P.2 ~ Oil production in federal GoM expected to keep increasing

April 8, 2015

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Big Foot heads out to the deepwater Gulf

Chevron Corp. says that itsBig Foot platform safely sailed away from Corpus Christi, Texas, and is now en route to its offshore location in the Walker Ridge Area of the deepwater GoM.

The platform was successfully floated through the La Quinta Ship Channel and is being towed to site at approximately 225 mi (360 km) south of New Orleans, Louisiana, in water depths of 5,200 ft (1,600 m).

Once safely anchored to the ocean floor, the offshore hook-up and commissioning work will commence, followed by the development well drilling and completion campaign.

TheBig Foot platform is a dry-tree extended tension-leg platform (ETLP) with an onboard drilling rig and production capacity of 75,000 b/d of oil and 25 MMcf/d of natural gas. The hull was fabricated in South Korea, with the topsides fabricated in Ingleside, Texas. Up to 200 people can be accommodated on the platform.

TheBig Foot field was first discovered in 2006, and Chevron sanctioned the project in 2010. The field is estimated to contain total recoverable resources in excess of 200 MMboe and will have an estimated 35-year production life. First oil and gas is expected in 2015.

Chevron subsidiary, Chevron U.S.A. Inc. (operator), has a working interest of 60% in theBig Foot development, with co-owners Statoil (27.5%) and Marubeni Oil & Gas (12.5%).

BP issues update on Gulf restoration efforts

BP has issued a new detailed report on its efforts to clean up and restore the Gulf in the wake of the 2010 Macondo incident.

The company has been working with state and federal trustees through the natural resource damage assessment (NRDA) process to collect data to evaluate the potential for injury to wildlife and habitat, and the recreational use of these resources.

According to BP, more than four years of environmental assessment data suggests that most of the impact on the environment was of short duration and limited in geography. A number of physical, biological, and chemical processes acted upon the oil after it was released from the wellhead, causing the volume and concentration of oil to decrease as it travelled away from the well. In the five years since the spill, scientific data and studies are showing that the Gulf environment is returning to its baseline condition.

The Gulf of Mexico Environmental Recovery and Restoration report also indicates that impacts from the spill largely occurred in the spring and summer of 2010.

The report is based on scientific studies that government agencies, academic institutions, BP, and others conducted as part of the spill response, the ongoing NRDA process or through independent research.

BP and the trustees have been using the cooperative field work data developed through the NRDA process to evaluate injuries to natural resources and to guide the selection of early restoration projects and longer-term restoration of the Gulf Coast. The goal is to return the environment to its baseline condition – the condition it would be in if the accident had not occurred.

Since May 2010, BP has worked with state and federal trustees to develop and implement more than 240 initial and amended work plans to study wildlife, habitat and the recreational use of these resources. By the end of 2014, BP says it had spent approximately $1.3 billion to support the assessment process. More details on the report can be found on BP's website.

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