Exploration

Arkex raises US $30 million

ARKeX, a worldwide leader in geophysical imaging technology, has successfully raised $30 million in a deal that marks the largest venture capital round in its sector for five years. The investment was led by Ferd Venture of Oslo, Norway, and included existing investors Energy Ventures of Stavanger, Norway; Scottish Equity Partners of Glasgow, UK; and members of ARKeX senior management. This is the third round of funding raised by ARKeX since 2004 and the largest venture round for a service company supplying the onshore and offshore oil and gas E&P sector since 2003.

OHM launches WISE Consortium

Offshore Hydrocarbon Mapping plc (OHM) and Rock Solid Images, together the OHM Group, have announced that a three-year joint industry project to investigate “Well Integration with Seismic and Electromagnetics,” formally kicked off June 25, 2008. The goal of the project, sponsored by a consortium of oil companies and the OHM Group, is to develop new and innovative methods of jointly integrating and interpreting seismic, Controlled Source Electromagnetics, and well log data — the ultimate objective being to provide improved maps of reservoir properties such as hydrocarbon saturation across a field.

Largest onboard processing project complete

Wavefield and its partner Geotrace have completed one of the largest 3-D onboard processing projects for Marathon in the Makassar Straits offshore Indonesia. The 1,158-sq mile (3,000-sq km) project was processed entirely on the vessel using a large compute facility and delivered to the client 10 days after the final shotpoint.

Ikon Science acquires Geopatterns technology

Ikon Science Ltd has announced the acquisition of the Geopatterns software tools, patents, and technology from Chroma Energy, a US-based technology company.
The GeoPatterns software products, which have been marketed under the product names ChromaPatterns and ChromaVision, are a seismically driven pattern recognition system for the rapid identification and high-grading of drillable prospects.

EMGS receives further pre-funding

Electromagnetic Geoservices (EMGS) announced that it has received additional industry pre-funding for its extensive multiclient electromagnetic scanning survey in the Barents Sea, ahead of Norway’s 20th exploration licensing round. The total program now stands at 2,162 sq miles (5,600 sq km) or 18 blocks but could be expanded subject to additional commitments. There are a total of 30 Barents Sea blocks currently scheduled to be in the round pending official notification by the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate.

Landmark launches R5000

Landmark, a product service line of Halliburton’s Drilling and Evaluation Division, has announced the launch of R5000, a synchronous software release including upgrades to more than 70 products spanning all disciplines within the E&P lifecycle. The launch offers oil and gas operators unprecedented levels of integration, the potential to
customize workflows, and the opportunity to make more informed field development decisions.

Spectraseis extends collaboration

Spectraseis, a leading provider of low- frequency geophysical solutions to the upstream oil and gas industry, announced that it is to extend its technical collaboration with StatoilHydro in the fast-emerging field of low-frequency passive seismic technology. Areas of technical collaboration will include the analysis of passive seismic surveys, and StatoilHydro has interest in joining the newly formed Joint Industry Project established by Spectraseis and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich).

Stingray secures sponsorship

Stingray Geophysical Limited announced continued customer support for a Joint Industry Project to commercialize Stingray’s Fosar solution for fiber-optic reservoir monitoring. This agreement is recognition of Stingray’s leading role in developing fiber-optic reservoir monitoring solutions. Stingray will be conducting a deepwater field test during the second half of 2008 jointly with its installation and acquisition partner, Bergen Oilfield Services.

Schlumberger acquires IES

Schlumberger has acquired IES Integrated Exploration Systems, the Aachen, Germany-based supplier of advanced petroleum systems modeling software and services for the E&P industry. IES specializes in the modeling of the generation, migration, and entrapment of oil and gas using the software PetroMod. This technology is used to estimate undiscovered hydrocarbons in frontier basins and to enable oil and gas companies to mitigate risk in exploration prospects.

Drilling

Petrobras approves contracts

Transocean Inc. announced that the board of directors of Petroleo Brasileiro S.A. (Petrobras) has approved contract awards for four of the company’s rigs totaling 22 rig years and approximately US $3 billion in combined estimated contract revenues. Estimated contract revenues for each rig represent the maximum amount of revenues that may be earned in the applicable contract period, including revenues from a 15% additional rate, payable unless rig downtime exceeds 5%, and excluding revenues from cost escalation and demobilization.

Well spudded on UK Fyne

Antrim Energy has started drilling operations on its Fyne field in UK Central North Sea Block 21/28a. The 21/28a-10 well will target the Eocene Tay sandstone and is located around 4,593 ft (1,400 m) northwest of Antrim’s 21/28a-9y well, which penetrated 120 ft (37 m) of oil pay and came in at the top end of pre-drill expectations. A mile (1.5 km) to the east of the new well is the previously drilled 21/28a-2 well, which tested up to 3,600 b/d of oil from 30 ft (9 m) of oil-bearing Tay sandstone.

The 21/28a-10 well will be drilled and sidetracked with minimum deviation and, if successful, will be retained as a production well, Antrim said. The Transocean Prospect rig will drill the well, and operations are expected to take three weeks. If successful, the well will be tested over a period of around two weeks.

Production

Pegasi fracs two wells

Pegasi Energy Resources Corp. has successfully completed the recently drilled Harris #2 and Childers #2 wells. Both wells were fracture-treated in the first of several stages in the Cotton Valley Group and are producing oil and gas as well as fracture treatment fluid into temporary production facilities while permanent equipment is being placed on location.

Barbarossa well completed

EnCore Oil plc announced that the Barbarossa gas appraisal well 47/9c-11x has been successfully drilled and completed. The horizontal well tested gas at a maximum rate of 40 MMcf/d through a 96?64-in. choke. The gas was produced from the Rotliegend reservoir between 10,300 and 15,600 ft (3,141 and 4,758 m) measured depth below rotary table.

Anchor installed in record time

Delmar Systems Inc. successfully installed the first rig set of eight gravity-installed vertical load anchors in the Gulf of Mexico. The patented OMNI-Max anchors were installed at Eni’s Green Canyon 385 location in June 2008 in approximately 3,600-ft (1,098-m) water depth. All eight anchors were pre-deployed in a record 21?2 days in one vessel trip from the AHTS – Alex Chouest and penetrated the seabed. The anchor lines were installed later and connected to Transocean’s MODU Amirante using Delmar’s patented subsea mooring connector to connect the preset polyester mooring lines to the rig’s self-contained mooring components.

General

Dynamic Offshore Resources acquisition

Dynamic Offshore Resources has acquired 100% of the stock of Northstar Exploration and Production Inc. and its wholly owned operating subsidiary Northstar GOM LLC for US $235 million. The Northstar transaction represents the second acquisition by Dynamic since receiving a US $500 million equity commitment from Riverstone Holdings LLC and management in January 2008. Effective at closing, the Northstar GOM LLC name will be changed to Dynamic Offshore Resources NS LLC.

Collaborative to reduce fresh water loss

GE Water & Process Technologies and STW Resources have formed a collaborative that will drastically reduce the amount of fresh water lost to the environment due to hydraulic fracturing, a commonly used oil and gas process. Each year, hydraulic fracturing produces billions of gallons of wastewater while increasing the production rate of oil and gas wells. The wastewater disposed of in the wells is forever lost, placing even more stress on this water-scarce region. Using an innovative, cost-effective process, the collaborative will help oil and gas customers recover up to 70% of their hydraulic fracturing wastewater.