Energy Drilling News

Esgian reports that drilling contracts have been announced this week for operations in Brazil and the Philippines, and new discoveries have been confirmed in the UK and Namibia in its Week 11 Rig Analytics Market Roundup.ContractsCOSL Drilling has emerged as the winner for Petrobras' moored semisubmersible tender with the 4,600-ft Nanhai 8 (also known as Nan Hai Ba Hao).Noble has secured a high-dayrate drillship contract with Prime Energy in the Philippines.Drilling Activity and…

Turkey will not bow to threats in its dispute with Greece and Cyprus over maritime claims in the eastern Mediterranean, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday as European Union foreign ministers met in Brussels to discuss the issue.But Erdogan also said Turkey wanted negotiations over the conflicting claims to continental shelves and rights to potential energy resources.The EU ministers were due to evaluate grounds for sanctions against Turkey. The bloc's leaders will then decide on Thursday whether to make good on their threat, after Turkey sent an exploration vessel into waters claimed by Greece."In the eastern Mediterranean issue, our country never sides with tension, but with peace, cooperation, fairness and implementing justice.

A bill to repeal the U.S. oil export ban was expected to pass the House of Representatives on Friday, but faces an uncertain future after a veto threat by President Barack Obama. U.S. representatives on Friday morning debated the bill, sponsored by Joe Barton a Republican of Texas, and were slated to vote on it later in the day. Oil policy analyst Kevin Book of ClearView Energy Partners expected the bill to pass the Republican-led House, but said it was unlikely to win the 290 votes necessary to override a White House veto. Congress passed the ban in 1975 after the Arab oil embargo caused snaking lines at gas stations and fears of global oil shortages. "Much has changed since the ban on crude was put in place," Representative Fred Upton, a Republican of Michigan, said before the vote.

The U.S. Energy Department said on Tuesday it has given final approval for Cheniere  to export liquefied natural gas from its plant in Corpus Christi, Texas. The approval allows the plant to export the equivalent of 2.1 billion cubic feet per day of natural gas for 20 years to countries with which the United States does not have a free trade agreement. The U.S. Energy Information Administration believes the country could become a net LNG exporter by 2017. The boom in domestic energy drilling and demand from gas consumers in Europe and Asia has pushed companies to build multi billion-dollar facilities to export the fuel. Cheniere hopes to export LNG from Corpus Christi beginning in 2018. Last week, the DOE approved LNG exports from Dominion Resources Inc's Cove Point plant in Maryland.

Royal Dutch Shell's quest to return to Arctic drilling for the first time in three years could face delays after Seattle ruled that the city's port must apply for a permit for the company to use it as a hub for drilling rigs. Seattle Mayor Ed Murray, a Democrat who has fought against new projects by coal and oil companies, applauded the requirement by the city's planning department. "This is an opportunity for the port and all of us to make a bold statement about how oil companies contribute to climate change, oil spills and other environmental disasters - and reject this short-term lease," Seattle's Mayor Ed Murray said on his website. The Puget Sound region has a decades-long history as a hub for equipment used in energy drilling in Alaska.

More than a dozen U.S. oil producers have joined to lobby the federal government to reverse the 40-year-old ban on U.S. crude exports, a move that supporters hope would create jobs and boost national security, a spokesman for one of the companies and a lobbyist for another one said on Friday. Producers for American Crude Oil Exports, or PACE, is the first lobbying group to form on reversing the ban. "The end game here is legislative repeal of the ban," said a lobbyist for one of the member producers, who did not want to be named because the group was only recently formed. Congress passed the trade restriction in the 1970s after the Arab oil embargo caused fears of domestic oil shortages.

Natural gas-fueled engines, touted as a clean, low-cost alternative to diesel, continue to struggle for acceptance in the U.S. transportation sector despite a surge in gas production that has sent the alternative fuel's domestic price plunging. U.S. natural gas prices closed on Friday at $3.766 per million British thermal units, down 42 percent since February. At its current levels, natgas is about $1.50 a gallon cheaper than diesel fuel, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. For U.S. railroads alone, which consumed 3.6 billion gallons of diesel in 2012, the potential savings are huge. Yet more than a year after Warren Buffett's BNSF Railways Corp generated big headlines with a plan to test a handful of natgas locomotives…

COSCO (Guangdong) Shipyard informs of the delivery of a self-erecting drilling tender barge, to the firm Energy Drilling. The tender barge has a working depth of 2,000 meters, a drilling depth of 20,000 feet and is equipped with heavy lift cranes with a safe working load of 400 metric tonnes. According to PetroWiki, Tender Assist Drilling (TADs) units were the rig of choice in the 1950s and early 1960s in the Gulf of Mexico for development drilling off fixed platforms. They are used less commonly now, but are appropriate for certain situations, and sometimes for new drilling from an aging platform near shore. Founded in June 2001, COSCO Shipyard Group Co., Ltd, is a subsidiary of China Ocean Shipping Company (COSCO).

Lloyds Register Energy – Drilling (LRED), formerly ModuSpec Engineering UK Limited, was presented with the award by Aberdeen's Lord Lieutenant George Adam, acting on behalf of HM the Queen, in recognition of the company's sustained business expansion. Lloyds Register Energy - Drilling UK is an Aberdeen, Scotland-based market leading company, providing a range of innovative services to ensure the operational integrity of drilling assets for the oil and gas sector, often working in hostile environments.

Lloyd’s Register (LR) announced a significant investment in global services company Senergy to create an industry-leading offering - from the reservoir to refinery and beyond. The deal will see LR and Senergy provide a unique and comprehensive portfolio of services to the upstream sectors of exploration, production and transportation through to refinery and beyond. The combined business will also provide life of field services from inception to decommissioning and offer unparalleled…

COSCO (Guangdong) Shipyard Co. contracted by Energy Drilling Pte Ltd to construct a semi submersible tender assist rig. The contract is valued at over US$ 200-million, with an option for a second tender. The turn-key contract includes the supply of the DES (Derrick Equipment Set) and the delivery is set for June 2015. The rig is a GustoMSC Ocean400 TD design equipped to work alongside specialized deepwater trussed spars, tension leg platforms, and compliant towers outside of benign environments and is very well suited to production drilling in shallow water due to its ability to drill and mobilize quickly in adverse weather conditions.

Aberdeen-based Deep Casing Tools, completes  first operation of its 'Turbocaser' in the Norwegian North Sea, with a successful 21 hour reaming run. The Turbocaser™ Express is a high-speed drillable reaming system that enables drilling teams to land casings and intermediate liners at target depth first time. Two conventional attempts to run a 7” liner to total depth (TD) had been unsuccessful in the Statoil operated Gullfaks’ satellite well, resulting in the liner hanging up hundreds of metres from TD.