Raphael is a highly regarded offshore safety leader and a positive force for continuous safety achievement in Brazil and internationally.
Archive for the ‘Offshore Energy – General’ Category
Raphael Moura (ANP Brazil) interview
Posted in IRF, Offshore Energy - General, Regulation, well control incidents, tagged ANP Brazil, IRF, offshore safety, Raphael Mouro, well control on December 22, 2022| Leave a Comment »
Great year for Guyana and 2023 is looking even better
Posted in Guyana, Offshore Energy - General, tagged Exxon, FPSOs, Guyana, oil production on December 22, 2022| Leave a Comment »
Exxon is now producing >360,000 bopd from just two Guyana FPSOs. So these two FPSOs are producing about 20% as much oil as the Gulf of Mexico or Norway. A third FPSO will add 220,000 bopd in 2023.
Guyana’s oil output is expected to increase significantly in 2023, as both projects maintain steadier production at capacity throughout the year, and as the third project, Payara, comes on stream in the second half of the year. Payara will add another 220,000 bpd of production capacity to Stabroek Block output, taking it to 580,000 bpd.
Oil Now
Lars looks at Gulf of Mexico drilling activity
Posted in drilling, Gulf of Mexico, Offshore Energy - General, tagged Contango, deepwater drilling, Gulf of Mexico drilling, macondo, shelf drilling, Valaris semisubmersible, Walter Oil and Gas on December 20, 2022| Leave a Comment »
Lars Herbst analyzed GoM permitting and drilling activity from 2011 to 2021. His data and observations are summarized below.
- Shelf (shallow water) exploratory drilling is at historic low levels with only a single exploration well drilled in both 2020 and 2021. That trend appears to have continued into 2022, as only one shelf exploration well (drilled by Contango) has been spudded YTD.
- 2021 also saw a significant drop in deep water development wells.
- Over the time period examined, deep water development is led by deepwater exploration. The same cannot be said for the development of shallow water leases where prospects are more mature and data are more available.
- The only shelf well drilled in 2021 (Walter Oil and Gas) was in relatively deeper water (566 feet). That well was drilled with a deepwater semisubmersible (the Valaris 8503). This is the shallowest water depth for a GoM semisubmersible drilling operation in recent history. The rig had a modified DP/moored configuration with explosive disconnects on the mooring lines so the rig could move off location if needed during an emergency disconnect scenario. That mooring disconnect would also let the rig evade hurricanes without the need for anchor handling vessels.
- The 2012 spike in deepwater permit approvals is the result of the Macondo drilling moratorium backlog.
| GOM OCS New Drilling Well Permits and Well Spuds 2011-2021 | ||||||||||||
| Year | New Shallow Water Drilling Well Permits Approved | Shallow Water Expl.; New Well Spuds | Shallow Water Dev.; New Well Spuds | New Deep Water Drilling; Well Permits Approved | Deep Water Exp.; New Well Spuds | Deep Water Dev.; New Well Spuds | ||||||
| 2011 | 71 | 15 | 54 | 38 | 32 | 6 | ||||||
| 2012 | 67 | 17 | 47 | 112 | 59 | 32 | ||||||
| 2013 | 72 | 28 | 34 | 57 | 55 | 18 | ||||||
| 2014 | 65 | 16 | 52 | 68 | 52 | 20 | ||||||
| 2015 | 12 | 1 | 15 | 69 | 57 | 14 | ||||||
| 2016 | 10 | 2 | 7 | 65 | 48 | 14 | ||||||
| 2017 | 13 | 3 | 9 | 52 | 44 | 9 | ||||||
| 2018 | 18 | 4 | 13 | 65 | 41 | 24 | ||||||
| 2019 | 25 | 3 | 17 | 62 | 38 | 23 | ||||||
| 2020 | 10 | 1 | 6 | 54 | 36 | 17 | ||||||
| 2021 | 18 | 1 | 7 | 34 | 29 | 5 | ||||||
| TOTAL | 381 | 90 | 261 | 676 | 491 | 182 | ||||||
| Note: Only includes new wells not sidetrack or bypass boreholes. | ||||||||||||
White Christmas in the Gulf of Mexico? 😀
Posted in climate, Gulf of Mexico, Offshore Energy - General, Uncategorized, tagged Gulf of Mexico, snow, White Christmas on December 19, 2022| Leave a Comment »
Nord Stream: the EU agrees to better protect critical infrastructure, but ignores the elephant in the room
Posted in accidents, energy, Offshore Energy - General, pipelines, tagged EU, investigations, Nord Stream, pipeline leaks, sabotage on December 13, 2022| Leave a Comment »
Wer ist verantwortlich?
As reported by Tagespiegel, the EU states have agreed to better protect critical infrastructure. Yet apparently the status of the Nord Stream investigation(s) was not discussed. When will the findings be released? How and when will the responsible parties be identified?
Offshore headwinds?
Posted in energy policy, Offshore Energy - General, Offshore Wind, tagged Gordon Hughes, Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon, Kari Martin, Michael Dean, NJ offshore wind, Offshore Wind, RODA, wind farms change marine ecosystems on December 8, 2022| Leave a Comment »
Despite the spectacular 2022 lease sales, not all is rosy for US offshore wind development.
In 2011, then-Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said the Obama administration had set a goal of “10 gigawatts of offshore wind generating capacity by 2020 and 54 gigawatts by 2030.” How has that worked? Well, 11 years after Salazar’s speech, the US has seven turbines operating offshore with a total of capacity of 42 megawatts — or some 9,958 megawatts short of the goal laid out by Salazar.
