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Minimizing flaring and venting is important from both environmental and resource conservation standpoints. Flaring and venting volumes are also good indicators of how well production systems are designed, managed, and maintained.
Updated flaring and venting volumes for the Gulf of America have been compiled using monthly data submitted to the Office of Natural Resources Revenue (ONRR). This is the best data source because reporting is mandatory and strictly enforced, and flaring and venting are accounted for separately.
Below are a few summary charts. Completed tables, similar to those posted for 2024, will be attached for sharing at a later date.
Total venting and flaring (fig. 1) in 2025 increased by 819 million cubic feet (mmcf) vs. 2024. However, the 7-year trend line is still favorable. Thinking that 2019, a record flaring year, may have biased the trend line, I extended the chart back to 2015, the first year for which I have ONRR data. As you can see in the second chart, the trend is still favorable.
80% (7785 mmcf) of the total gas flared and vented in 2025 (9741 mmcf) was flared from oil wells (chart below). That’s unsurprising given that most of the Gulf’s gas production is from deepwater oil wells, and flaring rates are higher for oil wells than for gas wells.
The best performance indicators are the normalized data (i.e. percentages of produced gas that are flared and vented both for oil wells and gas wells). Overall (chart below), flaring and venting volumes remain stubbornly above 1.0% of total gas production, the historical target last achieved in 2015. I’ll separate venting and flaring for both oil and gas wells in a future post.
Posted in energy policy, flaring and venting, Gulf of Mexico | Tagged flaring, gas well gas, Gulf of America, oil well gas, venting | Leave a Comment »
The oil patch is known for booms, busts, mergers, and acquisitions. Hess is now among the once important offshore operators that no longer exist as separate companies. Others include Amoco, Arco, Texaco, Getty, Gulf, Unocal, Sun, Anadarko, BHP, Mobil, Phillips, Noble Energy, Pennzoil, Kerr-McGee, Superior, Nexen, and Newfield.
Hess would probably not have been a Chevron target had they not taken a chance in 2014 when they obtained a 30% position in Exxon’s Stabroek block offshore Guyana. The rest is history, and Stabroek is now the world’s most prized offshore block. Hess had other nice assets in the Gulf, Bakken Shale, and elsewhere, but Stabroek was Chevron’s primary target.
Paying the price for the Hess acquisition are up to 8,000 employees who will be axed by the end of 2026, starting with 575 cuts at the former Hess Tower in Houston on September 26 and matched reductions in Texas, California and North Dakota. The cuts also have to be disappointing to the Federal, Texas and North Dakota governments, given their strong support for oil and gas production. Mass layoffs don’t equate to energy dominance.
Why is the loss of Hess is significant:
- Hess was a safety compliance leader in both 2023 and 2024.
- Hess was an active participant in pre-merger lease sales.
- The combined company is unlikely to be greater than the sum of the parts in terms of US lease acquisition, exploration, and development.
- Combining companies limits the diversity of geological assessments and exploration strategies.
- Consolidation limits participation on committees engaged in assessing technology and developing standards. Declining industry participation in these activities, which are critical to offshore safety, has been a historical concern of OCS program leadership.
When the merger was announced, Chevron’s CEO Mike Wirth was quoted as saying “We’ve got too many CEOs per BOE, so consolidation is natural.” That comment makes sense from the perspective of an acquiring CEO. Employees of the companies being acquired have a somewhat different view. They would prefer increasing exploration and production rather than reducing employees.
Posted in energy policy, Guyana, Offshore Energy - General | Tagged Chevron, employee layoffs, Exxon, Guyana, Hess, merger, offshore safety, Stabroek | Leave a Comment »
Now that we are friends with Venezuela, can someone in the Administration ask them to release the report on the sinking of the Aban Pearl semisubmersible drilling rig in May 2010? This incident is of great interest to operating companies, safety regulators, and contractors worldwide.
Posted in accidents, drilling | Tagged aban pearl, drilling rig, investigation, offshore safety, sinking, venezuela | Leave a Comment »
I’m linking an interesting Bojan Pancevski piece in the Times that is a sequel to his WSJ account of the Nord Stream sabotage.
“A civilian diving instructor, she was the sole woman on the team—and perhaps the reason that one of the greatest acts of sabotage in modern history was carried out successfully, according to individuals involved in its planning and German police who investigated it.”
Posted in pipelines | Tagged gas pipeline, mysterious woman, Nord Stream, sabotage, Ukraine | Leave a Comment »
Lars Herbst saw this “beauty” while sitting at a rooftop “establishment” in Pensacola. Reminded him of our temporary Pensacola office and Destin Dome drilling. Lars had visions of returning to work as Pensacola District Manager! 😉
Upon returning to his senses, Lars reports that it’s the Borr jack-up rig Odin purchased from Noble’s fleet. The rig was brought from Mexico to Pensacola for modifications, and will be under contract to Cantium to drill in the GOA, but not the Eastern GOA!
Posted in drilling, Gulf of Mexico, Mexico, Offshore Energy - General, Uncategorized | Tagged Borr Drilling, Cantium, jack-up rig, Lars Herbst, Odin, Pensacola | 1 Comment »
Meanwhile, the California Coastal Commission notified Sable Offshore that it intends to issue a cease and desist order aimed at shutting down crude oil extraction in the Santa Barbara Channel.
Sable responds: “Sable Offshore Corp. (“Sable”) through its subsidiary, Pacific Pipeline Company (“PPC”), continues to lawfully operate through its existing coastal development permits which were issued in 1986.”
