A growing interest in global frontiers
Operators are expressing increasing interest in India, and the Indian government is doing more to make business in India attractive to foreign investors.
If participation at the New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP) V road show in Houston recently is any indication, their efforts are paying off. Mani Shankar Aiyar, India’s minister of petroleum, tellsOffshorethat the level of success surprised even the delegation that presented the NELP V prospects to the world.
“We are flattered that there is this much attendance,” he said, “and we think it is a reflection of the fact that India has finally arrived on the global hydrocarbon scene.”
International Editor Judy Maksoud met with Aiyar and other Indian officials in compiling her report in this month’s issue (page 28).
Aiyar attributes growing interest in part to recent discoveries in the Bay of Bengal and onshore Rajasthan.
The country’s increasing appeal centers on creating investment options that include joint ventures, either with other foreign companies or with private Indian companies.
“There are simply no restrictions for companies coming to India for E&P,” Minister Aiyar says.
Another frontier may be emerging off East Africa.Jeremy Beckman, Editor, Europe,reports in this issue on a prospect off Tanzania. Oil extracted from cuttings from Nyuni-1, Tanzania’s first offshore wildcat in 12 years, gives the strongest indication to date of a working oil system offshore East Africa.
Operator Aminex, based in London, plans to resume exploration. Based on the outcome of Nyuni-1, other near-shore and shallow-water concession holders are formulating their own drilling plans. Farther east, beyond the shelf break, Shell and fellow majors are scrutinizing Tanzania’s unexplored deepwater blocks in the hope of unearthing a new “West Africa.” Geological analogies suggest they may have a point because of a similar confluence of deltaic systems. Beckman’s report begins onpage 34.
Finally, in an intriguing analysis of another frontier province,Ivetta Gerasimchuk, Special Correspondent for Offshore writing from Moscow, compares the Barents Sea to the Gulf of Mexico in its early days.
“Offshore technology seems to follow the flow of the Gulf Stream. In the 1960s and later, technologies from the GoM helped to develop the reserves of the North and Norwegian Sea. Now new technologies are being brought to where the Gulf Stream ends - the Barents Sea,” she writes.
Multinationals seem eager to turn the Barents Sea into the GoM. In 2002, Statoil launched its Snøhvit project in the Norwegian sector of the Barents Sea. It will provide the US East Coast and Spain with LNG starting in 2006. In 2004-2005, some of the world’s major operators applied to become Gazprom’s partners in development of Shtokman, the world’s largest gas field. Gerasimchuk discusses these and other projects in her report, beginning onpage 40.
Fast track projects that require parallel engineering and construction are becoming the norm for leased FPSO projects. This new requirement has contractors adapting work methods to meet increasingly stringent client requirements. In a case history analysis,Marco A. Maddalena of Petrobras and Jim R Wodehouse of Single Buoy Moorings Inc. describe how this model can work.
Speculative work on hull refurbishment and conversion can help contractors meet schedules. Unfortunately, however, spec work has a limited benefit for long lead-time items, such as topsides and turret items that usually define the project’s critical path.
Minor delays and design changes are inevitable with parallel engineering and construction, but they can be managed when the companies performing the engineering, construction management, installation, and operation are part of the same group. Their report, beginning onpage 52, tells how.