Posted in energy policy, Gulf of Mexico, Offshore Energy - General, tagged API, BOEM, Chevron, injunction, Lease Sale 261, Louisiana, Rice's whale on August 31, 2023| Leave a Comment »
The court filing is attached. See the previous post on this matter.
This Court should grant Plaintiffs—the State of Louisiana, the American Petroleum Institute (“API”), and Chevron U.S.A. Inc. (“Chevron”)—a preliminary injunction and prevent those unlawful provisions from permanently disrupting the result of the fast-approaching lease sale (which Congress has directed must occur by September 30, and which cannot be delayed without causing Plaintiffs even more serious injury).
Posted in Gulf of Mexico, hurricanes, tagged Blind Faith, Chevron, Gulf of Mexico, Idalia, Petronius on August 29, 2023| Leave a Comment »
Genesis, which is being decommissioned, has been fully evacuated. BSEE will no doubt have information on all evacuations and shut-ins tomorrow.
Posted in energy policy, Gulf of Mexico, Offshore Energy - General, Regulation, tagged API, BOEM, Chevron, Lease Sale 261, Louisiana, Rice's whale on August 26, 2023| Leave a Comment »
See the attached document.
From a regulatory policy standpoint, this appears to be a strong filing. Operationally, the most important points pertain to the costly and premature Rice’s whale restrictions first discussed on this blog.
Most notably, the plaintiffs seek (p.39):
Posted in Gulf of Mexico, Offshore Energy - General, tagged bid rejections, BOEM, bp, Chevron, Lease Sale 257, Lease Sale 259, resource evaluation on July 20, 2023| Leave a Comment »
As previously posted, 14 of the 244 (not counting the 69 CCS bids) Sale 259 high bids were rejected. BOEM has published their bid evaluations for all of the tracts, and the 14 rejections are listed below.
| lease # | block | high bid ($) | BOEM MROV ($) | no. of bids |
| G37496 | DC 622 | 2,101,836 | 9,100,000 | 1 |
| G37515 | GC 173 | 307,107 | 1,300,000 | 1 |
| G37534 | GC 547 | 1,783,498 | 12,000,000 | 1 |
| G37538 | GC 591 | 1,291,993 | 5,200,000 | 1 |
| G37543 | GC 642 | 605,505 | 3,400,000 | 1 |
| G37548 | GC 777 | 583,103 | 4,200,000 | 1 |
| G37562 | AT 5 | 1,551,130 | 4,700,000 | 3 |
| G37565 | AT 133 | 607,107 | 2,600,000 | 1 |
| G37616 | KC 745 | 707,777 | 3,600,000 | 1 |
| G37617 | KC 789 | 707,777 | 2,100,000 | 1 |
| G37647 | WR 750 | 724,744 | 3,500,000 | 1 |
| G37646 | WR 794 | 724,744 | 3,200,000 | 1 |
| G37648 | WR 795 | 774,242 | 5,000,000 | 1 |
| G37649 | WR 796 | 774,242 | 4,000,000 | 1 |
Observations:
Posted in drilling, Gulf of Mexico, Offshore Energy - General, tagged 150th well in greater than 8000', Arena, Baker Hughes rig count, Cantium, Chevron, Gulf of Mexico milestone, Shell, well starts on May 22, 2023| Leave a Comment »
Per the BSEE borehole file, there were 2 deepwater exploratory well starts since 4/1/2023. The Shell well is another GoM milestone in that it is the 150th well spudded in >8000′ of water. The first was in the year 2000.
| Operator | spud date | location | water depth |
| Chevron | 5/5/2023 | Mississippi Canyon 608 | 6678′ |
| Shell | 4/13/2023 | Alaminos Canyon 728 | 8660′ |
Arena and Cantium continue to drive shelf drilling. Below are the shelf development wells since 4/1/2023:
| Operator | spud date | location | water depth |
| Arena | 5/6/2023 | Eugene Island 261 | 160′ |
| Cantium | 4/8/2023 | Main Pass 38 | 60′ |
| Cantium | 4/1/2023 | Main Pass 299 | 217′ |
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:
Posted in Gulf of Mexico, Offshore Energy - General, tagged Anchor, Argos, bp, Chevron, King's Quay, Murphy, Shell, Vito, Whale on April 19, 2023| Leave a Comment »
With the announcement of first oil at Argos, 3 of the 5 next generation deepwater platforms (simpler, safer, and greener) are now producing oil and gas in the Gulf of Mexico. The other 2 platforms are expected to begin production in 2024.
