Improved Recovery Week articles from March 1996

Improved Recovery Week archives from March 1996

Incentives to figure big in Alaska heavy oil development.
March 4, 1996... Alaska's sizable heavy oil reserves are the focal point of a lot of attention these days, and producers active on the North Slope are poised to develop it while production from giant conventional oil fields continues to taper off, even with major...

No gas flaring off Norway cuts costs. (Statoil A/S's use of novel technology to recycle previously-flared gas)
March 4, 1996... Norway's Statoil has used novel technology to recycle previously-flared gas as part of an offshore cost-cutting program. The state-owned company reported its overall costs for last year were expected to be down to about US$1.1 billion from more...

Single supplier pact signed. (Kongsberg Offshore A/S to provide all subsea systems needed for Statoil A/S projects)
March 4, 1996... Under a deal worth more than US$450 million, Norway's Kongsberg Offshore will provide all subsea systems needed in the next five years for projects undertaken by Statoil, the country's state oil company. The work could involve supplying up to...

Deepwater royalty talk set. (request for comments from the oil industry on deepwater drilling royalty holiday legislation)
March 4, 1996... Oil and gas producers and other interested groups are being asked to submit comments this month on the deepwater drilling royalty holiday legislation that passed Congress last year. The oral or written comments on the rule will be accepted at a...

Airborne sensing oil, minerals for Kazakhstan. (aircraft-borne sensors to detect oil and mineral deposits)
March 4, 1996... A U.S. government plan to use aircraft-borne sensors to help find oil and mineral deposits in resource-rich Kazakhstan could cut exploration companies' costs by half worldwide, say Energy Dept. officials. This will be the first time that remote...

Columbia Gas sells E&P unit. (Columbia Gas System Inc. to sell Columbia Gas Development Corp. unit to Hunt Petroleum Corp.)
March 4, 1996... Columbia Gas System Inc. said last week it has agreed to sell its Houston-based Columbia Gas Development Corp. unit to Hunt Petroleum Corp., a privately-held exploration and production concern based in Dallas, for some $200 million. Columbia...

Chesapeake scores with first half of 'Cajun Chalk' well. (Chesapeake Energy Corp.; Austin Chalk well in Louisiana)
March 11, 1996... With the significant completion of one horizontal leg of a deep, dual-lateral Austin Chalk well in Louisiana last week, Chesapeake Energy Corp. has provided even more proof that the eastward extension of the Chalk into that area ultimately may...

Utah cuts EOR taxes. (enhanced oil recovery)
March 11, 1996... Oil and gas interests hope an EOR tax break voted by the state legislature will be a shot in the arm for the ailing industry in Utah. Effective Jan. 1 of this year, a 50% reduction in severance tax will be extended to increased production from...

BP opts for WAG injection in N. Sea field. (BP Exploration Inc.'s water-alternating-gas project in the North Sea)
March 11, 1996... Faced with losing gas export facilities, BP Exploration Ltd. has opted for a water-alternating-gas (WAG) project to make best use of resources at its Ula oil field in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea. Previously, gas content from the field...

NSW coalgas potential told. (New South Wales, Australia)
March 11, 1996... The race to develop coalbed methane production all across Australia continues to pick up, this time in New South Wales. In recent years, most of the coalbed methane exploration activity has taken place in neighboring Queensland state. The...

BP drills slim at Cusiana. (British Petroleum Company PLC; Colombia)
March 11, 1996... Slimmer wells have meant huge improvements in productivity for British Petroleum crews developing the Cusiana field in Colombia. According to drilling manager Mike Mossman, a well that used to take 300 days can be completed as a slim-line well...

Incentives mulled for gas wells on public lands. (Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management)
March 11, 1996... The Interior Dept.'s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is seeking comments from interested parties on proposed rules giving producers a possible break for production in marginal gas wells on public lands. The BLM plan could resemble the plan...

Revenues down, GRI cuts budget, staff. (Gas Research Institute)
March 11, 1996... Gas Research Institute, pointing to major discounting within the gas industry that cut the level of revenues it anticipated to receive, has reduced its 1996 budget by about $45 million and will lay off 25-35 employees by the end of this quarter....

