Bugs In The System Irk Oil Industry
Details of the methods used to steal secrets in the European industry emerged after five of the world's largest oil companies -- Exxon, Mobil, Shell, British Petroleum and Statoil - admitted they had formed a security team to combat theft of confidential information.
Industry executives say recent structural changes to the North Sea oil industry may have inadvertently created opportunities for corrupt procurement practices to take hold by increasing the amount of work contracted beyond the direct control of the oil companies.
In recent years service groups have assumed a more extensive role in the North Sea oil and gas industry, performing many of the routine operational tasks on offshore platforms traditionally carried out by oil company staff.
In some cases oil companies have even handed over to the service groups the management of large field development programmes, along with budgets of millions of dollars.
The service groups also select key sub-contractors. As such they too have become targets for criminal groups seeking commercially sensitive information.
On Thursday Harald Norvik, managing director of Statoil, the Norwegian state oil company, said international criminal networks were trying to infiltrate oil companies in search of secret information. Middlemen, known as information brokers'', will then offer the illicitly obtained material to contractors as a way to clinch deals often worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
The broker charges the buyer a commission that is usually worth two or three per cent of the final contract value, although oil companies say some commissions have been as high as 50 per cent.
In such cases the brokers will help their clients'' to arrange ways in which the terms of the contracts can be changed or inflated.
Five of the world's largest oil companies have set up a special security team in London to identify the full extent of the threat.
Millions of dollars are thought to pass hands, but there are no accurate estimates of the extent of such bribes and payoffs .
Exxon, co-ordinating the security effort, said companies which resist overtures are