Gulf Of Mexico News

The U.S. Coast Guard said it is responding to reports of an oil spill near Breton Sound, La. in the Gulf of Mexico.Coast Guard Sector New Orleans watchstanders received a call at 6:29 p.m. on Thursday reporting a 61-foot motor vessel hitting the Breton Sound 18 production platform resulting in the spill of an estimated 840 gallons of crude oil from the platform.No injuries were reported.Environmental Safety & Health arrived on scene and deployed boom around the platform to mitigate the spread of product while platform personnel work to secure the source of the leak.The cause of the incident is under investigation.

Norway's Statoil is considering whether to end its costly search for oil and gas in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, the company's exploration chief told financial daily Dagens Naeringsliv (DN) on Friday. Statoil has been part of several discoveries in the region as a junior licence partner, but the company has failed to strike oil in the drilling campaigns it has operated, despite spending billions of dollars. "Even if the fields we have are paying off, the Statoil-operated exploration campaign could so far be characterised as a failure," Tim Dodson told DN.

The U.S. Coast Guard said an oil production platform has caught fire in the Gulf of Mexico, roughly 80 miles southwest of Grand Isle, La. The fire, which broke out aboard the Ship Shoal 266 A oil production platform at approximately 2:30 a.m. Thursday, was reported to have been full extinguished by approximately 5:50 a.m., according to the rig’s owner Renaissance Offshore. There were four crew members aboard the platform who, after initial efforts to extinguish the fire, evacuated into the water aboard a life raft and were recovered by the offshore supply vessel Mary Wyatt Milano…

An expansion of oil drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico would interfere with U.S. military testing unless the Pentagon and another agency develop rules to govern the work, the U.S. Department of Defense said in a report this week.The Defense Department concluded in a report it sent on Wednesday to U.S. lawmakers that drilling east of the Military Mission Line in the Gulf of Mexico, a demarcation more than 200 miles (320 km) west of Florida, would harm military testing operations…

Royal Dutch Shell on Thursday announced the start of production at the Kaikias field in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, around one year ahead of schedule.Production from the subsea deep water development, which will reach 40,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, comes after Shell reduced its costs by around 30 percent to allow it to generate profit at less than $30 a barrel, the company said."We believe Kaikias is the most competitive subsea development in the Gulf of Mexico and a prime example of the deep-water opportunities we're able to advance with our technical expertise and capital discipline…

BHP Billiton has announced that the Board has approved expenditure of US$2.2 billion for its share of the development of the Mad Dog Phase 2 project in the Gulf of Mexico. BHP Billiton holds a 23.9 per cent participating interest in the Mad Dog field. BP, the operator, holds a 60.5 per cent participating interest, and Union Oil Company of California, an affiliate of Chevron U.S.A. Inc., holds the remaining 15.6 per cent participating interest. During the fourth quarter of 2016, BP sanctioned the Mad Dog Phase 2 project.

Wood Group PSN Inc., a Nevada corporation headquartered in Houston, was ordered to pay $9.5 million in two separate cases involving its conduct in the Gulf of Mexico. Specifically, Wood Group PSN was ordered to pay $7 million for falsely reporting over several years that personnel had performed safety inspections on offshore facilities in the Gulf of Mexico in the Western District of Louisiana, and $1.8 million for negligently discharging oil into the Gulf of Mexico in violation of the Clean Water Act after an explosion on an offshore facility in the Eastern District of Louisiana, announced Acting Assistant Attorney General Jeff Wood of the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Louisiana Stephanie A. Finley, and U.S.

Royal Dutch Shell has given the go-ahead to develop its Kaikias deepwater field in the Gulf of Mexico, the first such project the oil and gas company has approved in 18 months. Oil companies around the world are emerging from one of the longest downturns in recent decades amid warnings that the drop in investment in recent years may lead to a supply deficit by the end of the decade. Shell said the Kaikias oil and gas project, located some 210 kilometres (130 miles) from the Louisiana coast, will start production in 2019 and generate profits with oil prices lower than $40 a barrel after the company slashed its costs by around 50 percent due to simplified design plans. Oil prices were around $56 a barrel on Tuesday.

