February 2000 Vol. 221 No. 2  Production

Perry A. Fischer,  Engineering Editor

First Nova Scotia gas; a bad month for spills

First gas from Nova Scotia’s $2-billion Sable Offshore Energy Project made it to the Boston, Massachusetts area in early January. The gas was shipped through the 660-mi pipeline that runs from the processing plant in Goldsboro, Nova Scotia to Dracut, Massachusetts.

In the first few days, production has ranged from 50–100 MMcfd. Production should further increase to 400 MMcfd by March, as six more wells are brought online. Within a year, production will exceed 500 MMcfd, as lateral gas lines in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick are completed.

John Brannan, general manager of Sable Island Energy, Inc., said, "These results are very positive and far surpass what we had hoped for at the beginning of the project. These wells are world-class producers of high-quality, sweet natural gas." The project came in on budget in less than two years.

Sable Offshore Energy, Inc., comprises ExxonMobil (50.8%), Shell (31.3%), Imperial Oil Resources (9%), Nova Scotia Resources (8.4%) and Mosbacher (0.5%).

A bad month for spills. Three significant oil spills recently occurred. The Erika, a 24-year-old tanker broke in two about 33 mi off France’s Brittany Coast on December 12, spilling about 3–8 million gal – depending on who’s counting – of heavy fuel oil. Cause of the breakup is unknown, but the ship’s captain, Krun Mather, was arrested and detained in France.

The ship is owned by Tevere Shipping and managed by Panship Management and Services. TotalFina chartered the ship but denied any responsibility. However, the company made their oil-spill response team available. By the International Fund for Animal Welfare’s (IFAW) count, about 50,000 seabirds had been recovered by January 21. In a massive effort to save as many as possible, local volunteers and the IFAW are hand-caring for about 9,000 birds still alive.

As expected, the environmentalists were upset. Greenpeace protesters dumped dead, oil-coated seabirds at TotalFina’s headquarters. French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin indicated that France will use its presidency of the European Union to seek tighter international regulation on oil tankers.

Another spill occurred on January 5 in Turkey at the mouth of the Bosporus strait, releasing about 260,000 gal of fuel oil. The Russian oil tanker Volganeft 248 ran aground in heavy winds. The vessel split in two and the bow portion sank. The stern section was tethered to shore and remained afloat. If all goes well, the stern can be repaired well enough to allow the remaining fuel to be offloaded.

Istanbul’s shoreline was covered by the heavy oil as workers tried to initiate cleanup operations. The accident highlights the Turkish government’s concerns about overcrowding of the straits. It was one of the main reasons for choosing an overland pipeline route for exporting Caspian crude.

Brazil’s Guanabara Bay, located near Rio de Janeiro, suffered a pipeline rupture on January 18, spilling 338,000 gal of crude over 16 sq mi. The slick spread through Guapimirim and Jequia mangrove swamps, which are protected spawning grounds. Hundreds of volunteers worked nonstop to clean the beaches and save wildlife.

Petrobras’ President Henri Reichstul fired the company’s corporate and environmental affairs directors. Reichstul held them responsible for the corrosion that caused the pipeline to burst, as well as the faulty software that allowed the leak to continue unnoticed for several hours.

New DOE/UPR gas play. To help meet U.S. gas demand, the DOE helped finance a gas well drilled in southwestern Wyoming by Union Pacific Resources (UPR). The 17,000-ft well had a 1,700-ft horizontal section and produced an average 11.6 MMcfgd from the Frontier formation – known to be tight and fractured.

The DOE’s Greater Green River Basin Production Improvement Project funded the well to learn more about these "nonconventional" gas resources. The formation covers roughly 900 sq mi and has the potential for huge reserves. Building on the success of the first well, Rock Island-4H, UPR is drilling two more wells.

Among the lessons learned are:

• A core from the new Sidewinder 1H well comprised a 58.6-ft hunk of rock, revealing 41 visible fractures or cracks in the formation where gas could flow. Thirty-one open fractures would allow gas production. The core was recovered from a TVD of 15,493 to 15,499 ft – the deepest horizontal core ever recovered.
• About half of the fractures had slickenslides – polished, slightly ribbed surfaces caused by fault movement. Most of the open fractures were lined with fine-grained euhedral-quartz crystals that suggest large fractures. All but four of the fractures have an east-west strike orientation; drilling perpendicular to these should intersect as many fractures as possible and maximize gas flow.

The project is being conducted for the Energy Department by the National Energy Technology Laboratory (formerly the Federal Energy Technology Center).

Kyle field, North Sea. Ranger Oil Ltd. and PGS have agreed to allow the FPSO Petrojarl 1 to perform an extended well test for continuing appraisal of Kyle field in the North Sea. Production from the four-month test could top 10,000 bopd and should begin in May or June.

Kyle field was discovered in 1993 by Mobil. By 1997, Ranger had acquired a 40% interest and operator status. The well, 29/2c-12-z, is horizontal and has already been tested at the 10,000-bopd level but was limited by the drilling rig’s facilities. PGS had earlier agreed to produce Kyle through its Ramform Banff FPSO, but operational difficulties prevented using it for the extended test. Using the Petrojarl 1 allows Ranger to better evaluate the field for optimal development.

Future expansion includes drilling another appraisal well, followed by development drilling; and production through the Ramform Banff is still being considered. Cumulative production from Banff field exceeded five million bbl last fall.

Comments? Write: fischerp@gulfpub.com

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