Hess Corp. let a contract to KCA Deutag to drill six wells targeting the Liassic shale oil source rock system in the Paris basin in France.

The first well, to spud in January 2011 on the Chateau Thierry exploration permit, will be drilled vertically to 3,000 m. Top of Liassic is expected at 2,300 m. Conventional cores will be taken throughout Liassic to evaluate reservoir and rock properties.

The Eurorig class land drilling rig T-208 is a 1,550-hp, top drive equipped unit that will be mobilized from northern Spain and is capable of drilling vertical and horizontal wellbores.

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Although there is room for improvement, the oil and natural gas industry has learned lessons from the Gulf of Mexico rig blast and oil spill, said Erik Milito, director of upstream and industry operations for the American Petroleum Institute. “If this happens again, the difference will be it will get capped a heck of a lot quicker,” Milito said. “It won’t take 90 days again.”

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Independent energy company Apache Corporation announced the discovery of oil in two locations of the Phiops Field through the Pepi-1X and Buchis South-1X exploration wells.  The company also released a report on the appraisal of the Faghur Basin in the oil and gas province of the Western Desert, southwest Egypt. Apache drilled the Pepi-1X well to a depth of approximately 6 miles, resulting in a test-flow of 4,216 barrels of oil and 4.9 million cubic feet (MMcf) of gas per day. The Buchis South-1X also drilled to about 6 miles and logged 131 feet of pay in several Cretaceous zones of Kharita and Alam El Buieb (AEB) sands. A test in one AEB zone encountered 1,647 barrels of oil per day. The appraisal well, the Faghur-8X, expanded the Faghur Field by 1.6 miles toward the east. The well logged 79 feet of stacked Cretaceous pay in multiple AEB sands, with a well test flowed at an average rate of 2,992 barrels per day in one AEB sand. The Faghur Basin is currently producing approximately 24,000 barrels of oil per day. With the help of upgraded infrastructure, the projects will increase the processing and transportation capacity of the basin to 40,000 barrels of oil per day by year-end 2010. In the second quarter 2010, Apache generated a net production of approximately 98,500 barrels of oil and 388 MMcf of gas per day in Egypt. To date, Apache drilled five out of the eight exploration wells in the Faghur Basin. Drilling is in progress in the two wells – WKAL I-3X and Nebra-1X. The company also plans to drill five additional exploration wells. The company is busy evaluating the 3-D seismic surveys, capable of identifying additional exploration prospects in the basin. Management remains highly upbeat about these developments as the finds are expected to boost the company’s exploration outlook. The Faghur Basin along with the AEB and Safa reservoirs will be Apache’s center of attraction in the coming months, considering their support to the multi-pay potential of this oil-prone area in the Western Desert. We appreciate Apache’s large geographically-diversified reserve base, strong balance sheet and growth momentum of acquired assets. Moreover, the company’s exposure to international projects in Egypt, Australia and Argentina gives us confidence in its ability to generate attractive growth and returns for the next several years.

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Halliburton said on Wednesday it has a been awarded a letter of intent to work with a Shell-led consortium developing the Majnoon field in southern Iraq, one of the world’s largest oilfields. Under terms of the letter, Halliburton will serve as project manager for the development work, in affiliation with rig contractor Nabors and Iraq Drilling Company. The contract is still subject to final approval by Iraqi authorities, the Houston-based company said. Shell is lead operator and holds a 45-percent share, partner Petroliam Nasional Berhad (Malaysia’s state-owned Petronas) holds 30 percent and the Iraqi state holds 25 percent of the participating interests in all licenses. Shell says the consortium intends to increase production from the current 45,000 barrels of oil per day to a targeted production plateau of 1.8 million barrels of oil per day.

Halliburton and its larger rival Schlumberger Ltd have both been targeting Iraq, where oil companies have been eyeing new projects after winning contracts from Baghdad. Halliburton’s former unit KBR was one of the U.S. government’s biggest contractors in Iraq after the U.S.-led invasion.

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Halliburton said it has performed the first hydraulic fracturing operation in Poland, a country where oil and gas companies have been snapping up acreage for exploration.

Increasing demand for natural gas in Poland has companies including Marathon Oil Corp. Talisman Energy and Exxon Mobil Corp searching for sources of unconventional natural gas deposits in that country.

The hydraulic fracturing operation was performed for Poland’s state-owned oil and gas company PGNiG at an exploratory well near Kozienice, in Lublin province, Halliburton said.

