World of Oil
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Cascade, Chinook Fields to come online |
Petrobras has announced that oil production should commence at the Cascade/Chinook development in mid-2010. The company stated that the Chinook FPSO unit should see first oil in June 2010; however, production could also come online in July. Located in the greater Chinook area of the US Gulf of Mexico, the fields have a combined estimated production capacity of 80,000 bopd. |
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Keppel partners to build, operate new shipyard |
Keppel Offshore & Marine Limited has partnered with State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR) and Azerbaijan Investment Company (AIC) to develop and manage a new 52-ha shipbuilding and ship repair facility in Baku, Azerbaijan. The shipyard will be developed over a period of two to three years and will cost $386 million. The new yard is designed to undertake construction of a variety of vessels ranging from offshore support vessels to tankers, as well as perform ship repair and conversions. |
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AlMansoori signs joint venture with Key Energy |
AlMansoori Petroleum Services has signed a joint venture agreement with American-based onshore energy production services company Key Energy Services. The JV will bring several new services to AlMansoori’s capabilities in coil tubing, workover rigs, pumping/cementing, fracturing and acidizing. |
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New Zealand seeks new bidders for Kahili gas field |
New Zealand has invited bids for a 2.3-sq-mi block in the Kahili gas field that has been shut in since a well filled with water five years ago. The project had been expected to produce more than 5 Bcf of gas before it failed in December 2004. Kahili Field was discovered in the North Island’s Taranaki Basin in 2002, and a mining permit was granted in 2004. The tender will close on May 3. |
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Apache deploying Firefly in Argentina |
ION Geophysical Corp. announced that its cableless land seismic acquisition system, Firefly, will be used by Apache Corp. to acquire data on two separate projects in the Mendoza region of Argentina. The Apache projects in Mendoza will utilize conventional geophones, marking the first time Firefly has been deployed using analog seismic sensors. About 5,500 Firefly stations will be used during this project, which is expected to start in May 2010 and finish by August 2010. |
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Central GOM lease sale receives $949 million in high bids |
The Central Gulf of Mexico Oil and Gas lease sale 213, held on March 17 in New Orleans, attracted $949,265,959 in high bids. The sale was conducted by the Minerals Management Service (MMS) and had 77 companies submitting 642 bids on 468 tracts comprising over 2.4 million acres offshore Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. The sum of all bids received totaled $1,300,075,693. A total of 151 tracts in water depths less than 656 ft received bids. This represents 32% of all tracts receiving bids, an increase of 5% from last year’s Central Gulf lease sale. The highest bid received on a tract was $52,560,000 submitted by Anadarko E&P Company LP and Mariner Energy Inc., for Walker Ridge Block 793. Bidding alone and with partners, Anadarko was successful on 48 of 53 total bids, representing expenditures of about $128 million net to Anadarko. Other companies placing high bids include Maersk Oil Gulf of Mexico Two LLC, Shell Offshore Inc., Chevron U.S.A. Inc., Hess Corporation and BHP Billiton Petroleum Inc.. Each high bid on a tract will go through an evaluation process within MMS to ensure the public receives fair market value before a lease is awarded. |
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Consol acquires Dominion’s Appalachian E&P business |
Consol Energy has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire the Appalachian exploration and production business of Dominion Resources for $3.475 billion in cash. As a result of the acquisition, on a pro-forma basis, Consol, a coal-focused energy company, will become the largest producer of natural gas in the Appalachian Basin. The acquisition will triple Consol’s development assets to approximately 750,000 acres with the addition of Dominion’s approximately 500,000 Marcellus Shale acres in Pennsylvania and West Virginia. After completion of the transaction, Consol’s total proven gas reserves will increase by more than 50% from 1.9 Tcf to approximately 3 Tcf and its potential gas resource base will double to approximately 41 Tcf. Consol will acquire a total of 1.46 million oil and gas acres from Dominion along with over 9,000 producing wells. Upon completion of the transaction, the company’s natural gas business is expected to account for as much as 35% of its total revenue. |
