Gas Reservoir News

Dutch offshore installation company Heerema Marine Contractors has been selected by Japan's INPEX as a contractor of choice for the transport and installation of the 4,800 metric ton Ichthys LNG Booster Compression Module (BCM), offshore W. Australia.The module will be installed on the Ichthys Explorer Central Processing Facility, located off the northwest coast of Western Australia, as part of the Ichthys LNG phase 2 development.Heerema will transport the BCM from the fabrication yard on Batam Island in Indonesia to the Ichthys field before installing it in a single lift.

Allseas' giant heavy lift vessel Pioneering Spirit will remove the DP3 and DP4 platforms in Morecambe Bay off the U.K. for independent oil and gas operator Spirit Energy.The two normally unmanned installations used to produce gas as part of Spirit Energy’s complex of eight installations in Morecambe Bay. As the field has matured, the reserves the platforms previously tapped into have been produced by the larger, manned Central Morecambe platform nearby.The 12 wells that were connected…

Aker BP finds up to 153 million barrels of oil equivalents in North SeaAker BP has discovered an oil and gas reservoir while drilling near its Alvheim field in the North Sea.Known as Froskelaar (Frog's Leg) Main, the reservoir is estimated to hold between 45 million and 153 million barrels of oil equivalents, and may straddle Norway's maritime border with Britain."The drilling operation will continue, and a comprehensive data collection program will be performed to determine the size and quality of the discovery," Aker BP said in a statement.When reserves are found to stretch across the British-Norwegian offshore border, the two nations…

Russian President Vladimir Putin inaugurated a liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminal that will serve as a back-up gas supply solution for the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea. The facility includes floating storage regasification unit (FSRU) in Baltic Sea enclave.Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller said: "The floating storage regasification platform is currently moored at the receiving terminal; that platform will convert LNG into gas to pump into the underground facility and to supply to consumers in Kaliningrad Region."Putin said that the Kaliningrad region is no longer dependent on transit gas supplies. According to him…

In 2018,  Shell's huge floating liquefied natural gas (FLNG) Prelude, the world's largest vessel, will begin its job of extracting and processing gas at sea, reported CNBC. The 488-meter-long and 74-meter-wide floating facility left the shipyard in South Korea in late June and reached the Australian waters in late July. Currently, the vessel, which is almost one-third of a mile long with a deck longer than four soccer fields,  sits at its first location, Shell's Prelude gas field, around 125 miles north off the Western Australian coast. The Prelude facility weather vanes 360 degrees around a turret, moored in 248 meters of water. Three…

Transerv Energy informed that fracture stimulation work has been successfully concluded at the Warro-5 well in WA’s Mid-West. The Warro-5 and Warro-6 wells are now being completed in preparation for long term gas testing. Warro-5 stimulation operations were completed on 7th January and all the equipment is now being demobilized from site. The final, second stage at Warro-5 resulted in the 305,000 pounds (138,400kg) of proppant being placed in the gas reservoir. Combined with the deeper Stage 1, Warro-5 has injected 385,000 pounds (175,000kg) of proppant over an interval 4330 – 4410mRT. Clean-up flows at Warro-5, conducted over the weekend yielded a sustained gas flow with a continuous flare. Like Warro-6, the gas rate could not be measured.

The plugging and abandonment (P&A) of offshore wells represents a significant cost to operating companies and national authorities. On the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS) alone, the cost is estimated to be USD108bn (NOK1870bn) over the next 40 years. Now a new DNV GL guideline will introduce a risk-based approach instead of the current prescriptive practice. DNV GL estimates that when combined with optimized project execution and new technology, the P&A cost can be reduced by 30-50%.

Halliburton Pleads Guilty to Destruction of Evidence in Connection with Deepwater Horizon Disaster and Is Sentenced to Statutory Maximum Fine; Former Halliburton Manager Is Charged. Halliburton Energy Services Inc. (Halliburton) pleaded guilty today to destroying evidence pertaining to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster and was sentenced to the statutory maximum fine, the Justice Department announced. In addition, a criminal information was filed today charging a former Halliburton manager, Anthony Badalamenti, 61, of Katy, Texas, with one count of destruction of evidence.

