Good news for offshore work
 

BP Makes "Giant" Oil Find in Gulf of Mexico

by Tom Bergin
Tuesday, September 1, 2009provided byhttp://l.yimg.com/a/i/cz/legacy/44311.gif
LONDON (Reuters) - Oil major BP Plc said it has made an oil discovery in the Gulf of Mexico, which analysts believe could contain over 1 billion barrels of recoverable reserves, reaffirming the Gulf's strategic importance to the industry.
BP said in a statement on Wednesday that it had made the "giant" find at its Tiber Prospect in the Keathley Canyon block 102, by drilling one of the deepest wells ever sunk by the industry.


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In this undated photo the ultra-deepwater semi-submersible rig Deepwater Horizon is shown operating in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico. (AP Photo/Transocean)


Further appraisal will be required to ascertain the size of volumes of oil present, but a spokesman said the find should be bigger than its Kaskida discovery which has over 3 billion barrels of oil in place.
Estimates of recoverable reserves range from around 20 percent of oil in place.
"Assuming reserves in place of 4 billion barrels and a 35 percent recovery rate, BP's proven reserves .. would rise by 868 million barrels -- equivalent to 4.8 percent of the group's 18.14 billion barrels of proven reserves," Aymeric De-Villaret, oil analyst at Societe Generale said in a research note.
BP, the biggest oil producer in the U.S. and biggest leaseholder in the Gulf of Mexico, has a 62 percent working interest in the block, while Brazilian state-controlled Petrobras owns 20 percent and U.S. oil major ConocoPhillips owns 18 percent.
Iain Armstrong, analyst at Brewin Dolphin, said the discovery may have implications for long-term oil prices.
"It will ease concerns about peak oil because it shows there is life left in these mature areas," he said, adding that it could be the second half of the next decade before the find is producing.
The discovery also bodes well for other exploration in that part of the Gulf of Mexico, including at Royal Dutch Shell's nearby Great White field, Jason Kenny, oil analyst at ING in Edinburgh, said.
BP shares, which had been trading slightly down ahead of the statement, closed up 4.3 percent at 541 pence, outperforming a 1.75 percent rise in the DJ Stoxx European oil and gas sector index.
The Gulf of Mexico has become increasingly important to Western oil majors as oil rich-countries such as Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and Russia reserve their richest fields to be developed by their state-owned oil companies.
The Gulf is especially attractive because it offers high profit margins, due to relatively low taxation compared to countries such as Russia and Nigeria, and because of the low political risk.
As nearer-shore discoveries dry up, companies have pushed further out to sea, which has forced them to develop new technologies to detect and extract the oil.
The prospects for massive discoveries in the deep water of the Gulf of Mexico is also good news for U.S. politicians' ambitions to reduce the country's reliance on imported oil, although oil executives doubt the U.S. is capable of becoming self sufficient in oil.
(Reporting by Tom Bergin; Editing by Jon Loades-Carter and Rupert Winchester)

Copyrighted, Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon.


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read up on this today

prices should go down over the next 20 years if we can keep obama out of it.

my uncle works on ultra deep water drilling

I knew Obama would come through for us....:smokin:

he is saving the word

Drill baby drill!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

can you oil workers confirm something.

we had a guy come talk in one of my regulations class that told me there is enough oil left in abandoned wells to last us 250-500 years

and enough oil in the dessert under the middle east to last at least that long


in abu dubai, they are running a desalination unit straight off of fuel oil, burning an absurd amount per day

I really don't think anyone knows an exact amout of how much is left out there. I mean there are tons of ares throughout the world that have never been touched. Plus with all the the new technology that is coming out allowing to still produce older depleted wells. I think the black gold will still be around long after we are all gone.

Yep they used our MWD tools to drill it

It's possible. I worked on an old Shell platform that TDC bought and we had one well flowing at around 3 million cubic feet a day. The platform had 9 dead wells as we call them, that Shell had shut in due to sand and other downhole issues. Well, a company called CXY Energy bought the platform from TDC, came in and did some well work on the dead wells and ended up making around 36 million cubic feet of gas and around 200o bbls of oil. So yes it is possible.

Thats correct.. Maby not 250 years, but a pretty long time. I know there is enough oil off the coast of California and Alaska to last 500 years

Obama and Al Gore with their global warming and Cap and Trade will ruin this country. I'm not against research and development of new sources of energy, but it certainly should not be at the expense of the massive oil and natural gas resources we have available to us. Funny how Obama and Gore never mention nuclear power much but even the pussified French even get about 80% of their energy from nuclear power.

I heard the other day that the earth has warmed up to it's highest level in 134 years. I'm just wondering - if the earth was actually hotter 134 years ago, why in the hell do the Al Gore's of the world believe that somehow man has caused the earth to warm through the use of fossil fuels? Clearly the earth has cyclical flucuations in tempature that are not caused by man.

