Oil companies have yet to reach the point that technology is limiting access to offshore reserves, a Shell official in charge of deep American waters said.Shell
announced a discovery in the Rydberg area of the Norphlet play in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico last week. The company said it’s still assessing the data from the exploratory well in the area but expects it to hold about 100 million barrels of oil equivalent.
John Hollowell, Shell’s vice president in charge of deep waters in the Americas, told The Daily Telegraph in London there were few limitations to how deep or how far offshore oil companies can drill.
“How far you can go is really technology based,” he said in an interview published Sunday. “When we can’t overcome the technical barriers, that will be the end, but we have yet to reach that stage.”
The company said it’s working according to the terms of the new safety culture that emerged in the wake of the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
Marvin Odum, Shell’s director of upstream activity in the Americas, told the newspaper the incident was a “devastating time” for the energy industry
Plantagenet on Tue, 22nd Jul 2014 11:56 am
Its too bad it took a huge oil spill to create a “safety culture” among the major oilcos working in the Gulf of Mexico.
I thought the US government regulators were supposed to enforce a “safety culture” but apparently they were too busy in 2010 to check on BP at Macondo.
rockman on Tue, 22nd Jul 2014 12:55 pm
“How far you can go is really technology based”…and financially based. Shell would terminate a very large percentage of their DW projects if oil prices fell significantly. No technology can overcome an insufficient rate of return.
Dave Thompson on Tue, 22nd Jul 2014 1:14 pm
LOL 100 million barrels is good for five days US consumption.
Aaron on Tue, 22nd Jul 2014 2:02 pm
The technology in itself is not a limiting factor. As you say Rockman, it’s all finance based. Hell, if enough money is on offer they can suck CO2 out of the air and form hydrocarbons.
Nony on Wed, 23rd Jul 2014 10:08 am
What’s a good overview of the technical challenges, solutions and their evolution in time? Not even something in the peaker/cornie teafight, just the basics of deepwater oil exploration and production?
Norm on Wed, 23rd Jul 2014 10:43 am
Bottom line, far more being burned than discovered. Article kind of forgets that detail doesn’t it. So an energy disaster is still reasonably expected. Government officials dont care cause their pay rates are so high, ‘they got theirs’ so who cares when the whole thing comes tumblin down. Most americans are so stupid & trashy, cigarettes, food stamps & meth, then i’m no gov’t official but I don’t care either. When their lights go out and their gas tank reads empty… hooray!!
agramante on Wed, 23rd Jul 2014 3:47 pm
Nony – here’s a good basic paper (and free!) on the topic of drilling and completing wells:
http://www.npc.org/prudent_development-topic_papers/2-11_subsea_drilling-well_ops-completions_paper.pdf
Here’s a bit on production platforms, both fixed and floating:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_platform
And here’s another document, somewhat redundant with the first two, but which goes into a bit more detail on the production (vs. exploration and drilling) aspect:
http://www.offshorecenter.dk/log/bibliotek/E6-37-06-04%5B1%5D.pdf