere in the world. It was found among animal remains and stone artefacts dredged up 15km off the coast of the Netherlands in 2001. The fragment was spotted by Luc Anthonis, a private fossil collector from Belgium, in...

LONDON (Reuters) - A pipeline carrying nearly half of Britain's oil was closed on Sunday as a strike over pensions began at the neighboring Grangemouth refinery in Scotland, operator BP said. The refinery, owned by international chemical company Ineos, produces a tenth of Britain's petrol and diesel but also supplies vital steam to BP's Kinneil plant that starts to process the crude oil coming ashore from 70 North Sea fields. Unions have rejected pleas to operate the steam plant at the level necessary to keep Kinneil functioning during the two-day stoppage which began at 6 a.m. (1 a.m. EDT)....

Palaeolithic Handaxes from the North Sea What are handaxes? Handaxes are stone tools that were used in the Ice Age. They were multi purpose tools, a bit like a modern Swiss army knife. Twenty-eight handaxes and some smaller pieces of flint (known as flakes) were found. The remains of mammoth, including tusk fragments and teeth, and fragments of deer antler were discovered at the same time. The discovery of the handaxes was reported through a scheme set up to report archaeological finds from the sea; the BMAPA Protocol. How old are they? We know that handaxes date to the Ice...

ABERDEEN, Scotland, Nov. 25 (UPI) -- Seven helicopters airlifted workers from a burning North Sea oil rig amid high winds northwest of Scotland Sunday. More than half of the 159 people on the remote Thistle Alpha platform had been airlifted to neighboring platforms several miles away, CNN reported. The burning rig is about 227 miles northwest of Aberdeen - "just about as remote as it gets," said British Royal Air Force spokesman Michael Mulford. The helicopters and one Nimrod aircraft flew from Norway, RAF stations, British Coast Guard stations, and other oil rigs to assist in the evacuation, Mulford told...

The Americans will be taking to the high seas off the Yorkshire coast this summer in search of their nautical "Holy Grail". Martin Hickes reports on an expensive obsession. THIS August, a flotilla of American scientists will mount a £175,000 expedition off Flamborough Head in search of a wreck, more than 200 years after it sank. Two US teams will plunge into the North Sea in search of the flagship of a Scottish captain, known to the Brits as little more than a pirate, but to the Americans as a hero of the American Revolution and the "Father of the...

ROSKILDE, Denmark - On the skipper's command, deckhands haul in tarred ropes to lower the flax sail. Oars splash into the water. The crew, grimacing with strain, pull with steady strokes sending the sleek Viking longship gliding through the fjord. A thousand years ago, the curved-prow warship might have spewed out hordes of bloodthirsty Norsemen ready to pillage and burn. This time, the spoils are adventure rather than plunder. The Sea Stallion of Glendalough is billed as the world's biggest and most ambitious Viking ship reconstruction, modeled after a warship excavated in 1962 from the Roskilde fjord after being buried...

A 4,500 tonne ship is adrift in the North Sea and heading for a gas platform. The vessel, named Vindo, broke down in very poor weather nine miles from the Murdoch gas platform. Coastguards said the ship, with nine crew on board and laden with 4,200 tonnes of fertiliser, was drifting towards the rig. Rescuers said it was a "race against time" to save lives. Michael Mulford, of RAF Kinloss, told Sky News there were nine people on the ship and 30 people still on the platform. He said: "We are planning to winch them off the ship two at...

London (ANTARA News) - A former World War II fort in the North Sea, which was settled 40 years ago and declared a state with its own self-proclaimed royal family, is up for sale, The Times said Monday. The tiny Principality of Sealand, which began life as Roughs Tower in 1941, is a 550 square metre (658 square yard) steel platform perched on two concrete towers 11 kilometres (seven miles) off the coast of Harwich, eastern England. It is accessible only by helicopter and boat but according to its owners, who want offers of eight digits or over, boasts...

SINGAPORE (AP) - Oil prices fell in Asian trading Tuesday after losing nearly US$2 a barrel in the previous session amid easing concerns about the possibility of more production cuts by OPEC members. The contract dropped 3 per cent overnight in New York as traders discounted threats of output cuts and focused on high U.S. oil product inventories. Despite reduced refinery runs, traders were expecting to see a build in U.S. gasoline and distillate stocks in weekly petroleum supply data released Wednesday by the U.S. Department of Energy. Light, sweet crude for November delivery dropped 11 cents to US$60.92 a...

Hamburg/Nigg 08/24/06 REpower 5M: Successful offshore premiere First erection of a REpower wind turbine on the open seaErection of second turbine for the "Beatrice" project to follow shortly Hamburg/Nigg, 24 August 2006. Successful offshore premiere for REpower Systems AG (Prime Standard, WKN 617703): For the first time, a REpower type 5M wind turbine has been set up on the open sea. In the Scottish North Sea, in the Moray Firth, the first of a total of two turbines for the "Beatrice" demonstrator wind farm has just been set up on a lattice-like jacket structure, piled to the seabed at a...

LONDON (Reuters) - Oil surged to a record high near $76 on Thursday on renewed worries over supply from major exporter Nigeria and as conflict between Israel and Hizbollah in Lebanon heightened international tensions. Prices also rose as the Iran nuclear row appeared to be heading to the U.N. Security Council, North Korea walked out of talks with South Korea and crude inventories in top oil consumer the United States fell more than expected. "Geopolitical risk is out of control," said Tony Nunan, a risk manager at Mitsubishi Corp. "There's a pipeline attack in Nigeria, Israel is taking a strong...

SINGAPORE - Crude oil prices retreated Monday as traders took profits following recent gains and amid easing worries about Iran's nuclear dispute after the country's top nuclear negotiator expressed optimism that the standoff can be resolved peacefully. Light, sweet crude for August delivery fell 37 cents to $73.72 a barrel in Asian electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The drop came after oil prices had climbed for most of the last two weeks, reaching an intraday record of $75.78 a barrel on Friday before settling back at $74.09. The Brent crude contract for August fell 27 cents to...