E&P Magazine - July 2007
As I See It
Contractors use market leverage
The "terms of trade" in the offshore construction industry are moving in favor of the offshore contractor community.
Lies, damned lies and statistics
Some pointers on reliability measures in a business where data can be easily misrepresented.
Seismic-to-simulation arrives
Engineers derive value from technology and techniques once thought to be the purview of explorationists.
The changing role of audit committees
When the audit committee of a publicly traded oil and gas company sits down to meet, what's on the agenda?
Cover Story
Billett's Famous Quotations
The world abounds with famous quotations.
Drilling Technologies
Putting the drill floor on the seafloor
A new concept aims to solve the problems of floating drilling vessels by lowering drilling operations to the seafloor.
Rigging up is not what it used to be
New and interesting rig designs continue to appear on the world drilling stage.
Completions and Production
Containerized CWD rig cuts costs
Casing-while-drilling technology can offer significant economic advantages when compared to conventional drillpipe drilling.
GGI enters the exploration toolkit
Gravity gradient imaging is becoming an important technology for explorers.
Special Report
Features
Chile opens southern hydrocarbons
Bidding begins for southern tip of South America.
Colombia opens offshore tracts
Deepwater blocks take the auction block.
Tech Watch
Analyze internal combustion
Look at the future from the transportation viewpoint.
Everybody wins this oil contest
The Mighty Vikings find the promised land of exploration.
Tech Trends
3-D geospatial databases advance
Advances in handling 3-D data models in a relational database management system provide an effective storage and analysis platform for 3-D geospatial analysis.
Leverage the organization with KM
More difficult wells, less experienced personnel and other key challenges facing the industry can be met with a carefully crafted knowledge management collaboration tool.
Activity Highlights
The Not-So-Great Crew Change
New study examines financial impact of oil and gas industry's workforce shortage," goes the headline.
Last Word
Neutron log service tool hits 60
Cased-hole tool service probed production capacity of oil pools.
Thinking outside the coal shed
The discovery of the Groningen gas field in the Netherlands changed Western Europe forever.
Activity Spotlight
British Columbia and Saskatchewan well files now available with IHS RapiData
Complete imaged well and data reports available to IHS customers on their desktops
GE named supplier of choice for Alberta oil sands project
North West Upgrading to Help Develop Region's Economic Potential.
Schlumberger acquires Geosystem Electromagnetic Technology and Seismic Imaging
Complementary technologies expand geophysical solutions.
Subsea pressure boosting system brought on line 17 months after installation
Baker Hughes Centrilift ESP system pumps 22,000 BPD to Petrobras FPSO.
Another Perspective
Add laterals to existing single horizontal wells
Add laterals to existing single horizontal wells
Adopting innovations in E&P software
The industry needs a collaborative laboratory to incubate game-changing ideas.
Analyze CBM decline performance
A question faced by reserve evaluators is whether or not coalbed methane decline performance should be evaluated using traditional techniques.
CBM grows in Scotland
An entrepreneur seeks to tap Scotland's coals for methane.
Cement alternative has unique properties
drilling: ultra-seal r
CO2 can tap residual oil zone
Under the right conditions a vast source of bypassed oil can be produced.
Collaborative planning workflow scores big
An inherently efficient, logical planning process leaves no stone unturned in a difficult drilling region in southwestern Alberta.
Combine expandables with other technologies
Increase efficiency by using expandables in sidetracking, combining them with multilaterals and intelligent completions and deploying them with workover rigs.
Compact resistivity tool enhances geosteering
The addition of a resistivity tool with multiple depths of investigation can enhance the geosteering process.
Control valve saves dead well
Control valve saves dead well
Control water in multilaterals
Plan ahead for control of produced fluids from the well bore.
CSEM aids in basalt study
Imaging below basalt flows presents difficulties for traditional seismic. But integration with new imaging methods offers promise.
Downhole Force Generator for wireline and coiled tubing
Downhole Force Generator for Wireline and Coiled Tubing
Drill better CBM wells
When drilling elusive targets, it's better to see where you're going than where you've been.
Enhanced gas recovery works
Worldwide efforts aim at increased coalbed methane recovery with CO2 sequestration.
Expandable completion system proves its value
Expandable reservoir completion offers all the benefits of openhole multizone completions without cased-hole costs and compromise.
Expandable liner hanger is technology enabler
First ever liner hanger was expanded and successfully set in a casing directional drilling well in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea.
Expandable sand screens help set record
Expandable screen technology in horizontal wells in the Arquimia gas field helped bring online the highest-producing single gas well in Mexico.
Find EOR, carbon-capture tradeoffs
Operators try to figure out the economics of combined enhanced- recovery/sequestration projects.
Flexible line pipe speeds setup
production: flexsteel flexible steel piping
Fluid performs like oil-base, with water-base simplicity
Drilling: Fazepro/Fazebreak
Gel blocks water after frac job
Water invasion threatened a well after fracture treatments propogated out of the target zone.
LWD images improve wellbore placement
Once an activity carried out after drilling, borehole imaging is rapidly becoming must-have information in real time.
LWD/MWD combo for extreme environments
New-generation combined MWD/LWD system provides triple-combo gamma ray, resistivity, density and neutron porosity data of wireline accuracy and quality.
Maturity encourages refinement
No longer a new play, coalbed methane technology spreads worldwide.
Mill and drill on a wireline
production: well miller
New tool optimizes wellbore placement
LWD "azimuthally sensitive" deep resistivity technology provides both directional geosteering and formation evaluation while drilling.
New tools enable CBM horizontal drilling
At-bit gamma ray and dynamic inclination measurements help to bring the advantages of horizontal drilling to CBM wells.
Node technology peers through subsalt
Node technology peers through subsalt
Ormen Lange reaches for records
One of the largest offshore production projects ever attempted is nearing completion off Norway.
PDO monitors tough reservoirs
Integrated techniques produce highest-quality monitoring programs.
RSS drills first directional well with coiled tubing
drilling: powerdrive rotary steerable systems
Seismic analysis of the Sooner field
An attribute and spectral decomposition analysis led to better understanding of valley fill features.
Seismic chaos
Low-frequency anomalies observed through spectral decomposition may actually be mode-converted shear waves.
Software accelerates field development planning
Software accelerates field development planning
Software solution predicts behavior in earth model
Information technology: Petrel
Solution protects offshore installations
facilities: retractable grounding assembly lightning protection lightning eliminators
Stop formation damage from surging wellbore fluids
Stop formation damage from surging wellbore fluids
Subsea data optimizes flow
Clean production flows from well bores keep gathering systems working at peak performance.
Subsea system gathers diverse technologies
Development of a new subsea processing system meant choosing the best technology from in-house to outside the industry.
Taking another look
Madagascar has served up plenty of disappointments in the past. But a new company thinks that tide is about to change.
Technology reaches water disposal
Innovative technologies are applied to phase out shallowwater disposal in south Oman.
UAVs aid in exploration, production
As unmanned air vehicles continue to undergo refinement, their applications in the oil and gas industry grow.
Virtual sources see below overburden
Exploration: virtual source
Wave-equation migration aids in deep Gulf of Mexico
Exploration: wave equation migration and illumination
International Spotlight
New skills needed for new tasks
In these times of high oil prices, the words on the old bumper stickers echo in my brain, "Lord, give me one more boom. I promise not to waste it this time."
World Map
Growing strong
Upstream growth is critical and requires a balance between nurturing the existing portfolio, being poised to strike in new directions, and keeping an eye on merger and acquisition opportunities.
Software to the rescue!
Personnel crisis got you down? Here are my humble suggestions for minor software tweaks that might help solve that thorny problem.