Jeremy Beckman • London
North America
Cairn Energy has contracted two deepwater DP rigs for a four-well exploration program this year offshore Greenland. The semisubmersibleLeiv Eiriksson and the drillship Ocean Rig Corcovado will drill the wells. Cairn’s initial campaign last year delivered one sub-commercial gas discovery.
South America
Repsol is teaming up with Ecopetrol and Petrobras to explore the Tayrona block in the Colombian sector of the Caribbean Sea. Tayrona covers a total area of over 1.6 million ha (6,400 sq mi).
Petrobras has filed a declaration of commerciality to Brazil’s National Agency of Petroleum for its light oil and gas discoveries in block BM-S-11 in the Santos basin. Under its evaluation and development plans, Petrobras proposes re-naming the Tupi and Iracema fields Lula and Cernamba.
The company and its partners have also chartered two further FPSOs, each with capacity to handle production of 150,000 b/d of oil and 212 MMcf/d of gas. One will be deployed on the southern part of Cernamba, with the other despatched to the Guara Norte area in Santos basin block BM-S-9. Both should be ready for start-up in 2014. This brings the total of FPSOs on order for both blocks to 13.
At Guara, an extended well test started in late December, using the FPSODynamic Producer. The test is due to last for five months, producing around 14,000 b/d of oil. Another pilot production scheme is scheduled for the field in 2013, involving well tiebacks to the FPSO Cicade de Sao Paulo.
In the Campos basin, theP-57 FPSO has begun producing oil ahead of schedule on Petrobras’ Jubarte field. SBM Offshore managed construction of the vessel in yards in Singapore and Brazil, and will operate it during Jubarte’s first three years of production. The field is 80 km (49.7 mi) off the Espirito Santo coast in a water depth of 1,260 m (4,134 ft). P-57 can process 180,000 b/d of oil and 2 MMcf/d of gas, to be supplied via 15 producer and seven injector wells.
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Maersk Oil is acquiring SK do Brasil for $2.4 billion. The latter’s assets include stakes in three blocks in the Campos basin containing the producing Polvo oil field and the Wahoo and Itaipu discoveries. Maersk says Wahoo and Itaipu will be appraised later this year, and further prospects in the blocks could be drilled in 2013.
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Desire Petroleum has terminated its latest exploration well in the offshore North Falklands basin, after encountering only gas shows in the Dawn/Jacinta structure. The semisubmersibleOcean Guardian has since reverted to Rockhopper, which drilled the region’s sole commercial discovery last year, named Sea Lion. Desire has one further slot for the rig, at a yet to be determined location.
West Africa
Dana Petroleum has notched its second deepwater gas find offshore Mauritania. The semisubmersibleMaersk Deliverer drilled the Cormoran-1 well in block 7, a short distance south of the 2003 Pelican-1 discovery, in 1,630 m (5,348 ft) of water. It encountered four separate gas columns, one of which flowed 22-24 MMcf/d during a test constrained to avoid sand production. The rig later transferred 22 km (13.7 mi) southwest to drill the Gharabi-1 exploratory well for PC Mauritania.
Next up for the drillship is the tophole section of Tweneboa-4, followed by Enyenra-2A, designed to appraise the potential down-dip of last year’s Owo-1 oil discovery. Tullow is working on development options for the Greater Tweneboa area.
The initial development plan calls for three producer and three subsea gas injector wells tied into a processing platform. Produced condensate will be separated and transported via a pipeline to Noble’s Aseng FPSO, 15 mi (24 km) to the south on block 1, with the gas being re-injected into Alen’s reservoir to boost liquids recovery.
North Africa
Sonde Resources says its Zarat North-1 appraisal well offshore Tunisia exceeded expectations. Three production tests flowed quantities of gas and condensate, and the thickness of the hydrocarbon column was twice the original prognosis.
The well was drilled in the 7th of November block, close to Marathon’s two Zarat discovery wells, with hydrocarbons encountered at the same structural levels. Sonde plans development studies, with options including use of horizontal wells.
PA Resources, which has an operating interest in part of Zarat, south of Sonde’s blocks, is developing another Tunisian offshore find, Didon North, 5 km (3.1 mi) northeast of the Didon field production platform. Didon North should produce first oil later this year.
Russia/Caspian Sea
BP and Rosneft have committed to jointly explore and develop three blocks in the South Kara Sea offshore northern Russia. Rosneft was awarded the licenses for blocks EPNZ1, 2, and 3 in 2010. BP says this is a highly prospective area, equivalent in size to the UK North Sea. The two companies first teamed in 1998 to perform exploration offshore Sakhalin Island. Under the new agreement, they will establish an Arctic Technology center in Russia, which will develop technologies and safe practice for extraction of resources from the Arctic shelf.
