Petrobras seeking sub-salt ‘big picture’

Brazil’s state-run oil company Petrobras will begin high definition seismic testing of deep-water su-salt fields off the country to see if they are part of one giant sea of oil, the company’s exploration and production co-ordinator Eduardo Alessandro Molinari, said.

“The current seismic data we have show there is good continuity. We want to evaluate again better,” Molinari said after a shareholders meeting yesterday, Reuters reported. The seismic test will be run on the Tupi sub-salt field, discovered in December by Petrobras and its partners BG and Galp, and thought to contain between 5 billion and 8 billion barrels of recoverable oil. Petrobras has the most data on the Tupi of all the recent sub-salt fields. If the many sub-salt fields around Tupi, including the Carioca, Yara, Caramba, Bem-te-vi, Parati, Guara and Jupiter prove to be connected as one massive ocean of oil, Petrobras and partners in the various fields are expected to lay out a joint development plan for all the blocks together, according to the “unitisation” clause of the 1995 Petroleum Law. Petrobras partners in the subsalt cluster around Tupi include Galp, ExxonMobil, Amerada Hess, BG Group, Repsol YPF and Shell. The light grade oil and gas lies under a 2000-metre salt cap formed after South America broke off from Africa millions of years ago. “Looking at the seismic data of that area of Tupi, we see a continuity,” Molinari said. “Unitisation will have to happen, in any situation, even if there is change in the regulatory framework.” Brazil is studying changes in its Petroleum Law, which is currently not especially well suited to deal with large fields of oil. The government would also like to take a larger percentage of the profits involved with such massive deposits. But current legislation and regulation would be honoured for current concession holders, the government stresses.

Read More

Production Begins at ExxonMobil Angola Developments Kizomba C Fields

Expected to Produce 200,000 Barrels of Oil Per Day.Exxon Mobil Corporation announced yesterday that its subsidiary, Esso Exploration Angola (Block 15) Limited (Esso Angola), has started production from the Saxi and Batuque fields as part of the development progression of the Kizomba C project.

Combined with a third Kizomba C field, Mondo, which came on stream in January, the project is anticipated to reach a total production rate of 200,000 barrels of oil per day later this year. The Kizomba C development is designed to produce a total of approximately 600 million barrels of oil over the life of the three producing fields, which are located approximately 90 miles (145 kilometers) off the coast of Angola in water depths of nearly 2,400 feet (800 meters). The Kizomba C development includes two floating production, storage, and offloading (FPSO) vessels and 36 subsea wells, making it the largest subsea development operated by an ExxonMobil affiliate worldwide. The twin FPSO vessels are the fourth and fifth production hubs on Block 15, following Xikomba in 2003, Kizomba A in 2004, and Kizomba B in 2005. Total Block 15 production is expected to total approximately 700,000 barrels a day when the Saxi and Batuque fields reach peak production. Nearly $1.5 billion has been spent on local goods and services for Kizomba C, including contracts for in-country fabrication, logistics support, and training and development of Angolan personnel. Angolan participation in the project has increased significantly over time as local companies, working with ExxonMobil and Esso Angola, have developed their capabilities to perform the work required for such complex projects. The Saxi and Batuque start-up follow other ExxonMobil projects which started producing in 2008: Kizomba C Mondo (Angola), Volve (Norway), Starling (UK), ACG Phase 3 (Azerbaijan), and East Area Natural Gas Liquids II (Nigeria). With global energy demand growing, and new supplies increasingly found far from the world’s major consuming nations, Kizomba C and these other new projects are vital additions to an increasingly interdependent global energy supply network.

Read More

STX bags $238.2m SCI bulker order

Delhi: Shipping Corporation of India is to sign a contract with South Korea’s STX shipyard this morning for the construction of four kamsarmax bulk carriers.

The vessels, costing $59.55m each, are due for delivery in 2012. The new vessels bring the SCI orderbook to 32 vessels of 2.7m gt, worth a estimated $1.8bn: two VLCCs, 10 product tankers, six handymaxes, two 4,400teu containerships and four aframaxes, four AHTS respectively and the four kamsarmax vessels.

Read More