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Shell, Nexen announce significant joint oil discovery |
Royal Dutch Shell and Canadian energy giant Nexen announced they have made a significant oil discovery in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico. The drilling in the Appomattox project is the third joint discovery between the two companies in the area, following two others in the Mississippi Canyon also named for American Civil War encounters, Vicksburg and Shiloh. The companies did not estimate the size of the reserves except to call the discovery “significant” and to say “well results have exceeded our pre-drill expectations.” The discovery is close to 5 mi deep, located in 7,217 ft of water and was drilled to 25,077-ft true vertical depth. The well encountered approximately 530-ft gross (425-ft net) true vertical thickness of oil pay. Shell made an initial discovery in the deepwater eastern Gulf of Mexico in 2003 with the Shiloh discovery. A second discovery followed in 2007 at Vicksburg, located about |
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| Fugro receives new seismic survey vessel | Fugro has formally taken delivery of a new-build seismic survey vessel, the M/V Geo Caspian, which is on long-term charter from ship-owner Volstad Maritime AS. The vessel was outfitted at Fosen Yards in Norway and is capable of towing sixteen 26,250-ft-long seismic streamers, which are fully steerable using DigiFIN technology. M/V Geo Caspian is the third C-class vessel in a series of four delivered since 2007. The next C-class vessel, the M/V Geo Coral will be delivered to Fugro in August 2010. | ||||
| Analysts predict deepwater spending will top $167B | Douglas-Westwood Research has produced an appraisal of anticipated worldwide deepwater expenditures over the five years, to 2014, that concludes $167 billion will be spent—an increase of 37% over the preceding five years. Douglas-Westwood’s World Deepwater Market Report 2010-2014 reveals that sector activity will largely remain within the “golden triangle” of Africa, the Gulf of Mexico and Brazil, with regional investment representing over three-quarters of the predicted global capital expenditure. The majority of “golden triangle” investment, however, will take place in Latin America, driven largely by the capital-intensive development plans laid out by Petroleo Brasileiro (Petrobras) over the next decade. The report also highlights that Asian deepwater markets will continue to grow during the forecast period, receiving around 10% of the total predicted global investment. The report reveals that operators have exerted substantial pressure on their supply chains during 2009, achieving reductions of up to 15%. This confirms operator purchasing power has returned but that renewed sector growth could encourage cost inflation in some equipment and service markets. | ||||
| Total, DONG partner to develop gas fields offshore UK | Dong Energy, along with its partner Total, has announced plans to develop the Laggan and Tormore gas fields in the West of Shetland region in Great Britain. The development of the offshore frontier region is subject to the United Kingdom Government’s Department of Energy and Climate Change approval. Yves-Louis Darricarrère, President Exploration & Production stated, “Total has demonstrated its capacity to successfully develop highly technological projects and continues to do so with the Laggan and Tormore fields, located in one of the most complex environments of the United Kingdom Continental Shelf. Bringing them to production will require near $3.8 billion investment. In taking the decision to develop this complex project, Total confirms its commitment in pursuing its investments in the North Sea and its long term objective towards helping to secure energy supplies for the United Kingdom.” Total has also acquired the 10% interest in Laggan and Tormore previously held by Chevron North Sea Limited and the 20% interest previously held by ENI UK Limited. This brings Total’s interest in this project to 80% alongside partner Dong E&P (UK) Ltd. | ||||
| Statoil increases stake in ultra-deepwater St. Malo project | Statoil has increased its working interest in the Union-operated St. Malo development to 21.5% by exercising its preferential rights on a proposed sale of Devon’s share in the development. Union is a subsidiary of Chevron. St. Malo is scheduled to be sanctioned later this year together with the Chevron-operated Jack development. The combined Jack and St. Malo development is scheduled to come onstream in 2014. The Jack and St. Malo discoveries are both in the lower Tertiary trend of the deepwater Gulf of Mexico, commonly known as the Paleogene play. Statoil has made two additional discoveries in the area and is the third largest leaseholder in these ultra-deep waters. Statoil is also currently engaged in two deepwater Gulf of Mexico drilling operations. | ||||
