Improved Recovery Week articles from June 1995

Improved Recovery Week archives from June 1995

GRI puts 'market-pulled' focus on Green River Basin project. (Gas Research Institute; Greater Green Basin well project)
June 5, 1995... The Gas Research Institute, Chicago, says undertakings such as its Greater Green River Basin well project signify its change of approach from "technology-push" to "market-pull" in orientation. GRI President and CEO Stephen D. Ban said recently...

Suez Gulf E-R well finaled. (Marathon Petroleum Egypt Ltd. successfully tests oil well Gulf of Suez)
June 5, 1995... In Egypt, Marathon Petroleum Egypt Ltd. has successfully tested a second well in the Gebel El Zeit concession in the southern Gulf of Suez. Extended-reach drilling was accomplished from land to a point offshore. The Ras El Ush Well No. 3,...

Conoco inks $1.7 billion heavy oil pact. (Conoco Inc.)
June 5, 1995... Houston-based Conoco Inc. last week signed an agreement in principle with Maraven, a unit of Petroleos de Venezuela (PdVSA), to form a joint venture to upgrade extra-heavy oil from the Orinoco Tar Belt. The project, with preliminary work to...

Alberta production hikes told. (oil and gas production in Canadian province)
June 5, 1995... Canada's Alberta province has tallied record activity levels in the conventional oil, oil sands and natural gas sectors, pushing the province's oil and gas production nearly 4% higher last year than in the previous year. According to a report...

WRT recompletes wells. (WRT Energy Corp.)
June 5, 1995... Using its proprietary logging technology, WRT Energy Corp. has completed the first phase of a field-wide redevelopment program in South Louisiana. The company said last week it was successful in restoring production to 13 out of 14 wells to...

Despite overseas bias, U.S. E&P outlay up. (oil and gas companies report increase in exploration and production spending)
June 5, 1995... The potential for future huge reserves may be outside the United States, but last year's E&P spending by the 30 largest oil and gas companies was still in the U.S. of By Gosh A. That's the gist of a recent report, the 16th annual edition of...

Injection well compliance lauded. (EPA commends Oklahoma Corporation Commission)
June 5, 1995... The Environmental Protection Agency has commended the Oklahoma Corporation Commission for having meet or exceeded regulatory requirements for underground injection control in 1994. The commission is responsible for ensuring that only approved...

Okla. incentive pending. (Oklahoma tax incentive)
June 5, 1995... A tax incentive designed to increase exploration drilling in the Sooner State is now on Gov. Frank Keating's desk in Oklahoma City. The bill would exempt production from oil and gas wells qualifying as new discoveries from the state's gross...

Coalgas merger finaled. (EuroGas Inc. completes acquisition of McKenzie Methane Poland BV)
June 5, 1995... Eurogas Inc., Salt Lake City, has completed acquisition of the remaining interest 80.87% interest in McKenzie Methane Poland BV from private European investors for some $1.2 million in cash and stock, including some 2.4 million shares of a newly...

Oil from peat a possible future N.Z. fuel. (New Zealand)
June 5, 1995... A New Zealand government report has found it would be technically viable to mine peat reserves on one of the country's remote islands and extract at least 44.6 million bbl of oil. Not much by world standards, until one considers that New...

Cross-well seismic a good reservoir manager. (cross-well seismic technology)
June 5, 1995... Look for cross-well seismic technology to become a cost-effective technique for selected reservoir management applications, says Mark Mathisen at Mobil Research and Development Corp. in Dallas. The applicability of seismic tomograms and...

Back DOE research or lose it, says Godley. (Dept. of Energy Asst. Secretary for fossil energy Patricia Fry Godley)
June 5, 1995... Producers had better quit sending "mixed messages" and support funding of fossil energy research by the federal government or risk the loss of all federal money for oil and gas research. That's the message brought to a recent mid-year meeting...

AOSTRA reports on IOR, heavy oil. (Alberta Oil Sands Technology and Research Authority)
June 5, 1995... The Alberta Oil Sands Technology and Research Authority makes the following IOR and heavy oil research reports and technical papers available to interested parties. Copies may be ordered by calling AOSTRA in Edmonton at 403-427-8382 (fax:...

IOR patent. (Mobil Oil Corp. patents method for recovering oil from low-permeability reservoirs)
June 5, 1995... P.S. Northrop and J.L. Wilson of Mobil Oil Corp. have patented a method for recovering oil from low-permeability reservoirs such as diatomite through a single wellbore. Upper and lower intervals are fractured from the wellbore that the fractured...

Saskatchewan leads in Williston Basin horizontal drilling.
June 12, 1995... Canada's Western Provinces are quickly becoming one of North America's most active arenas for the use of horizontal drilling technology. In Alberta, producers are drilling horizontal wells as drainholes for heavy oil recovery, as well as for...

