Gene Kliewer • Houston,
North America
Gulf of Mexico. The first in a two-to-three well drilling program on Mobile Bay leases 950, 951, and 873 has been started by Petsec Energy Ltd. The Mobile Bay 951 #1 is in 20 m of water about 160 km east of New Orleans and has a proposed TD of 930 m. Royal Exploration Co. Inc. is the operator.
Mississippi Canyon 109 Amberjack platform has resumed production following repairs and an oil pipeline rerouting caused by Hurricane Katrina. Limited production was restored in September 2006 using barges. With completion of the pipeline, however, production should get to full rate before year-end.
A conventional shelf discovery at the High Island 116 #5ST1 well was reported by Mariner Energy Inc. The well was drilled to a measured depth of 14,683 ft and encountered 540 ft of net vertical pay in 13 sands. Completion is under way and production is anticipated before year-end.
Canada. Shell Canada reports drilling is under way on the first exploration well in the Orphan basin of the north Atlantic off Newfoundland. The well will be one of the deepest ever drilled off Canada, in nearly 2,400 m of water. Projected TD is 7,200 m. Partners in the property also include Chevron, Imperial Oil, and ExxonMobil. As part of their commitment, the partners paid a record $672 million for eight exploration blocks in 2003.
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Africa
Angola. The Girassol FPSO is scheduled to receive four processing modules built by Eiffel in southern France under contract to Ponticelli for Total. Heerema has the contract to transport and to lift the modules onto the FPSO.
Eiffel-build process module being loaded onto a barge for transportation to theGirassol FPSO offshore Angola.
Congo. Congo Brazzaville aims to increase oil production by 8% in 2007 with new offshore developments starting to flow. The current output of around 274,000 b/d would rise to almost 300,000 b/d next year, led by new production from the Total SA -operated Moho and Bilondo fields.
Nigeria. An additional appraisal well was approved for Aje field offshore Nigeria in OML 113. Lundin Petroleum and Palace Exploration Co. have opted not to participate in the drilling of Aje-4, so YFP, the Nigerian firm which holds the rights to OML 113, and Syntroleum Corp. are seeking companies interested in joining the participant group. Under the original joint venture agreement with YFP, Syntroleum and its partners have until April 5, 2007, to commence drilling the Aje-4 well, subject to rig availability. The Aje field was discovered in 1996 with the drilling of the Aje 1 and 2 wells which tested a combined rate of 6,255 b/d of oil and 1,729 b/d of condensate, and 66.7 MMcf/d of gas.
Since the drilling of the Aje-3 well, the participant group has reprocessed the 3D seismic and conducted a new evaluation of the reprocessed data. This work, combined with the results of the Aje-3 well, led to pursue an additional well.
Elf Nigeria Ltd. has said it will cease natural gas flaring when Phase II of Amenam Kpono is completed. Phase II will include shipping gas from Bonny.
One milestone on the project is that the AMP2 piles (2,000 tons) were rolled in a Saipem yard in Nigeria, increasing the Nigerian content and saving costs for transportation.
Namibia. EnerGulf Resources Inc. says a Netherland, Sewell & Associates assessment of the Kunene and Hartmann prospects in block 1711 offshore Namibia has caused the operator to consider a test well on the Kunene prospect that would be drilled to a TD of approximately 3,625 m in 900 m of water, at a cost of approximately $21 million, including testing and completion or abandonment costs. The Kunene prospect is defined by a 650-sq km 3D seismic survey. The structure forms a four-way dip closure covering 82 sq km, with vertical closure of over 400 m. The Hartmann prospect has been delineated by 1,085 km of 2D seismic. It is identified as a stratigraphic trap with an area of 377 sq km and approximately 1,600 m of vertical relief.
Asia-Pacific
Malaysia. Petrofac Malaysia has begun production from the Cendor field in block PM304 offshore Malaysia. In a first for the area, Petrofac is using the first mobile offshore production unit (MOPU) in Malaysian waters connected to a spread moored floating storage and offloading unit (FSO) via a flexible submarine pipeline. Production has averaged 3,500 b/d of oil from one of the expected seven first-phase development wells. Five of those wells are drilled and will be brought on stream selectively to allow testing of the reservoir. Field reserves are estimated at 24.6 MMbbl of oil.
Cendor field in PM 304 off Malaysia has gone into production using a MOPU connected to a moored FSO.
Petrofac Malaysia, a wholly owned subsidiary of Petrofac Resources, is operator of the field with Petronas Carigali, Kuwait Foreign Petroleum Exploration Co., and PetroVietnam Investment Development Co. as partners.
