Oil Accumulations News

EMGS has received permits from Mexico's Comisión Nacional de Hidrocarburos (CNH) authorizing the acquisition of up to approximately 88,000 square km 3D EM multi-client data in the Salina de Itsmo Basin. EMGS will prioritize acquiring EM data for the future bid rounds in Mexico as outlined in the ''Plan Quinquenal de Licitaciones para la Exploración y Extracción de Hidrocarburos 2015-2019'' announced by theSecretaría de Energía (SENER) in early July. "We are pleased and encouraged by the recently announced 5 year plan for future licensing rounds offshore Mexico. It pairs well with our plans in Mexico and the received CNH permits and enables us to now actively seek funding of our projects", says Juan M. Santana, President EMGS North and South America.

Ezra Holdings Limited’s wholly owned subsidiary, London Marine Consultants (LMC), Ezra’s Floating Production, Storage and Offloading (FPSO) Turret Design outfit, has been awarded a contract by Sembcorp Marine’s subsidiary Jurong Shipyard of Singapore, to supply an external turret mooring system for the Libra field’s Extended Well Test (EWT) FPSO vessel. The Libra oil field is a large, ultra-deepwater (up to 2,500 meters) oil prospect located in the Santos Basin, about 230 kilometers off the coast of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, north of Tupi field. The oil field estimated to contain recoverable resources ranging between eight billion to 12 billion barrels of oil and is one of the largest deepwater oil accumulations globally.

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…

Brazil’s Libra pre-salt field, in Block SS-AUP1 in the Santos Basin, with estimated recoverable oil volumes of 8-12 billion barrels of oil equivalent (BOE) and in place volumes of between 25-40 billion BOE, was the country’s first pre-salt field to be auctioned. The rules governing this historical auction have been shunned by important super-majors such as Exxon Mobil, Chevron and BP and also by major players such as the BG Group and Statoil. Many industry analysts were surprised that state-owned players from China, India and Malaysia dominated the list of companies that have agreed to the controversial terms imposed by the Brazilian government, through its National Petroleum Agency (ANP).

Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement Update on Platform Fire Investigation. The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) began an investigation early Friday morning into the explosion and fire aboard a production platform, operated by Black Elk Energy, approximately 18 miles southeast of Grand Isle, La. An investigation team was formed by BSEE shortly after the explosion and fire and is comprised of safety inspectors, engineers, safety management investigators, and law enforcement experts.

The debate regarding working in and around the Arctic is multi-tiered, with environmental, technical and emergency response heading the list. There is no debate regarding the fuel, money and emissions to be saved by shortening select global shipping routes. In a report from Bloomberg news posted June 13 on http://www.businessweek.com, it was said there will be a rise in dry bulk cargos hauled through Arctic waters this season, a journey that can halve shipping time compared to some Suez Canal shipments, and simultaneously reduce fuel consumption, costs and emissions.

An estimated 513 billion barrels of technically recoverable heavy oil are in Venezuela’s Orinoco Oil Belt. This area contains one of the world's largest recoverable oil accumulations, and this assessment is the first to identify how much is technically recoverable (producible using currently available technology and industry practices). Worldwide consumption of petroleum was 85.4 million barrels per day in 2008. The three largest consuming countries were United States with 19.5 million barrels per day, China with 7.9 million barrels per day, and Japan with 4.8 million barrels per day. “Knowing the potential for extractable resources from this tremendous oil accumulation…