2. ………………………………………………………………………………….................
Offshore projects are starting to become
competitive again
Offshore oil drilling is a risky, dirty, dangerous
business
Research funded by DOE/RPSEA Advances
Ultradeepwater Technology
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3. ………………………………………………………………………………….................
1. Saudi Arabia. The world’s largest offshore producer
with 13% of the global total has several large offshore oil
fields, including the Safaniya, which produces between
1.1 and 1.5 million B/D and is the highest-producing
offshore field in the world.
2. Brazil. Offshore production grew by 58% between 2005
and 2015, making Brazil the second-largest offshore
producer in 2015. This growth was driven predominately
by the expansion of deepwater pre-salt projects, which
should support small production increases this year and
next.
3. Mexico. The third-largest offshore producer has seen
increasingly smaller yields from offshore assets, with
production falling by 31% from 2005 to 2015. Mexico,
however, still produced nearly 2 million B/D in 2015,
accounting for 7% of global offshore production.
Which country is the largest offshore producer?
If you answered the US, you are way off. Brazil is a near miss, but it is still second to Saudi Arabia.
The US Energy Information Administration ranked offshore Saudi production No. 1 in the world with 13% of the globe’s
offshore output, including its Safaniya field, which it ranks as No. 1 in the world at 1.1 to 1.5 million B/D in oil and other
liquids.
5. United States. From 2005 to 2015, total offshore production
grew by 6.5%. With several large projects coming online in 2016
and 2017, US Gulf of Mexico production is expected to climb by
about 0.3 million B/D during that period. By contrast, US
onshore production is expected to fall by 1.1 million B/D over
those years.
4. Norway. Although offshore production declined
28% from 2005 to 2010, it has remained steady since
2010 with 7% of the global offshore production from
Norwegian fields. Norwegian output is forecast to rise
slightly in 2016 and to fall slightly in 2017.
4. OSLO, Norway – While the oilfield service market in
shale is the place to be in 2017, there is clear evidence
that offshore projects are still being prioritized by E&P
companies, according to analyst Rystad Energy.
For every dollar that is invested into the North American
shale market in 2017, the analyst firm says, a dollar is
also earmarked for the development of new offshore
resources. Both sources of future production, shale and
offshore, will receive around $70 billion each of planned
capex.
In both 2014 and 2015, E&P companies looked at North
America and the shale industry for where they would
invest in new production capacity. In 2014, $160 billion
was invested into drilling and completion of wells and
$20 billion on infrastructure, while only $95 billion was
committed to unlock new offshore resources. For 2015,
40% more was directed toward shale. Both 2014 and
2015 were the result of offshore projects pricing
themselves out of the competition of providing oil to the
market.
However, with two years of cost cutting programs in the offshore value chain, 2016 and 2017 are showing full
competitiveness within these two sources of supply, Rystad Energy says. This shows what the offshore industry
has worked with during the downturn. In a time when many thought that offshore projects could not compete
with shale, offshore operators managed to turn uncommercial projects into highly competitive projects with the
help from service companies. Offshore projects that were uncommercial at $110/bbl in 2013 are now
commercial at an oil price of $50/bbl.
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5. Offshore oil drilling is a risky, dirty,
dangerous business
………………………………………………………………………………….................
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Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope, on the 20th anniversary on March 24 of
the Exxon Valdez crude oil spill into Prince William Sound off the coast of Alaska
"More offshore drilling won't lower [gasoline] prices for average Americans. It will
only add to the record-breaking profits made by oil industry executives.
"It's time to leave the days of oil spills behind us. Investment in clean energy like
offshore wind power will help end our addiction to fossil fuels. It will help create
green jobs and energy independence.
"The drill-everywhere days of the Bush administration are behind us. Americans
want clean energy and the jobs that come with it, not more bloated oil industry
profits. The Obama administration clearly understands that."
The anniversary of the Exxon Valdez disaster should serve as a
reminder of the threat oil poses to our oceans and coasts. Instead
of opening the door to more Exxon-style disasters, we should
embrace the clean energy solutions that will keep our beaches
and marine life intact and help combat global warming.
"Offshore oil drilling is a risky, dirty, dangerous business. Contrary
to what the oil industry would like us to believe, there is no
effective method for cleaning up an oil spill. Where there are
tankers and offshore drilling, there will always be spills.
Carl Pope
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7. TECHNOLOGY UPDATE
Roy Long, National Energy Technology Laboratory, United States Department of Energy
A number of research projects awarded by the Research
Partnership to Secure Energy for America (RPSEA), with
funding and oversight by the United States Department
of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory
(NETL), have shown solid potential to advance
deepwater and ultradeepwater (UDW) oil and gas
development. The DOE/RPSEA projects are among more
than 15 to be featured in a session on funding new E&P
technologies on 7 May at the Offshore Technology
Conference (OTC) in Houston. Chairing the session will
be James Pappas, vice president of ultradeepwater at
RPSEA. Nine of the technologies developed through this
research are discussed herein.
One of the projects, highlighted on the cover of the
January 2014 issue of JPT, is the Lockheed Martin Marlin
autonomous underwater vehicle. This system has the
following advantages over remotely operated vehicle
(ROV) systems: 3D model generation in hours vs. days;
the use of smaller vessels with fewer crew members; no
need for umbilical management; realtime change
detection, enabling on-site assessment of survey results
and structural anomalies; rapid assessment capability of
potential environmental damage; and the ability to
generate accurate, geo-registered models for structural
integrity assessment.
Another interesting set of projects deals with metocean issues that affect UDW
development. Studies in this area have continued since the early days of UDW
research and development within RPSEA. The first efforts studied the US Gulf of
Mexico (GOM) loop currents to develop a better hurricane forecasting model,
because these relatively warmer currents often increase hurricane intensity.
The goal of these projects was to develop a better long-range forecast (of up to 90
days) of hurricane activity in the GOM. The newer models with higher resolution
potentially could better describe the density of the spiral rain bands caused by
higher wind velocities farther from the center of the storm. The spacing of these
bands appears to have a greater influence on the extent of damage sustained by an
offshore vessel than hurricane classification or size, as the spacing more directly
affects seawater wave height.
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