Improved Recovery Week articles from February 1998

Improved Recovery Week archives from February 1998

Higher prices, state incentives and new technology touted in greater 1996 stripper oil, gas production.
February 2, 1998... Higher oil prices during 1996, coupled with new technology and incentives offered to producers by various state legislatures, resulted in improved stripper oil and gas production in the U.S. for that year, says the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact...

Environmental, tribal compact threaten lawsuit to stop DOE sale of Elk Hills NPR to Occidental. (Elk Hills Naval Petroleum Reserve; Occidental Petroleum Corp.)
February 2, 1998... A glitch formed last week in the heretofore smooth sailing of the $3.65 billion sale by the Energy Dept. to Occidental Petroleum Corp. of the Elk Hills Naval Petroleum Reserve. As IRW went to press, a coalition of environmental and Native...

North Sea's ETAP group chooses EDS/Gensym team to set production management system. (Eastern Trough Area Project)
February 2, 1998... The Eastern Trough Area Project (ETAP) has hired a two-company team to develop an oil field production management system in the U.K. Sector of the North Sea. Conducting the development of the system will be EDS, a leading global information...

1997 statistics reflect robust economy, says API report; inventory build-up hikes imports.
February 2, 1998... The American Petroleum Institute's report on last year's petroleum industry results, just released, show increases in practically every sector, with even Lower 48 States production showing an increase for the first time in six years. The...

Oxy earns $206 million from Union Texas; to reinvest it in Elk Hills NPR purchase. (Occidental Petroleum Corp.; Union Texas Petroleum Holdings Inc.; Elk Hills Naval Petroleum Reserve)
February 2, 1998... In a move that will increase its estimated 1998 worldwide oil production by more than 25%, Houston-based Union Texas Petroleum Holdings, Inc. said last week it is acquiring Occidental Petroleum Corp.'s Venezuelan affiliate and all of its...

Fracture-linking software, water-softening process help Marathon conduct Yates field steamflood pilot. (Marathon Oil Co.; Texas)
February 9, 1998... An ongoing government-industry research effort into the modeling of fracture connectivity in naturally fractured oil and gas reservoirs is being applied in West Texas' venerable Yates field. The fracture modeling, coupled with a novel new way...

First-time use of coiled tubing for servicing subsea wells heralded; North Sea well logged. (Coflexip Stena Offshore Inc.'s coiled tubing)
February 9, 1998... Coflexip Stena Offshore (CSO), Paris, is claiming a breakthrough in well intervention techniques after successfully completing the world's first coiled-tubing re-entry of a subsea well from a mono-hull support vessel. Working with Schlumberger...

Westlands completes third of Chalk horizontal re-drills. (Westlands Resources Corp.; Texas' Austin Chalk formation)
February 9, 1998... One company is finding success in Texas' Austin Chalk trend by re-entering old vertical wells and drilling horizontal legs to tap by-passed reserves. Daleco Resource Corp., Wayne, Pa., said a recent lateral drilled from an existing wellbore in...

Syncrude sets another record with 76-million-bbl. outflow. (Syncrude Canada Inc.)
February 9, 1998... Syncrude Canada Inc. set another annual oil sands bitumen production record in 1997, with shipments of more than 75.7 million bbls, averaging 207,000 b/d, compared to its last most recent record year, 1996, with 73.5 million bbls. (201,000 b/d)....

Some Canadian producers cut heavy oil flow: others' low costs permit ongoing development.
February 9, 1998... The widening price between Canadian and U.S. heavy oil and lighter North American crudes is resulting in some scaling back of operations. This is most evident in Western Canada, where smaller heavy oil producers are shutting-in wells...

$3.5 billion Elk Hills sale 'saucered and blowed' after lawsuit dismissed in Calif. federal courts. (lawsuit against Occidental Petroleum Corp.)
February 9, 1998... The U.S. Government late last week recorded a deed in the Kern County, California courthouse transferring to Occidental Petroleum Corp. title to the Elk Hills Naval Petroleum Reserve. At the same time, in Washington, D.C., the company's CEO...

BlackRock seeks new financing for Cold Lake SAGD expansion. (BlackRock Ventures Inc.; steam-assisted gravity drainage)
February 9, 1998... Toronto, Ont. Canada-based BlackRock Ventures Inc. last week said it has withdrawn a special warrant offering due to unfavorable market conditions. The company planned to use the capital from the offering to finance its steam-assisted gravity...

Chesapeake expanding Louisiana Chalk, Tuscaloosa action; drills Sooner horizontals. (Chesapeake Energy Corp.)
February 9, 1998... Oklahoma City-based Chesapeake Energy Corp. says it has completed seven horizontal wells in the Louisiana sector of the Austin Chalk trend, and currently is drilling - as operator - six others. Of the seven horizontal wells completed since...