Subsea 7 said it was awarded a contract by BP as part of the deepwater Mad Dog 2 development, located approximately 190 miles south of New Orleans. The contract scope covers engineering, procurement, construction and installation (EPCI) of the subsea umbilicals, risers and flowlines (SURF) and associated subsea architecture. Subsea 7 has worked closely with BP to deliver a lump sum integrated solution from design through to supply, installation and commissioning. Furthermore, by collaborating with OneSubsea, a Schlumberger company, our Subsea Integration Alliance partner that has been awarded the Subsea Production Systems (SPS) contract, additional areas of cost improvement have been identified to provide greater cost certainty and reduced risk.

Speedcast International Limited,  provider of fully managed remote communication and IT solutions, has signed a reseller agreement with Tampnet for 4G/LTE services in the Gulf of Mexico. The agreement marks Speedcast as the first service provider to partner with Tampnet for its high capacity offshore network in the region. Tampnet announced in March that it has reached 25 percent of its planned coverage for the Gulf of Mexico. Upon completion at the end of 2018, Tampnet will have a low latency, high capacity fiber and microwave network made up of more than 60 base stations that they estimate will cover 98 percent of all manned offshore assets. Tampnet currently owns a similarly designed offshore low-latency network in the North Sea which has been in operation since 2001.

A vastly modernized U.S. offshore support fleet awaits the opportunity to perform Jones Act work in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico. Foreign operators, already here, predict disaster if a cabotage rule change takes effect. A change proposed by the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in its Customs Bulletin & Decision newsletter promises reversal of a 40-year practice that, until now, allowed the use of non-coastwise-qualified vessels in the transportation of pipeline repair material…

Emergency responders have extinguished a fire aboard a barge adrift approximately 2 miles west of Cat Island, Miss. U.S. Coast Guard watchstanders received a report at approximately 1:20 p.m. Thursday that a barge being pushed by the tug vessel Kathryn T. Devall caught fire with a reported 2,500 tons of anhydrous ammonia and 800 gallons of diesel fuel. The Gulfport Fire Department has extinguished the fire after the tug crew was unable to put out the blaze and released the barge from the tug. No injuries have been reported.

Major oil producers pushed up high bids at a Gulf of Mexico offshore auction to $121 million on Wednesday, a nearly seven-fold increase from a year ago, as their return to deep water exploration gained momentum. This compared with $18 million in high bids at the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management's (BOEM) Outer Continental Shelf auction last summer. Winners will be announced after a 90-day review. Some producers have signaled that they expect Gulf of Mexico projects to become more profitable now that they have trimmed operations to adapt to low oil prices.

Oil companies evacuate workers as storm takes aim at Texas. Royal Dutch Shell, Anadarko Petroleum and Exxon Mobil announced they were curbing some oil and gas output on Wednesday at facilities in the Gulf of Mexico ahead of a storm expected to hit the Texas coast later this week. The U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) issued a hurricane watch Wednesday for much of the Texas coast, calling for slow-moving Tropical Depression Harvey to intensify as it nears landfall. Shell said it was evacuating all personnel from the roughly 100…

Total announced that its subsidiary, TOTAL E&P USA, INC., has entered into an agreement to capture seven prospects operated by CHEVRON U.S.A. INC. in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico. The agreement covers 16 blocks. The associated prospects are located in two promising plays and areas of the GoM: Wilcox in Central GoM next to the Anchor discovery, and Norphlet in Eastern GoM nearby to the Appomattox discovery. Total’s participation in these wells will be between 25 percentand 40 percent.The first of these wells was spudded late July on the Ballymore prospect in Mississippi Canyon.

