Lake Maracaibo News

A Liberia-flagged oil tanker chartered by Chevron Corp had a minor collision with another vessel, the Bueno, in Venezuelan waters on Sunday, according to sources and a shipping report seen by Reuters on Monday. The Bueno has not navigated international waters since the U.S. Treasury Department last year imposed sanctions on it and four other vessels for alleged involvement in moving Iranian-origin shipments, which led to the loss of its Djibouti flag.Chevron-chartered tanker Kerala, which is scheduled to load about 240,000 barrels of Venezuelan heavy oil at the Bajo Grande terminal at Lake Maracaibo this week, was near the Amuay ship-to-ship transfer area on Sunday night when it collided with the Bueno.Incidents involving vessels…

Paris-based Maurel & Prom announced that it has acquired Shell Exploration and Production Investments' 40% interest as Shareholder B in Petroregional del Lago Mixed Company, which operates the Urdaneta West field in Lake Maracaibo, Venezuela.Maurel & Prom said further that all condition precedents have been satisfied and that the acquisition has been completed.The total consideration for the acquisition of Shell's shares in the Mixed Company is EUR70 million, funded from Maurel & Prom's existing cash resources and composed as follows: EUR47 million which have been paid at closing of the transaction, and EUR23 million payable in December 2019…

When night falls over western Venezuela, armed gangs known as "pirates" sometimes ride boats into muggy Lake Maracaibo to steal equipment from oil wells. In the country's Paraguana peninsula, opposite the Caribbean island of Aruba, slum dwellers at times break through a perimeter wall into Venezuela's biggest refinery and rob machinery, construction tools, and cables to sell as scrap. On the other side of the OPEC country in Monagas state, around 26,000 potential barrels were lost in March during a shutdown after state oil company employees and contractors stole copper cables and caused a tank to overflow. Venezuela's national crime pandemic - the United Nations says the country has the world's second-highest murder rate after Honduras - is a growing headache for the oil industry…

Danish shipping conglomerate A.P. Moller-Maersk said on Tuesday its offshore oil and gas drilling unit has sold its Venezuelan barge activities. Maersk Drilling said on its website its Venezuelan barge business represents a "minor part" of its activities. It comprises of a fleet of 10 barges on management contracts on Lake Maracaibo. Reporting by Sabina Zawadzki

1806  - Spring pole cable drilling developed in US. 1844  - Fluid circulating rotary well drilling patented in England. 1845  - Circulated fluid used to remove drill cuttings for first time. 1860  - Fluid circulation rotary diamond coring drill developed in France. 1869 – T homas Fitch Rowland  patents  a “submarine drilling apparatus,” a fixed, working platform for drilling offshore to a depth of almost 50 feet. The anchored tower had telescoping legs, similar to modern offshore platforms. 1878  - First bulk oil tanker begins operation in the Caspian Sea. 1891  - First ocean-going tanker launched. 1897  - Wells drilled off piers in Summerland, Calif. 1905 – Oil discovered in the Caddo Pine Island field in Lousiana. 1911  -  Gulf Refining Co.

Offshore exploration is a history of man v. Prospecting for oil is a dynamic art. From a lake in Ohio, to piers off the California coast in the early 1900s, to the salt marshes of Louisiana in the 1930s, to the first “out-of-sight- of-land” tower in 1947 in the Gulf of Mexico, the modern offshore petroleum industry has inched its way over the last roughly 75 years from 100 ft. of water ever farther into the briny deep, where the biggest platform today, Shell’s Perdido spar, sits in 8,000 ft. of water. As a planet, we have two unquenchable thirsts – for water and for oil.

TDI-Halter, a Halter Marine Group, Inc. company, Gulfport, Miss., delivered Prisa 103, the last of the trio of newly-built drilling barges to Sedco Forex, the drilling division of Schlumberger Limited. Measuring 180 x 75 x 15 ft. (54.8 x 22.8 x 4.5 m), Prisa 101, 102 and 103 are part of an overall conceptual design approach - an approach in which Sedco Forex has permanently integrated the Well intervention structure, equipment and systems to facilitate conventional light drilling and well re-entry with coiled tubing and other well intervention operations. Joining the first two member of the trio, Prisa 103, which began the tow to Venezuela this past March, is currently deployed in the country's Lake Maracaibo for a 10-year contract with PDVSA.

The business of predicting the course of financial markets has led many companies - good and bad, large and small - to ruin. Perhaps, then, it is better to rely on tenets of nature, such as "Only the Strong Survive" when laying out business plans. Conrad Industries of Morgan City, La., has obviously ascribed to the latter, building a formidable fortress of a marine company with a wide geographic scope, including the recent news of its pending acquisition of Swiftships, an apparent $12.5 million deal which is still under negotiation. Visitors unfamiliar with Conrad Industries would be immediately struck by the modernity of its facilities in Morgan City, La. In continuous operation since 1948, Conrad Shipyard, based here, specializes in offshore and inland vessel and barge repair.