GRI heads consortium for two-year laser drilling study; 100x today's ROPs feasible, says proponents. (Gas Research Institute, rollover protective structures)
February 16, 1998... Keep in mind every outer space movie you ever saw, and remember President Ronald Reagan's "StarWars defense initiative, because new studies by Gas Research Institute and others may set the stage for producers to be drilling wells with laser rays....

Tipperary signs Australian coalbed methane sales pact.
February 16, 1998... Denver-based Tipperary Corp. has finally signed a sales contract for the production from its Comet Ridge Coalbed Methane project in Queensland, Australia. The purchaser of the gas is PG&E Energy Trading Australia, a unit of U.S.-based Pacific...

After forking over $2.6 billion for Norcen, UPR finds cash for more core-area properties. (Norcen Energy Resources Ltd, Union Pacific Resources Group Inc.)
February 16, 1998... Even after its recent US$2.6 billion purchase of Canadian company Norcen Energy Resources Ltd., Fort Worth, Texas-based Union Pacific Resources Group Inc. (UPR) still had enough small change to pick up three packages of producing properties in...

Kuwait Oil to extend Chevron's Burgan tech services contract. (Burgan field in Southern Kuwait)
February 16, 1998... Negotiations are underway for a 3.5-year extension by Kuwait Oil Co. of the technical services agreement it now has with Chevron Overseas Petroleum Inc. Under the agreement, Chevron will provide various technical services for development and...

$400 million Venezuelan outlay to include gas, WAG injection. (water-alternating-gas)
February 16, 1998... Up to US$400 million is slated to be spent by Chevron Corp., Statoil, the Norwegian state oil company, ARCO and Phillips Petroleum Co. on IOR applications in the initial three-year development phase of the LL-642 light oil field in Venezuela's...

Wyoming pipeline agency defers CO2 line study; waits for data on whether injection will work.
February 16, 1998... Wyoming officials are putting off for six months the decision to initiate a study of building a pipeline to transport carbon dioxide from the southwestern part of the state to the Powder River and Big Horn basins and points north. The state's...

Venezuelan activities gets $79 million chunk of Union Texas' development drilling today. (Union Texas Petroleum Holdings Inc.)
February 16, 1998... Houston-based Union Texas Petroleum Holdings Inc. may have cut its exploration spending plans in 1998, but has more than doubled its planned outlay for development drilling. Union Texas says its total 1998 capital plans call for about $284...

Japan Canada Oil Sands to begin drilling wells next week for new SAGD demo project. (Japan Canada Oil Sands Ltd, steam-assisted gravity drainage)
February 16, 1998... Still another pilot project testing steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) is being scheduled for installation in deeply placed oil sands deposits in northern Alberta. Japan Canada Oil Sands Ltd. expects to begin drilling two SAGD horizontal...

Patent sought for anchoring ESP power lines inside coiled tubing. (electric submersible pump)
February 16, 1998... Centrilift, the electric submersible pump division of Baker Hughes, is applying for a patent on a breakthrough it claims in using coiled tubing to run power cables. Giving an outline of the technology at an SPE forum in Aberdeen, Scotland,...

Geco to run four-part shoot over N. Sea field. (Geco-Prakla unit of Schlumberger Oilfield)
February 16, 1998... The Geco-Prakla unit of Schlumberger Oilfield Services has been contracted by Amoco to conduct a 39-sq.-mile seismic survey of the Valhall field in the Norwegian Sector of the North Sea. According to Geco-Prakla, this is the largest contract to...

Updated engineering report increases in Kazakhstan field from 9 to 32 million bbls.
February 16, 1998... Once they get past the red tape, producers with field rehabilitation projects in the Former Soviet Union are finding lots of oil reserves. London-based Atlantic Caspian Resources Plc, for instance, recently noted that based on recompletion of...

Trinidad steamflood expansion completed; Petrotrin forecasts 4,500-b/d peak heavy oil output by 2000. (Petrotrin, oil company of Trinidad and Tobago)
February 23, 1998... Petrotrin, the state oil company of Trinidad and Tobago, recently announced the successful expansion of a pilot steam flood of the Cruse "E" field onshore Trinidad. The field holds an estimated 10.3 million bbls. of 16 [degrees] -18 [degrees]...

Bucking conventional forecasts, geologist team predicts oil decline within 10 years.
February 23, 1998... If all those predictions about the world being awash with oil are disappointing to producers around the world, take a look at the March issue of Scientific American magazine. In a 19-page special report, two consulting petroleum geologists...

Gulf Indonesia expects to begin fueling Duri steamflood with gas by third quarter of 1998. (Gulf Indonesia Resources Ltd.)
February 23, 1998... Jakarta-based Gulf Indonesia Resources Ltd. says the Corridor Block Gas Project, currently under construction in South Sumatra, is on schedule and under budget, with commissioning expected in the third quarter of this year. At that time,...