Nahama assets auctioned off. (Nahama & Weagant Energy Co.)
June 12, 1995... Nahama & Weagant Energy Co. is no more. The company, for 24 years based in Bakersfield, Calif., vanished from the rolls last week after a 2-hour bankruptcy auction of the company's remaining assets brought a total of $5.55 million. A...

BP to monitor reservoir with deepwater 4-D. (British Petroleum Co. Ltd.)
June 12, 1995... The world's first deepwater use of 4-D seismic is planned by British Petroleum Co. Ltd. and partner Shell U.K. Ltd. to monitor fluid movement in its Foinaven field in the new Atlantic frontier exploration province off the west of Britain. The...

Tipro backs DOE tech transfer. (Texas Independent Producers & Royalty Owners Assn.)
June 12, 1995... Meeting in Dallas last week, the Texas Independent Producers & Royalty Owners Assn. (Tipro) voted unanimously to support energy programs sponsored by the Energy Dept. to improve domestic oil and gas production. Tipro members did not, however,...

Okla. stripper refunds light. (Oklahoma Commission on Marginally Producing Oil and Gas Wells)
June 12, 1995... The Oklahoma Commission on Marginally Producing Oil and Gas wells refunded only a small portion of the fees it collected last year from producers in the state. Created in 1992, the commission's duties include identifying and collecting...

Amoco Canada to hike heavy oil spending. (Amoco Canada Petroleum Co. Ltd.)
June 12, 1995... Amoco Canada Petroleum Co. Ltd., Calgary, plans to spend about US$72.5 million this year on its heavy oil development in the Primrose and Wolf Lake areas of Alberta. If market conditions remain favorable, the company said, it anticipates...

54 Texas horizontal permits granted in April. (horizontal wells)
June 12, 1995... The Texas Railroad Commission granted 54 permits for horizontal wells statewide in April, reflecting a decrease in activity from the previous month. By comparison, 59 permits for the advanced technology wells were issued in March, 47 in...

FSU logging venture formed. (former Soviet Union)
June 12, 1995... PetroAlliance Services Co., a joint venture company to be engaged in oilfield information services in the former Soviet Union (FSU), has been created by Western Atlas International, Inc., Houston, and MD Seis International Ltd., Houston and...

Alberta govt. gets tough. (energy law violations)
June 12, 1995... The new Alberta Energy and Utilities Board has announced that it plans to take a harder stand in dealing with companies that don't comply with energy regulations in that Canadian province. In a policy paper, Brian Bletz, a member of the board,...

Solv-Ex plans two bitumen-minerals plants. (Solv-Ex Corp.)
June 12, 1995... They have their patented processes, their leases, their financing, and their markets and Solv-Ex Corp. will begin construction of the first of two unique Canadian oil sands-minerals extraction plants next month. The Albuquerque, N.M.-based...

3-D data crush needs innovative E&P approach. (Texaco E&P Inc.)
June 12, 1995... Oil and gas finders may justifiably revel in the plethora of subsurface information that can be acquired via 3-D seismic technology, but there is growing awareness that effective use of the data requires efficient management and manipulation....

Researchers match North Sea depressurization candidates. (oil reservoirs)
June 19, 1995... Studies by scientists at London's Imperial College of Science & Technology have identified at least 10 water-flooded reservoirs in the UK North Sea which could yield additional reserves through depressurization techniques such as those planned...

Firm buys into CIS field. (Fountain Oil Inc. buys in Republic of Adygea, Commonwealth of Independent States)
June 19, 1995... Houston-based Fountain Oil Inc. said last week it signed a preliminary agreement to acquire for $8 million a private company that owns 31% of a gas/condensate field in the Republic of Adygea, Russia. Fountain said the company to be...

UPRC fetes 1,000th Austin Chalk horizontal. (Union Pacific Resources Co.)
June 19, 1995... Union Pacific Resources Co. recently celebrated the start of drilling of its 1,000th horizontal oil and gas well in the Austin Chalk region of Central and East Texas. The well, the Myers Cattle Well No. 2, was spudded in Brazos County...

Okla. Gov. okays incentives. (Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating)
June 19, 1995... Look for a new surge in drilling in Oklahoma, a state whose oil and gas production has continued to decline from year-earlier levels. Oklahoma's Gov. Frank Keating last week signed into law a tax incentives bill that had received...

Cooper spinoff begins. (Cooper Industries Inc. offers stock for Cooper Cameron Corp.)
June 19, 1995... Cooper Industries Inc. has begun its offer to its shareholders to exchange its common stock for shares of Cooper Cameron Corp., the spinoff of the company's petroleum and industrial equipment units. Under terms of the exchange offer,...

