Issue: April 2018
Special Focus
The Offshore Technology Conference (OTC), the offshore oil and gas industry’s largest equipment exhibition, is celebrating its 50th edition this year.
Offshore investments may still be slow to accelerate, but that hasn’t stopped companies from ramping up R&D efforts to create a safer, more efficient and more productive offshore industry.
As was the case last year, nearly all of this group of new technologies and next-generation improvements on existing products remains split between drilling and production applications.
Features
Germany’s largest oil field, operated by DEA Deutsche Erdoel AG, sits in a national park and UNESCO World Heritage site, with development drilling restricted to one existing island.
Engineered drilling solutions combined with real-time visualization software, land a deepwater wellbore in the reservoir, drilling laterally 100% within the pay-zone and geostopping above the oil water contact, ensuring maximum production.
An example of a cooperative relationship was demonstrated when Ulterra, a producer of PDC drill bits, and a large independent E&P company—operating in the Eagle Ford shale—combined forces to examine ways to improve performance.
Push comes to shove, as activity ebbs
In 2017, the big news in the logging and formation evaluation industry was the completion in July of the successful merger of Baker Hughes and GE Oil & Gas to form BHGE, which comes on the heels of the unsuccessful effort by Halliburton to purchase Baker Hughes in 2016.
Soaring drilling, production block out irritants
On June 13, 2014, the cost of a barrel of West Texas Intermediate stood at $107.49. That year, budgeted, worldwide capital expenditures in the oil and gas industry would approach a record $520 billion. The future looked bright.
As the oil and gas (O&G) industry emerges from the recent downtown, executives are looking for innovative ways to promote growth.
Columns
Is it “transparency” on the GOM, or is it something else.
Mixed message on offshore.
Things certain in life: Death, taxes and risk in exploration.
Home cooking.
The Great East Japan Earthquake and MH 21.
Mixed messages from the Gulf of Mexico.
Offshore energy: Produce today, don’t panic tomorrow.
Optimism springs eternal
News & Resources
Concho Resources’ acquisition forms Permian’s largest unconventional shale producer.
In March, downward pressure on oil prices was applied by consecutive gains in U.S. inventory, capped by a weekly surge of 5.32 MMbbl in late March.
Deep Sea Mooring (DSM) has announced that it is now carrying out operations for Maersk Drilling in Trinidad.
GE and Noble Corp. have launched a digital drilling vessel, targeted to achieve 20% operational expenditure reduction across the targeted equipment and improving drilling efficiency.
Apache Corp. has named David Pursell as senior V.P. of planning and energy fundamentals.
Port Fouchon 2018
President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address on Jan. 30 hit home with those of us who see Port Fourchon as an essential component of the nation’s long-term energy security.
With rigs on standby, awaiting active duty in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico (GOM), the management of southern Louisiana’s resilient Port Fourchon is locked firmly in the visionary mode.
With construction set to commence on the next segment, fingers are crossed that President Donald Trump’s sweeping infrastructure initiative will provide some of the funding necessary to complete the 19-mi elevated Louisiana Highway 1 (LA-1) thoroughfare to Port Fourchon.