PTT Exploration and Production Public Co. Ltd. (PTTEP) has leased an FPSO to accelerate the additional gas supply from Arthit project to an average of 120 - 150 MMcf/d of gas for a minimum of 3 years starting from 1Q08. According to the original plan PTTEP would start producing at 330 MMcf/d of gas in early 2008, but rising demand has pushed the production target higher.
Indonesia. Some 40 foreign and domestic companies have secured documents to bid for 41 blocks, which were offered by the Indonesian government in August, Luluk Sumiarso, director general for oil and gas at the Energy and Ministry of Mineral Resources, said. But he conceded that not all the document buyers would be bidding for the blocks.
India. Reliance Industries Ltd. has postponed its first exploration well in Krishna-Godavari deepwater block KG-DWN-2001/1 till July 2007. This is the second time Reliance has deferred its drilling in the deepwater block. Drilling was originally supposed to begin in December 2006, but Reliance postponed to April 2007 due to non-availability of drilling rigs.
Australia. Australian Resources Minister Ian Macfarlane awarded 12 offshore petroleum exploration permits secured with more than $270 million.
“These latest permits cover areas off Western and South Australia, as well as the Northern Territory, bringing the number of permits in Australian offshore waters to a record total of 190,” said Macfarlane.
“Increased petroleum exploration is essential to Australia’s long term energy security and to our future economic wellbeing, and these areas offer exciting potential for petroleum discovery. The Government has recently introduced exploration tax breaks and boosted the nation’s exploration geoscience data with an extra $134 million, and we are now welcoming new explorers from countries including Scotland and India,” he said.
The 12 new permits are:
- One permit to Shell Development (Australia) Pty Ltd and Chevron Australia Pty Ltd., in the Carnarvon basin off Western Australia, near Scarborough gas field
- Two permits to Octanex NL and Strata Resources NL, in the Southern Exmouth sub-basin, southwest of the Enfield oil production area
- One permit to Oilex NL, Gujarat State Petroleum Corp. Ltd., Videocon Industries Ltd., Bharat Petroleum Corp. Ltd., and Hindustan Petroleum Corp. Ltd., in deepwater in the northern Exmouth Plateau
- One permit to Gascorp Australia Ltd., in the Outer Exmouth Plateau in a deepwater extension of Australia’s major hydrocarbon producing basin
- One permit in the northern Exmouth Plateau, northwest of the Mutineer/Exeter oilfield, to Cue Exploration Pty. Ltd.
- One permit to Gascorp Australia Ltd. in the northern Exmouth Plateau, northeast of the Janz/Io gas discovery
- Two permits to Westralian Petroleum Ltd., Lempika Pty. Ltd., and Emphazise Pty. Ltd., within a proven petroleum system in the Perth basin off Western Australia
- One permit to Exoil Ltd., Gascorp Australia Ltd., Moby Oil and Gas Ltd., and National Energy Pty. Ltd. in the Otway basin off South Australia
- Two permits to Oil and Gas Pty. Ltd., Australian Natural Gas Pty. Ltd., and Nations Natural Gas Pty. Ltd., in the Bonaparte basin off the Northern Territory.
Caspian Sea
Initial development of Kashagan field and other Kazakh sector Caspian Sea projects will cost about $15 billion, according to Eni CEO Paolo Scaroni. Agip KCO was established to develop the North Caspian project following the signing of a 40-year PSA in 1997. In addition to Kashagan, the drilling contract acreage includes the Kalamkas, Aktoty, and Kairan structures. Agip KCO participants are Eni (the operator of the North Caspian project), Total, ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch/ Shell have 18.52% each, ConocoPhillips - 9.26%, and Inpex and KazMunaiGaz - 8.33% each.
According to Agip KCO, recoverable oil reserves at Kashagan are estimated at 7-9 Bbbl at least, with total geological reserves of 38 Bbbl.
North Sea
Endeavour International Corp. has agreed in principle with Apache Corp. to participate in two North Sea exploratory wells to be drilled by Apache in 4Q06. The farm-in would call for Endeavour to provide Apache the second slot of its two-well drilling commitment for a semisubmersible rig in return for an option to purchase a 10% working interest in the Howgate prospect in block 9/4a in the event of a discovery. The block is in the North Viking Graben area of the North Sea. The well will target an Upper Jurassic sandstone located updip of a previously drilled well that encountered hydrocarbons.
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