What's new in exploration

	Vol. 224 No. 8
PERRY A. FISCHER, EDITOR

 Stop running afoul. The fouling of ships’ hulls by barnacles, seaweed or slime is a major problem worldwide. It’s compounded in the seismic industry by marine growths on streamers. Seismic contractors have designed various cleaning methods – both in-sea and on deck – to try to make the cleaning process quicker and less labor intensive, but with only limited success. With daily costs of a seismic vessel often exceeding day rates on rigs, downtime is very expensive, and the extra drag can significantly increase fuel consumption. Traditional coatings are largely prohibited because they contain triorganotin, a toxic, tin-based compound that can kill marine life.

 But help may be on the horizon. Christopher Ober and a research group at Cornell University have developed two types of non-toxic paint, one hydrophilic and one hydrophobic, that prevent fouling by bacteria or barnacles. One of the mechanisms for this long sought after remedy is by preventing adhesion of organisms, but another is by enabling hulls to become self-cleaning, through turbulence. Both surfaces currently are being tested by the Office of Naval Research and by Ober team’s collaborators, Jim Callow, John Finlay and Maureen Callow at the University of Birmingham, England. 

 Three papers on this solution to marine fouling were presented at the 225th national meeting of the American Chemical Society in New Orleans. “Our ability to engineer surfaces has improved dramatically over the past 10 years, and we have learned that not only do you have to control surface energy and surface chemistry, but also mechanical properties,” says Ober. He has been investigating the problem of marine fouling for the past decade for the US ONR. Seismic contractors might want to contact Dr. Ober to explore testing the coatings on seismic streamers: cober@ccmr.cornell.edu.

 Doubtful brouhaha. Colombia’s recently announced Gibraltar discovery (World Oil, April 2003) has been receiving a lot of bad press lately, namely, that the find is doubtful, if not bogus. I happen to have “overheard” some discussion concerning this well, which, if true, explains why the discovery is in such a state of confusion. While there is always a chance that this editor is being misled, there is no way of independently verifying this, since there are only two parties involved, both with a vested interest (or in Oxy’s case, a divested interest as of May 2002, which means that it would not want to hear that it spent years battling (politically) the U’wa Indians and millions of dollars, only to be told that it missed the mother lode by a few feet).

 Here’s the story. The 200 million bbl discovery of “very high-quality crude” is ostensibly the largest find in Ecopetrol’s history. Occidental Petroleum terminated its contract on the concession after declaring the find non-commercial. The target was a huge anticline. Unfortunately, core and other data indicated that, while logs showed hydrocarbon present, permeability was abysmally low.

 Ecopetrol re-entered the well and drilled a sidetrack, slightly downdip and closer to what it believed was the central axis of the anticline. The sidetrack tested at a remarkable 5,000 bpd of low-salinity water. Before abandoning the well, the company took another look at Oxy’s main objective. Based on the re-examination of data, Ecopetrol moved back near the original target and tested a zone at 600 bpd of 55°-API clear hydrocarbon and 51 MMcfd gas. Permeability was reasonably high due to natural fractures.

 The claim of 200 million barrels is based on fluid inclusion data from cores. If these inclusions are inferred to mean a gas/water contact, and if such a contact cuts across faults, and if all of the anticline above is hydrocarbon filled, then there could be 200 million barrels of reserves. That’s a lot if “ifs.” It is an understatement to say that more work, wells and further seismic studies are needed to tell whether the field is commercial or not. However, in light of the various tests and oil company views, it’s easy to see why there is confusion. The jury is still out.

 Giant discovery. Unocal made a huge gas-condensate/oil discovery in the deepwater Gehem prospect offshore East Kalimantan, Indonesia. It said the prospect, in Unocal’s Ganal production sharing area, could contain 2 – 3 Tcfg equivalent. The company said the Gehem structure covers nearly 8,000 acres (12.5 sq mi) and has the potential for significant oil pay in several zones downdip of the Gehem 1 well and in deeper intervals, which will be tested in subsequent appraisal wells. Indications are that individual wells could flow in excess of 100 MMcfgd and 5,000 bbl of condensate per day. The discovery was drilled in 5,981 ft of water to a TVD of 15,241 ft and encountered 617 ft of net gas/gas-condensate pay and 18 ft of net oil pay. According to Charles Williamson, Unocal’s chairman and chief executive, “Gehem-1 is potentially the most significant well we have drilled in the deepwater since the Seno discovery in 1998, because it opens up a new, deeper oil and gas trend for us across our huge acreage holdings in the deepwater Kutei basin.”

 Unocal’s West Seno project is due to come onstream in early July, beginning at 40,000 bpd and ramping to 60,000 bpd within two years. Unocal said the discovery’s potential size and location made it a good candidate for supply to Indonesia’s Bontang LNG plant. A Unocal subsidiary is operator of the Ganal PSC with an 80% interest. An ENI subsidiary holds the remaining 20%.

 Scamming the scammers. Amazingly, those pesky URGENT emails from Nigeria and nearby countries continue to proliferate and clog our email boxes. Some folks have begun to fight back, sometimes with humor, sometimes with disdain; but few things are more satisfying than a reverse scam, that is, scamming the scammers.

 For the humorous side, visit: http://j-walk.com/other/conf/index.htm. This is the “official” website of The 3rd Annual Nigerian Email Conference. This year’s theme is Write Better Emails. Make More Moneys. This year’s conference includes sessions on: The effectiveness of using ALL UPPERCASE CHARACTERS; Oil or emails: What’s Nigeria’s top export? and Gramatical errors: What’s the optimal number? But the highlight in humor has to be the incredible reverse scam at: www.scamorama.com/smith-okoro.html. (Just in case you need a little diversion.)

 A complete list of scam-fighting sites, some serious, some humorous, can be found at: http://home.rica.net/alphae/ 419coal/fighters.htm.