Halliburton Energy Services Inc. has agreed to plead guilty to destroying evidence in connection with the Deepwater Horizon disaster, the Department of Justice announced today. A criminal information charging Halliburton with one count of destruction of evidence was filed today in U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Louisiana. Halliburton has signed a cooperation and guilty plea agreement with the government in which Halliburton has agreed to plead guilty and admit its criminal conduct. As part of the plea agreement, Halliburton has further agreed, subject to the court’s approval, to pay the maximum-available statutory fine, to be subject to three years of probation and to continue its cooperation in the government’s ongoing criminal investigation.

More than $335 billion worth of expenditure is expected over the next five years on offshore oil & gas operations & maintenance (O&M), according to a new report, The World Offshore Operations & Maintenance Market Forecast 2012-2016, by Douglas-Westwood (DW). Growth of 8% in expenditure is forecast annually 2012-2016, with O&M markets considerably less vulnerable to downturn than their capital-led counterparts. The underlying driver for all activity, both onshore and offshore, is the growth in global energy demand which…

Growth of 8% in expenditure forecast annually 2012-2016; O&M markets considerably less vulnerable to downturn than their capital-led counterparts. Over $335 billion worth of expenditure is expected over the next five years on offshore operations & maintenance according to a new report, The World Offshore Operations & Maintenance Market Forecast 2012-2016, by Douglas-Westwood. Report author Jenny Harbour commented, “In 2011 demand for offshore operations & maintenance services totalled $52.5 billion, having grown at a compound rate of 6.3% over the past five years. Over the next five years we expect a greater compound growth of 8%, as the market recovers from the effects of the global downturn of 2008-2009.

Over $335 billion worth of expenditure is expected over the next five years on offshore operations and maintenance, according to a new report, The World Offshore Operations & Maintenance Market Forecast 2012-2016, by Douglas-Westwood. “In 2011, demand for offshore operations & maintenance services totalled $52.5 billion, having grown at a compound rate of 6.3 percent over the past five years,” said Jenny Harbour, author of the report. “Over the next five years, we expect a greater compound growth of 8 percent, as the market recovers from the effects of the global downturn of 2008-2009. O&M markets are considerably less vulnerable to downturn than their capital-led counterparts.

According to a Bloomberg report, BP Plc discovered a gas deposit in the Caspian Sea that may double production from the largest natural gas development in Azerbaijan. BP shares rose 2.8 percent, the most in a month, in London trading after the company announcement. With the latest discovery, the field may be able to pump enough gas to supply Belgium and Luxembourg together. BP and partners including StatoilHydro ASA plan to spend $4.2b on the site's first stage, which started pumping fuel to Turkey in July, easing Europe's dependence on supplies from Russia's OAO Gazprom. The announcement is the second ``major'' discovery within a week after Petroleo Brasileiro SA said an offshore field could be Brazil's biggest ever oil find.

Iran attacked and seized control of a Romanian oil rig working in its Persian Gulf waters this morning one week after the Iranian government accused the European drilling company of hijacking another rig. An Iranian naval vessel fired on the rig owned by Romania's Grup Servicii Petroliere (GSP) in the Salman field and took control of its radio room, a Grup's representative in the United Arab Emirates said. Iran, which holds the world's second-largest oil and gas reserves, is due to respond to a European Union-led offer of incentives aimed at persuading it to halt uranium enrichment activities that are crucial to its nuclear program. Neither the press office of Iran's oil ministry nor the one of Iran's revolutionary guards could be reached for comment when called.

Centrica has awarded Aker Kvaerner's Engineering Services a contract for the recertification of pressure safety valves for its operations based out of Morecambe Bay. The contract covers the offshore facilities, which consist of nine offshore platforms, two onshore gas processing terminals at Barrow (North Morecambe and South Morecambe terminals), and the Barrow Condensate Storage Facility. The contract is for a period of five years, with extension options of 2 one year periods. The Morecambe Field is an offshore, hydrocarbon gas reservoir divided into two sections (North and South). Gas is produced through offshore facilities, which are located approximately 25 miles west of Blackpool, Lancashire.

Canadian oil service firm Tesco Corp. sold its new-technology drilling services division to Houston-based Weatherford International Inc. for $33 million. Tesco officials said the company sold its specialized underbalanced drilling assets to the major U.S. oil field firm so it could focus on its main businesses, which include its top-drive equipment used to power drilling rigs and casing drilling technology, which speeds up the drilling of oil and gas wells. With underbalanced technology, the pressure of the drilling fluid is kept below the pressure in the oil or gas reservoir to aid the flow of the hydrocarbons to the surface. Weatherford said the assets dealt include eight drilling units, plus nitrogen-generating and pressure-control units as well as other equipment.