NORTH Sea heavyweight Premier Oil has provided fresh evidence the fortunes of oil and gas producers are improving.
With the company on track to bring the giant Catcher field east of Aberdeen onstream next month, Premier expects to start generating increasingly large amounts of cash from its operations off Scotland.
On Wednesday BP confirmed plans to return around $1.6 billion more to shareholders annually after doubling third quarter profits to $1.9bn.
Both have noted the boost to their earning power provided by the partial recovery in oil prices since Opec members agreed to act to support the market last November.
They are benefitting from efficiencies achieved through the use of modern technology on big new fields. The increase in profitability also reflects measures taken to cut costs following the sharp fall in the crude price since 2014.
Retrenchment moves by operators s have posed huge challenges for firms across the supply chain and been accompanied by thousands of job losses.
There is little sign life has got easier for services firms recently. Aberdeen well technology firm Plexus said yesterday it had cut more jobs in the year to June when revenues plunged.
With the North Sea still seen as a relatively costly place to work in, conditions are unlikely to improve any time soon.
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