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Archive for January, 2023

Saluting the contrarian GoM producers: 11 operators are producing more nonassociated (gas-well gas) than associated (oil-well gas)

Posted in energy policy, gas, Gulf of Mexico, natural gas, Offshore Energy - General, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 11, 2023| Leave a Comment »

Offshore gas has important environmental advantages, particularly nonassociated gas-well gas (GWG). While the GoM production chart (below) is not pretty, there are signs that gas production may have bottomed and is slowly rising. This is largely due to growth in oil-well gas (OWG) associated with deepwater oil production.

A successful offshore program requires a mix of strategies, and it is encouraging that companies are still pursuing natural gas on the GoM shelf. The second chart (below), based on BOEM data, shows 2022 YTD (probably through Oct.) GWG production for the 11 companies that (1) produced more GWG than OWG and (2) produced more than 1 BCF of GWG.

Interestingly, 100% of the gas produced by Contango, Samchully, and Helis in 2022 was from gas wells. Contrast this with bp, the third largest GoM gas producer. None of bp’s gas production was from gas wells.

One has to wonder about the extent to which deepwater gas reservoirs are being stranded due to the less favorable economics. Preventing such resource losses was once an important regulatory consideration given the conservation mandate in the OCS Lands Act and the importance of maximizing the public benefit. However, current policy, as expressed in the proposed 5 year leasing plan, is to phase out offshore production rather than sustain it. This is difficult to reconcile.

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New BOEM Director: Liz Klein

Posted in energy policy, Gulf of Mexico, Offshore Energy - General, Regulation, tagged , , , on January 10, 2023| Leave a Comment »

Liz is an experienced attorney and leader in clean energy, climate change, and environmental law and policy. A member of the Biden-Harris administration since January 20, 2021, Liz has served as Senior Counselor to Secretary Haaland with an emphasis on water policy and climate change resilience. In this role, Liz also served as Chair of the Indian Water Rights Working Group, which manages, negotiates and implements settlements of water rights claims.

Prior to joining the Administration, Liz was Deputy Director of the non-partisan State Energy & Environmental Impact Center at NYU School of Law, which supports state Attorneys General addressing clean energy, climate, and environmental initiatives of regional and national importance. President Biden is the third President under which Liz has served at Interior, having worked for both the Clinton and Obama administrations. Under Secretaries Ken Salazar and Sally Jewell, Liz served as Interior’s Associate Deputy Secretary as well as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Office of Policy, Management and Budget. She was a key architect of the Obama Administration’s work to create a new offshore wind industry and leasing program.

DOI

Congratulations to Ms. Klein on being appointed to lead the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. In addition to her commendable support for offshore wind energy, I trust that she appreciates the national importance of the OCS oil and gas program and the need for regular lease sales.

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Another example of the importance of regular lease sales

Posted in energy policy, Gulf of Mexico, Offshore Energy - General, tagged , , , on January 10, 2023| Leave a Comment »

Ram Powell TLP
  • Talos has announced commercial discoveries at its Lime Rock and Venice prospects.
  • Both discoveries are near the company’s Ram Powell platform, where future production will flow via subsea tiebacks.
  • The Lime Rock prospect was acquired in Lease Sale 256 in November of 2020.
  • The new discoveries will help sustain production at Ram Powell, an early tension leg platform that has produced more than 250 million boe.
  • Ram Powell was the deepest production facility in the world (water depth of 3216′) when it was installed by Shell in 1997.
  • Access to nearby resources through regular lease sales facilitates continued production from existing platforms, reducing costs and environmental impacts.

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More on the tragic Gulf of Mexico helicopter crash (12/29/2022)

Posted in accidents, Gulf of Mexico, Offshore Energy - General, Regulation, tagged , , , , , , , , , on January 9, 2023| Leave a Comment »

David Scarborough, Island Operating Co. employee who died in the crash.
  • The bodies of the 4 victims have been recovered.
  • The 3 offshore workers were employees of Island Operating Co., a production contractor. The pilot worked for Rotorcraft Leasing Company, the owner of the Bell 406 helicopter that crashed. The platform is owned by Walter Oil and Gas, the operating company.
  • A preliminary FAA report confirms that the helicopter crashed onto the helideck during takeoff, breaking apart and falling into the Gulf.
  • 4 passengers had been dropped off at the platform before the fatal takeoff. Presumably there were witnesses to the incident.
  • According to the FAA report, the platform was located at West Delta Block 106. Per the BOEM platform data base, the platform was installed in 1994, is in 252′ of water, and is continuously manned.
  • Per the BSEE INC data base, the platform had not been cited for any violations since 2016.

Lacy Scarborough, wife of victim David Scarborough, is pregnant. Tragically, the couple lost their first child in an accidental drowning in March. David was heading home for the holidays after completing his 2 week shift on the platform. He had worked offshore for 8 years. Per Lacy, David’s last message was that he was taking off and would be home soon.

The only other victim who has been identified is Tim Graham of Quitman, Mississippi.

I trust that the NTSB will conduct a timely and thorough investigation, and hope they consider offshore helideck oversight, both in terms of industry programs and government regulation. The most recent Coast Guard – BSEE MOA for fixed platforms added to helideck regulatory uncertainty by assigning decks and fuel handling to BSEE and railings and perimeter netting to the Coast Guard. This is the antithesis of holistic, systems-based regulation.

