E&P Magazine - March 2010
As I See It
IM corrals critical data
An SMi-sponsored conference, “E&P Information & Data Management 2010,” held in London in early February, served as a forum for discussing IM challenges.
New rules emerge for securing supply
The cost of services and supplies skyrocketed through 2008, but has not dropped significantly since the onset of the global recession. Major suppliers gathered at CERA Week to talk about where the industry has been, where it is today, and where they think it is going.
To infinity and beyond!
Advances in technology continue to boggle the mind.
Exploration Technologies
Get those creative juices flowing!
It’s hard to find oil in the minds of men when those minds are tired, pessimistic, and overworked.
Inertial, north-seeking, continuous gyro improves drilling precision
Gyro compassing tools are not affected by magnetic disturbances, yield repeatable results.
Seismic in the US Atlantic? Not just yet
Despite some hopeful signals from Washington, the oil and gas industry has a long way to go before it can begin to explore the Atlantic OCS.
Drilling Technologies
New Bits Shine In The Shales
New drill bits are optimized for unconventional reservoirs.
Operators want a rig with a view
Cameras on rigs provide drillers and investors with wellsite info and reduce site visits.
Completions and Production
Catalyst or Cassandra?
The rhetoric is heating up as government officials continue to fuel energy fantasies.
Production. It’s a beach!
Sand, water and lots of sunshine make for an idyllic seaside setting. However, in the oilpatch, we can do without the first two.
Special Report
Steve Ballmer shares his vision
The chief executive of Microsoft Corp. was in Houston to talk with oil and gas executives about the future of collaboration and cloud computing.
Digital Solutions
Btw, the energy industry is all a-Twitter
Social networking is not just for teens anymore. Companies and organizations are finding Twitter, Facebook, podcasts, YouTube, etc., to be useful marketing tools.
Challenges and solutions to well rate and performance visualization
A monitoring tool enables operators to understand field performance without multiphase flow metering.
Connectivity drives productivity
Intelligent Operations is changing how companies do business, and advances that have taken place in the last 10 years are changing the playing field for international operating companies.
High-resolution displays effective for regional interpretation
‘Detail in context’ offers the interpreter a different perspective.
Features
BNE embodies ‘the purpose-driven business’
Going from nothing to more than 4,500 b/d of oil in four years is having a positive impact on this transformational company. It’s also having a positive impact on the people of Belize.
Building a sound and sustainable US energy policy
The recent US energy crisis underscores the need for an energy policy. Though the conversation has shifted focus toward carbon legislation and carbon monetization, the need for a sound energy policy has not disappeared.
Cable-less seismic offers real-world advantages
A new seismic acquisition system earns its spurs on the global stage. Three operators report their experiences.
Collaboration key to enabling water management solutions
Operators, technology companies, and service providers need to work together to meet shale gas production water management challenges.
Cost-effective, high-resolution hydraulic fracture microseismic monitoring – anywhere, anytime
Buried arrays provide increased reservoir understanding at a fraction of the cost of surface monitoring.
Effective perforating and gravel placement
Dynamic surging, followed immediately by prepacking, enables more effective gravel packing for sand control and, in an example from Malaysia, improved well performance.
Elegant solution addresses deepwater dilemma
DISCover a new acquisition and signal processing technique solves one of the most vexing problems of deepwater exploration — imaging both shallow and deepwater events with clarity.
Fractured reservoirs come alive with offset vector tile technology
A new processing algorithm indicates fracture orientation.
Gary Schein, Dale Resources, LLC
Schein was part of a pioneering group that was willing to try, fail, and try again to get the right recipe for success in this challenging environment.
Good fences make good seismic surveys
Apache didn’t let a little thing like an international border get in the way of its data acquisition.
Increasing the relevance of surface seismic data in unconventional plays
A new imaging system uniformly illuminates the subsurface.
Industry responds to public take on hydraulic fracturing
With the introduction of shale gas drilling in the northeastern US, newspapers have a new front-page headline, and politicians have a new subject to debate (mostly with a negative view) — hydraulic fracturing.
Innovation continues to transform subsea systems
Technologies applied on the Norwegian Continental Shelf will soon enter the Gulf of Mexico.
Nature’s way is the best way
Elegant in its simplicity, a new water reclamation service has been introduced, and it begs the question, “Why didn’t we think of this before?”
New tool allows better displacements prior to riser disconnect
A newly developed means of displacing fluids in the riser allows for simplified disconnects that save time and money.
North America gas markets positioned for growth
The world’s major economies appear to have turned the corner after the ‘Great Recession,’ but short-term challenges remain.
Operators develop two of a kind in Angola
FMC plans and provides subsea equipment for BP’s Greater Plutonio and Total’s Pazflor projects.
Optimal well placement improves heavy oil production
In Colombia’s Girasol field, bed boundary mapping enables operators to accurately position horizontal wells on the first attempt, avoiding the need for sidetracks and reducing overall development costs.
Petrovietnam looks for international opportunities
While state-owned Petrovietnam is interested in developing reserves within Vietnam, the company is looking far beyond its borders for opportunities to add reserves. Dr. Do Van Hau, vice president, Petrovietnam, talks about his company’s history, its rapid growth, and its plans for expansion.
Pressures, temperatures, erosion, logistics increase requirements for offshore stimulation
For reliable stimulation in deepwater wells, downhole tools, surface equipment, and fluids must operate with maximum efficiency.
Technology redefines integrity verification, monitoring of low-pressure isolation
A customized isolation solution smoothes the way for the safe repair of a damaged riser in the UK sector of the North Sea.
The canary is in the riser
Early miners in England took caged canaries into mines to warn of the presence of toxic gases. A 21st century version of this practice extends marine riser field life.
The shale frenzy comes to Europe
The country is host to several plays that could yield trillions of cubic feet of gas.
Time-lapse breaks North Sea bounds
For years the purview of North Sea operators, 4-D seismic is now being applied around the world in both land and offshore environments.
US Demand For RC Proppants Promotes New Business
Shale completions require increasing volumes of resin-coated sands, which has become a driver for new manufacturing facilities.
Wood Group's Kieran Kavanagh tackles ultra-deepwater production challenges
Moving into ultra-deepwater brings significant production challenges. Kieran Kavanagh is addressing some of those challenges through JIP work developing technology and industry standards and through his technology leadership role in Wood Group’s subsea engineering and integrity management companies.
World’s coiled tubing unit fleet grows
Annual CT rig count indicates another 5% increase in 2009.
Tech Trends
New subsea electronic module offers enhanced communications
An innovative concept for improved subsea communications soon will be put to the test in the Norwegian North Sea.
Reducing asset evaluation cycle times
SMT, JewelSuite, CMG team up to provide a seismic-to-simulation workflow.
Tech Trends
April Tech Trends.
On The Move
On the Move
Who's going where in the upstream sector.
Last Word
Safe riser operations require real-time monitoring
Riser reliability is critical to keeping deepwater operations safe and profitable. With information that provides pinpoint accuracy, the ‘best guess’ is no longer an acceptable method of assessing riser integrity.
Activity Spotlight
Colombia comes courting
The South American country is opening up massive areas for licensing.
Drilling begins anew in Falkland Islands
Desire Petroleum drilling again after a decade.
Management Report
Operations in Asia Pacific expand to take on deep water
In an exclusive interview, Dave Hutchinson, president of Aker Solutions’ subsea business in Asia Pacific, talks about the company’s investments, major projects, and the strategic direction for the business in APAC.
Upload experience, download knowledge
With technology development changing the face of training, one company takes a look at what lies ahead for learning in the oil and gas industry.