The Gulf rig count is up to 20, the highest since 2019, as the total US rig count falls by 7 to 748.
Archive for the ‘drilling’ Category
Gulf of Mexico bucks declining US rig count trend
Posted in drilling, Gulf of Mexico, Offshore Energy - General, tagged Baker Hughes rig count, drilling, Gulf of Mexico on May 8, 2023| Leave a Comment »
Gulf of Mexico rig count is showing some life
Posted in drilling, Gulf of Mexico, Offshore Energy - General, tagged Beacon, bp, Chevron, deepwater drilling, Diamond Offshore, Gulf of Mexico, Kosmos, LLOG, Murphy, Noble, Oxy, QuarterNorth, Shell, transocean, Valeris, Woodside on April 27, 2023| Leave a Comment »
Based on drilling contractor rig activity reports, the table below lists 19 deepwater MODUs under or soon to begin contracts in the GoM. (Further details are pasted at the end of this post.) Per the Valeris report, platform rigs are operating on bp’s Thunder Horse and Mad Dog platforms. Per the BSEE borehole file, Arena and Cantium continue to drill development wells on the GoM shelf.
| Rig Name | Operator |
| Deepwater Titan | Chevron |
| Deepwater Atlas | Beacon |
| Deepwater Poseidon | Shell |
| Deepwater Pontus | Shell |
| Deepwater Proteus | Shell |
| Deepwater Conqueror | not disclosed |
| Deepwater Thalassa | Shell |
| Deepwater Asgard | Murphy |
| Deepwater Invictus | Woodside |
| Globetrotter I | Shell |
| Globetrotter II | Shell |
| Faye Kozack | QuarterNorth LLOG Kosmos |
| Stanley Lafosse | Murphy |
| Valaris DS-18 | Chevron |
| Valaris DS-16 | Oxy |
| Ocean BlackHornet | bp |
| Ocean Black Lion | bp |
| Auriga | bp |
| Vela | bp Beacon |
Excerpts from rig activity reports:
Macondo: On the 13th anniversary, a tribute to the 11 heroes
Posted in accidents, drilling, Gulf of Mexico, Offshore Energy - General, well control incidents, tagged 4/20/2010, Deepwater Horizon, macondo, Trace Atkins on April 20, 2023| Leave a Comment »
Sharing this touching tribute to the 11 men who died on the Deepwater Horizon on April 20, 2010. These American heroes gave their lives exploring for energy to power our economy. The video is introduced by singer Trace Atkins, a former Gulf of Mexico rig worker. Please take a moment to watch.
2022 & Q1 2023 GoM well starts, plus a possible explanation for BP’s reduced bid for Green Canyon 777
Posted in drilling, Gulf of Mexico, Offshore Energy - General, tagged Arena Offshore, BOEM, bp, Cantium, deepwater drilling, Gulf of Mexico drilling, shelf drilling on April 6, 2023| Leave a Comment »
- Deepwater (>1000′) activity continues to dominate, accounting for 61% of the well starts.
- Not a single company drilled both shelf and deepwater wells.
- While shelf facilities currently account for only about 7% of GoM oil production, 1122 of the 1179 remaining platforms are on the shelf and they account for 24% of GoM gas production, most of which is environmentally favorable nonassociated gas.
- Two companies, Arena and Cantium, accounted for 75% of the shelf well starts. Excluding the CCS bids, Arena and Cantium were the most active shelf bidders in Sale 279. Arena bid alone on 7 blocks. Cantium was the high bidder on 5 blocks. (Focus Exploration was high bidder on 4 shelf blocks and was “outbid” by Exxon for High Island 177.)
- One company, Shell, accounted for 39% of the deepwater well starts
- One of BP’s exploratory wells (drilled subsequent to Sale 257) was in Green Canyon 821, immediately south of GC 777, the block that BP/Talos bid $1.8 million for in Sale 257. That bid was rejected by BOEM. In sale 259, BP was the sole bidder for GC 777, and their bid was only $583,000, less than 1/3 of their Sale 257 bid. Perhaps the GC 821 exploratory well reduced the value of GC 777? Will this lower bid now be accepted?
