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US companies began selling crude oil on the international market last month shortly after the US Congress ended the country’s 40-year-old ban on oil exports.

Dan K. Adamson, who guided SPE for more than 2 decades as its executive director and helped transform it into a leading international technical-professional association, died 26 December. He was 76.

Plunging oil prices led to a drastic drop in drilling rigs working in most places in the world, with a notable exception. Baker Hughes’ widely watched weekly report on drilling rigs shows activity has remained steady in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East.

Petroleum engineers have sophisticated, precise equations to help predict and control what flows out of wells. But when it comes to the number of trained engineers in the world, guesswork is required.

Those who track drilling and fracturing equipment are apt to mention zombies. That is the living-dead machinery still counted as available to work, but more likely now to be used for spare parts or scrapped.

During a protracted period of depressed prices in E&P, the customer focus for service companies and suppliers shifts to finding ways to reduce the cost of producing a barrel of oil.

Pressure is growing this year for exploration and production (E&P) companies to “face the reality of a prolonged period of low prices,” said Alan Cunningham, technical director for Gaffney, Cline & Associates.

The impact on workers from the global downturn is so large it is difficult to track. At the high end of the job loss estimates is John Graves, owner of Graves & Co., who estimated the number of jobs lost in the oil and gas industry at more than 250,000 at year end, and rising.

Whether using internal expertise or outside consultants, projects and initiatives can go awry due to cultural issues and bad management advice. This can have implications for many aspects of a business, including process safety.

More than 45% of energy companies fell victim to at least one cyberattack in 2014, a higher percentage than in any other corporate sector. With constant hacking threats, companies must develop strong cybersecurity strategies.