RSS for Articles and Whitepapers

Subsea separation, boosting reach record depths

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 23:00:20 GMT

March 1,2010 --

This is an overview of the subsea separation, boosting, and compression progress and development in the offshore oil and gas industry during 2009. Recent awards and start-ups indicate several new projects in the developmental stages plus new wo.......

Polymer seal tests reveal elastomer needs for future EOR programs

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 22:45:30 GMT

March 1,2010 --

Extracting oil is becoming more technically and financial challenging as operators face increasingly complex and deeper wells. The lifespan of a well is dictated by production volume versus economic viability. This has led to technologies for e.......

Capitalizing on real-time drilling data in reservoir management

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 22:40:20 GMT

March 1,2010 --

The industry is looking for fast, easy-to-use, powerful reservoir management solutions to improve performance and production, and reservoir modeling is moving into this crucial phase of drilling developments in well correlation, well planning, .......

Installation of the world's deepest spar

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 22:30:10 GMT

March 1,2010 --

Shell’s Perdido development is a record-setting venture. The list of world firsts includes the deepest ever installation of a spar, 2,384 m (7,820 ft) of water depth; the deepest installation of permanent suction piles, 2,630 m (8,630 ft).......

Ultra high-pressure risers for deepwater drilling

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 22:20:50 GMT

March 1,2010 --

As the development of offshore hydrocarbon reserves extends into greater water and well depths, riser system design and supply becomes a critical industry challenge. One such example is the drilling of pre-salt wells in water depths approaching.......

Caspian Sea set for offshore resurgence

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 22:00:50 GMT

March 1,2010 --

The Caspian Sea is the setting for some of the world’s oldest offshore oil developments. These date to the late 1940s in Azerbaijan, when the Pirallahi, Gurgany Deniz, and Chilov Adasy fields were brought onstream. Azerbaijan remained a p.......

Seismic vessel count down, but work is picking up

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 22:00:00 GMT

March 1,2010 --

The business side of offshore geology and geophysics in 2009 remained in tune with the generally weak year for the entire E&P industry. The survey which follows shows that the vessel count was 156, down by 17 from last year’s report. .......

Worldwide Seismic Vessel Survey

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 22:00:00 GMT

March 1,2010 --

Worldwide Seismic Vessel Survey

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Downhole monitoring, control using digital distributed sensing

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 22:00:00 GMT

March 1,2010 --

Real-time, accurate downhole monitoring data is crucial to understanding and controlling wellbore and reservoir performance while maximizing oil and gas extraction. An increasingly used method to get this data is permanently installed downhole .......

DRILLING & PRODUCTION

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 21:00:00 GMT

March 1,2010 --

Shell International E&P and Delft University of Technology have launched a new joint research project that seeks to develop new techniques for enhancing oil production by combining new technologies with traditional methods.

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GEOSCIENCES

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 21:00:00 GMT

March 1,2010 --

TGS is conducting a 2D seismic acquisition program offshore West Papua in East Indonesia to add 2,240 km (1,392 mi) of new 2D data to help evaluate the potential south of Salawati basin. Salawati is recognized as one of the largest oil basins i.......

VESSELS, RIGS, & SURFACE SYSTEMS

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 20:45:50 GMT

March 1,2010 --

PennWell’s Deep Offshore Technology International Conference & Exhibition (DOT) is an event where operators, equipment manufacturers, contactors, and service-providers introduce new deepwater technology. This past February in Houston,.......

SUBSEA SYSTEMS

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 20:40:40 GMT

March 1,2010 --

ATP Oil & Gas Corp. and Blue Ocean Technologies set multiple new industry records in subsea well intervention while working over two gas production wells in 2,950 ft (900 m) of water and approximately 9,000 ft (2,743 m) downhole without a r.......

GULF OF MEXICO

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 20:40:10 GMT

March 1,2010 --

A sidetrack appraisal well on the Lucius discovery in the Gulf of Mexico Keathley Canyon block 875, encountered about 600 net ft (183 m) of oil and gas pay in subsalt Pliocene and Miocene sands, operator Anadarko reports.

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OFFSHORE EUROPE

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 19:55:20 GMT

March 1,2010 --

Norway has issued 38 new production licenses under its latest Awards in Pre-Defined Areas (APA) round. The permits were spread between the North Sea (25), the Norwegian Sea (10), and the Barents Sea (three).

