D&C News

ENI strikes Lower Miocene oil offshore Angola with Nzanza-1, Cinguvu-1

Eni has announced two new oil discoveries in Block 15/06, Nzanza-1 and Cinguvu-1, offshore Angola. Statoil has a 5% interest in this block. Both of the discovery wells, located around 350 km northwest of Luanda in 1,400 m of water, successfully reached the objectives in the Lower Miocene targets, where oil pay sands with good reservoir characteristics were encountered. Operations were completed in December 2009 for Nzanza-1 and in February 2010 for Cinguvu-1. The discoveries will allow the operators to proceed with the currently ongoing pre-development phase of the “Western hub.”

The success of these two wells follow the recent success of Cabaça Norte-1, which had three consecutive oil discoveries in the block in 2009, and five, including Sangos and N’Goma, in 2008.

OEC MOLUs bring offshore to kids

The Offshore Energy Center (OEC) is vigorously pursuing an initiative to bring the offshore industry to classrooms through its Mobile Offshore Learning Units (MOLU). The traveling MOLU exhibit, comprising six self-contained learning stations, journeyed to seven Houston-area schools, as well as others outside the area, during March and April. For more on the program, visit http://www.oceanstaroec.com/education/teachers/molu.htm. DC caught up with the MOLU exhibit at Jane Long Elementary School in Richmond, Texas, in March.

Click below for video of the teaching event, including interviews with teachers and students.

Latshaw Drilling rig goes to Haynesville

Latshaw drilling has released its new Rig 16, a 2,000-hp SCR rig with a 500-ton AC top drive and a skidding system for multi-well pad drilling. The rig went to work in the Haynesville Shale on a three-year contract with Goodrich Petroleum. Latshaw has 14 rigs in its fleet, 13 of which are late-model diesel-electric/SCR units. Within three months, the company will have another rig, Rig 17, completed and available for work.

KCA DEUTAG awarded rig contracts in Libya

KCA DEutag has been awarded two multi-million dollar contracts in Libya by Petro-Canada Oil. One is a one-year contract, with a two-year extension option, for Rig T-72. The 2,000-hp rig will begin operations for Petro-Canada in the fourth quarter of 2010. A one-year contract has also been signed for KCA DEUTAG’s Rig 206 to start in March 2010.

Keppel in joint venture to build, operate shipyard in Azerbaijan

Keppel Offshore and Marine is joining with the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic and Azerbaijan Investment Company to develop and manage a new 52-hectare shipbuilding and ship repair facility in Baku, Azerbaijan. Project construction will span three years.

BP expands acreage in deepwater with Devon buy-out

BP will pay Devon Energy $7 billion for assets in Brazil, Azerbaijan and the US deepwater Gulf of Mexico. These include interests in 10 exploration blocks in Brazil, encompassing seven in the prolific Campos Basin. BP will sell to Devon a 50% stake in the company’s Kirby oil sands in Alberta, Canada, for $500 million.

This deal will give BP a broad deepwater exploration acreage position offshore Brazil, with interests in eight license blocks in the Campos and Camamu-Almada basins, in water depths ranging from 330 ft to 9,100 ft, as well as two onshore licenses in the Parnaiba Basin.

Chevron deploys another drillship in GOM ultra-deepwater

Chevron announced it has commenced operations on Transocean’s ultra-deepwater drillship Discoverer Inspiration in the US Gulf of Mexico. The vessel can drill wells in up to 12,000 ft of water to a total depth of 40,000 ft.

The drillship is the second vessel commissioned by Chevron in the last six months. The Discoverer Inspiration’s sister ship, Discoverer Clear Leader, has already begun work for the company in the GOM.

ExxonMobil to explore Black Sea with specially designed Transocean drillship

ExxonMobil Exploration and Production Turkey, an ExxonMobil affiliate, will use the Deepwater Champion, a specially designed drillship from a subsidiary of Transocean, to explore the deepwater Black Sea offshore Turkey.

The Deepwater Champion is a sixth-generation drillship capable of drilling 12,190 m in up to 3,660 m of water. The vessel’s derrick contains two drilling stations capable of a variety of simultaneous operations to improve efficiency.  The derrick has two removable sections for more efficient transit under the bridges spanning the Bosphorus Strait at Istanbul.

The double-hulled vessel is self-propelled and capable of maintaining stability in open water in 9-m waves and 70-mph winds. The drillship is currently under construction at the Hyundai Heavy Industries shipyard in Ulsan, South Korea. The drillship will drill its first well in the Turkish Black Sea in the first half of 2011.

CROSCO 3,000-hp rig drilling wildcat in Libya

Crosco Integrated Drilling and Well Services has reported the provision of drilling services for Total E&P Libye in Libya. Drilling services are being provided by CROSCO’s 3,000-hp drilling rig National 801 on a wildcat well A1-42/4 in Jabal Akhdar Uplift, Cyrenaica Platform.

“In addition to the drilling services being provided for TOTAL E&P Libye, CROSCO is also providing maintenance and spare part management services on an offshore Libyan production platform. Soon CROSCO is also looking forward to providing drilling services with the two CROSCO 2,000-hp rigs that are in Libya. We look forward to providing all of our clients with knowledge and experience gained from two decades of work in Libya,” Vlado Lescan, CROSCO’s general manager, Libya explained.

Chirag development project green-lighted

The Steering Committee for the development of the Azeri, Chirag and deepwater portion of the Gunashli (ACG) fields sanctioned investment in the new Chirag Oil Project.

The $6-billion development plan is the next step in the ongoing development of the ACG fields in the Azerbaijan sector of the Caspian Sea.

The goal is to increase oil production and recovery through an offshore facility designed to fill a gap in the field infrastructure between the existing deepwater Gunashli and Chirag-1 platforms.

BG Group confirms productivity from Santos Basin test

BG Group has completed a drillstem test (DST) on the Tupi North-East well in the BM-S-11 appraisal area in the Santos Basin pre-salt, offshore Brazil.

The appraisal well confirmed the widespread presence of a light oil- bearing reservoir with high production capacity across the Tupi field.

The results showed record productivity from DSTs on the Iracema well in the same concession area 30 km northwest of the Tupi North-East well. The drilling appraisal area was completed in November 2009.

Statoil discovers oil, gas north of Norne

Statoil has found oil and gas in the Fossekall prospect just north of the Norne Field in the Norwegian Sea. The proved recoverable resources are provisionally estimated between 37 million and 63 million bbl of oil. The volume of associated and free gas is estimated at between 1 billion to 3 billion standard cu m of gas.

Last year Statoil discovered oil on the Dompap prospect, which also lies north of the Norne Field.