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…
Energy companies and conservationists have joined forces in a novel effort to protect Louisiana’s coastal wetlands using recycled plastic bottles to create floating ‘islands’ offshore one of the state’s most threatened ecosystems.The technology…
Petroleum engineering has once again become a popular course of study, perhaps nowhere more than in Louisiana. Russell McCulley looks at what its flagship university is doing to prepare the next generation of oil & gas professionals.In some respects…
The focus on safety within the offshore oil & gas industry has never been clearer. Two of Rowan's safety specialists took time to discuss with Jennifer Pallanich the company's work on the safety case for the Rowan Mississippi while the jackup was in the Sabine Pass…
A federal investigation into the 2010 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…
Despite a reputation for ‘cumbersome’ contract processes, recent oil & gas sector reforms have created a more favorable investment climate at Mexican state oil company Petróleos Mexicanos, a Pemex official told the 2011 Petroleum Exposition & Conference of Mexico in Villahermosa…
Dozens of obsolete offshore platforms have been successfully converted to artificial reefs under the US ‘rigs-to-reefs’ program. But an independent Houston operator is pushing for rule changes that, its CEO says, would preserve far more delicate ecosystems…
With Canadian environmental regulators tightening their monitoring and control of fluids used offshore, Castrol's Jason Vallier and K+D Pratt's Andrew Bell review existing guidelines elsewhere and the implications for Canada's E&P sector.The…
Baker Hughes' latest fracturing and stimulation vessel, the Blue Tarpon, is designed for operations in the Lower Tertiary play of the Gulf of Mexico. Katie Jernigan takes a look at the newest addition to the Baker Hughes fleet. Chouest owns…
With the scene now apparently set for a long-awaited global decommissioning drive, RBG director Roger Esson discusses what it takes to retire offshore installations safely and efficiently.Despite the high oil price and drive to extract more reserves from existing fields…
Increased economic activity, more jobs and a 70% rise in spending are predicted for the Gulf of Mexico offshore oil & gas industry by 2013 – provided permitting returns to pre-moratorium levels. Katie Jernigan looks at the region’s latest economic impact analysis…
Technological barriers and operator requirements can limit the possibilities available to offshore design teams when it comes to engineering a production riser plan for a deepwater facility. Hybrid solutions and composites will offer some relief…
The Deepwater Horizon's blowout preventer was a victim of the Macondo disaster, not the perpetrator. So says consultant Ian Fitzsimmons in his latest think piece for OE which takes issue with some of the findings of DNV's forensic study of the…
Earlier this year the refrain was ‘$5 natural gas forever', based on the US Energy Information Administration's (EIA) annual outlook, which argued that natural gas prices will remain below $5 per million btu until 2022. The underlying rationale was growth in the ‘vast' US shale gas resource base…
An internal Transocean investigation into the explosion and loss of the Deepwater Horizon found that the tragedy was the result of ‘compromised' well integrity due to a series of well design, construction and temporary abandonment decisions made by operator BP…
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