Improved Recovery Week articles from January 1996

Improved Recovery Week archives from January 1996

Suncor tackles potentially huge Australian oil shale project. (Suncor Inc.)
January 8, 1996... Canadian oil sands and heavy oil producers are starting to make good on their promises to expand into the international market, and Calgary-based Suncor Inc. is going about as far away from Western Canada as they can. Suncor, which is the...

Ukrainians to visit Houston. (petroleum industry representatives)
January 8, 1996... Representatives of the Ukrainian government and petroleum industry will be in Houston Jan. 31 for a one-day energy conference sponsored by the Energy Dept. At the conference, Ukrainian technical experts will make presentations about specific...

HP wells boost low-pressure well flow. (WELLCOM technology using high-pressure wells)
January 8, 1996... After successful testing in Scotland, field trials are planned in Italy for a prototype unit designed to enhance oil recovery by drawing on differences in wellhead pressures in complex or multi-reservoir developments. The technology, known as...

Nigeria production expected. (Abacan Resources Corp.)
January 8, 1996... Canadian producer Abacan Resources Corp. expects to start producing oil at its concession offshore Nigeria sometime in the third quarter of this year. Wade Cherwayko, president and CEO of the Calgary-based company, said recently he expects...

Texas incentive modified. (state severance tax exemption)
January 8, 1996... More inactive oil and gas wells in Texas are going to qualify for a state severance tax exemption under a new rule change made by the state's Railroad Commission. Under the change, a producer won't receive the exemption if the well stays...

Molino extended-reach plan takes new tack. (Molino Energy Co.)
January 8, 1996... Molino Energy Co.'s project to revive the Molino Offshore gas field in California's Santa Barbara Channel has taken a new course. The company, a joint venture of Santa Barbara-based Gaviota Energy Group and Santa Barbara Facilities Inc., wants...

Chalk horizontals finaled. (Nuevo Energy Co. completes two horizontal Austin Chalk Trend wells in Texas)
January 8, 1996... At year-end, Nuevo Energy Co., Houston, announced successful completion of two horizontal Austin Chalk Trend wells in Texas. The company's ARCO Fee A-360 Well No. 1-H, located in the Brookeland Field in Jasper County, in deep East Texas, tested...

Algerians buy wireline units. (Matt's Manufacturing Inc.)
January 8, 1996... Beta Well Service Inc., Calgary, says its wholly-owned subsidiary, Matt's Manufacturing Inc., also of Calgary, has been awarded a contract by a major Algerian company to manufacture 11 mobile wireline units and six truck-mounted crane units and...

EOR project to be 'fine-tuned' under contract. (James E. Russell Petroleum Inc. awarded contract to improve air flotation water treatment process)
January 8, 1996... Wichita, Kan.-based James E. Russell Petroleum Inc. has been awarded an 18-month, $100,000 Energy Dept. research and development subcontract to improve an air flotation water treatment process Russell Petroleum and the University of Kansas...

OIPA studies possible new Okla. agency. (Oklahoma Independent Petroleum Association)
January 8, 1996... Partly because the state's Corporation Commission is facing a $1.2-$1.4 million budget shortfall for its oil and gas regulatory activities, the Oklahoma Independent Petroleum Assn. is once again advocating a new regulatory agency. Richard...

3-D expertise resulting in producer/contract. (Geokinetics Inc.)
January 8, 1996... Houston-based Geokinetics Inc. could evolve from an oil and gas exploration and production company into a seismic technology company within the next 10 years, says Jay D. Haber, president. Last month, the company got approval for a $5 million,...

BP takes 'holistic' water management approach at N. Sea field. (BP Exploration Operating Company Ltd.)
January 15, 1996... Engineers for BP Exploration Operating Co. Ltd. have come up with a system for handling water breakthrough that should yield additional oil during the next year. The computer software system is being used at the aging Magnus oil field in the...

Suncor plant sets record. (Suncor Inc.'s oil sands plant at Fort McMurray, Alberta)
January 15, 1996... Suncor Inc.'s oil sands plant at Fort McMurray, Alta., sit an all time production record last year with a total of 27,741,800 bbls. of oil. The total was nearly 8% higher than the previous record, set last year. In 1995, plant production...