| J. Ray McDermott wins first subsea project in Asia Pacific | McDermott International Inc. announced that a subsidiary of J. Ray McDermott, S.A. has been awarded its first SURF (Subsea Infrastructure, Umbilicals, Risers & Flowlines) project in the Asia Pacific by PetroVietnam Technical Services Corporation on behalf of its customer, PetroVietnam Exploration & Production. The scope of work includes the engineering, procurement, construction and installation of new production and export lines, umbilical and subsea cable. This includes tie-in, testing and pre-commissioning of two 1.4-mi flexible flowlines, replacement of two 1.5-mi export flowlines and umbilical, installation of a subsea cable and 3 mi of insulated flexible flowlines. Initial engineering and procurement work starts immediately with the offshore installation expected to commence in the third quarter of 2011. | ||||
| CNX’s Marcellus well sets production record | CNX Gas Corp. announced production results from its latest horizontal well targeting the Marcellus Shale, the GH2BCV well in central Greene County, PA. This well produced for 16 days, at an average production rate of 4.9 MMcf per day. The peak daily production rate was 5.7 MMcf, and the current daily production rate is 5.5 MMcf. The well was drilled with a horizontal lateral of 2,035 ft and was hydraulically fractured with a 7-stage frac. The previous highest producing well was the CNX 3 well, which came on line in October 2008. That well had cumulative production of 1 Bcf through February 2010. | ||||
| BP to pay Devon $7 billion for deepwater assets | In a broad-ranging deal, BP will pay Devon Energy $7.0 billion in cash for assets in Brazil, Azerbaijan and the US deepwater Gulf of Mexico. These include interests in ten exploration blocks in Brazil, including seven in the prolific Campos basin, a major portfolio of deepwater exploration acreage and prospects in the US Gulf of Mexico and an interest in the BP-operated Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG) development in the Caspian Sea, Azerbaijan. BP will assume Devon’s leases of the Seadrill West Sirius and Transocean Deepwater Discovery drilling rigs for the duration of the contract terms. In addition, BP will sell a 50% stake in Kirby oil sands interests in Alberta, Canada, for $500 million to Devon Energy. The parties have agreed to form a 50/50 joint venture, operated by Devon, to pursue the development of the interest. Devon will commit to fund an additional $150 million of capital costs on BP’s behalf. | ||||
| WesternGeco sets seismic record in Kuwait | WesternGeco reported that the UniQ integrated point-receiver land seismic system has set a new industry record in Kuwait for Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) in acquiring data from 80,000 live digital point-receiver channels at a two-millisecond sample interval. During sustained slip-sweep production in February, UniQ technology acquired and real-time quality checked one terabyte of data per hour—the equivalent of five days of production for a typical 3000-channel conventional crew. All data was concurrently pre-conditioned using the Q-Xpress in-field integrated seismic data acquisition and processing workflow for near real-time seismic data analysis. | ||||
| CNOOC, Total to acquire equal stakes in Tullow | China’s CNOOC Ltd. and French oil major Total SA are each expected to acquire a third of Tullow Oil PLC’s oil after a round of recent presentations to Ugandan authorities. Tullow will begin the first phase of developing the hydrocarbons discovered in Uganda’s Lake Albert basin this year, with oil and gas production for the local market due to begin in 2011. Natural gas from the Nzizi field will be piped to a power plant to be constructed in Uganda’s Hoima district and around 10,000 bopd from the Kasamene field will be trucked to local markets. Following recent appraisal drilling, Tullow upgraded the mid-range reserves estimate at its Tweneboa discovery offshore Ghana from 250 million boe to 400 million boe. The Jubilee field remains on track to produce its first oil by the end of this year, estimated to be around 120,000 bopd. | ||||
| Gazprom drilling first prospecting well in Africa | The Gazprom Group has begun drilling their first prospecting well (Rhourde Sayah-2) in Africa within the El Assel license area of Algeria’s Berkine basin. The well drilling is provided for in the minimum scope of geological exploration activities according to the terms and conditions of the tender won by Gazprom EP International B.V. for exploration and drilling onshore El Assel area. In the meanwhile, Gazprom EP International is carrying out large-scale 3D seismic surveying in other parts of the license area. According to preliminary estimates, drilling of the first well is to be completed in June 2010 and another three wells are to be drilled within two years. | ||||
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