OFFSHORE DRILLINGAND COMPLETION

PSMJOURNAL OF PETROLEUM TECHNOLOGY

MAGAZINE

FEATURES

Regional UpdatesPerformance Indices

Technology Update

February 2017

TECHNOLOGY

FOCUS………………………………………………………………………………….................

Offshore Drilling and Completion

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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…………………………………………………………………………………................. CONTENTS

Regional UpdatesPerformance IndicesTechnology Update

REGIONAL UPDATE………………………………………………………………………………….................

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.

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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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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PERFORMANCE INDICES

TECHNOLOGY UPDATE

Research funded by DOE/RPSEA Advances Ultradeepwater TechnologyRoy 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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