Cairn Energy's JM-1 well, offshore Morocco, is to be plugged and abandoned without testing, after funding heavy oil. The JM-1 well (operated by Cairn with 37.5% WI) was drilled to evaluate Upper Jurassic and Middle Jurassic objectives…
Following the Deepwater Horizon incident in 2010, a group of leading oil companies came together to form Marine Well Containment Company (MWCC), an independent company tasked with developing, owning and maintaining a system to respond to a deepwater well control incident…
The Macondo well catastrophe occurred more than three years ago, but it continues to serve as a central reference point in any assessment of contemporary offshore drilling, not least at today’s SPE Offshore Europe keynote session, Industry Progress since Macondo…
In the wake of the Macondo incident, the drilling industry has focused on making improvements to offshore safety and developing methods to recover from similar incidents. However, emergency release connector (ERC) technologies, which…
DCN invests in ROV division DCN Diving has launched its own ROV division led by Fred Bosman as ROV operations manager. Bosman acquired his experience with robotic underwater systems with the Royal Dutch Navy, and for the past 13 years…
Marine Well Containment Company (MWCC) announced that Mobile, Alabama has been selected as the shorebase location to house the well containment company’s subsea umbilicals, risers and flowlines (SURF) equipment. The MWCC capping stack stands roughly 30ft tall and weighs about 100 tons…
Two years after Macondo, BP launched an all-out effort at OTC 2012 to demonstrate its commitment to safety and to its future in the Gulf of Mexico. Russell McCulley reports.Among the many legacies of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon blowout is what's…
A fit-for-purpose capping stack designed to cope with Alaska’s environmental extremes will play a key role in the US Bureau of Safety & Environmental Enforcement (BSEE)-compliant containment system Shell Exploration & Production has put together…
Technology is a key enabler for Shell, Matthias Bichsel, director of the supermajor’s Projects & Technology business, told a two-day briefing at the Rijswijk technology centre in The Hague this spring. Meg Chesshyre joined the tour of the company’s iScope…
BOEMRE director Michael Bromwich vows that deepwater drilling will return to the US Gulf of Mexico in the coming months, marking a return of exploration all but shut down after the Deepwater Horizon disaster. But the oil & gas industry remains skeptical…
Mooring Chevron's Jack/St MaloMore than 164,000ft of polyester mooring rope plus accessories and field inspection support services are to be supplied by Parker Hannifin's energy products division for Chevron's Jack/ St Malo floating production unit…
National Oilwell Varco is acquiring California-based fiberglass pipe manufacturer Ameron International in a deal valued at approximately $772 million. Subject to Ameron shareholder approval, the transaction could close as early as the fourth quarter…
The six-month US moratorium on deepwater drilling following the Deepwater Horizon tragedy, along with tougher regulations and higher liability costs likely to follow, could put the squeeze on independent operators in the Gulf of Mexico. Russell McCulley talks to one company that's pushing back…
BP in late August was in the final stages of permanently plugging the deepwater Gulf of Mexico Macondo exploration well, which spilled nearly 5 million barrels of oil between the 20 April blowout that destroyed the Deepwater Horizon rig and mid-July…
BP has come under fierce criticism for its response to the Macondo blowout, a months-long saga of top hats, riser insertion tools and other containment efforts that only began collecting a significant portion of the oil spilling into the Gulf several weeks after the event…