CNPC ups oilfield com-links. (China National Petroleum Corp.)
March 11, 1996... The China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC) has contracted ComStream Corp., San Diego, Calif., to provide $3.1 million to expand satellite-based communications to remote oil fields in the Peoples' Republic of China (PRC). The contract will up...

Dresser alter unit's name. (Dresser Industries Inc. changed name of Dresser Oilfield Services to Dresser Drilling and Production Operations)
March 11, 1996... Dresser Industries, Inc., Dallas, is changing the name of its upstream petroleum services business from Dresser Oilfield Services to Dresser Drilling and Production Operations. James L. Bryan, Dresser senior vice president for the drilling and...

Morgan kicks off heavy oil thermal pilots. (Morgan Hydrocarbons Inc.)
March 11, 1996... Calgary-based Morgan Hydrocarbons Inc. posted a 33% revenue jump and came up with positive net income in 1995, and the company is concentrating this year on both light oil exploration and heavy oil production in southwestern Saskatchewan....

4-D technology still in the maturing process. (seismic program for oil reservoir management)
March 11, 1996... There's a lot of talk today about 4-D seismic as the ultimate tool for reservoir management. But it will take probably 10 more years of pilot projects to prove its economic feasibility, say experts. A 4-D seismic program is simply time-lapse...

AOSIS reports on IOR, heavy oil. (Alberta Department of Energy, Oil Sands Information Services)
March 11, 1996... The Alberta Dept. of Energy, Oil Sands Information Services makes the following IOR and heavy oil research reports and technical papers available to interested parties. Copies may be ordered by calling AOSIS in Edmonton at 403-427-8382 (fax:...

IOR patent. (L.G. Jones of Mobil Oil Corp.)
March 11, 1996... The following reports on improved oil and gas recovery processes and tools are available from the National Technical Information Service, 5285 Port Royal Rd., Springfield, Va. 22161. Call 703-487-4650 (fax 703-321-8547) for details and prices....

Livermore lab offers production data on Internet. (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's Data Infrastructure Project)
March 11, 1996... The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's Data Infrastructure Project has developed a prototype application on the Internet to allow individuals to view and download oil and gas production data from California and 14 other states. According...

FINA, SWEPI join for Permian Basin carbon dioxide flood. (FINA Inc.; Shell Western E and P Inc.)
March 18, 1996... Though in the past they've mounted carbon dioxide floods in the Permian Basin of Texas and New Mexico - since abandoned - Dallas-based FINA, Inc. is now totally committed to C[O.sub.2] injection there, with three separate floods planned between...

Producer sells Sect. 29 wells. (Belden and Blake Energy Co.)
March 18, 1996... Turning future tax incentives to hard cash now is the reason cited by Belden & Blake Corp. for its recent sale to MCN Investment Corp. of gas-producing properties in Otsego County, Mich. The properties all qualify for the Sect. 29...

UPR/Amoco pact targets central La. Chalk. (Union Pacific Resources Co.; Amoco Corp.; Louisiana)
March 18, 1996... On the heels of news about successful Austin Chalk horizontal drilling activity in western Louisiana by a number of producing companies (IRW, 3-11), Union Pacific Resources Group Inc. (UPR) last week said it will develop Chalk oil and gas - this...

UNITAR resource survey reprised. (United Nations Institute for Training and Research)
March 18, 1996... The UNITAR Centre for Heavy Crude and Tar Sands, Edmonton, Alberta, is planning to update - for the first time in a decade - its worldwide survey of heavy oil and tar sands deposits. The survey, which lists resource and production statistics...

Powder River coalgas curbed. (Powder River Basin)
March 18, 1996... The Interior Dept.'s Bureau of Land Management has slowed development of coalbed methane on public lands in the Powder River Basin until it figures out long-term impact on the water table. The suspension has affected only three or four leases,...

BP plans first dual-lateral at Foinaven. (British Petroleum Company PLC)
March 18, 1996... British Petroleum Ltd. aims to improve productivity by drilling its first dual-lateral well from a semisubmersible rig at the Foinaven field, which is under development west of Shetland. The move should also save costs in subsea infrastructure...

Cost awareness redirects DOE demos. (US Department of Energy)
March 18, 1996... When federal money is applied to oil field pilot programs whose costs are matched by private industry partners, the tendency by some might be to use up the money, whatever the outcome. But not necessarily. The Energy Dept.'s Reservoir Class...

