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Posts Tagged ‘Shell’

Stemming the decline in deepwater Gulf of Mexico exploration?

Posted in Gulf of Mexico, Offshore Energy - General, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on November 18, 2022| Leave a Comment »

Was 2021 the low point? Hopefully that is the case, but consistent leasing is essential.

Looks like Woodside is now officially the GoM operator of record (was BHP prior to merger). Kudos to them.

Shell continues to be the GoM bellwether. There is no OCS program without them.

What’s up with BP and Chevron? Big declines from both.

US super-majors Exxon and ConocoPhillips remain out of the picture, both in terms of lease acquisition and exploration. Disappointing.

Tip of the hat to Hess, LLOG, Murphy, and Talos – independents committed to deepwater production.

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Another new Aera era!

Posted in California, Offshore Energy - General, pipelines, tagged , , , , , , on September 12, 2022| Leave a Comment »

A fresh start for Aera Energy with IKAV, a German asset management company that purchased Aera from Shell and ExxonMobil.

From 1997 to 2007, Aera operated the Beta Unit offshore Huntington Beach. Since selling those facilities, all Aera operations have been conducted onshore, primarily in Kern County, a historically important California oil production area. Aera will continue to operate these onshore properties for IKAV, which looks like an interesting company.

Platforms Ellen and Elly, Beta Unit

Meanwhile, the Beta Unit has been in the news because of the October 2021 spill from the pipeline transporting Beta Unit production from Platform Elly to shore.

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Shell restarts Mars pipeline

Posted in accidents, Gulf of Mexico, Offshore Energy - General, pipelines, tagged , , on August 13, 2022| Leave a Comment »

Assuming no significant tropical storm shutdowns this month, we should get a good read on the impact of the pipeline outage when the EIA production data for August are posted.

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Onshore pipeline leak shuts-in major Gulf of Mexico assets

Posted in accidents, Gulf of Mexico, Offshore Energy - General, tagged , , , , , , on August 11, 2022| Leave a Comment »

A small pipeline leak (estimated 2 bbl spill) at an onshore booster station is having a major impact on Gulf of Mexico production. Per Reuters, as much as 600,000 bopd could be temporarily shut-in. GoM production averaged 1.6 million bopd in May.

These major platforms are reported to be shut-in:

  • Shell: Mars, Ursa, and Olympus
  • Chevron: Jack/St. Malo, Tahiti, and Big Foot
  • Equinor: Titan

Shell, the pipeline operator, did not provide an estimate on the resumption of production.

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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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Chevron sanctions Ballymore; BSEE conducts pre-production inspection of Shell’s Vito platform

Posted in energy policy, Gulf of Mexico, Offshore Energy - General, tagged , , , , , on May 19, 2022| Leave a Comment »

Ballymore will be produced with 3 seafloor wells (6540′ water depth) that are expected to transport 75,000 bopd via a three-mile subsea tieback to Chevron’s Blind Faith floating production unit. Per BOEM, the Ballymore field was discovered in December, 2017. First production is expected to be in 2025.

Pre-production inspection, Shell Vito
Vito

Shell’s Vito floating production unit was inspected last week by BSEE personnel. Vito is expected to begin production later this year or early next year and produce up to 100,000 bopd. Per BOEM data, the Vito field was discovered in 2010.

As these projects demonstrate, deepwater development takes time and is often dependent on related projects on other leases. This is why future production is dependent on regular, predictable lease sales.

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BSEE/USCG issue Safety Alert on the Globetrotter II incident during Hurrricane Ida (8/29/2021)

Posted in accidents, drilling, Gulf of Mexico, hurricanes, tagged , , , , , on May 17, 2022| Leave a Comment »

BOE was troubled by this incident and the contractor’s statements that followed.

BSEE has posted a strong safety alert.

The BSEE investigation concluded that the operator and contractor representatives failed to promptly start the Temporary Abandonment (TA) procedures.

BSEE’s investigation report provides complete details on the incident.

