The seismic vessel market is bustling again after years of difficulty and consolidation. That’s the consensus that Exploration Editor Victor Schmidt found in compiling this year’s Seismic Vessel Survey (“Vessel market improves as industry seeks new prospects” -page 64).
The expanded exploration budgets of oil companies as they begin rebuilding their prospect inventories are encouraging the optimism and energy that began last autumn at AAPG Prospect and Property Expo, Schmidt notes. This enthusiasm carried over at NAPE, formerly North American Prospect Expo. Attendees made comments like: “I have to wait to get my survey done”; “It’s hard to find a vessel”; “Everyone is busy”; “We’re doing more proprietary work.”
Significant light oil discoveries in the last two years, including a major one in the Golfinho field announced in January, are changing Brazil’s reserves profile. State-owned Petróleo Brasileiro SA says that the current profile of reserves and production, mainly heavy crude, is starting to change to lighter oil, natural gas, and condensates, which have more economic value.
As two special correspondents forOffshore -- Peter Howard Wertheim and Dayse Abrantes - point out in this month’s report on Brazil, Petrobras will concentrate this year on the Espírito Santo basin, where there are strong indications of a new producing province of light and ultra-light oil.
Drawn by the prospects of lighter oil and natural gas, Petrobras plans to hike investments in the southeastern state of Espírito Santo to $994 million this year, up from $537 million in 2004. With the expectation that 50% of the new reserves in the Espírito Santo basin will be light crude, Petrobras is investing$6 billion in the state through 2010.
The full report on Petrobras current operations and future plans begins onpage 26.
Risk assessment and risk management are two subjects of enormous importance to offshore operators, even more so as E&P moves into ever-deeper waters. Three articles in this month’sOperations Management report focus on recognizing, analyzing, and managing risk.
The oil and gas industry has always thrived on taking risks, notesRiley Goldsmith of Goldsmith Engineering Inc., in his risk analysis piece that begins on page 30.
Two other articles in the report examine risk from other perspectives.Phillip Myint, project manager and managing principal for EDG Inc., discusses the role risk management played in an accelerated deepwater development for Devon Energy Corp. on Mississippi Canyon block 496 in the Gulf of Mexico. The project team for the Zia subsea development defined and documented all project risks and used that proactive process to support project planning and decision-making. His report begins on page 36.
In another risk management analysis,Larry Watrous of Mustang Engineering looks at the need for early design consideration in controlling fires in larger and more remote installations offshore.
TheAtwater Valley Project in the Gulf of Mexico is intriguing for a number of reasons: the business structure, the field development plan, the water depth, and the opportunity for later expansion. Gulf of Mexico Editor Jaime Kammerzell provides a full description of the project, beginning on page 50.
The Atwater Valley development brings together a group of five independent producers and a midstream energy company in a fast-track project to produce gas in a deepwater Eastern Gulf of Mexico project. Fields owned by the various participants will produce into a central platform - theIndependence Hub. The Independence Hub production facility will consist of a semisubmersible located in Mississippi Canyon block 920 in 8,000 ft of water. It will, among other things, be a combination natural gas processing platform and compressor station and will host the largest mono ethylene glycol reclamation system in the GoM.
Initially six fields will tie back to Independence Hub using six riser slots. The fields will produce from 15 to 18 wells, but the semisubmersible is designed for 17 risers, so that additional fields can be tied back in the future.