Prior to the installation of these platforms, the last deepwater platform addition was Shell’s Appomattox in 2018. That gap in deepwater platform installations was the longest since Bullwinkle was installed in 1988.
The 5 new structures will increase the deepwater platform count by 9% from 56 to 61, and in the next few years should account for approximately 1/4 of GoM oil production.
| platform | operator | water depth (feet) | first production | design production (boe) |
| King’s Quay | Murphy | 3725 | April 2022 | 100,000 |
| Vito | Shell | 4000 | Feb 2023 | 100,000 |
| Argos | bp | 4500 | April 2023 | 140,000 |
| Anchor | Chevron | 5000 | 2024 (est.) | 80,000 |
| Whale | Shell | 8600 | 2024 (est.) | 100,000 |
Posted in Gulf of Mexico, Offshore Energy - General, tagged Beacon, bp, Chevron, Equinor, Gulf of Mexico, Hess, Houston Energy, Lease Sale 259, Oxy, Red Willow, Shell, Top Ten, Woodside on March 31, 2023| Leave a Comment »
| company | no. of Sale 259 high bids (Sale 257 in parentheses) | total Sale 259 high bids ($ millions) |
| Chevron | 75 (34) | 108 |
| BP | 37 (46) | 46.7 |
| Shell | 21 (20) | 20.1 |
| Equinor | 16 (1) | 18.3 |
| Beacon | 13 (4) | 9.0 |
| Anadarko (Oxy) | 13 (30) | 8.6 |
| Red Willow | 13 (5) | 3.8 |
| Hess | 12 (2) | 8.3 |
| Woodside | 12 (8) | 6.3 |
| Houston Energy | 8 (5) | 11.6 |
Posted in CCS, Gulf of Mexico, Offshore Energy - General, tagged BOEM, bp, Chevron, Exxon, Lease Sale 259, Liz Klein, Red Willow, results, Shell on March 29, 2023| Leave a Comment »
Exxon doubled down on their strategic CCS bidding; their only bids (69 in total) again appeared to be solely for carbon sequestration purposes. As previously noted, acquiring tracts for CCS purposes is not authorized in an oil and gas sale. Arguably, these bids should be rejected.
The other super-majors, BP, Chevron, and Shell, were active participants as were many independents.
It was good to see BOEM Director Liz Klein announcing bids. This shows respect for the OCS oil and gas program.
It was also good to hear that Red Willow, a native American corporation, was again an active participant.
More to follow.
Posted in CCS, energy policy, Gulf of Mexico, Offshore Energy - General, tagged BHP, BOEM, bp, carbon sequestration, Chevron, Exxon, Lease Sale 257, Lease Sale 259, rejected bid, Talos on February 27, 2023| Leave a Comment »
BOEM published their Sale 257 Decision Matrix on Friday (2/24/2023), and my previous speculation regarding the rejected Sale 257 high bid has proven to be partially incorrect. The rejected high bid was submitted by BP and Talos and was for Green Canyon Block 777. BOEM’s analytics assigned a Mean of the Range-of-Value (MROV) of $4.4 million to that tract, which tied for the highest MROV for any tract receiving a bid. The BP/Talos bid was $1.8 million or just 40% of BOEM’s MROV. BOEM’s tract evaluation is interesting given that the other bid on this wildcat tract (by Chevron, $1.185 million) was considerably lower than the rejected BP/Talos bid.
The Sale 257 bid that I thought might have been rejected was for lease G37261. This lease was never issued per the lease inquiry data base and the final bid recap. BHP’s bid of $3.6 million for that tract (Green Canyon Block 79) was more than 5 times BOEM’s MROV of $576,000, and was accepted per the decision matrix. Why was the lease never issued?
Both Green Canyon 79 and 777 should again be for sale in legislatively mandated Sale 259, which will be held in just a few weeks on March 29, 2023, just 2 days prior to the deadline. It will be interesting to see what the bidding on those tracts looks like.
Meanwhile, Exxon and BOEM are still mum about the 94 Sale 257 oil and gas leases that Exxon acquired for carbon sequestration purposes. Note the large patches of blue just offshore Texas on the map above. These leases were all valued by BOEM at only $144,000 each, which is equivalent to the minimum bid of $25/acre. This valuation reflects the absence of perceived value for oil and gas production purposes. Exxon bid $158,400 for each tract, $27.50/acre or 10% higher than the minimum bid. Given that (1) the Notice of Sale only provided for lease acquisition for oil and gas exploration and production purposes, and (2) it was common knowledge that these tracts were acquired for carbon sequestration, should these bids have been rejected?
Bud's Offshore Energy (BOE) 