Globetrotter II

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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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Gulf of Mexico scoreboard

Posted in drilling, Gulf of Mexico, Offshore Energy - General, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 10, 2022| Leave a Comment »

  • Operating companies that produced >1 million bbls of oil or >1 BCF of gas in 2021 are listed in descending order based on oil production.
  • Both the total number of well starts and the number of exploratory wells are indicated
  • An INC is an Incident of Noncompliance (i.e. a violation). W=warning, CSI=component shut-in, and FSI=facility shut-in are the enforcement actions.
  • All of the below data are publicly available on the BSEE-BOEM websites.
2021
oil (MMbbls)		2021
gas (BCF)		2021/22
well starts
total-expl		2021/22
INCs
W-CSI-FSI
Shell149.8190.828-1211-14-4
bp114.082.75-26-3-4
Chevron83.742.28-81-1-3
Anadarko (Oxy)67.757.88-68-5-1
Hess27.561.72-27-4-0
Murphy25.150.07-74-8-1
LLOG20.429.03-01-1-1
Talos17.723.05-025-26-14
BHP14.55.93-22-3-0
Exxon13.22.3–1-1-1
Beacon10.515.71-00-0-0
Fieldwood10.424.7–685-235-91
EnVen9.612.66-02-6-3
Kosmos9.48.41-11-0-0
Arena8.627.932-068-45-19
Walter8.136.22-23-1-2
Cox6.230.3–237-169-3
Eni4.713.62-08-0-2
W&T5.027.21-065-40-7
Cantium4.55.518-023-15-2
QuarterNorth4.28.3–no data
GoM Shelf2.34.8–52-5-2
ANKOR1.42.5–0-0-1
Byron1.04.4–5-8-2
Renaissance0.71.6–20-9-3
Sanare0.34.5–38-20-3
Helis0.21.2–1-0-2
Contango0.035.0–4-0-0
Samchully0.021.2–no data

Comments:

  • “Energy transition” companies Shell and bp still love the Gulf of Mexico, which is a good thing for them and us. Together they accounted for 42.4% of the 2021 oil production.
  • The top 4 producers, Shell, bp, Chevron (includes Unocal), and Anadarko accounted for 2/3 of GoM oil production, nearly all of which was from deepwater leases.
  • Those are impressive production numbers for Anadarko (Oxy). No wonder Warren Buffett likes Oxy stock.
  • The relative number of deepwater exploratory wells is mildly encouraging given our concerns about sustaining production.
  • Exploratory well determinations are rather subjective and may not be entirely consistent.
  • Understandably, no exploratory wells were drilled by Arena or Cantium, the companies responsible for most well operations on shelf (shallow water) leases.
  • Overall, the INC numbers are impressively low for the deepwater operators, with Chevron and LLOG standing out. BSEE does not post the specific violation information (more on this in an upcoming post), so it’s difficult to properly assess a company’s compliance record.
  • Unfortunately, incident data could not be included on the scoreboard. BSEE’s incident tables are badly out of date, and no 2021/2022 summaries have been posted.
  • Fieldwood’s disturbing INC numbers were discussed earlier this year. High INC rates for 3 other operators have also were noted last month.
  • Exxon production is limited to the Hoover Diana spar, which was installed 22 years ago. The largest US oil company has only drilled one GoM exploratory well (2018) in the past 5 years. Currently, their main GoM interest seems to be the sequestration (disposal) of onshore emissions. (More on this topic in an upcoming post.)

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Bad litigation, worse timing. China and Russia’s most effective allies?

Posted in climate, energy policy, Russia, Uncategorized, tagged , , , on March 15, 2022| Leave a Comment »

This is what major oil companies are up against. Meanwhile China expands coal production and consumption without having to worry about groups like this.

ClientEarth, a Shell shareholder, notified the energy major on Monday that it would commence legal proceedings against the company’s 13 executive and non-executive directors for what it said was the board’s failure to adopt a strategy that “truly aligns” with the 2015 Paris climate agreement. The not-for-profit group, which has a strong record of winning climate-related cases, wrote to Shell in advance of petitioning the High Court of England and Wales for permission to bring the claim.

Financial Times

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