TGS and Schlumberger today announce commencement of the Dual Coil Shooting* multi-vessel full-azimuth acquisition Revolution XII and XIII surveys in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico. The surveys will cover approximately 7,150 km2 (306 blocks) in the Green Canyon, Atwater Valley and Ewing Bank protraction areas of the Central Gulf of Mexico. The Revolution XIl and XIII surveys will be acquired using the Schlumberger WesternGeco Q-Marine* point-receiver marine seismic system combined with the proprietary multivessel…

Offshore oil and gas operators in the Gulf of Mexico are evacuating platforms and rigs in the path of Tropical Depression No. The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) said its Hurricane Response Team is activated and monitoring the operators’ activities, and will continue to work with offshore operators and other state and federal agencies until operations return to normal and the storm is no longer a threat to Gulf of Mexico oil and gas activities. Based on data from offshore operator reports submitted as of 11:30 a.m.

After a few years of relative calm, the 2017 hurricane season wreaked havoc in the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico, causing widespread damage and human suffering, and exposing the vulnerabilities and strengths of American energy security. As the flood waters from Hurricane Harvey receded and Gulf coast residents embarked on the arduous road to recovery, the offshore energy industry took stock and counted its losses and blessings. Offshore energy facilities faired remarkably well compared to onshore energy facilities, many of which suffered catastrophic damage from flood waters.

A fire broke out on an oil tanker of Mexican state oil company Pemex in the Gulf of Mexico on Saturday, forcing all the crew to be evacuated in the latest accident to plague the struggling firm. The blaze on the tanker "Burgos" occurred off the coast of Boca del Rio in Veracruz state and all the crew were safe, Pemex said in a tweet. Mexico's Navy said there were 31 crew members and that all had returned to port. Images tweeted by Pemex showed the vessel giving off plumes of smoke as another boat hosed the tanker. Early on Saturday evening, Pemex said that firefighting teams were still working to put out the blaze. The tanker was carrying 80,000 barrels of diesel and 70,000 barrels of gasoline, Mexicos Communications and Transport Ministry said.

Oil major Royal Dutch Shell said its U.S. unit had made one of its biggest oil discoveries in the past decade in the Whale deepwater well in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico. The Whale is operated by Shell and co-owned by U.S. oil giant Chevron Corp. "Evaluation of the discovery was ongoing, and appraisal drilling is underway to further delineate the discovery and define development options," Shell Offshore Inc said in a statement without giving figures. Shell has three Gulf of Mexico deepwater projects under construction -- Appomattox, Kaikias and Coulomb Phase 2. It has added more than one billion barrels of oil equivalent (boe) resources in the last decade in the Gulf of Mexico.

The Trump administration's plan to broadly expand drilling in U.S. offshore waters is moving slowly due to opposition from coastal states and indifference from oil companies that have turned their focus to other opportunities. The administration hopes encouraging U.S. energy development outside of shale oilfields will further its goal of "energy dominance." But existing Obama administration lease rules remain in place through 2022 unless the new rules gain approval. The Department of the Interior this year proposed opening vast new acreage in the U.S. outer continental shelf to drilling.

The Chief Executive of offshore oil and gas driller Fieldwood Energy LLC, Matt McCarroll, says he is not scared of the hurricanes, geological risks and costs that keep some oil companies out of the Gulf of Mexico. Instead, he is doubling down. The private equity-backed company - already the largest operator on the U.S. outer continental shelf - announced on Thursday it is closing a $480 million acquisition of Noble Energy’s assets in the Gulf of Mexico that will add 25,000 barrels per day (bpd) to its current net production of 72,000 bpd of oil equivalent.

Sole standalone in a sea of tiebacks: BP's Mad Dog is the only major final investment decision (FID)  in deepwater Gulf of Mexico this year, says Wood Mackenzie. On 1 December 2016, BP (60.5% and operator) sanctioned the Mad Dog Phase II development in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico (GoM). BP and partners BHP Billiton (23.9%) and Chevron (15.6%) operate the Mad Dog field, which began production in January 2005. The second phase commercialises southern segments of the field that were discovered in 2009 and 2011.