More on the crash: ominous message, update #3

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How’s this for an offshore facility? 😀

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on January 7, 2023| Leave a Comment »

Perched on top of a tall slither of rock, six miles off the coast of Iceland, Þrídrangaviti Lighthouse is considered by many an introvert’s dream home and a wonderful placed to be in case of a zombie apocalypse.

Þrídrangaviti, which translates as “three rocks”, was built in 1939, soon before the start of World War 2. Nowadays, the lighthouse is accessible by helicopter and even features a small helipad to make landing there easier, but back in 1938, when work on it began, helicopters hadn’t yet been invented. Brave workers had to to scale the 120-foot-high rock to reach the pinnacle, where they laid the foundation of the lighthouse by hand, while ensuring that the strong winds and rain didn’t send them plunging into the freezing North Atlantic Ocean.

odditycentral.com

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Movin’ on up to 20,000 psi BOP equipment

Posted in drilling, Gulf of Mexico, Offshore Energy - General, tagged , , , , , on January 6, 2023| Leave a Comment »

Deepwater Titan is also the second 8th-generation drillship constructed by Sembcorp Marine based on its Jurong Espadon 3T design. The dual-derrick drillship is the first-ever unit delivered with two 20,000-psi blowout preventers (BOPs), well-control, riser, and piping systems for high-pressure and high-temperature drilling and completion operations. Like its sister rig, the Deepwater Atlas — delivered in June 2022 — Deepwater Titan is also equipped with three-million-pound hook-load hoisting capacity and capabilities to drill up to 40,000 feet and operate in water depths of up to 12,000 feet.

JPT

Lars Herbst notes that the Atlas, which has been drilling for Beacon in the Shenandoah field with 15k BOPs, will switch to the 20k equipment before any well completion operations. The Titan, equipped with the 20k NOV BOPE, will begin drilling in the Gulf of Mexico for Chevron later this year.

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Coming soon: BOE’s 2022 Safety Honor Roll for US offshore operators

Posted in accidents, Gulf of Mexico, Offshore Energy - General, tagged , , , , on January 5, 2023| Leave a Comment »

BOE is reviewing BSEE compliance data and available incident reports for 2022. The Honor Roll companies will be announced later this month. Our preliminary finding is that 9 of the more than 120 operating companies met the high standard that we have established for this recognition. Our criteria:

  • Must average <0.3 incidents of noncompliance (INCs) per facility-inspection. Note that each facility-inspection may include multiple types of inspections (e.g. production, pipeline, pollution, Coast Guard, site security, etc). On average, each facility-inspection included 3.25 types of inspections in 2022. (Here is a list of the types of inspections that may be performed.)
  • Must operate at least 3 production platforms and have drilled at least one well (i.e. you need operational activity to demonstrate compliance and safety achievement).
  • May not have a disqualifying event (e.g. fatal or life-threatening incident, significant fire, major oil spill). Due to the extreme lag in updates to BSEE’s incident tables, investigation and news reports are used to make this determination.
  • Pacific and Alaska operations are considered separately.

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Morgan City monument will honor international oilfield divers

Posted in Gulf of Mexico, Offshore Energy - General, Uncategorized, tagged , , on January 4, 2023| Leave a Comment »

Nice Sea Technology article by former colleague Rusty Wright. The monument will be unveiled on April 29, 2023, in Morgan City, Louisiana.

In the mid-1940s, oilfield diving developed into a profession. Those divers and the companies they started made incredible discoveries, breakthroughs and steady improvement in their career space, including safety processes and procedures. These efforts have been incorporated into many other industries, from robotics to the medical field and space exploration, just to name a few. The Space Shuttle astronauts working on the Hubble telescope even mentioned divers–where are they when you need them?–as they struggled with installing new mirrors.

The Oilfield Divers Monument will be a bronze, life-size diver dressed in an early DESCO helmet, showcasing the old-style heavy gear, which has since morphed into light gear with advances in technology and design. The diver will carry a burning torch, jet nozzle and a hammer wrench with umbilical hoses on the deck.

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Final Strategic Petroleum Reserve inventory for 2022

Posted in energy policy, tagged , on January 3, 2023| Leave a Comment »

  • Reserve down to 372.4 million bbls as of 12/30/2022
  • 222 million bbl decline (37.4%) in 2022
  • Lowest volume since 12/2/1983
  • Reserve is now depleted by nearly 1/2 (49%) from its capacity of 727 million bbls

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Ominous message in HSAC’s safety review for 2021?

Posted in accidents, Gulf of Mexico, tagged , , , on January 3, 2023| 2 Comments »

Note the third paragraph in the cover letter for the attached Helicopter Safety Advisory Conference (HSAC) 2021 Safety Review (dated 2/10/2022), particularly this sentence:

There is a trend of doing more with less, for example decreases in the numbers of helicopters across the board, yet increases year-over-year in passengers carried, hours flown, and number of flights conducted.

The 2022 data will not be pretty. Clearly there are issues to be addressed.

hsac-2021-statisticsDownload

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