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Posts Tagged ‘Oxy’

Only 6 days until the long-awaited Gulf lease sale. Will it be big and beautiful?

Posted in Offshore Energy - General, Gulf of Mexico, energy policy, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on December 4, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Big Beautiful Gulf of America

Will the oil and gas lease sale boldly named Big Beautiful Gulf 1 (BBG1) live up to its grand name? Given the more favorable lease terms and the 2 year gap since the last sale, BBG1 should surpass the previous 3 sales (table below). Questions:

  • Which majors will be the most active bidders? Chevron? Shell? BP? Oxy/Anadarko?
  • Will former Gulf of Mexico stalwarts Exxon and Conoco Phillips participate for the first time in years? Probably not, but US super-majors should participate in the US offshore program.
  • How many companies will submit bids? Would like that to be a number >35.
  • How many tracts will receive bids? A number >300 would be very encouraging.
  • Will the total high bids exceed $400 million?
  • Will we see an increase in shelf interest?
  • Which independents will be the most active?
  • After the not-so-clever carbon disposal acquisitions in the last 3 sales, will the number of carbon disposal bids be zero? For the first time ever, the Federal government felt compelled to stipulate the obvious (see the proposed notice for OCS Sale 262) – that an Oil and Gas Lease Sale is only for oil and gas exploration and development.

See the summary data below for the last 3 Gulf lease sales. We’ll fill in the blanks next week.

Sale No.257259261BBG1
date11/17/20213/29/202312/20/202312/10/2025
companies
participating		333226
total bids223328423161
tracts receiving bids214324422751
sum of all bids
$millions		198.5309.8441.9
sum of high bids
($millions)		101.7263.8382.2
highest bid
company
block		$10,001,252.00
Anadarko
AC 259		$15,911,947
Chevron
KC 96		$25,500,085
Anadarko
MC 389
most high bids
company
sum ($millions)		46
bp
29.0		75
Chevron
108.0		65
Shell
69.0
sum of high bids ($millions)
company
47.1
Chevron		108
Chevron		88.3
Hess
most high bids by independent14-DG Expl.13-Beacon
13-Red Willow		22-Red Willow
1excludes 36 leases improperly acquired for carbon disposal purposes; 2excludes 69 leases improperly acquired for carbon disposal purposes; 3excludes 94 leases improperly acquired for carbon disposal purposes

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Daniel Yergin, Vicki Hollub, and Warren Buffett, must not have read the 5 Year OCS Leasing Plan ðŸ˜‰

Posted in energy policy, Gulf of Mexico, Offshore Energy - General, tagged , , , , , , on February 13, 2024| Leave a Comment »

The 5 Year Plan tells us that we don’t need more OCS lease sales and that our biggest concern is producing too much oil and gas for too long!

Energy experts like Dan Yergin have a different, and far more credible view. Yergin explains that energy transitions don’t happen on command, noting that the world uses almost three times as much coal today as in the 1960’s when oil finally surpassed coal as the world’s primary energy source.

Oxy CEO Vicki Hollub’s recent remarks should serve as a reality check for the 5 Year Plan authors and their counterparts elsewhere in western governments. More oil and gas exploration and production are needed, not less. Leading Oxy investor Warren Buffet agrees.

Crude reserves are being found and developed at a much slower pace than they’ve been in the past. Specifically, she said the world has only newly identified less than half the amount of crude it’s consumed over the course of the past 10 years. Given the current trends, this means demand will exceed supply before the end of 2025.

Oxy CEO Vicki Hollub per the Motley Fool

Recent trends in the Gulf of Mexico, where Hollub’s Anadarko unit is one of the more active and successful operators, reflect Hollub’s concern. Note below the sharp decline in discoveries, as determined by BOEM, over the past 20 years. Effective development of older discoveries and improved resource recovery practices are sustaining GoM production, but declines are inevitable without consistent leasing and increased exploration.

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Kudos for Kosmos!

Posted in Gulf of Mexico, Offshore Energy - General, tagged , , , , , , , on October 16, 2023| Leave a Comment »

Kosmos Energy announces deepwater GoM discovery. Oxy and Equinor are partners in this venture.

The Tiberius exploration well tested a four-way structural trap in the outboard Wilcox trend, located in Keathley Canyon Block 964. The well encountered approximately 250 feet (~75 meters) of net oil pay in the primary Wilcox target. Wireline logging has been completed and casing is currently being run to the target depth to enable the well to be used as a future oil producer. The Tiberius well is located in approximately 7,500 feet (2,300 meters) of water and was drilled to a total vertical depth of approximately 25,800 feet (7,800 meters).

BSEE data indicate that Kosmos has an excellent compliance record, having been cited for only 3 violations during 44 facility inspections (83 inspection types) since 1/1/2018.

Per the latest available BSEE summaries, Kosmos did not pay any civil penalties from 2019 through 2022.

One quibble: the Kosmos news release does not name the drilling unit or drilling contractor. The rig crew is the group most responsible for safely drilling the well.

