2002.08.30
Associated Press:
$15B
Conoco-Phillips Merger OK'd.
"The deal would create the world's sixth-largest oil and gas company.
In the United States, ConocoPhillips would be No. 3 behind Exxon Mobil
Corp. and ChevronTexaco Corp."
Houston Chronicle:
Two oil
majors expect merger to pass muster.
"There will be layoffs after the closing, but the companies have not
indicated how deeply they will cut their combined worldwide work
force of about 57,000."
Oil and Gas International:
Major
oil companies call for all governments to adopt Kyoto Protocol.
"The unexpected union of the Greenpeace and 160 multinational corporations,
including BP, ChevronTexaco, PetroCanada, Royal Dutch/Shell, Statoil, and
TotalFinaElf, called upon every government in the world to adopt the [Kyoto]
treaty to reduce greenhouse gases today at the Earth Summit 2002 in
Johannesburg."
SEG Press Release:
Veritas
announces acquisition of Hampson-Russell Software.
"The latest Hampson-Russell products include interpretation tools for
multi-component and 4-D seismic data."
SEG Press Release:
Paradigm
expands product portfolio to include Linux-based solutions.
"Paradigm's Linux-based seismic data processing and imaging products
include the GeoDepth velocity model building and depth imaging system,
the Focus seismic processing system, and Probe for AVO inversion,
analysis and modeling."
Press Release:
3DGeo Moves to Energy
Corridor.
"... 3DGeo has added access to 1000 CPU cluster. 3DGeo plans to add even
more computing power to the Houston office with the purchase of a 512 CPU
Linux Cluster."
Oil Online:
Petroleum
Geo-Services consolidates corporate functions.
"The future PGS corporate center will be located in London, with Houston
and Oslo performing certain corporate and local support functions. London
will serve as the center of gravity for corporate leadership, including
office of the Chairman, CEO, CFO and other key corporate functions."
2002.08.27
Wall Street Journal (free):
Oil prices threaten U.S.
recovery. OPEC is reluctant to raise production quotas.
"Next year, OPEC estimates demand will rise by a modest 790,000 barrels a
day to 76.95 million barrels a day, with non-OPEC supply up 920,000
barrels a day. The Paris-based International Energy Agency sees non-OPEC
supply rising less, by 700,000 barrels a day next year, but OPEC
officials stick to their forecast. `In the longer term, this doesn't
appear to be a market in need of oil,' said Mr. Shihab-Eldin, the OPEC
economist. `There is plenty of supply.'"
Oil and Gas International:
Veritas
& Fugro to deploy solid towed arrays.
"The Guardian arrays feature solid as opposed to oil-filled cables....
The advanced Guardian streamers were specifically designed to minimize
mechanically induced noise.... Compared to oil-filled arrays, the solid
Guardian is said to be able to operate in far more difficult weather
conditions."
Oil & Gas Journal:
Oil
in granite concept due tests under Canada's Athabasca area.
"Canadian interests will make another try at evaluating deeper light oil
potential beneath the vast Athabasca tar sands.... The Athabasca tar
sands is one of the world's largest oil deposits with 1.3 trillion bbl
in place across 28,000 sq km. Calgary geologist C. Warren Hunt theorizes
the oil leaked through fractured granite from a deeper source and into
the McMurray sands and became biodegraded."
2002.08.26
New York Times:
Oil Prices
Won't Depend on Iraq, but on Its Neighbors.
"At its peak in 1979, before it launched its disastrous invasion of Iran,
Iraq was producing 3.5 million barrels a day. Its physical capacity to
produce is now at something around 3 million barrels a day. Its actual
output is a good deal lower, closer to 1.8 million barrels -- a fraction
of Saudi Arabia's 8 million barrels a day. After accounting for domestic
consumption and smuggled oil, Iraq's exports are about a million barrels
a day."
Oil and Gas International:
US
Interior Department board rejects appeal to stop seismic shoot.
"An appeal by the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance to prevent seismic
acquisition and exploratory drilling near Arches National Park has been
rejected by the US Interior Department's Board of Land Appeals."
Oil and Gas International:
20%
of world's gas flaring in Nigeria.
"Every year, some 35 million tons of carbon dioxide and 12 million tons of
methane are released into the air in Nigeria through flaring of associated
gas from the country's hundreds of oilfields." ...
"The environmentalist said that flaring is due to the low fines that the
government imposes -- about 11 US cents per 1,000 cf of gas -- which makes
it cheaper to pay the fines than to construct gas collection and transport
facilities."
BBC:
Big investors
criticise Shell boss.
"Mike Felton, director of UK equities at Friends Ivory & Sime said that
part of the problem for Shell was that its big rival, BP, was so good at
communicating.... `With their results they will come out with a set of
figures that are either way ahead or way behind expectations,' he added.
