Issue: September 2017
Special Focus
The dramatic collapse of commodity prices has required the industry to embrace new techniques and upstream disciplines to remain profitable. To achieve these goals, companies must create innovative workflows and new seismic methodologies/procedures to improve their understanding of the subsurface, while keeping a close eye on the bottom line.
A large volume of 3D data, offshore Brazil, was released recently to the public domain by the National Petroleum Agency. This has created an opportunity to develop a homogeneous 3D volume across the country’s prolific salt basins.
Features
After nearly three years, the global E&P industry is showing signs of finally pulling itself out of the trough, yet the recovery remains rather uneven, from region to region.
The ultimate U.S. basin shines again
Feds, IOCs breathe new life into ‘Dead Cow’
Seismic and multi-physics methods strive to accurately image subsurface geology at high resolution. With modern recording equipment, robust processing and joint-inversion depth imaging, integrated multi-physics workflows now provide a fast, efficient way to provide geologically reliable 3D images.
As exploration efforts go into deeper, hotter and more remote offshore basins, the need for more advanced downhole drilling and logging tools is palpable. Accordingly, a new LWD toolstring that provides real-time downhole data, while withstanding 410°F temperatures, has been developed and tested in the harsh Gulf of Thailand.
Operators are optimizing completions to further drive down the cost per boe, with most hydraulic fracturing jobs using uncoated frac sand. While these wells can produce sufficiently, well economics could be improved by utilizing resin-coated proppants.
Because Louisiana is home to thousands of energy companies, and is often considered America’s foremost energy hub, the Louisiana Gulf Coast Oil Exposition (LAGCOE) once again will be held at the Cajundome & Convention Center in Lafayette, La., during Oct. 24-26.
Columns
This September issue of World Oil now in your hands is the product of a rather abnormal monthly process caused by an extremely ill-mannered fellow named Harvey.
I just finished a remarkably funny, and particularly astute, book that explores the world of marriage in relation to husbands, wives and their employment, among other things.
After spending 36 years in the petroleum industry, I’ve learned much about the intricacies of international petroleum negotiations.
Seismic, the foundation tool of oil and gas exploration, has some reflecting to do about its future, not will it work, or can exploration seismic become “better,” but is it becoming necessary at all?
Thanks to the digital transformation (more on that in a moment), you’re already awash in data; what’s to discover?
Hope for improved Russian-U.S. relations has evaporated, following a U.S. congressional vote and retaliation taken by the Russian government.
The thriller TV series, Occupied—on Netflix in Norwegian with English subtitles—is a fable that springs from the apparent contradictions in Norway’s energy policies.
Help Wanted: Must be more adept at operating a mouse than a brake handle.
The first evidence that the Permian basin contained oil was discovered by ranchers, who settled after 1875 and were drilling wells to provide water for their livestock.
News & Resources
Lundin Petroleum and Statoil have completed the Korpfjell exploration well 7435/12-1 in the southeastern Barents Sea.
In August, average prices for WTI and Brent surged, with the benchmarks trading at $48.69 and $51.79, respectively, representing gains of 4.6% and 6.9%, compared to the previous month.
Matt Amilian has been appointed director of business development at BCCK Holding Company.
TWMA has secured a £1-million contract with Azinor Catalyst Limited for the provision of drill cuttings containment and processing services on the Ocean Guardian semisubmersible rig in the central North Sea.
Baker Hughes, a GE company, has introduced its CIRCA coiled tubing simulation software, which enables coiled tubing service providers to maximize equipment performance and improve operational efficiency in well interventions.