In a hydraulic fracturing operation, water, sand and chemicals are pumped at very high pressure deep underground to create fissures in shale and other rock that allow natural gas to escape.

The technology, which has unlocked vast supplies of natural gas, has attracted more scrutiny from U.S. regulators in recent months because critics say the process can contaminate water supplies.

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ExxonMobil said on Wednesday its Nigerian unit had lifted a three-month old force majeure on Qua Iboe oil shipments.

The U.S. energy giant declared force majeure on May 12 after discovering a leak at one of its crude oil pipelines connected to its Qua Iboe export terminal, which usually averages around 400,000 barrels per day (bpd).

Production was rerouted to other pipelines while repairs progressed, but some shipments were delayed.

“We express gratitude to all customers, purchasers and joint venture partner (Nigerian state oil firm) NNPC for their understanding during the production outage,” the U.S. firm said in an emailed statement.

Eleven cargoes of 950,000 barrels, or about 337,000 bpd, were scheduled to load in August, according to preliminary loading programmes seen in June. That would be up from around 10 cargoes in July, according to trade sources. 

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WASHINGTON — Lawmakers eager to prevent another oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico — and prove to voters that they’re responding to the Deepwater Horizon disaster — are insisting on new standards for blowout preventers, a last line of defense against runaway wells.

Federal regulators at the Interior Department also are mulling new rules that could boost the chances the 450-ton safety devices would stop a blowout by shearing through pipe and cutting off the oil and natural gas.

The mandates aim to respond to vulnerabilities revealed when the five-story blowout preventer at BP’s doomed Macondo well failed to block an estimated 4.9 million barrels of oil from gushing into the Gulf of Mexico over 85 days.

But petroleum engineers warn that mandates for extra triggering mechanisms and more pipe-cutting rams might not have helped stop the oil at BP’s well, and industry officials say some proposed rules might require blowout preventers too big to fit on some drilling rigs.

Oil and gas industry leaders want lawmakers and regulators to wait for a full investigation of why the preventer at BP’s well failed on April 20 before setting new rules that could trigger a top-to-bottom redesign of the devices. American Petroleum Institute President Jack Gerard says the rush to regulate is tantamount to “going into surgery without a diagnosis.”

“While the focus has been on the blowout preventer, even those on site will tell you we don’t yet know the exact cause,” Gerard said.

“A legislative response to the spill is appropriate,” he said, but hasty changes increase the potential of introducing new risks into the drilling process.

BP’s preventer failure

Invented nearly 90 years ago, blowout preventers, often called BOPs, are giant stacks of valves installed on top of land and sea wells to help maintain control during unexpected pressure changes. They play their most vital role in emergencies, when metal shear rams are triggered to slash through the drill pipe and casing. A device called a blind shear ram is supposed to slam shut and seal off the open hole.

At BP’s Macondo well, that didn’t happen, despite at least three attempts to activate the rams — first by workers on the drilling rig, next by a “deadman switch” automatically triggered whenever the preventer’s power, communication and hydraulics connections are severed, and finally by remote-controlled underwater vehicles.

Final conclusions about what went wrong may depend on an autopsy of the blowout preventer at Macondo once it is exhumed from the ocean floor. One theory is that an extra piece of drill pipe or other debris flew into the space between the rams and prevented them from cutting and closing fully.

Lawmakers insist blowout preventers should have more built-in redundancy, including an additional blind shear ram that could sever and seal off open pipe even if debris blocked another ram.

“We know blowout preventers are not foolproof — not even close,” said Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif. But, he said, new requirements for redundant rams and backup control systems could increase their reliability.

The House voted last month to require the Interior Department to issue new regulations requiring a second set of blind shear rams on BOPs, along with redundant emergency backup control systems for remotely activating the devices whenever communications with the rig are severed. That could include $500,000 acoustic triggers already required by Brazil and Norway, though U.S. drilling experts have questioned their effectiveness.

New mandates

The House-passed bill also contains new mandates for the wells themselves. It would require new rules for cement barriers and at least two other physical barriers at wells — all designed so that if one doesn’t work, it doesn’t cause a cascade of failures.

Industry leaders chafe at Congress’ push for new requirements.

“Bills that mandate technical and engineering characteristics of blowout preventers are examples of Congress overreaching their expertise,” said Lee Hunt, president of the International Association of Drilling Contractors.

