E&P Magazine - April 2006
As I See It
Don't call them service companies
After Googling "oilfield service companies" on the Web, one finds a list of drilling companies (e.g., Transocean,), seismic data acquisition companies (such as Compagnie Générale de Géophysique), well data acquisition companies (Baker Atlas et al.), and companies providing completion or tubular equipment (e.g., Weatherford), plus miscellaneous oilfield paraphernalia, such as blowout preventers and valves (Cooper Cameron).
The anatomy of a decision
To improve the quality of portfolio decisions, companies are making an increasing effort to explore their options in depth, with the goal of risk identification, quantification and reduction.
Cover Story
Learn from the past
My first job in seismic exploration came after an interview with the late Norm Christie, past president of the Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG) and a geophysicist.
Drilling Technologies
What the tourists missed
In a city of vigorous energy consumers, new technology for cost-effective energy development is quietly presented.
Completions and Production
Pitch-catch scores a home run
The new Scanner family of wireline logging tools from Schlumberger answers the most fundamental of exploration and production questions: Where are the hydrocarbons, will they produce, and what other fluids are present?
Special Report
Tech Trends
Knowledge Systems has introduced Pressworks, a relational database that allows operators to store and manage geopressure-related data, including geophysical, petrophysical and drilling data.
Features
Deep pockets expand deep play
Some of the deepest pockets in the oil and gas industry are reaching into the deepest waters of the Gulf of Mexico as operators chase the Paleogene play from Alaminos Canyon to Walker Ridge.
Tech Watch
Oscar night in the oilpatch
For cinema fans, this year's Academy Awards provided more than a few surprises.
Tech Trends
Preparing for the digital oil field
The physical, geographic and economic landscape of the oil and gas industry has changed drastically over the past 3 years.
Three, two, one, launch
Rowan Companies executives Bob Palmer, Danny McNease and Robert A. Keller may be the only people in the oilpatch with their names on a patent to use an offshore platform to launch rockets into space.
Activity Highlights
How to...
I have been asked - goaded is a more appropriate term - by various colleagues to launch an instructional series based on my long-ago field experiences. So, here goes.
Activity Spotlight
News and Analysis
Dawson Geophysical Co. and TGC Industries are both launching new crews.
Another Perspective
2006 Meritorious Engineering Awards
MEA Awards
Coiled tubing used with inflatable packers
In the Sabriyah oil field, one of the largest in northern Kuwait, water production has become an increasing problem for Kuwait Oil Company (KOC).
Controlling downhole vibration
In the deep, high pressure/high-temperature (HP/HT) wells of the Tuscaloosa Trend, even the latest drilling technologies quickly reach performance limits, and equipment failure is common.
Deep water delivers reserves
A depressed level of exploration drilling has been evident in the Gulf of Mexico deep water during 2005 with the lowest number of exploration wells since 1996.
Deepwater Madagascar makes sense
Preparations are on track by Madagascar's national oil company, the Office des Mines Nationales et des Industries Strategiques (Omnis), for a late September bid round for deepwater acreage in the Mozambique Channel, off central and southern Madagascar.
Drill J&S wells with high Q&E
A significant number of directional wells targeting deep gas in North America are low-inclination boreholes shaped in the form of the letters J or S.
Drilling performance improved
A happy consequence of rising commodity prices and rig day rates is increased focus on improving drilling efficiency.
Industry heads for deepwater future
Recent forecasts have predicted that the required number of subsea wells globally will grow to 350 to 400 per annum in the years ahead.
Industry reacts to hurricane threat
Strong storms smashed through the Gulf of Mexico during the past couple of years, and statistics say the offshore oil and gas industry will face more of the same this year in a cycle that will continue through 2010.
Making well intervention safer
Numerous failures of high-pressure piping used to connect nitrogen supplies to coiled tubing (CT) units drove the development of a new approach to CT operations.
New ideas in the Gulf of Mexico
For the explorationist to fully understand the petroleum systems of any basin, an appreciation of the tectonic evolution in determining present-day characteristics is imperative.
New techniques for frontier exploration
The oil and gas exploration industry currently spends more than US $5 billion a year on gathering 3-D seismic data.
Not just for fatigue tracking anymore
It's frustrating to be unable to reach the desired wellbore depth with a specific tool because it can't pass through a dogleg in the well bore.
Start with the rock
It seems like perfect supply and demand. On the supply side, 70% of the Earth's crust is composed of shale.
Take control of subsea production
Up to as recently as 10 to 15 years ago, most financial analysts had one key performance indicator by which they judged an oil company's performance - $/barrel discovered.
Through-tubing milling intervention
Through-tubing live-well intervention can reduce time and risk and improve economics over intervention operations that require killing the well and removing the completion equipment.
Treatments cure the problem
Coiled tubing (CT) technology has been around for more than 45 years. Growing steadily from its inception, it has been deployed in some form around the globe - a truly valuable and proven tool in the industry.
Wellhead system aids processing
MARS (Multiple Application Re-injection System) is a new wellhead-mounted artificial lift and injection technology that establishes the wellhead as the unit of production.
World Map
Geophysics from beyond the grave
Last month I exhorted my exploration readers to get out there and get exploring because the pundits and prognosticators expect this to be a busy year for the discovery of new reserves.