All thats a scam... Al Gore is fulla sshhiitt...

Amazing oil find hope Osama doesn't screw it up

coming from someone going to school for the exact thing al gore is lying about.

AL GORE IS A CROCK. nothing he has said is true. nothing at all. there is no such thing as global warming.

Humans have been around influencing the climate for about 250 years.

the earth is 4.6 BILLION years old.

IF someone wants something interesting look at the global climate over the past few million years. you will see that we are about to get warmer and then cool off.

look up the wisconsin ice age.
and we were warmer 134 years ago

It all boils down to politics and money. They tried this crap in the late 80's and early 90's. Didn't work. What I find funny is they make these commercials glorifying the hybrid vehicles and make a big deal about cars that get 32 miles to the gallon. Hell, that's old news. Remember them YUGO's? They were ugly, but could go to California and back on a tank of gas. LOL

and dont think that the oil companies and the motor companies arent in partnerships

you cant tell me that the best we can do is 30 mpg in a car.

imagine what would happen to royal dutch, conoccophillips, venezuala or any other oil company if the technology was released to the public that is out there

there was a documentary out for a while about it, i forget about it

4.6 billion years old?

yes? 4.6 Billion?

well, Im with you on the global warming and gore is an idiot thing,but the 4.6 billion year old earth is a bit out there for me.

trust me im a creationist to the max, but to deny the cold hard facts of geologic evidence doesnt make sense to me.

The bible says it took GOD 7 days to create everything but 7 days in our scale is much different than his

I disagree, I take the Bible for what it says.If it says the morning and the evening were one day,then I believe its talking about one day.

Oh,and actually it was only 6 days,dont forget about the rest day.lol

i dont want to start an argument but how do you translate when it says

And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
- Genesis [1:3-5]

Just to show this, in the northern and southern poles days can last weeks and dark can last weeks

In II Peter 3:8, we are told that to God, a day is as a thousand years to us. Could we suppose then that a 'year' to our Father could be as a thousand centuries to us, and a thousand years as a thousand millenniums?

Time as we know it is a human created concept.

PLease believe me that i am not challenging you, i accept everyone rather they are similar in my beliefs or not. But i see time the same way i see "religion" Many times religion is created to make money or justify something.

It all boils down to believing in GOD and taking the bible as you see it and not forcing it upon someone else

Touche' on the day of rest

I had someone tell me that dinosaurs didnt exist because they werent explicittly listed in the bible

Someone should buy an oil rig and make it a CAMP!

better yet buy a jack up rig

Yak 'em,

What do your professors think about global warming? Usually those types are all over the politically correct.....what are they teaching at LSU?

Oh,Im with you on not forcing the Bible on anyone. I believe that it limits God to say that it was actually longer than 6- 24 hr. days to create the whole universe. If God actually spoke things into existance why would it take Him still years to create everything? I also believe that the Bible stays consistent all the way through. If God talks about days being more than 24 hr. days in the beginning of the Bible then days would have to be longer than 24 hr. through out the rest of the Bible. So, in essence Jonah could have been in the whales belly for maybe say several weeks to several years? Or could our Saviour been in the grave for that long also? No Sir, I believe the Bible for exactly what it says. The Lord is not trying to trick us. He makes it simple for even simple people like myself to understand. He can make old things look new and new things look old. Just look at adam. When's the last time youve seen a very wise grown man that was only one day old?As far as the account in Peter, He was talking about us being with the Lord in heaven ,when everything would be finished, a day would seem like a thousand years,because there is no night in heaven. Also we as men have have on average about 70 year life span,which God has no beginning and no end-He was always around even before time. So, our lifetime is only a vapor of time to God. I believe that the earth is roughly about 6000 years old.then about 2000 years after that was the flood,2000 years after that Christ died,and here we are about 2000 years later. What will happen in this 2000 year period? Oh yeah,we get a n------- for a president. hah

hahahahaha nice ending.

guess we can agree to disagree, i believe in GOD and all his power, i just cant deny scientific evidence. Guess we will have to see when we get up there...Maybe we can go ask him together ahhahaha

and slidellkid, ive yet to run across a professor that believes in global warming here. Global climate change, yes, but not global warming.

200 miles south of lake charles, wonder if that structure will hold tuna, be a long run

There is a lot of old wells that still have reserves in them. In the older days, artificial lift technology was pretty crude. Today it is a lot more refined. They are doing a lot more to get the oil and gas out of the producing wells because it is worth so much more than the old $5 and $10 per barrel than the old days.
In the early to mid 90's, no one would think you could successfully drill and produce in 10K ft. of water. It just takes more money and better technology.
I just need 5 more years of this ****e and I don't have to worry. Unless my 401K takes a crap again.