TPT November 2008

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Oil & Gas News
65 November 2008 ›
■ Royal Dutch Shell on 11 September announced that the Shell-
operated Perdido Regional Development Spar had arrived in the
ultra-deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico and was being secured
to the seafloor in about 8,000ft of water. An element of Shell’s
most ambitious deepwater offshore oil and gas development
ever, Perdido will be the world’s deepest oil development,
with the deepest drilling and production platform and subsea
well anywhere. It is slated for start-up towards the end of the
decade, with production estimated at up to 130,000 barrels of
oil equivalent per day.
The massive steel spar, which on installation will be nearly
as tall as the Eiffel Tower and weigh as much as 10,000 cars,
was constructed in Pori, Finland, and shipped 8,200 miles to
Ingleside, Texas. Perdido will be secured in place by nine
chain-and-polyester rope mooring lines, spanning an area of
the seafloor roughly the size of downtown Houston. Shell, the
35 per cent shareholder, is operator of the Perdido Regional
Development Spar on behalf of partners BP, of Britain (27.5 per
cent), and Chevron, of the US (37.5 per cent).
■ In other news of Royal Dutch Shell, its wholly owned subsidiary
Shell Canada Ltd on 19 August announced having gained
approval for its offer to purchase all of the outstanding common
shares of Duvernay Oil Corp, also Canadian. Duvernay’s
principal activities are exploration, acquisition, development
and production of, with natural gas and crude oil operations
in northwest Alberta and northeastern British Columbia. In
approving the acquisition by Shell, the Minister of Industry
determined that the transaction is likely to be of ‘net benefit to
Canada’ for purposes of the Investment Canada Act.
■ Hurricane Ike and its predecessor Gustav, which struck
Louisiana, took less of a toll of the US this year than their
counterparts of 2005, Katrina and Rita. But the effect on the oil
and gas industry was severe enough. Most of the oil and gas
platforms in the Gulf of Mexico had been out of commission for
two weeks before Ike made landfall in Texas on 13 September,
starting as Gustav made its way into the Gulf in late August.
About half of the 26 refineries in Texas either closed or curtailed
production; and, after Ike, it would be at least a week before the
cluster of refineries around Houston could resume operations.
Refiners have yet to estimate the full cost of the two hurricanes.
Between them, the big storms interrupted about 97 per cent
of oil production and 93 per cent of natural gas production in
the Gulf. The region – with some 3,000 offshore oil and gas
platforms and 22,000 miles of pipelines in the direct path of
tropical hurricanes – accounts for about 25 per cent of the oil
and 15 per cent of the natural gas produced in the US.
■ Total Exploration & Production Nederland BV on 10 September
announced first production from the K5F field of its gas develop-
ment project in a block of the Dutch Continental Shelf northwest
of the Dutch coast. Yield was reported at approximately 45
million cubic feet of gas per day, with a step-up to 90 million
cfpd expected within months. K5F is believed to be the first
project ever to be operated by means of all-electrically activated
subsea technology (‘Christmas trees’) instead of with standard
hydraulic equipment. The innovation is said to promise reliability
and environmental benefits as well as enhanced capability in
deep water, including the frontier areas of the North Sea in
which Total is active. Total is operator of the K5F field in an all-
Dutch partnership with Dyas, Goal Petroleum, and Lundin.