Canadian firms update tar sands data.
June 19, 1995... Canadian companies engaged in Alberta and Saskatchewan tar sands development last week updated the financial community on their activities to date. Top executives with Suncor Inc., Syncrude Canada Ltd., and Imperial Oil Ltd., among...

Reservoir engineering stressed. (Statoil A/S)
June 19, 1995... Statoil, Norway's national oil company, is transferring a number of its highly qualified laboratory personnel to new reservoir engineering duties as part of the group's efforts to strengthen its core technologies. About 70 employees will...

Regulatory panel recommended. (energy regulation)
June 19, 1995... Texas Railroad Commission Chairman Barry Williamson last week recommended that a special committee be created to identify areas of federal energy regulation that could either be overseen by states or eliminated entirely. Delegates at the...

Houston firm wins Alberta tech transfer award. (Petrovalve International Inc.)
June 19, 1995... Petrovalve International Inc., the Canadian subsidiary of Flotek Industries Inc., Houston, recently was named winner of the Alberta Research Council's Technology Transfer Award. Petrovalve, based in Edmonton, Alta., and the ARC recently...

Seismic contractors must be vigilant with data .
June 19, 1995... Few oil and gas finders would argue that 3-D seismic technology is a sliver lining in the cloud that has hovered over the domestic E&P industry since the mid-eighties. But for those folks who acquire the 3-D data which, for the most...

Williston Basin horizontal drilling continues. (oil field, Saskatchewan)
June 19, 1995... Editor's note -- Though the highest pitch of horizontal drilling in the Williston Basin comes from the Canadian province of Saskatchewan, producers in Manitoba, North Dakota and Montana also have begun to show increased interest in drilling...

Amoco to expand New Mexico CO2 production. (Amoco Corp.)
June 26, 1995... Amoco Corp. last week announced it will develop additional carbon dioxide reserves in the Bravo Dome C[O.sub.2] unit it operates in northeastern New Mexico. The increased C[O.sub.2] production will be used to supply both Amoco enhanced oil...

Elk Hills sale okayed by Congress. (Elk Hills Naval Petroleum Reserve)
June 26, 1995... The House voted June 15 to allow the Energy Dept. to sell the Elk Hills Naval Petroleum Reserve in California. The proposal was part of the Defense Authorization Bill of 1996, which passed by a vote of 300-126. The sale, backed by the...

Glycol-water mud aids in drilling record. (Continental Netherlands Oil Co.)
June 26, 1995... Mud mixed with glycol and water recently proved to be a winning combination for Conoco Inc.'s Dutch subsidiary, which faced the challenge of drilling horizontally into a thin layer of shale to enhance recovery from a well at its Kotter offshore...

EIA predicts stable prices. (Energy Information Administration)
June 26, 1995... Despite rising demand, world oil prices should stay relatively stable during the next 15 years, says the Energy Information Administration. The EIA, the information arm of the U.S. Energy Dept., said crude oil prices should stay below $25/bbl....

Nigerian wells frac-packed. (oil wells)
June 26, 1995... To both stimulate increased oil flow and control sand production from poorly consolidated sandstone reservoirs, Chevron Nigeria recently used frac-packing in at least two wells in the Meren field. According to the Vienna-based OPEC Bulletin,...

Task force says federal research 'essential.' (oil and gas research and development)
June 26, 1995... While the Republican Congress persists in calling for the demise of the Energy Dept., the DOE's support of oil and gas research and development received the enthusiastic approval of a blue ribbon task force in a report released in Washington,...

Firm gets Guatemala acreage. (Consolidated Ramrod Gold Corp.)
June 26, 1995... The Government of Guatemala has signed a contract with Canadian company Consolidated Ramrod Gold Corp. for 100% interest to explore and develop an area of about 316,000 acres in the oil-rich Peten Basin. The contract area is located on a...

GOM horizontal finaled. (American Exploration Co.)
June 26, 1995... Houston-based American Exploration Co. recently placed a single horizontal well on production in Vermilion Block 115, offshore Louisiana. The well, drilled conventionally earlier this year on the basis of 3-D seismic data, tested gas in a...

BRAVO: new high-tech advances take bow. (Bright Sport Reflections Analysis for Amplitude Variations Offset)
June 26, 1995... High-tech happenings that are spurring oil patch activity today can be credited increasingly to entrepreneurial folks in the business who recognize the rewards to be gained by recognizing a need and filling it. Look at Dallas-based BRAVO, aka...

Gullfaks flows billionth barrel. (North Sea oil field)
June 26, 1995... The Gullfaks field in the North Sea recently became the third Norwegian field to produce 1 billion bbls. Only the Statfjord and Ekofisk have produced more, says Statoil, the Norwegian national oil company. Production began from the Gullfaks...