[DantesPeak]

A costly effort to find more oil in the Gulf of Mexico has failed to achieve any significant results, energy advisor Wood MacKenzie says.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'O')il majors hit by slump in Gulf findings
By Sheila McNulty in Houston

Published: March 9 2008 20:47 | Last updated: March 9 2008 21:43

Disappointing oil exploration results in the Gulf of Mexico are upsetting the hopes of US oil majors for big new findings in an area free from interference by foreign, state-owned oil companies.

Wood MacKenzie, the energy consultancy, said in a new report that findings in the Gulf in 2007 were the lowest of the past decade. With a total of 553m barrels of oil equivalent, these new reserves were less than half of what was found in 2006.

“The Gulf of Mexico represents what many companies believed was the safest, most prospective area open to them in the world,’’ said Robin West, chairman of PFC Energy, the consultancy. Disappointing exploration results put more pressure on the companies’ portfolios, he said.

According to the report, exploration in the Gulf deep-water region is becoming more costly. The average quantity discovered per exploration well decreased in 2007 to 16m barrels of oil equivalent – well below the 10-year average for the region of 26m barrels of oil equivalent per exploration well.

It took billions of dollars to develop reserves in the deep water, said Tim Sampson, the American Petroleum Institute’s senior adviser of Upstream. “So, to make a project economically viable, you have to have an extremely good find.’’

[anarky321]

the search is only going to get more desperate as the clock ticks on

i have strong reason to believe that there is no oil or gas in the arctic (at all), although conversely i would expect there to be a decent amount of both in antarctica

[DantesPeak]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'M')arch 5, 2008, 10:46PM
Finds in Gulf slump
Analyst says explorers assessing what's in hand as discoveries hit a 10-year low


By TOM FOWLER
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle

New oil and natural gas discoveries in the Gulf of Mexico hit a 10-year low last year, but that doesn't mean the region is running dry, analysts with research firm Wood Mackenzie said Wednesday.

Companies are putting more of their time and money into assessing their current holdings in the Gulf rather than looking for new ones, said Julie Wilson, a lead analyst with the Edinburgh, Scotland-based research firm.

"This doesn't mean we see a long-term falloff in drilling in the Gulf," Wilson said. "It's just new exploration is riskier than appraising what you already have."

The head of Exxon Mobil Corp., speaking to analysts Wednesday, also noted that Gulf exploration has yielded less-than-stellar outcomes lately.