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GLOBAL E & P

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 19:25:40 GMT

March 1,2010 --

Petrobras and Chevron have awarded a series of contracts for the Papa Terra heavy oil field development in the Campos basin, 68 mi (110 km) offshore Rio de Janeiro, in water depths of up to 3,940 ft (1,200 m).

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GLOBAL DATA

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 19:20:10 GMT

March 1,2010 --

GLOBAL DATA

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Seismic vessel count down but work is picking up

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 19:15:30 GMT

March 1,2010 --

The business side of offshore geology and geophysics in 2009 remained in tune with the generally weak year for the entire E&P industry. As the global survey of seismic vessel activity in this month’s issue shows, the vessel count was .......

Geoscientists peer into the crystal ball

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 18:10:50 GMT

March 1,2010 --

We hear so many varying opinions in the mainstream media about the energy industry that it is hard to tell if it will be feast or famine in the days ahead. So we at SMT thought it would be interesting to avoid the “talking heads” an.......

BUSINESS BRIEFS

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 18:10:20 GMT

March 1,2010 --

Aker Qserv has appointed Ian Pittman as well services manager to lead its operations in the east of England. Based in Great Yarmouth, Pittman will provide operational management support for a range of Aker QServ clients includi.......

Kohlswa will deliver 54 H-shackles to Ramn�s for the Usan FPSO mooring system.

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 18:05:50 GMT

March 1,2010 --

SKF has strengthened its offshore presence with two wide-ranging contracts for operations in the northern hemisphere.

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H-shackles to connect Usan mooring chain

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 18:05:20 GMT

March 1,2010 --

Kohlswa Gjuteri will supply a total of 54 mooring shackles for Total’s Usan development off Nigeria. The order has been placed by Ramnäs Bruk, a regular user of Kohlswa’s cast-steel products, which is providing mooring chain to.......

Report shows enormity of GoM decommissioning market

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 17:40:20 GMT

March 1,2010 --

It may come as a surprise, but for some Port Fourchon companies one of the hottest markets in the Gulf of Mexico these days has nothing to do with drilling or production. Quite the contrary, actually.

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Storms, deepwater combine to make inspections healthy business in Port Fourchon

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 17:30:50 GMT

March 1,2010 --

Add a few hurricanes to the intrinsic nature of the deepwater and you have the ideal scenario for companies specializing in checking the integrity of topsides and downhole paraphernalia.

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New lock keeps bayou cargo flowing; LA 1 again seeks funding

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 17:30:30 GMT

March 1,2010 --

A waterway that some contend is as vital to the offshore as its more popularized overland counterpart received a major boost late last year with the long-awaited opening of a lock engineered to keep rig-bound cargo moving.

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Yes, they have no bananas

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 17:00:00 GMT

March 1,2010 --

Determined to corner the lucrative banana trade, Louisiana Gov. Jimmie Davis on July 7, 1960, put his signature to Act 222 that created the Greater Lafourche Port Commission, and with it, Port Fourchon.

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HOS Centerline gives new meaning to multi-purpose vessel

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 17:00:00 GMT

March 1,2010 --

When Hornbeck Offshore Services Inc. introduced its 370-ft (113-m) HOS Centerline last year, it not only gave the Gulf of Mexico the world’s largest support vessel, but also one designed to transport everything from drilling fluid to crud.......

Glass-syntactic foam insulates IRM divers

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 17:00:00 GMT

March 1,2010 --

Syntactic foam from Trelleborg Offshore is helping to protect saturation divers from the cold during offshore inspection, repair, and maintenance tasks.

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Challenges to manufacture of pipe for deepwater, corrosive hydrocarbons

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 16:25:20 GMT

March 1,2010 --

Gas is increasingly important in a historically oil-driven world economy. Its increased value is a driver of pipeline technology developments. To meet the demand for gas transportation through more onerous environments, there are factors the pi.......

Technip lowering threshold for flexible pipes, risers

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 16:15:10 GMT

March 1,2010 --

Technip is shifting its subsea R&D focus increasingly towards the coming generation of ultra deepwater projects. Management outlined some of the solutions and associated investments at a recent presentation at the company’s flexible r.......