In the Azeri sector of the Caspian Sea, BP has contracted KCA Deutag to manage all its platform drilling facilities over a five-year period, with options for a further five years. The agreement takes in six platforms on the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli and Shah Deniz fields. KCA owns the rig on the Chirag facility, which it leases to BP, and is also involved in detail design of the next platform rig for the Chirag Oil project, due to be installed in 2013.
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Dragon Oil has been installing three new in-field pipelines between platforms on its Cheleken Contract Area (CCA) fields in the Turkmen sector. These are designed to eliminate network bottlenecks by increasing throughput capacity. The company has also put in place a new 40-km (24.8-mi), 30-in. trunkline between block II and the CCA Central Processing Facility, where capacity has been doubled to handle up to 100,000 b/d of liquids and up to 220 MMcf/d of gas.
ACE provided winches to help lift a platform for Petronas in the Turkmen sector of the Caspian, pictured here at a local quayside.
Also in the Turkmen sector, Petronas/MMHE have installed a topsides and jacket for a new platform. ACE Winches in Aberdeen supplied 20 winch packages for the lifting program.
Eastern Mediterranean/Middle East
Noble Energy has confirmed that its latest deepwater well in the Levantine basin offshore Israel is a potentially major gas discovery. The well on the Leviathan structure, in the Rachel license, intersected a minimum of 220 ft (67 m) of net pay in numerous subsalt Miocene intervals. These appear to be geologically similar to those encountered in the Tamar field 29 mi (47 km) to the northeast. Leviathan-1, drilled 80 mi (130 km) offshore Haifa, in 5,400 ft (1,645 m) water depth, continues to be deepened to evaluate two further intervals.
The report foresees offshore capex across the Middle East and Caspian sectors over the next five years totalling around $39.9 billion, a 33% increase over the outlay during 2006-10. Spending on Iranian offshore projects could double to around $12 billion, with capex for projects off Saudi Arabia totalling $5.8 billion during 2011-15, up from $4.5 billion in 2006-10. Gas demand throughout the region will be one of the main drivers of this growth.
Iran’s Ministry of Petroleum plans to drill 1,700 offshore wells over a five-year period ending in 2015. These and onshore drilling activity will incur a total cost of $40 billion. “Moving towards expanding horizontal drilling and using its related technologies are among the oil industry priorities,” an official told the Iranian news service Shana.
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RasGas Co., the joint venture between Qatar Petroleum and ExxonMobil, has contracted Hyundai Heavy Industries to supply offshore facilities for the Barzan Gas project. Hyundai’s scope, valued at $900 million, includes supply and installation of three wellhead platforms, 200 km (124 mi) of subsea pipelines and 100 km (62 mi) of subsea cables by end-2013. Barzan, 80 km (49.7 mi) northeast of Ras Laffan Industrial City, will deliver 1.9 MMcf/d of gas, and is due onstream in 2014.
India
Norwegian company Rocksource has requested an extension from India’s government to the Phase I period for exploration block CY-DWN-2001/1 in the Cauvery Basin, offshore southeast India. The PSC terms required three exploratory wells – two have been drilled, both of which were dry, although neither tested the primary prospect. The third well is due to spud before mid-March, by which point Petrobras may have farmed into 25% of the block.
Asia-Pacific
BG Group has discovered gas with the first deepwater well drilled in China’s Qiongdongnan Basin. Lingshui 21-1-1 was drilled on block 64/11, 130 km (81 m) offshore in a water depth of 1,338 m (4,390 ft). BG plans further analysis to evaluate potential elsewhere in the block.
Coastal Energy has discovered two new accumulations in its Songkhla area in the Gulf of Thailand, which it has named Songhkla North and Songkhla East. The wells in both cases were targeting pay at Lower Oligocene and Eocene levels. Coastal next plans to drill potentially high-impact targets at Bua Ban North.
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Repsol Exploration is farming into the East Bula and Seram production-sharing contracts offshore Indonesia operated by Niko Resources. Niko has acquired 2D and 3D seismic over the license area. The two companies were already partners on Indonesia’s Cendrawashi Bay 11, 111, and 1V permits.
Australasia
GDF Suez has contracted Granherne for an upstream pre-FEED study for the Bonaparte LNG project in the Bonaparte basin offshore Australia’s Northern Territory. The project, which GDF Suez is developing with Santos, involves a proposed floating offshore liquefaction plant capable of producing 2 MM metric tons/yr (2.2 MM tons/yr). Granherne is providing subsea engineering, field development planning, process, and flow assurance studies from its offices in Perth.
Apache has started decommissioning operations at its Legendre oil field, 90 mi (150 km) off the north-west coast of Western Australia. Facilities to be removed include the mobile offshore production unitOcean Legend, the floating storage and offloading tanker Karratha Spirit, and subsea equipment.
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