Issue: June 2018
Special Focus
Proven completion technologies combine for an effective, elegant solution.
Improving frac plug drill-out, to the point of eliminating the task altogether, is a goal that has grown with the advance of long, multi-zone completions. A simple, fully dissolvable plug is the latest step in cutting the need, cost and risk of drill-out intervention.
Predictive proxy model uses data analytics, reservoir characterization to streamline completion optimization
Features
Part 2: In this second of two monthly reports, the authors highlight innovations in ESPs, PCPs, plunger lift and gas lift systems.
Total required a new fluid strategy to solve a multitude of issues associated with the high-pressure Martin Linge gas reservoir, in the North Sea. A low-solids cesium/potassium formate fluid was proposed, because of its ability to produce easily through sand screens and successfully deliver a challenging well.
In keeping with agrarian counsel that holds one should “make hay while the sun shines,” operators in the price-sensitive Bakken shale are pouncing on higher oil prices, abetted with near-inconsequential differentials, to lift production to a three-year high.
One of the industry’s most unique offshore provinces continues to generate activity, both on the exploration and development sides. Along with that comes additional technical innovation.
Although it is not a member of OPEC, Russia has aligned itself with OPEC’s efforts to cut production and reduce a worldwide glut.
The Russian economy has long relied on the oil and gas industry to drive growth, with areas such as Samotlor field responsible for the country skyrocketing to prominence in the global energy marketplace.
In 2017, global natural gas demand’s above-average growth reshaped market fundamentals and prevented the development of a global natural gas bubble. Meanwhile, global natural gas consumption doubled its 2016 growth rate, and it was well ahead of the previous five-year trend.
Columns
Certain circumstances have caused this editor to have to travel several times during the last month between Houston and the Hill Country of central Texas.
In 1955, science fiction author Philip K. Dick wrote “Autofac,” a short story about autonomous machinery. After a devastating war, humans discover that machines are restarting themselves and working on their own projects.
During the beginning of this century, millions of miles of 2D seismic data went into dumpsters thinking there was no remaining value.
The public domain is a cluttered place and simply Googling any particular subject likely yields results that are, at once, overwhelming and sorely lacking.
“…and pretty soon,” U.S. Senator Everett Dirksen famously remarked, “it adds up to real money.”
The hydrogen economy has the distinction of vying with nuclear fusion as the energy technology that is always a “constant XX years” away from fruition.
Opportunities to reduce costs and improve safety with digitization are created every day.
Kemal Anbarci says he’s no innovator. However, he does admit to his role as an “enabler of innovation.”
I have to commend the Norwegian government for the bold actions that they have taken to move their country’s energy sector away from oil and gas.
News & Resources
Shell Offshore, Inc., reported a significant deepwater discovery in the U.S. GOM’s Norphlet geologic play.
The world’s three major crude benchmarks fluctuated after being subjected to domestic factors and geopolitical risks.
Tullow Oil Plc, appointed Dorothy Thompson as independent non-executive director and chair-designate of Tullow.
Baker Hughes, a GE company, has been awarded, by Equinor ASA and Aker Solutions, a contract to provide turbomachinery equipment for the topside structure on the Johan Castberg FPSO.
Trelleborg Sealing Solutions has launched a new metal end cap seal, specifically engineered for HPHT wellhead, tubing and casing hanger sealing environments.
