BP has received approval from the US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management for a supplemental exploration plan in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico, the company’s first such approval since the April 2010 blowout and spill at its Macondo prospect and…
The long-delayed final report on the Macondo disaster from the joint BOEMRE/USCG investigation team chose not to pinpoint a fundamental cause. However, veteran offshore oil & gas consultant and occasional expert witness Ian Fitzsimmons has no such qualm…
Combining Alternate Path shunt tube technology with concentric sandface completion systems is improving operational efficiency and economics while bringing new life to old offshore wells in Malaysian waters. Here, Schlumberger's Shahryar Saebi and Sergey…
The oil & gas industry has long used dry ice as an isolation technique, for example to freeze a wellbore and allow intervention work. Now, after years of application in the nuclear sector, cryogenic freezing using liquid nitrogen has started to make inroads offshore…
An innovative installation approach was adopted this summer for a Dutch riser access tower constructed under Shell's SWEEP gas accumulation development programme. David Morgan reports.The 800t riser access tower (RAT) was fabricated by Mercon…
Siri field operator Dong Energy is now forging ahead with a DK r2 billion ($384 million) permanent repair programme that virtually constitutes a redevelopment of the Danish North Sea field in 60m of water. Meg Chesshyretalks to Dong's executive vice president E&P Søren Gath Hansen…
Materials and long-lead items are only two of the challenges offshore yards must juggle. Regulations and their impact on operators also keep fabricators on their toes. Jennifer Pallanich calls on Kiewit Offshore Services to see how the Gulf…
A federal investigation of the Macondo disaster does not pinpoint what caused the well's cement job to fail, but backs up earlier conclusions that operator BP and its contractors skirted safety measures that could have prevented the blowout…
Statoil’s two UKCS heavy oil developments – Mariner in block 9/11a and Bressay in blocks 3/27b, 3/28a, 3/28b, 9/2a and 3/a – are back on track having been halted by the operator in March following the UK Chancellor’s decision to increase the…
Responding to Professor Michael J Economides' recent condemnation of alternative energy efficiencies and economics (OE August), serial oil industry inventor Benton Baugh turns his attention to the renewables sector with this firmly tongue-in-cheek (‘but true…
After a trillion-plus dollar stimulus package that seems to have fizzled, after forays towards ‘bipartisanship’ which often meant agree with him or nothing, and after seeing his approval ratings drop like a rock, US president Barack Obama unveiled…
Measuring mooring tensionSeattle-based Measurement Technology NW announced successful implementation of its running line tensiometer (RLT) technology with a Samson synthetic rope in a Gulf of Mexico offshore mooring monitoring project engineered by Delmar Systems late August…
A majority of oil & gas company officials are confident that their information security practices are effective, despite an acrossthe- board rise in security breaches in recent years, according to a new study.The 2012 Global State of Information Security Survey…
Back from the SEG annual meeting in San Antonio, Andrew McBarnet detects stirrings in the market for ocean bed seismic services.Ten years ago when the Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG) held its annual meeting in San Antonio, the event…
With power generated from offshore wind farms forecast to grow from 3GW to 75GW over the next decade, operators are looking to tried and true oil & gas practices to help reduce construction costs. Russell McCulley speaks to Canyon Offshore about…