Posts Tagged ‘Gulf of Mexico’
Great picture of the SpaceX Dragon reentering the atmosphere above a Gulf of Mexico platform
Posted in Gulf of Mexico, Offshore Energy - General, tagged Gulf of Mexico, offshore platform, SpaceX Dragon on November 10, 2021| Leave a Comment »
Shell has restored all GoM production that was idled by Hurricane Ida
Posted in Gulf of Mexico, hurricanes, Offshore Energy - General, tagged Gulf of Mexico, Hurricane Ida, Mars, production, Shell, Ursa on November 9, 2021| Leave a Comment »
Per Shell, production at Mars and Ursa has restarted. Olympus was restarted on 10/1. The December production figures should give us a pretty good indication of stabilized GoM production post Ida.
GoM oil production for August reflects Ida shut-ins
Posted in Gulf of Mexico, hurricanes, Offshore Energy - General, oil, tagged August production, EIA, Gulf of Mexico, Hurricane Ida, oil production on October 31, 2021| Leave a Comment »
1.60 to 1.74 million BOPD were shut-in from 8/28 to 8/31, reducing the average daily production for August to 1.535 million barrels per day, a net reduction of 312,000 BOPD from July. The September production figure will be significantly lower given that more than half of the GoM production was shut-in for 13 days in September and several hundred thousand BOPD were shut-in for the rest of the month. September production will be released at the end of November.
Shell is now anticipating that their GoM production will be fully restored by mid-November.
U.S. energy policy leaders: Are you comfortable with these trends?
Posted in drilling, energy policy, Gulf of Mexico, Offshore Energy - General, tagged deepwater drilling, Gulf of Mexico, trends on October 18, 2021| Leave a Comment »
Total/Maersk to drill record water depth well offshore Angola
Posted in drilling, Gulf of Mexico, Offshore Energy - General, tagged Angola, deepwater drilling record, Gulf of Mexico, Maersk, Shell, Total on October 15, 2021| Leave a Comment »
The Ondjaba-1 well will be drilled at a new world record water depth of 3,628 m. The current world record is 3,400 m, set by Maersk Voyager’s sister drillship Maersk Venturer when it drilled the Raya-1 well for TotalEnergies offshore Uruguay in 2016.
Maersk
The record US water depth well (3051m/10,011′) was drilled in 2003 by Transocean for Chevron in Alaminos Canyon Block 951 the Gulf of Mexico. The deepest well drilled in US GoM in 2021 YTD was for Shell in 9352′ of water in Alalminos Canyon Block 815.
While brief celebrity space flights are major news stories, these economically important and technical challenging accomplishments by the offshore industry receive very little attention even as oil prices pierce the $82/bbl mark.
Gulf of Mexico Production
Posted in Gulf of Mexico, hurricanes, Offshore Energy - General, oil, tagged EIA, Gulf of Mexico, Hurricane Ida, oil production on October 1, 2021| Leave a Comment »
EIA just released the July data, and GoM oil production averaged 1.845 million BOPD, which was consistent with expectations. 2021 production through July was relatively stable averaging from 1.762 to 1.845 million BOPD. This will, of course, change dramatically when the August data are released, and even more so for September. Most production was shut-in for Ida beginning on 8/28 and some production has not yet been restored. Per BSEE’s final update (9/23), about 300,000 BOPD remained shut-in.
The EIA data are plotted below:
“Boats see boats; boats don’t see platforms”
Posted in accidents, Gulf of Mexico, offshore, Offshore Energy - General, tagged Gulf of Mexico, John Borne, MMS, State Command, USGS on September 30, 2021| Leave a Comment »
This comment by the late John Borne, an outstanding USGS and MMS engineer/philosopher, reflects on the persistent vessel allision incidents over the years. The reporting of these incidents was spotty, but some could not be denied. Pictured below is the State Command arriving in Morgan City (~1973?) topped by a platform deck. Fortunately, the platform was unmanned and there were no injuries to vessel personnel. You could say this was the first floating production platform 😃
Gulf of Mexico Incident Trends
Posted in accidents, Gulf of Mexico, Offshore Energy - General, Regulation, tagged BSEE, Gulf of Mexico, incidents, safety, trends on September 27, 2021| Leave a Comment »
Attached is an outstanding presentation by Jason Mathews that reviews the latest Gulf of Mexico incident data and trends. The collection and analysis of incident data are critical to safety achievement and continuous improvement, and are among an offshore energy regulator’s most important functions. Kudos to BSEE’s Gulf of Mexico Region for their timely and comprehensive reviews and alerts.
9/20 BSEE Ida update: 18% of GoM oil production still not restored
Posted in Gulf of Mexico, hurricanes, Offshore Energy - General, oil, tagged Gulf of Mexico, Hurricane Ida, oil production on September 20, 2021| Leave a Comment »
Only about 1/4 of GoM oil production remains shut-in from Ida
Posted in Gulf of Mexico, hurricanes, Offshore Energy - General, oil, tagged Gulf of Mexico, Hurricane Ida, oil production on September 17, 2021| Leave a Comment »
Bud's Offshore Energy (BOE) 