Big investors do not like those sorts of surprises."
2002.08.22
Oil & Gas Journal:
Western
gulf lease sale generates less money for more tracts.
"Interests were almost evenly divided between shallow and deep waters at
the federal oil and natural gas Lease Sale 184 Wednesday in New Orleans,
which drew apparent high bids of $151.3 million out of a total $181.6
million bid by 44 participating companies on 323 of the 4,102 tracts
offered in the western Gulf of Mexico."
Oil and Gas International:
Magic
Earth launches its Linux PC platform MagicDesk.
"Magic Earth says the new product delivers the same hallmark
performance of GeoProbe with a significantly reduced hardware cost and
that it is immediately available to the market."
The Street:
Pure
Resources Soars on Unocal Offer.
"Unocal offered about $400 million in stock to buy the remaining shares
of oil and natural gas producer Pure Resources from its stockholders.
Unocal already owns 65% of the company's shares."
Oil and Gas International:
Court
blocks WesternGeco shoot in Colorado national monument.
"Located near the Four Corners area about 20 miles west of Mesa Verde
National Park, the Canyons of the Ancients Monument is estimated to
contain 5,000-15,000 archaeological sites ranging from major Anasazi
Indian cliff dwelling complexes and religious enclosures that are 10,000
years ago. When made a national monument, it was said to contain `the
highest known density of archaeological sites in the nation.'"
2002.08.20
Oil Online:
Landmark
Releases SeisSpace.
"Landmark Graphics Corporation, a wholly owned business unit of
Halliburton, has announced the release of SeisSpace(tm), a new seismic
processing platform for distributed network computing in the Landmark
R2003 environment.... Landmark customers currently using ProMAX(tm),
the industry's most widely used commercial seismic processing system,
should notice a dramatic improvement in data throughput by executing
hybrid ProMAX flows within the SeisSpace parallel input/output
environment."
Houston Chroncle:
Seitel
says its loss reaches $79 million. Firm's stock faces delisting by
NYSE.
"The loss for the period that ended June 30 compares with a year-earlier
loss of $3.2 million, or 12 cents a share. Revenues of $47.1 million
were up from $24.7 million a year ago."
Oil and Gas International:
Murphy
Oil probing ultra-deep US Gulf Quatrain prospect.
"Located in water depths of 3,435 ft, the exploratory well follows a series
of successful wells in the area, most of which have been drilled to
considerable depth, such as Murphy's Green Canyon 338-4, which went to a
total depth of 24,257 ft."
2002.08.15
Oil and Gas International:
BLM
okays WesternGeco seismic shoot in Colorado national monument.
"The US Bureau of Land Management has given its blessing to WesternGeco
for a 3D seismic acquisition in Colorado's Canyons of the Ancients
National Monument. The vibroseis survey is to be conducted on behalf of
Legacy Energy, a Denver operator."
Associated Press:
Exxon
Mobil Enters Tobacco Agreement.
"With nearly half of underaged smokers reporting that they buy their
cigarettes from gas stations, the nation's largest oil company will
implement new ways to reduce tobacco sales to minors."
> The Houston Chronicle headlined this article "Exxon Mobil joins teen
tobacco fight. Oil firm's voluntary program will train clerks at service
stations."
2002.08.12
New York Times:
This
Oil's Domestic, but It's Deep and It's Risky.
"[T]he deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico ... holds some of the most
promising oil reserves in the world. BP, the world's third largest oil
company and the owner of the biggest reserves in the deep gulf, estimates
that the region contains 40 billion barrels of oil equivalents, a unit
that includes crude oil and natural gas. In comparison, an estimated 20
billion barrels has been found so far in the North Slope of Alaska....
Already, oil from the deep Gulf of Mexico accounts for 16 percent of
domestic oil production and will claim a greater share with time."
Oil Online:
Statoil
recognized for technology.
"The group was cited for its underground injection of carbon dioxide at the Sleipner
West field in the North Sea."
I'm six months tardy, but I just read "Seismic
migration problems and solutions," the Gray/Etgen/Dellinger/Whitmore
paper that was published in Geophysics in September 2001.
[Whether or not you have an online Geophysics subscription,
you may want to grab this preprint version. It's double-spaced.]
This paper doesn't offer anything new -- it an "overview" paper.
But it's a damn good overview paper. It has a lot of good general
knowledge and practical advise for depth imaging geophysicists. For
instance:
"The depth migration interval velocity model should not contain more
structural detail than the quality of the velocity analysis supports,
however. Even after residual moveout and stack, spurious structure in
the velocity model will generate false structure in the depth
migrated image."