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Gulf of Mexico rig count is showing some life

Posted in drilling, Gulf of Mexico, Offshore Energy - General, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 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 NameOperator
Deepwater TitanChevron
Deepwater AtlasBeacon
Deepwater PoseidonShell
Deepwater PontusShell
Deepwater ProteusShell
Deepwater Conquerornot disclosed
Deepwater ThalassaShell
Deepwater AsgardMurphy
Deepwater InvictusWoodside
Globetrotter IShell
Globetrotter IIShell
Faye KozackQuarterNorth
LLOG
Kosmos
Stanley LafosseMurphy
Valaris DS-18Chevron
Valaris DS-16Oxy
Ocean BlackHornetbp
Ocean Black Lionbp
Aurigabp
Velabp
Beacon

Excerpts from rig activity reports:

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Lease Sale 259 Top Ten: Chevron’s surges, BP is bullish on the GoM, Shell steady, Equinor awakens, Beacon sees the light, OK for Oxy, Red Willow surprises, Hess rebounds, Woodside has BHP, Houston means Energy!

Posted in Gulf of Mexico, Offshore Energy - General, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 31, 2023| Leave a Comment »

companyno. of Sale 259 high bids
(Sale 257 in parentheses)		total Sale 259 high bids
($ millions)
Chevron75 (34)108
BP37 (46)46.7
Shell21 (20)20.1
Equinor16 (1)18.3
Beacon13 (4)9.0
Anadarko (Oxy)13 (30)8.6
Red Willow13 (5)3.8
Hess12 (2)8.3
Woodside12 (8)6.3
Houston Energy8 (5)11.6
from BOEM data

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Was Warren Buffet influenced by the BOE compliance honor roll? ðŸ˜‰

Posted in Gulf of Mexico, Offshore Energy - General, Uncategorized, tagged , , , on August 24, 2022| Leave a Comment »

It was revealed on Friday that Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK-A) has received Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approval to acquire up to 50% of Occidental Petroleum’s (NYSE: OXY) common stock.

StreetInsider.com

Oxy (Andarko) fared very well in BOE’s mid-year review and apparently the “Oracle of Omaha” noticed. 😉

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2022 mid-year Compliance Honor Roll: US Offshore

Posted in Gulf of Mexico, Offshore Energy - General, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 20, 2022| Leave a Comment »

Operating companies (listed alphabetically): Arena, Anadarko (Oxy), BHP, bp, Cantium, Chevron, Hess, Murphy, Shell, and Walter

Criteria:

  • Must average <0.3 incidents of compliance (INCs) per inspection. (This is less than half the GoM 2022 YTD average of 0.64 INCs/inspection.)
  • Must operate at least 3 production platforms.
  • Must have drilled at least one well.
  • Pacific and Alaska operations will be considered in a separate post.

Comments:

  • Impressive performance by Hess: 21 inspections and no INCs
  • Cantium and Walter averaged less than 0.1 INCs/inspection. The INC rates for Anadarko (Oxy), BHP, and BP were only slightly higher.
  • Among the Honor Roll companies, Shell (highest production, 9 deepwater platforms, and 13 well starts) and Arena (115 shelf platforms and 12 well starts) were the deepwater and shelf activity leaders.They thus had the highest INC exposure.
  • Although CSI and FSI INCs are typically more significant than W INCs, that is not always the case, so the INCs have not been weighted by type.
  • As has been previously noted, more inspection data should be readily available online. At a minimum, the specific INC (type) numbers (e.g. P-103, G-110, etc) should be posted so the public can better assess performance. Absent this information, interested parties are left to speculate about the significance of the violations.
  • Incident data should also be considered in performance assessments. Unfortunately, the inexplicable lag in the posting of BSEE incident tables, precludes the use of these data in our analysis.

Compliance vs. Safety

While compliance is not synonymous with safety, most experienced observers believe there is a strong correlation. In the 1990’s, John Shultz, a PhD candidate at Carnegie Mellon Univ., studied US offshore facilities and safety data and developed expert and regression models to predict the likelihood of accidents and spills. That was a data rich era in that there were ~4000 US offshore platforms (more than twice the current number) and ~100 well starts/month (>10 times the current rate). In John’s thesis, he found that INCs are a very good predictor of accidents and spills. The offshore world has changed and further study of the correlation between compliance and safety performance is highly recommended.

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Interesting shareholder votes

Posted in climate, energy policy, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on May 17, 2022| Leave a Comment »

From Reuters article:

  • bp: Only 15% of shareholder votes backed a call for the company to accelerate its energy transition, compared with the 21% in favor in a similar vote last year.
  • Oxy: Only 17% of investors backed a call for emissions-reduction targets. (I wonder how Buffett voted 😀)
  • Marathon: 16% supported a measure calling for the company to report on how its transition plans affected workers and communities
  • ConocoPhillips: 42% supported an emissions-reductions targeting measure vs. 58% last year.

Exxon, Shell, and Chevron are on deck!

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