Upstream

What should have been the best of times is turning into the uneasiest of times for Newfoundland’s offshore, long hailed as Canada’s second energy frontier after the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin.

The challenge of the future will not be for oil companies to drill deeper wells or shoot better seismic, but to manage knowledge effeciently, argues Frank Inouye, managing director of Deltaic Systems

Expectations for the growth in consumption of natural gas around the world put the countries of western Europe at the head of the table of OECD consumers. To meet the burgeoning demand, European consumers will continue to rely heavily on imported gas, for, while European production continues to grow, forecasts show a widening gap between domestic supply and demand.

The discovery of big oil and gas fields in the deep-water Gulf of Mexico has consolidated this region’s position as one of the most promising energy provinces. But big isn’t always good enough. It takes huge deposits to justify the high costs of drilling and developing deep-water reserves, yet only about one-third of the discoveries so far have exceeded 200m barrels.

In response to last year’s downturn in the oil industry, Shell Expro Northern Business Unit Well Engineering, in partnership with key contractor companies, introduced the concept of “Delivering The Limit” (DTL). To date, DTL has achieved a reduction of 3.4 days for average well completion times, with all real-time operational data and lessons learnt captured using the EGIS SmarTrak database system. By Wouter Rensink, Shell Expro, and George Galloway and Mark Brinsden, EGIS

Venezuela has taken another step towards opening up the natural gas sector to private investment. In September, the state-owned oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela, began the registration process for companies wanting to participate in a tender for gas concessions.