> I agree with that last statement (85%?), but it could easily start
a debate with some depth imagers. That's true of a lot of
the statements in this paper, which makes it required reading.
> And the bibliography is excellent.
2002.08.09
Oil Online:
Anadarko
increases capital budget, announces divestiture plan.
"`The higher capital program will allow us to take advantage of additional
delineation and development opportunities resulting from our exploration
successes this year in Canada and the U.S., as well as to restart our
exploration program in Algeria,' said John Seitz, Anadarko president and
chief executive officer."
Oil and Gas International:
TGS
& WesternGeco shooting 3D in Barents Sea.
"The survey is located northeast of Norsk Agip's Goliath discovery in
Norway's Block 7122 along the same geological trend...."
Oil and Gas International:
PetroVietnam
to shoot 3D in Cuu Long Basin.
2002.08.07
Oil and Gas International:
Major
seismic effort set for offshore southwest Ghana.
"Ghana National Petroleum has joined with Devon Energy and EnCana in an
effort to increase exploration offshore Ghana in the Keta Basin. GNPC
said today the joint venture will carry out a US$56 million program."
I heard about this a couple of weeks ago, but I neglected to look up
the press release --
Core Lab Acquires
Business of Advanced Data Solutions.
Oil and Gas International:
PGS
CEO Michaelsen resigning.
"PGS says that this decision by Michaelsen was planned prior to the
cancellation of the merger that was to occur of PGS and Veritas DGC, that
he had intended to take a similar non-executive role had the two companies
completed their merger."
2002.08.05
Deutsche Welle:
Sweeping
Harmful Carbons Under the Sea.
"In order to avoid carbon dioxide reaching the atmosphere, Statoil pumps
them down a pipeline some 1,000 metres under sealevel. Here, a sandstone
formation seeps up the gas, which dissolves in the salty seawater collected
in the sandstone's pores. 600 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide could be
stored in this formation, according to Statoil."
Houston Business Journal:
Newfield
offering $225M in senior notes.
"Newfield will use the proceeds to repay debt from its previously
announced acquisition of EEX Corp. for $280 million in stock. The net
proceeds will be held in escrow pending closing, which is expected to
occur in late September 2002."
2002.08.02
New Scientist:
Unique meteorite crater
found under North Sea.
"Phil Allen, a consultant geophysicist based near Aberdeen, discovered the crater
by chance. Petroleum giant BP had asked him to look at 3D seismic data from a gas
field four kilometres below the North Sea. During his analysis, Allen discovered
some unusual features in layers of chalk lying above the gas field, one kilometre
beneath the seabed."
Houston Chronicle:
BP to
spend $15 billion on Gulf.
"BP has six major fields under development in the deep-water Gulf --
Thunder Horse, Atlantis, Holstein, Horn Mountain, Mad Dog and Na Kika --
and holds 50 percent or greater interest in each.
"BP is the largest acreage holder in the deep-water Gulf, with more than
650 blocks in depths greater than 1,500 feet. The company, which has
been operating in the Gulf since 1986, has about one-third of all
deep-water Gulf reserves discovered to date."
As usual, the
International Oil and Gas version of this story includes a
map.
2002.08.01
Oil and Gas International:
Major
oil companies funding ultimate satellite gravity data study.
"A group of leading oil companies are funding a two-year R&D study by
GETECH to provide them with the highest ultimate resolution satellite
gravity data over all the continental margins of the world (excluding
the ice covered margins of the Arctic and Antarctica). The tectonic
framework of all the major offshore petroleum basins can be seen in
satellite gravity data."
Oil and Gas International:
CGG
to do 3D land shoot in Amatitlán, Mexico.
"The Amatitlán acquisition, along with a number of recent less important
contracts, represents an aggregate $40 million gross addition to CGG's
backlog and renews growth of the Group's land seismic activity after the
low point of the first quarter of this year. It is equally indicative of
the recent momentum of the Mexican market, heading for a high level of
seismic activity in 2003 for both land and marine segments with significant
awards awaited in the coming months."
Business Wire:
OYO Geospace Reports
Third Quarter Results. Earnings Per Share Increases to $0.21 vs. $0.11.
"Our third quarter results largely reflect a $15.8 million sale of a large
GeoRes seabed reservoir characterization and monitoring system, one of our
recently developed suite of geophysical data acquisition systems."
Houston Chronicle:
Veritas,
PGS call off their merger. Offer withdrawn on $1 billion deal to
create huge seismic firm.
"While [PGS] should have sufficient cash flow to meet interest payments
for the rest of 2002 and for 2003, [according to Bruce Schwartz, a credit
analyst for Standard & Poors], it may not be able to meet next year'
debt maturities."
