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…
An internal Transocean investigation into the explosion and loss of the Deepwater Horizon found that the tragedy was the result of ‘compromised' well integrity due to a series of well design, construction and temporary abandonment decisions made by operator BP…
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…
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…
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…
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…
An INTECSEA-led joint industry project headed by former Shell subsea specialist Ian Ball is looking to pave the way for increased step-outs, enhanced recovery and improved economics on upcoming subsea developments in arctic and sub-arctic waters…
As an indicator of the health of the oil & gas industry, attendance at May's Offshore Technology Conference in Houston suggests that recovery from the global recession is well underway. OE looks back over some of the sights and sounds of OTC 2011…
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…
With over 27 years' of development and application work behind it, Nautronix is a company with subsea acoustics in its DNA. David Morgan looks at the company's provenance and projects, including the recent deployment of its NASNet technology…
Competence testing, true independent oversight and a stronger focus on the human element are the lessons from Macondo, argues Lloyd's Register energy director Dr Iain Light. --The offshore industry has just had the dubious distinction of…
Three Alaskan Beaufort Sea developments – BP Exploration (Alaska)'s Northstar, Pioneer --Natural Resources' Oooguruk and now Eni Petroleum's Nikaitchuq – have helped establish baseline experience for future arctic frontier pipelines. As well as demonstrating technical strides…
The current state of development of methane hydrate resources – ‘from Mallik to the Nankai Trough' – was examined by an international symposium in Japan late last year. Two of the participants, Professor Andrew Palmer and Simon Falser from the…
Once in a while I would like to look inward and discuss technical advances in the industry or how things have evolved. In the case of hydraulic fracturing, the process has emerged as the premier production enhancement technique in oil and gas…
Coring practices and equipment used in the Gulf of Mexico's Lower Tertiary needed to adapt to formation conditions to improve on past recovery success. Petrobras' James Meyer opens OE's drilling & completion technology two-parter with a review…
Subscribe
