Baker Hughes' latest fracturing and stimulation vessel, the Blue Tarpon, is designed for operations in the Lower Tertiary play of the Gulf of Mexico. Katie Jernigan takes a look at the newest addition to the Baker Hughes fleet. Chouest owns…
The 5 million barrels of oil that spilled into the Gulf of Mexico last year from the BP-operated deepwater Macondo well after a bad shear job played heavily on Radoil president Benton Baugh's mind. An inventor at heart, he knew there had to be a way to shear the unshearable…
With 107 West African xmas tree jobs to its credit since 2006, Bourbon Subsea Services has built a substantial track record in that region for the maintenance and installation of deepwater trees using vessel cranes. SVP business management Patrick…
The proliferation of modern specialist vessels serving just about every sector of the offshore oil & gas business has not gone unnoticed by traditional shipping industry equipment and service providers, as was plain to see at the 2011 Nor-Shipping event in Oslo late May…
If current trends continue, Mexico could become a net oil importer in a decade, a new report claims. --Mexico, the world's sixth-biggest crude oil producer and an important supplier to the US, has seen its production fall by more than 25% from its 2004 peak of 3…
The name Petrobras these days invokes thoughts of large, pre-salt discoveries, for good reason. Since announcing the Tupi pre-salt find in 2006, the Brazilian operator has made giant strides in developing and refining the technology needed to find and produce the oil hiding beneath the salt layer…
In less than a year, shipyards' lack of experience in delivering automated, highly-integrated offshore topsides has dropped as a primary source of non-productive time, according to a recent report that polled operators about the causes of NPT…
The 50:50 partners in Denmark's Siri oil field fell out last month over the latest proposals to deal with the subsea cracks that have beset the 13-year old Siri production and storage platform in recent years. Meg Chesshyre reports.The row…
Earlier this year the refrain was ‘$5 natural gas forever', based on the US Energy Information Administration's (EIA) annual outlook, which argued that natural gas prices will remain below $5 per million btu until 2022. The underlying rationale was growth in the ‘vast' US shale gas resource base…
Long content to remain under the radar, Louisiana's LLOG is set to make a big splash with its first Gulf of Mexico deepwater development using a floating production system. Russell McCulley joins LLOG officials at the company's new digs north of New Orleans to talk about the Who Dat project…
Managed pressure drilling methodologies evolved over the years to address operational and economic problems inherent to conventional circulating systems that are open to the atmosphere. Most recently, the advanced closed-loop technology has swept into deepwater operations to help reduce risk…
Rowan Companies is selling all its shares in manufacturing subsidiary LeTourneau Technologies to Joy Global in a $1.1 billion cash deal. Rowan acquired LeTourneau, which built the majority of Rowan's jackup rig fleet, in 1994. Rowan president…
Planning and information are key to the successful realization of Petrobras’ ambitious plans to hoist pre-salt production levels from the current 100,000b/d to 1.08 million b/d inside ten years. Jennifer Pallanich listened in as José Formigli…
Earlier this year, Douglas-Westwood forecast † the industry will spend $139 billion on subsea hardware 2011-15, a 23% jump on the previous five years, with the deepwater Golden Triangle inevitably dominating the anticipated spend. Despite the trials and tribulations of the past year…
The US Coast Guard in April released a report on its investigation into BP's Deepwater Horizon disaster, just weeks after DNV delivered the results of its forensic examination of the Macondo blowout preventer. Both will inform the Joint Investigation Team's final report…