Gordon Hughes, a professor of economics at the University of Edinburgh, has found that the output of Europe’s offshore wind turbines has been declining by about 4.5% per year. In a report titled “Wind Power Economics: Rhetoric and Reality,” published by the London-based Renewable Energy Foundation in 2020, Hughes concluded that declining output will result in higher operating costs that will start to exceed revenues “after 12 or 15 years.
Forbes
Opposition to NJ offshore wind projects dominate DEP hearing
…addressing climate change through ocean “industrialization” using an “inefficient, expensive and largely untested strategy” was not the right path forward – Kari Martin, Clean Ocean Action
“By undertaking an industrialization project this big, it far outweighs any (climate change) benefit anybody’s ever talked about, or even tried to quantify,” he said. “The harms of this undertaking is, in my view, far worse than any benefits we could realize.” – Michael Dean, Middletown, NJ
Offshore Wind Farms Change Marine Ecosystems
In their latest publication, (scientists at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon) now show that large-scale wind farms can strongly influence marine primary production as well as the oxygen levels in and beyond the wind farm areas. Their results were published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment.
… For example, Nils Christiansen’s team proved that wake turbulences—air vortices caused by wind turbines—change the flow and stratification of the water beneath them. But the climate just above the sea surface is also being permanently changed, as another team led by Dr. Naveed Akhtar was able to show.
PHYS.org
Annual mean response of net primary productions (netPP) to atmospheric changes due to offshore wind farms
More:
Commonwealth Wind project paused indefinitely
Park City Wind project delayed
RODA files a motion for a summary judgement in its lawsuit over approval of the Vineyard Wind 1 project, touted as the nation’s first commercial scale offshore project.
Discouraging Spectator article on UK onshore wind.
The Permian continues to thrive. So can the Gulf of Mexico, but will it?
Posted in energy policy, Gulf of Mexico, Offshore Energy - General, tagged Dead Sea, Gulf of Mexico, horizontal drilling, hydraulic fracturing, oil production, Permian Basin on December 6, 2022| Leave a Comment »
Like its salty neighbor to the east, the Permian Basin of west Texas and southeastern New Mexico has been proclaimed dead on many occasions. Such proclamations of their demise, however, are mere exaggerations as the Gulf of Mexico and the Permian Basin continue to thrive.
These historic oil and gas production powerhouses have delivered to global markets billions of barrels of oil and trillions of cubic feet of natural gas over the past century. Through the booms and the busts, the resiliency of each was made possible by the combination of ingenuity and perseverance and by advancements in techniques and technologies.
JPT
Thirty years ago the Gulf of Mexico was called “the Dead Sea” because of the decline in drilling and production activity. Deepwater technology reversed that trend and led to record Gulf of Mexico oil production averaging 1.9 million BOPD in 2019.
Similarly, horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing technology launched the shale revolution, and Permian oil production has risen impressively to 5.4 million BOPD.
Both the Permian and the GoM have the potential to sustain or increase production. The Permian Basin, much of which is privately owned, is more adaptable to market conditions and less exposed to political risks. The offshore program is dependent on effective long-term planning and supportive lease management policies. Unfortunately, the proposed 5 year leasing plan suggests a commitment to throttling offshore production rather than sustaining it. When will our energy policy pendulum swing back to a more balanced position?
Uptick in GoM oil production
Posted in Gulf of Mexico, Offshore Energy - General, tagged 5 year leasing plan, deepwater production, Gulf of Mexico production, King's Quay, LLOG, Murphy, Spruance on December 2, 2022| Leave a Comment »
The September total reflects production from recent deepwater startups, including King’s Quay (Murphy) and Spruance (LLOG). Other new deepwater facilities should further boost GoM oil production next year as forecasted by BOEM (table below). Unfortunately, the BOEM forecast considerably overstates 2022 production and appears to be optimistic for the outyears. This is a significant concern given that US offshore leasing policy, as reflected in the 5 Year Plan, is naively focused on throttling long-term production. See the rather startling quote below:
“BOEM’s short-term (20-year) production forecast for existing leases shows steady growth from 2022 through 2024 and declining thereafter (see Section 5.2.1). The long-term nature of OCS oil and gas development, such that production on a lease can continue for decades makes consideration of future climate pathways relevant to the Secretary’s determinations with respect to how the OCS leasing program best meets the Nation’s energy needs.“
5 Year Leasing Program, p.3
Norway’s licensing pause applies only to frontier areas
Posted in energy policy, Norway, Offshore Energy - General, tagged Heidrun, licensing pause, Norway, NPD, Terje Aasland on December 1, 2022| Leave a Comment »
Symbolic gesture or troubling precedent?
OSLO, Nov 29 (Reuters) – Norway will not issue licences for energy companies to explore for oil and gas in frontier areas during the life of the current parliament, which ends in 2025, its oil and energy minister told Reuters on Tuesday.
“SV (Socialist Left Party) has had this as a demand for this year and we went along with that. And have accepted that this can be held off for this parliamentary period,” (per Minister of Petroleum and Energy Minister Terje Aasland).
Aasland said there was “no drama” in the decision as authorities still issue licences to oil companies in a parallel licensing around called the APA round, in so-called mature areas that are already open to oil companies.
Reuters
Meanwhile NPD reports a dry hole 17 km north of the Heidrun field in the Norwegian Sea.
This Well Control Rule comment, endorsed by 7 trade associations, hit a nerve. Here’s why.
Posted in drilling, Offshore Energy - General, Regulation, well control incidents, tagged BSEE, NTTAA, standards, standards vs. regulations, trade association comments, Well Control Rule on November 30, 2022| Leave a Comment »
The comment (pasted below) by the trade associations asserts that BSEE ignored the requirements of the National Technology Transfer and Advancement Act (NTTAA).
Reaction:
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