Oil firms demanding better project deliver

Oil service companies will have to assume more risk in the coming years as investor pressure and a flat crude price make oil company clients push harder to avoid delays on megaprojects, the chief executive of FTSE 100 contractor Petrofac said, according to Reuters. The biggest oil companies have seen huge delays and broken budgets at projects ranging from record-breaking Australian liquefied natural gas (LNG) schemes to the enormous and technically challenging Kazakhstan oilfield in the freezing Caspian Sea. In contrast to the recent past, these delays and cost overruns are no longer being hidden by a rising oil price and top executives met at Davos earlier this year to debate the problem. Petrofac does much of its risk-sharing work with national oil companies.