|
Vol. 232 No. 9
Drydocks World delivered the Arctic-ready seismic vessel Polarcus Selma to its owner, Dubai-based geophysical services company Polarcus. The eight-streamer 3D seismic vessel is built to the Ulstein SX133 design and is capable of towing both conventional and wide-tow spreads, including the company’s First Pass 3D configuration, which requires lateral streamer separations of 200 m. The SX133 design has an overall length of 84.2 m and a beam of 17 m. The vessel has a maximum speed of 17 knots and is capable of deploying up to eight streamers each of 6,000-m length, or six streamers each of 8,000-m length, with lateral streamer separations from 25 m and 200 m. The Polarcus Selma is designed to be an environmentally sound vessel, with diesel-electric propulsion, high-specification catalytic convertors, grounding avoidance systems, double hulls and advanced ballast water treatment/bilge water cleaning systems to prevent organic or inorganic contamination of the marine environment.
Russia’s Gazprom Neft has signed a production-sharing contract with Malaysia’s Petronas and Cuba’s Cubapetroleo for four blocks in the Gulf of Mexico offshore Cuba. Whereas Petronas previously held a 100% stake in the blocks, following the signing, Petronas will retain 70% while Gazprom Neft will acquire 30%. Spanish oil major Repsol YPF, in partnership with Statoil and ONGC, recently announced plans to begin drilling off the Cuban coast in November.
Noble Energy has signed definitive agreements with Consol Energy for the development of Consol’s Marcellus shale properties, which are estimated to contain 7.4 Tcfe of risked resources. Under the agreement, Noble will purchase a 50% interest in 663,350 net undeveloped acres, which lie in southwest Pennsylvania and northwest West Virginia, for $1.07 billion and will fund $2.13 billion of Consol’s future drilling and completion costs.
Halliburton has broken ground at the site of its new technology center at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro’s (UFRJ’s) Fundão Island campus in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The 76,000-sq-ft facility, which Halliburton is building as part of a 2010 cooperation agreement with UFRJ for the purpose of providing R&D projects in Brazil, will include specialized laboratories, a collaboration room, a testing area, and conference and training rooms.
National Oilwell Varco (NOV) has signed contracts to supply drilling equipment packages for seven drillships to Brazilian shipyard Estaleiro Atlantico Sul, including drilling riser and pressure control equipment. The value, over the term of the deliveries, is about $1.5 billion, the single largest order in NOV’s 150-year history. The drillships are the first of 28 new offshore rigs being built for Petrobras for its long-term drilling program focused on presalt development, and are expected to come into operation in 2015.
Aker Solutions has secured a contract with Murphy Oil to deliver a subsea production system for the Kikeh subsea expansion project off the coast of Sabah in East Malaysia. Kikeh, originally developed by Aker in 2006, was the first deepwater development in Malaysia. The scope of work includes the delivery of deepwater oil production equipment such as subsea trees, control modules distribution system and manifolds that will be installed at a water depth of 4,430 ft. The subsea hardware is expected to be on production in 2013.
Lukoil has awarded Baker Hughes a two-year contract to provide full drilling and completion services for 23 wells in West Qurna field in southeast Iraq, 31 miles west of Basra. Under the terms of the contract, Baker Hughes will provide engineering and project management for the turnkey drilling and completion scope of the project and will supply drilling services, formation evaluation, casing and tubing running services, completion tools and services, wellbore intervention services, wireline logging and perforation operations.
W&T Offshore has acquired Shell Offshore’s 64.3% interest in Fairway field In the Gulf of Mexico, along with a 64.3% interest in the associated Yellowhammer gas processing plant. The acquisition was part of a larger transaction between Shell and W&T for three Gulf of Mexico deepwater producing fields: Tahoe, Southeast Tahoe and Droshky. W&T estimates Fairway to hold proved reserves of 9.4 Bcf of gas and 2.5 million bbl of NGLs. The field is located in shallow state waters south of Mobile Bay, Alabama, and the Yellowhammer plant is located onshore Alabama about 17 miles northwest of the field.
ExxonMobil and Indonesia’s Pertamina have awarded the first of five engineering, procurement and construction contracts for work on major facilities at the Banyu Urip field development in Central Java, Indonesia. The $746.3 million EPC contract was awarded to the consortium of Tripatra Engineers & Construction and South Korea-based Samsung Engineering. Full field development is planned to produce 165,000 bpd from 49 wells on three well pads, via a central processing facility and a 60-mile pipeline to transfer the processed oil to a 1.7-million-bbl floating storage and offloading (FSO) unit in the Java Sea. Tankers will load crude oil from the FSO for transport to domestic and world markets. ExxonMobil is operator of the Cepu block with 45% interest. Pertamina holds 45%, and four local government companies hold the remaining 10%.
A. K. Hazarika, chairman of India’s Oil and Natural Gas Corp. (ONGC) announced that the company is in talks with BG Group, Eni and Shell to partner in developing 85 deepwater blocks in its Indian Ocean assets. Hazarika said the state-owned firm is looking for a partner with the technological expertise to exploit the country’s vast but untapped deepwater oil and gas reserves. ONGC is seeking to replicate the lucrative $7.2 billion deal struck in February between BP and Reliance Industries. Under that deal, BP will take a 30% stake in 23 production-sharing contracts operated by Reliance.
FloaTEC will conduct wave basin tests in September on its proprietary extendable-draft and deep-draft dry-tree semisubmersible concepts at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro’s Lab Oceano facility in Brazil. These tests follow successful wave basin tests at Papa Terra P-61 for the first dry-tree floating production system in Brazilian waters. The extended-draft concept will be tested for both Brazilian and Gulf of Mexico environments.
|