| DW expl | DW dev | shelf expl | shelf dev | |
| Anadarko | 5 | 1 | ||
| Arena | 22 | |||
| BOE | 1 | 4 | ||
| BP | 2 | 3 | ||
| Byron | 2 | |||
| Cantium | 20 | |||
| Chevron | 3 | |||
| Contango | 2 | |||
| Cox | 2 | |||
| Eni | 2 | 5 | ||
| EnVen | 5 | |||
| Greyhound | 2 | |||
| Hess | 2 | |||
| Kosmos | 1 | |||
| LLOG | 3 | 1 | ||
| Murphy | 4 | |||
| QuarterNorth | 2 | |||
| Shell | 25 | 9 | ||
| Talos | 2 | 8 | ||
| Walter | 1 | |||
| Woodside | 3 | 1 |
Government money down the rathole – literally
Posted in CCS, climate, drilling, energy policy, UK, tagged carbon sequestration, CCS, UK on March 27, 2023| Leave a Comment »
The “Golden Driller” is presiding over the NCAA wrestling championships in Tulsa
Posted in drilling, Uncategorized, tagged Golden Driller, NCAA Wrestling, Tulsa on March 18, 2023| Leave a Comment »
Far from golden, but this was me 53 years ago! Lots of safety lessons, good and bad, were learned. Bud
Greatest risk to an offshore worker? Fall or be struck by equipment
Posted in accidents, drilling, Gulf of Mexico, Offshore Energy - General, tagged BSEE, falls, Pacific Khamsin, Safety Alert, safety culture, struck by equipment on March 13, 2023| Leave a Comment »
The most common causes of offshore fatalities and serious injuries, falls and being struck by equipment, receive little media attention because there is no blowout, oil spill, or fire. However, these are often the most difficult types of incidents to understand and prevent. Human and organizational factors predominate, and prevention is dependent on a strong culture that emphasizes worker engagement, awareness, teamwork and mutual support, effective training and employee development, risk assessment at the job, facility, company, and industry levels, stop-work authority, innovation, and continuous improvement.
This new BSEE Safety Alert addresses such a fatal incident on the Pacific Khamsin drilling rig, and makes recommendations that have widespread applicability.
Incident summary:
While unlatching the lower Marine Riser Package from the Blowout Preventor in preparation for ship relocation, a crewmember was lifted into the air after being struck by a hydraulic torque wrench (HTW), hitting a riser clamp approximately six feet above the elevated work deck before falling to the rig floor. The crew member was given first aid and transported to the drillship’s hospital, where he was later pronounced deceased.
In an upcoming post, BOE will provide historical fatality data by cause and operations category.
I knew Trinidad had a long history of oil production, but wow!
Posted in drilling, Offshore Energy - General, Uncategorized, tagged 1857, first oil production, oil and gas production, petroleum industry history, Trinidad and Tobago on February 13, 2023| 1 Comment »
The record shows that the Merrimac Company, registered in 1857, made attempts to produce oil by distillation of pitch, but furthermore in the same year they drilled a well to a depth of about 280 feet, which was a much greater depth than Drake’s well in Pennsylvania – and two years earlier – and produced oil therefrom
History of Trinidad’s Oil
Here is a list of historical facts for T&T’s petroleum industry.
Central bank of T&T data indicate dry natural gas production of 2.84 BCFD and crude oil production of 57,400 BOPD as of 9/2022.
The Ministry of Energy and Energy Industries is currently mulling bids on 4 deepwater blocks contrary to an erroneous press report that those bids had been rejected.
So you can drill near the Isle of Man (and almost everywhere else in or adjacent to the North and South Atlantic), but the entire US Atlantic is off-limits
Posted in drilling, energy policy, Offshore Energy - General, UK, tagged Atlantic drilling, exploratory drilling, Isle of Man on January 19, 2023| Leave a Comment »
A firm with a licence to drill for natural gas in Manx waters expects to begin exploratory works in October, its chief executive has said.
Crogga has appointed Three60 Energy to drill an appraisal well to understand how much gas is under the seabed 17km (10.5miles) off Maughold Head.
BBC
Movin’ on up to 20,000 psi BOP equipment
Posted in drilling, Gulf of Mexico, Offshore Energy - General, tagged 20k BOPs, Deepwater Atlas, Deepwater Titan, NOV, Sembcorp, transocean 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.
Bud's Offshore Energy (BOE) 