API’s Gerard said Congress should leave BOP engineering to technical experts.

Waxman counters that the House-passed bill only lays out broad goals for future requirements and leaves details up to federal regulators. “We were careful to provide regulatory flexibility so that the minimum requirements can evolve as the technology improves,” he said.

Size could be an issue

Drilling contractors warn that beefed-up blowout preventer requirements could cause the devices to grow so large they won’t fit inside shallow-water drilling rigs, where they are installed and used onboard. “A rig is very intimately designed for spacing and weight,” noted Jim Noe, a vice president of Houston-based Hercules Offshore.

Greg McCormack, director of the University of Texas Petroleum Extension Service, estimated that installing an additional shear ram could add as much as 10 feet to the BOP stack. “It’s going to mean a lot of retrofitting,” McCormack said. “For some of these older rigs, it’s not going to be profitable.”

Before the House passed its drilling bill, industry officials implored lawmakers to narrow the requirements to wells deemed “high risk” by regulators — or at least rule out shallow-water drilling where the BOP is easily accessible above the sea. The final legislation — which has not passed the Senate — does not distinguish between well types.

Drilling experts say the focus on blowout preventers misses bigger problems of poor training and well design. “It doesn’t do any good to continue to stack blowout prevention equipment on top of a well bore that’s improperly designed to begin with,” said Gene Beck, a petroleum engineer with Texas A&M.

McCormack said there is not enough focus on training. “You can put all these mechanical devices in,” he said, “but, at the end of the day, people have to operate them.”

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  The company said it is now watching the well in order to gauge if the procedure was effective. The cementing follows the injection Tuesday and Wednesday of about 2,300 barrels of heavy drilling mud, which managed to push oil back into the reservoir.

 The end of the cementing operation marks a major breakthrough in the lengthy battle against the oil spill that began last April, when a rig leased by BP caught fire and sank some 40 miles from the Louisiana shore, killing 11 and unleashing nearly 5 million barrels of crude over the course of three months. Still, BP and U.S. authorities will move ahead with the drilling of a relief well, which will intersect the damaged well in mid-August and confirm whether it’s dead or whether it needs more cement, injected from the bottom.

 BP completed the cementing process at 2:15 pm CDT, much earlier than anticipated. In a conference call earlier Thursday, retired Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, who heads the federal oil spill response, said the effort would likely be completed Friday.

 ”We will have created a significant milestone and made a major step forward probably by tomorrow when the cementing is done,” Allen said in the press conference. He said the completion of the relief well will have to wait until the cement has begun to set.

 Oil hasn’t flowed into the Gulf since mid-July, when BP installed a temporary cap on top of the damaged well.

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Almost 5,500 metres below the Gulf of Mexico, engineers drilling a relief well must hit a very small target a steel pipe that is just 178mm in diameter.

Using a technique know as “bottom kill” they will cut into the casing of BPs leaking Macondo well then pump seven million litres of super heavy drilling mud into the well to counter the pressure of the oil and gas, before sealing it with cement.

The bottom kill process is a lengthy one, because drilling must stop at points along the way to allow drillers to insert casing to hold the well open and prevent a cave in.

The diameter of the well shrinks as it drills deeper to maintain control and integrity of the wellbore. At the seabed the diameter is 914mm – BPs target is just 178mm across.

Engineers will first pierce the space between the concrete well bore and the casing in the blown out well and then cut into the casing itself. That will ensure that the well connects with the flow path of the gushing oil and gas.

Once intersected super heavy drilling mud will be pumped down the relief well into the blown out well. When the weight of mud counters the high pressures in the reservoir the flow of oil will slow.

Engineers will then pump cement into the well bore and plug the leak permanently.

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As Europe’s largest producer of offshore oil, Norway is looking to absorb the lessons from BP PLC’s blowout in the Gulf of Mexico, but its top regulator has seen no reason to halt exploratory drilling.

The Obama administration in the U.S. is battling the oil industry and Gulf Coast politicians over its decision to impose a six-month moratorium on virtually all deepwater drilling there, and now the European Union’s top energy official is proposing a suspension in offshore drilling.

But in Norway – which is not a member of the European Union – the Petroleum Safety Authority has allowed Royal Dutch Shell PLC to begin a drilling program that opens a new deep-water region about 33 kilometres offshore in 1,354 metres of water. The BP well was situated in water depth of 1,500 metres.

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