What Industry Expects In 2006

We present our popular annual round-up of industry leaders' views on political, economic and technical issues facing the industry in the coming year. It includes commentary from, Jon Marshal, Global Santa Fe, and National Ocean Industries Association (NOIA); and Robert Warren, Pride International; Robert L. Potter, FMC Technologies, and Petroleum Equipment Suppliers Association (PESA); Terje Overvik, Statoil; Doug Nester, F-W Oil Exploration L.L.C.; Alexander G. Kemp, University of Aberdeen; D. Nathan Meehan, CMG Petroleum Consulting; Donnie Harris, Garb, Grubbs, Harris & Associates, Inc.; and George S. Littell, Groppe, Long & Littell.

 Protecting the Environment

Seismic acquisition vs. marine mammals: What's the role of acoustic passive monitoring? Marine mammal protection regulation continues to evolve in every offshore basin around the world. Now in its fourth year, this report will keep leaseholders and other stakeholders informed of what, for some, is the holy grail of marine mammal protection-listening for their squeaks and chirps. For others, this is just a fishing expedition trying to mitigate a problem that does not exist. Hardware and software to accomplish the listening and identification will be discussed, with input from the oil company supported Industry Research Funders Coalition (IRFC).

A shipboard waste heat recovery plant has been developed in a joint effort headed and integrated by Odense Steel Shipyard Ltd, in cooperation with Wärtsilä Corporation, Siemens AG, Peter Brotherhood Ltd and Aalborg Industries Ltd. The waste heat recovery plant follows the well-established concept of passing the exhaust gases of the ship's main engine through an exhaust-gas economizer to generate steam for a turbine-driven generator. By further maximizing the recovered energy from the exhaust gases, the power generated saves in both fuel costs and overall exhaust-gas emissions, such as CO₂, NOX, SOX, etc. It is the only technology commercially available today that reduces both fuel consumption and exhaust emissions at the same time. The payback time would depend upon the installation design and bunker fuel prices, but it should, in general, be less than five years.

Small-footprint, high-efficiency produced water separator. Enviro Voraxial Technology, Inc. is about to deploy its first Voraxial separator on an offshore oil production platform for a produced water separation application. CNOOC is the client. The technology has been in testing with Shell--another future client. The technology can handle large volumes of produced water and re-injection water, providing superior separation while decreasing the amount of space, energy and weight to conduct the separation

Re-injection of drilling waste for environmental compliance while adding value. Handling drilling waste (cutting, fluids) economically and in an environmentally benign manner has not been trouble-free. This case study reviews the state-of-the-art of performance and the many pitfalls that operators need to overcome.

 What's New in Rigs and Rig-Floor Equipment

Based on the success of last year's inbound supplement, we again present World Oil's Guide to Rig and Rig Floor Technology. Expect a similar format of rig tables, new rig designs and rig floor equipment.

 Subsurface/Reservoir Characterization Using Seismic

Gulf of Mexico regional pore pressure cube from seismic data. Knowledge of pore pressure is a key requirement for optimal drilling and development decisions in overpressured areas. Pre-drill, pore pressure can be predicted using fit-for-purpose seismic velocities with a velocity-to-pore pressure transform calibrated to offset wells. To reduce the time required for such projects, it was decided to build a pore pressure cube over the entire northern Gulf of Mexico. The 3D velocity cube thus obtained was used to infer regional variations in overpressure. Once an area of interest for drilling has been identified, extra data provided by the client can increase the local model resolution. Authors from Schlumberger discuss the process.

 Petroleum Technology Digest

This popular feature is published in association with the Petroleum Technology Transfer Council. This case study from the viewpoint of both operator and service provider describes how production technology is lowering costs while optimizing production in mature fields.

Also, there will be bonus circulation at the SPE Environmental Conference and bonus overruns on World Oil's Guide to Rig and Rig Floor Technology bound-in supplement.