Joint geochemistry unit opens.
March 18, 1996... The geochemistry research unit funded by Texaco Inc. at the Houston Advanced Research Center (HARC) has opened its doors at HARC's facility in The Woodlands, Texas. The [6,000[feet].sup.2] facility is part of the Texaco-HARC joint venture in...

3-D leads to gas producers.
March 18, 1996... Three shallow producers drilled recently by Magnum Petroleum Inc., Irving, Texas, have the company lauding the effectiveness of 3-D seismic technology in locating stratigraphically trapped gas from the Frio formation in Goliad County, Texas....

3-D seismic spurred Cotton Valley play. (three-dimensional seismic prospecting)
March 18, 1996... Marathon Oil Co. used 3-D seismic to zero-in on a Cotton Valley natural gas play in East Texas that had eluded explorationists for nearly a decade. That area in Leon, Freestone and Robertson counties is now Marathon's hottest land exploration...

IOR patent. (improved oil recovery)
March 18, 1996... G. Ejiogu, P.R. Sander and W.J. McCaffrey have patented a thermal recovery process for use in a reservoir containing a number of literally separated, yet generally vertical wells. These wells have been used for cyclic steam stimulation and are...

Amoco's cheap, short-radius drilling system getting notice. (Amoco Production Co.)
March 25, 1996... It's an older concept, and it's taken five years to perfect, but Amoco Production Co.'s low-cost, short-radius horizontal drilling setup is taking hold, even among fellow majors. Particularly so, now that the company has successfully tested the...

PTTC: producers don't see new E&P tech. (Petroleum Technology Transfer Council)
March 25, 1996... Oil and gas producers in general - and independents in particular - are not seeing current and emerging petroleum E&P technologies, says a new report from the Petroleum Technology Transfer Council in Washington, D.C. The report, entitled...

Amoco-Shell picks Houston.
March 25, 1996... The still unnamed Shell-Amoco Permian Basin limited partnership has decided on Houston as its headquarters location. Though Houston is hundreds of miles to the south, both companies feel the technical expertise to be concentrated on joint-asset...

Alaska coalgas test mulled.
March 25, 1996... Alaska's Dept. of Natural Resources has asked the state legislature for initial funding of $450,000 to select a small community for a pilot project to develop coalbed methane as an alternative to diesel fuel, which is most often used to run...

Poly injection ups gas flow. (polymer solution injection)
March 25, 1996... Research supported by the European Union's THERMIE program has shown significant improvements in gas recovery by using polymers to inhibit water flow from reservoirs containing aquifers. The technique, which involves injecting polymer solution...

N. Sea logging pact set. (North Sea; slickline/wireline logging and equipment maintenance contract)
March 25, 1996... Houston-based Western Atlas Logging Services (WALS), along with a partner, Maritime Well Service, has signed a five-year, $24 million contract for slickline/wireline logging and equipment maintenance for the Ekofisk field in the Norwegian Sector...

Flow delayed, Phillips to reinject at J-Block. (Phillips Petroleum Co.)
March 25, 1996... An $82 million gas reinjection project has been approved in the U.K. North Sea for a Phillips Petroleum Co. unit and its partners. While the gas, produced from the Judy-Joanne fields (J-Block) in the British Sector, will eventually be produced,...

Benton sale set April 30; Uracoa hiked. (Benton Oil & Gas Co.)
March 25, 1996... The sale by Benton Oil & Gas Co. of its Louisiana subsidiary to Shell Offshore Inc. for $35.4 million is scheduled to be completed by April 30, says the Carpinteria, Calif.-based producer. The company agreed in January to sell all shares of...

Association helps keep seismic safeguards. (International Association of Geophysical Contractors)(Geophysics update)
March 25, 1996... The International Assn. of Geophysical Contractors (IAGC), which hosted it 25th annual meeting last week (March 19), has witnessed massive changes in the technology and operations of the industry it serves. But it still pursues the basic goals...

IOR patent. (improved oil and gas recovery; patent no. 5,417,287)
March 25, 1996... K.W. Smith and L.J. Persinski of Clearwater, Inc. have patented an invention related to improved hydrocarbon gels for use in fracturing of producing formations. In particular, it relates to the use of a defined class of gelling agents for...