Benton to sell Louisiana properties to Shell. (Benton Oil and Gas Co.; Shell Offshore Inc.)
January 15, 1996... Benton Oil & Gas Co., Carpinteria, Calif., last week signed a letter of intent to sell the stock in its wholly owned subsidiary, Benton Oil and Gas Co. of Louisiana, to Shell Offshore, Inc. The sales price is $35.4 million, or about $2/mcf for...

Horizontals up Aussie flow. (Santos Ltd. increases production with horizontal wells)
January 15, 1996... Australian producer Santos Ltd. has increased production by almost 20-fold from an onshore field with the introduction of horizontal wells. By late last year, the company had drilled two onshore horizontals in two separate basins, with results...

WRT shareholders file suit. (WRT Energy Corp.)
January 15, 1996... Financially beleaguered WRT Energy Corp., the Woodlands, Texas, received another setback recently as two shareholders filed a "purported" class-action lawsuit against the company in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California....

Multinationals try to crack Mexico drilling. (gas development proposals)
January 15, 1996... It just might be that multinational producing companies will be drilling away in Mexico in the not-too-distant future, even though Mexican law absolutely forbids it. By the end of next month, a three-company U.S./Canadian partnership expects...

ERC Tigress strikes again. (teams up with Shell International E and P B.V.)
January 15, 1996... Houston-based ERC Tigress and Shell International E&P B.V., of The Hague, Neth., will build an open-architecture oil and gas production management tool for multiple platforms and multiple databases. ERC Tigress, a member of the PGS Group, says...

Ukrainian conference attracts top officials. (Ukrainian Energy Conference)
January 15, 1996... The Energy Dept. is going all out for the one-day energy conference on the Ukraine scheduled to be held at the Holiday Inn Select in Houston at month's end (IRW, 1-8). In fact, DOE is sending to the Jan. 31 meeting a couple of its big guns to...

Does 3-D seismic need 'how to' manual? (3-D seismic imaging)
January 15, 1996... Three-dimensional seismic imaging has proven its worth by now. The much higher success rates of drilling programs based on 3-D seismic versus those achieved through conventional 2-D methods is proof enough. Yet, there is no "how-to" manual...

Snyder, Gerrity pool Wattenberg field assets with new company. (Snyder Oil Corp. and Gerrity Oil and Gas Corp. merge to form Patina Oil and Gas Corp.)
January 22, 1996... Apparently taking a tip from the recent pooling of Permian Basin assets by two major companies, two Denver-based independents went one step further with a recent agreement to combine their assets and operations in the Wattenberg field of Colorado...

Shale project had predecessors. (Suncor Inc.'s oil/shale development project)
January 22, 1996... That joint Canadian/Australian oil shale development announced recently by Suncor Inc. is not the first attempt at bringing synthetic oil from shale to Australian refineries. The most recent deal, which covers the Stuart shale deposit in the...

Glycol-water mud used in North Sea.
January 22, 1996... Mud mixed with glycol and water proved a winning combination for Conoco Inc.'s Dutch subsidiary, which faced the challenge of drilling horizontally into a thin layer of shale to improve recovery from a well at its Kotter offshore field. The...

Utah eyes IOR tax breaks.
January 22, 1996... New tax incentives are needed to reverse a downward trend in Utah and keep producers from moving to other states in the west to get a better break, say state industry officials. So, that's the aim of a bill introduced recently in the Utah...

PRC a heavy oil player. (China is fourth-largest heavy oil developer in the world)
January 22, 1996... The Peoples Republic of China has become the fourth-largest heavy oil developer in the world, according to China Daily Business Weekly. With steam injection currently in use at the Liaohe, Shengli, Xinjiang and Henan oil fields, onshore output...

Canadian firms to drill Tunisian horizontal.
January 22, 1996... A unit of Eagle Energy Corp., a newly constituted Canadian independent oil company with headquarters in Calgary, Alberta, is preparing to drill a horizontal re-entry well in a 10,800-acre concession area on the northeast tip of Tunisia about 30...

Western Geophysical sets marine record.
January 22, 1996... Marine seismic streamer technology is advancing so fast these days that seismic vessels towing multiple streams of data acquisition electronics may soon meet themselves coming. For example, Western Geophysical division of Western Atlas Inc....

Phillips buys Mobil fields. (Phillips Petroleum Co.; Mobil E and P U.S. Inc.)
January 22, 1996... Phillips Petroleum Co. has purchased three oil and gas fields from Mobil E&P U.S. Inc. in Terrebonne Parish, La. near Houma, betting it can coax more production from them than Mobil did. The properties include 39 producing wells in the Sunrise,...