California cage fight! Who ya’ got?
Posted in California, energy policy, Offshore Energy - General, pipelines, Regulation | Tagged California Coastal Commission, cease and desist order, CNN, Platform Harmony, Sable Offshore | Leave a Comment »
I had the pleasure of visiting the Hibernia gravity-based structure while it was still under construction in Bull Arm, Newfoundland (photo). This pioneering facility, where Newfoundland’s offshore production began in Nov. 1997, continues to impress.
In April, Hibernia posted its highest monthly production since August 2021 – 3.1 million barrels or 103,000 bopd. Exxon attributes the production growth to a recent 6-well drilling program. The Hibernia field has produced more than double the original resource estimate of 520 million barrels.
Offshore Newfoundland’s total April production, increased to 9.4 million barrels, with a sharp increase in the value of production (see figure below). This is the highest monthly production level for the province since March 2020, and the second highest monthly production value on record, only behind July 2008.
Meanwhile, production at Hebron, another Exxon GBS structure, has reached record levels this year (chart below). The facility is producing more than 5 million bbls/month.
Finally, Suncor’s decision to refurbish the Terra Nova FPSO and resume production may be paying off given production levels of ~1 million bbls/month.
Posted in Canada, Offshore Energy - General | Tagged Exxon, Hebron, Hibernia, Newfoundland, Suncor, Terra Nova | Leave a Comment »
DOT and others shouldn’t make statements they can’t back up (see the X post below).
As a supporter of responsible offshore oil and gas operations, I find statements like this to be irresponsible and embarrassing. Sable Offshore is not using newer or safer drilling technology than is used in many other areas.
Posted in California, drilling, energy policy, Regulation | Tagged DOT, drilling technology, hyperbole, Sable Offshore | 3 Comments »
Oil Now Guyana reports that an Exxon artificial intelligence model built using Guyana’s offshore seismic data was able to identify already-discovered crude oil accumulations with a 90% success rate.
Neil Chapman, Exxon: “…in Guyana, we have built an agent, a model…which if we give it the seismic data that we’ve run and we say, go find the crude oil, it can find all the crude oil that we’ve already found with a 90% success rate.”
(Note: Humans are also great at identifying discoveries after the fact 😉. How many false positives were there?)
Chapman said the company has also used artificial intelligence to review well data from across the industry.
“We have analyzed the well data from 50,000 wells that have been drilled in the industry all over the world, 50,000,” Chapman said. “It would have taken us 15 years to do that analysis. We’ve done it in a matter of weeks.”
Despite the many advances in exploration technology over the years, one caveat remains unchanged: “We don’t know if they’re going to be successful or not until you drill a hole, you can never be sure,” Chapman said.
AI should enhance not just geophysical interpretations, but all aspects of offshore exploration and production including site surveys, well planning and construction, drilling, well control, structure designs, production and pipeline monitoring, and safety management. Hopefully, the net result will be increased production at lower cost with improved safety and environmental performance, and that the workforce will not be reduced, but will become more efficient.
Posted in drilling, Offshore Energy - General | Tagged AI, Exxon, geophysics, Guyana, identifying discoveries, oil and gas, Oil Now, seismic data | Leave a Comment »
North Sea pioneer JL Daeschler is among those lamenting the sad state of UK exploration and development, commenting that he is “green” with envy of Norway’s long term management of their oil and gas resources.
Researchers at the University of Aberdeen may be showing the way for exploitation of the West of Shetland area’s estimated 4.7 billion bbls of oil equivalent (boe). They are advocating a tailored management regime for this challenging area. Per the researchers:
“West of Shetland is not a depleted frontier – it is a technically demanding but strategically important energy province,” said Nick Schofield, Professor of Igneous & Petroleum Geology at the University of Aberdeen. “Our study highlights the remaining oil and gas potential in the area, which could extend the life of the UK’s oil and gas sector.”
John Underhill, Aberdeen University’s Director for Energy Transition said: “Failing to develop these domestic resources risks increasing the UK’s dependence on imports, with implications for emissions, costs, jobs, tax revenues and energy security.”
The researchers argue that a “one-size-fits-all” approach to UKCS taxation fails to reflect the unique risks and costs associated with West of Shetland exploration, appraisal and development. As a result, they say projects that are technically viable may remain economically marginal under current conditions.
The University of Aberdeen paper (linked) advocates a tailored regime that would:
- Recognize higher exploration and development costs
- Account for increased geological and operational risk
- Encourage investment in challenging projects
- Enable tie-backs to existing infrastructure that would provide energy security, tax revenues, retain jobs and be better for the global climate than importing liquified natural gas (LNG), which carries a higher carbon footprint.
- Support the development of already identified prospects within licensed areas
Rosebank update:
The West of Shetland area includes the controversial Rosebank project (map above), which has yet to receive environmental consent from the UK govt. Following a court ruling, Equinor (operator) was given permission to proceed with the project, including preparatory engineering and construction work, but no production is allowed pending final govt approval.
The PetoJarl Rosebank Floating Production Storage and Offloading (PFSO) vessel recently left its dry dock in Norway and has arrived in the West of Shetland basin. The vessel will undergo commissioning to be ready for production by the end of the year.
Posted in Offshore Energy - General, UK, energy policy | Tagged challenging environment, Equinor, high costs, oil and gas, PetoJari FPSO, Rosebank field, tailored regime, University of Aberdeen, West of Shetland | Leave a Comment »
Bud's Offshore Energy (BOE) 