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:
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
Shell
149.8
190.8
28-12
11-14-4
bp
114.0
82.7
5-2
6-3-4
Chevron
83.7
42.2
8-8
1-1-3
Anadarko (Oxy)
67.7
57.8
8-6
8-5-1
Hess
27.5
61.7
2-2
7-4-0
Murphy
25.1
50.0
7-7
4-8-1
LLOG
20.4
29.0
3-0
1-1-1
Talos
17.7
23.0
5-0
25-26-14
BHP
14.5
5.9
3-2
2-3-0
Exxon
13.2
2.3
–
1-1-1
Beacon
10.5
15.7
1-0
0-0-0
Fieldwood
10.4
24.7
–
685-235-91
EnVen
9.6
12.6
6-0
2-6-3
Kosmos
9.4
8.4
1-1
1-0-0
Arena
8.6
27.9
32-0
68-45-19
Walter
8.1
36.2
2-2
3-1-2
Cox
6.2
30.3
–
237-169-3
Eni
4.7
13.6
2-0
8-0-2
W&T
5.0
27.2
1-0
65-40-7
Cantium
4.5
5.5
18-0
23-15-2
QuarterNorth
4.2
8.3
–
no data
GoM Shelf
2.3
4.8
–
52-5-2
ANKOR
1.4
2.5
–
0-0-1
Byron
1.0
4.4
–
5-8-2
Renaissance
0.7
1.6
–
20-9-3
Sanare
0.3
4.5
–
38-20-3
Helis
0.2
1.2
–
1-0-2
Contango
0.03
5.0
–
4-0-0
Samchully
0.02
1.2
–
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.
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.)
With regard to shelf drilling activity (<1000′ water depth), a total of 55 wells were started in 2021 and 2022 (first quarter). Only 2 of these wells, both by Walter Oil and Gas, were classified as exploratory. The most active drillers (by far) were Arena Offshore (30 well starts) and Cantium LLC (16 well starts). Ankor, EnVen, and Talos were the only other operators with drilling activity.
Bud's Offshore Energy (BOE) 