Newfoundland well plugged.
January 22, 1996... Dallas-based Hunt Oil Co. and partner PanCanadian Petroleum Ltd., of Calgary, said they have abandoned their most recent well in the western area of Canada's Province of Newfoundland. In a statement, Hunt said the well, Hunt/PCP Long Point Well...

Mourning becomes electronic: 3-D or die.
January 22, 1996... You may hardly afford it, but you can't survive without 3-D seismic in today's competitive market. That was the basic message from dozens of producers, analysts, seismic contractors, equipment manufacturers and other experts at a conference in...

Union Pacific Resources touts 1995 Austin Chalk extensions.
January 22, 1996... Fort Worth, Texas-based Union Pacific Resources Group Inc. (UPR) recently announced the seventh straight record year for its Austin Chalk business unit, where the company leads the nation in drilling horizontal oil and gas wells. The company...

All pearls, no swine in Solv-Ex oil sands operation. (Solv-Ex Corp.)
January 29, 1996... Albuquerque-based Solv-Ex Corp. is hell-bent to extract everything from its Alberta oil sands "pig" - with the possible exception of the "oink." And they have something in mind for that, too. The mining engineering company seems to be...

Syncrude buys OSLO lease. (Syncrude Canada Ltd.; Other Six Lease Owners)
January 29, 1996... Syncrude Canada Ltd. has acquired an oil sands lease from the OSLO (Other Six Lease Owners) project, an oil sands operation that was sidelined several years ago after projected costs far outweighed estimated production revenues. The property,...

Omitted string saves big bucks in N. Sea. (North Sea's Brittania oil field)
January 29, 1996... Savings of about US$750,000 have been reported in drilling the latest well in the North Sea's Britannia oil field through innovative well engineering which eliminated a complete casing string. The original design for Chevron-Conoco's Well No....

D-S donates frac software. (Dowell-Schlumberger Inc.'s FracADE 3-D fracture design program)
January 29, 1996... Dowell-Schlumberger has agreed to install its FracADE[TM] 3-D fracture design program at the 10 regional resource centers of the Petroleum Technology Transfer Council. Developed in 1984, the program has been undated biannually to maintain its...

PRC engineers advance IOR. (People's Republic of China; improved oil recovery)
January 29, 1996... Clearly, engineers in the Peoples Republic of China are getting on top of IOR techniques, if a recent international meeting on petroleum engineering in Beijing is any guide. Most of the papers delivered on IOR at the meeting were given, not by...

E&P tech video available free from GRI. (exploration and development; Gas Research Institute)
January 29, 1996... Gas Research Institute has produced an 18-minute video tape that presents a number of currently available technologies developed or enhanced by GRI to reduce exploration and development risks and operating costs. And it's making the video...

Third DOE reservoir program set. (Department of Energy)
January 29, 1996... Small independent producing companies are getting a third shot at up to $250,000 in shared funding seed money from the Energy Dept. The money will be awarded to a chosen project as part of a cooperative research and development agreement...

Computalog to buy Norjet. (Computalog Gearhart Ltd.; Norjet Geotechnologies Inc.)
January 29, 1996... Computalog Ltd., Calgary, Alberta, has signed a letter of intent to acquire Norjet Geotechnologies Inc., also of Calgary, for cash and stock. Norjet is a privately held Canadian corporation whose principal business is well logging in the...

Texoil expands 3-D projects. (Texoil Inc.)
January 29, 1996... Houston-based Texoil Inc. has contracted for a 64-square-mile 3-D seismic survey over a salt dome in Lafourche Parish, La. As operator of the project, which was developed as a result of a strategic alliance with 3DX Technologies, Inc., Texoil...

Boards-from-diapers 'absorb' heavy use. (Amoco Production Co.'s use of plastic boards for oilfield roads)
January 29, 1996... For oil and gas operators with drilling programs in low, marshy areas or excessively sandy areas, the following is about wooden board roads and wellsite location pads and the possibility of eliminating them. And if experiments with a new...

'Luck' still important ... even with 3-D seismic. (Houston Energy and Development Inc.)(Geophysics Update)
January 29, 1996... Independent producer Ron Neal has ridden 3-D seismic to success, but he's taken risks and some hard knocks along the way. In 1988, Neal joined with next-door neighbor Billy Harrison to form Houston Energy and Development Inc., a small...