Oil Province News

OPEC, Russia and other allies outlined plans on Thursday to cut their oil output by more than a fifth and said they expected the United States and other producers to join in their effort to prop up prices hammered by the coronavirus crisis.But the group, known as OPEC+, said a final agreement was dependent on Mexico signing up to the pact after it balked at the production cuts it was asked to make. Discussions among top global energy ministers will resume on Friday.The planned output curbs by OPEC+ amount to 10 million barrels per day (bpd) or 10% of global supplies…

Renewed optimism is the theme for exploration in 2018, driven by higher oil prices and improving exploration performance. The cost of exploring has fallen more than 50% since 2013/14 and there are fewer companies competing for acreage, said a research report by Westwood Global Energy Group. It could be argued that there has not been a better time to be exploring in the last decade. The geology economic to explore increases considerably above $60/barrel and in the first quarter of 2018 the oil price averaged $67/barrel. Success rates have improved as lower exploration budgets have led to companies being more selective. The effort and money expended on finding another large deep water oil province in the Atlantic Margins has finally borne fruit in Guyana.

Central Asia is a booming oil region not far from the Persian Gulf. Energy companies ply the big lake to rack up staggering barrel counts at elephantine oilfields with names like Tengiz (Kazakhstan) or Kashagan (Azerbaijan). Painstaking, oil-fueled nation-building is underway across an oil province, where very shallow water hinders plant and equipment moves by platform supply vessels. Until now — new module-carrying vessels, or MCVs will float high-capital cargoes through Russia’s river system and across the Caspian shallows to Chevron’s Tengiz Extension project.

Electromagnetic Geoservices ASA (EMGS) announces that the Company has entered into a data licensing agreement with an international oil company for the provision of 3D EM data from the multi-client data library over the Daybreak project located in the western US Gulf of Mexico worth a total of USD 1.5 million. The Daybreak data set is bordering Mexico's Perdido offshore oil province, and we find it encouraging that sales also are emerging from cross boarder exploration strategies in this region, say's Juan M. Santana, EMGS President - NSA.  This information is subject of the disclosure requirements pursuant to section 5-12 of the Norwegian Securities Trading Act.

At first, the oil-price and project-cancellation forecasts had hushed the audience at FPSO Europe Congress 2015. Speaker No. 1 had delegates looking at each other for signs of fear. Then, rival contractors — veterans of many a bitter tender — piled on the logic of their own methods for cost-cutting in floating production storage and offloading projects. Rather than stamp out competing arguments, a relentless costs discussion had another, unexpected effect. It lifted the gloom and crystallized the opportunity at hand to engineer FPSO demand.

Petrobras’ Exploration and Production Director, Solange Guedes, received the OTC Distinguished Achievement Award for Companies, Organizations and Institutions, the highest recognition that an oil company can be given as an offshore operator. The awards ceremony took place during a dinner in Houston, USA, at the Offshore Technology Conference (OTC), the world’s largest event dedicated to the area of offshore oil exploration and production. Accepting the award on behalf of Petrobras, Guedes highlighted the importance of this recognition for the company’s technical staff and partnerships, as well as the roles performed by suppliers and the academic community.

French oil major Total is selling its stake in the North Sea Laggan-Tormore oil and gas field as it seeks to shed assets after a steep fall in the oil price, banking sources said. Total is hoping to get up to $1.5 billion for its 80 percent operating stake in the field, located approximately 125 km north-west of the Shetland Islands in Britain's North Sea, the sources said. The company aims to complete the deal in June, according to the banking sources. Many oil companies are trying to sell assets in the ageing and high-cost North Sea oil province. However, the Laggan-Tormore is considered a high-quality asset as it is planned to start production at the end of this year.

With innovation in its Norwegian DNA, Uksnoy Shipping took a chemical tanker and made it into an Offshore Service Vessel with an innovative propulsion system. The conversion of a Turkish-made chemical tanker and its retrofitting with a promising new energy-saving propulsion system in 2013 suggested Uksnoy Shipping might not be like other owner-managers of offshore service vessels (OSV). The ship, the 90-foot Rig Adromeda and its permanent-magnet propulsion from Inpower have made…

Apache Corporation  today announced an oil discovery at the Phoenix South-1 well - the company's first discovery in Australia's offshore Canning Basin. Wireline and formation pressure tools have confirmed at least four discrete oil columns ranging in thickness between 85 and 151 feet (26 to 46 meters) in the Triassic Lower Keraudren formation, within an overall, sand-rich section between 13,648 and 14,763 feet below sea level (4,160 to 4,500 meters). Six light oil samples have been recovered from three intervals to date; permeability measurements from the sampled zones indicate a productive oil reservoir with preliminary estimates that there might be as much as 300 million barrels of oil in place.* Evaluation of the formation penetrated in the Phoenix South-1 is under way…

Venezuela's state-run oil firm PDVSA said on Saturday a $2 billion pre-payment from Russian oil producer Rosneft will be destined in part to develop its coveted Orinoco belt. State-run Rosneft earlier on Saturday announced a flurry of deals including a long-term contract with PDVSA for 1.6 million tonnes of oil and 7.5 million tonnes of oil products within five years. Venezuela is struggling with stagnant oil and natural gas production, and has its sights set on the vast southern Orinoco belt as a way to boost production. "We're focusing all our technological capacity to develop this oil province which will give us 150 years of production at a rate of 6 million barrels per day, (as per) our aim for 2019," PDVSA President and Energy Minister Rafael Ramirez said in a statement.

Statoil has made a significant gas and condensate discovery in the King Lear prospect in the southern part of the Norwegian North Sea along with its partner Total E&P Norge. Exploration well 2/4-21 drilled by the jack-up rig Maersk Gallant in production licences 146 and 333, has proven a 48-metre gas/condensate column in the main bore 2/4-21 and an additional 70-metre gas/condensate column in the side-track 2/4-21A. Statoil estimates the total volumes in King Lear to be between 70 and 200 million barrels of recoverable oil equivalent (o.e.).

ENI has successfully drilled the appraisal well 7220/5-1 in the Skrugard discovery field 200 kilometres off the Norwegian coast.The well was drilled at a water depth of 388 metres, reaching a total depth of 1,740 metres at a site located approximately 3 kilometres from the Skrugard-1 discovery. A gas column of about 25 metres and an oil column of 48 metres was encountered in the Middle - Lower Jurassic reservoir, Stø & Nordmela Formations. Intensive data collection and sampling have been carried out in the well-bore and the results show a reservoir of excellent quality. The aim of the appraisal well was to prove the hydrocarbon extension in the middle section of the Skrugard structure.

Statoil, along with partners Eni Norway and Petoro, has made a significant oil discovery on the Skrugard prospect in the Barents Sea. The breakthrough discovery is one of the most important finds on the Norwegian continental shelf in the last decade. Statoil and its partners are in the process of concluding drilling operations on the Skrugard prospect, which is located approximately 100 kilometres north of the Snøhvit gas field in the Barents Sea. The well was drilled with the Polar Pioneer rig, and has proven gas column of 33 metres and an oil column of 90 metres.

DryShips Inc. announced today that its fully-owned subsidiary Ocean Rig UDW Inc has signed definitive documentation following the previously announced Letter of Award. The contracts were signed with subsidiaries of Vanco Overseas Energy Limited (“Vanco”) for projects in which Vanco is operator and LUKOIL Overseas is majority co-venturer, for a five well contract for exploration drilling offshore Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire for a period of about one year with one drillship, commencing in the second quarter of 2011. The value of the contracts is approximately $160 million. The company has the option to use either of the OceanRig Corcovado or the OceanRig Olympia.