Feature Articles

China’s COSL partners Twinza Oil for drilling in PNG

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Chinese offshore services provider China Oilfield Services Limited (COSL), a Chinese offshore services has won a contract to perform drilling operations in Papua New Guinea from Australian oil and gas company, Twinza Oil. COSL said the deal represented the first time it would be operating with Twinza Oil on a project and that it would use the COSLSeeker jack-up rig, which is scheduled to arrive at Papua New Guinea in late August. The COSLSeeker will be deployed to PNG after completing...

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Japan-Russia exploration deal irks US

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The United States, according to a report in Bloomberg, is “irritated” by a signed offshore exploration cooperation agreement between Rosneft and a consortium of Japanese companies. Citing sources familiar with the issue, Bloomberg said the US believes that Japan, as part of the Group of Seven Allies, should not be working against sanctions imposed in 2014 on the Russian oil and gas industry in response to the Soviet’s annexation of Crimea. The Group of Seven Allies, known as G7,...

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US offers 76 million acres in new Gulf of Mexico lease sale

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United States Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke said his department would offer 75.9 million acres offshore Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida for oil and gas exploration and development. The lease sale, scheduled for August 16, will include all available unleased areas in federal waters of the Gulf of Mexico and provide a reduced royalty rate for shallow water leases to encourage exploration and production under current market conditions, the Department of the...

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Phillip Playford’s life is honoured and celebrated

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IT was with much sadness that PESA learned of the passing of Dr Phillip Playford AM at the age of 85 after a long battle with cancer. PESA President Toby Colson and Australia Geoscience Council President Bill Shaw both paid tribute to Dr Playford, a luminary of the geological profession, award-winning author and a remarkable man who even discovered a shipwreck, the Zuytdorp, which was the first Dutch ship to be found and identified in Western Australia. His book about the wreck, Carpet of...

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Tillerson sometimes longs for oilman life

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US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson picked up an industry award at the World Petroleum Congress in Istanbul, where he told delegates that he often missed his former life as an oilman. The Former ExxonMobil boss received the Dewhurst Award for his contribution to the oil and gas industry and told the conference that his expected retirement to spend fishing in the mountains had taken a dramatic turn since he was appointed the United States’ top diplomat. "It did not quite work out that...

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Timor-Leste champions ‘world-class’ resources

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Timor-Leste’s national oil company, Timor Gap, has claimed that the country’s offshore areas could hold “world-class” oil and gas resources.   This follows stimulating interpretation of the 2016 Crocodile seismic survey carried out by BGP Prospector, a 12 streamer seismic vessel over the PSC TL-SO-15-01 block.   The PSC block is located approximately 50km southeast of Timor’s island eastern tip, within exclusive Timor-Leste maritime borders, midway between Timor and the...

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BassGas MLE arrives early and under budget

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Origin Energy announced that the final phase of the mid-life enhancement (MLE) project at BassGas offshore Tasmania – entailing installation and successful commissioning of compressor and condensate pumping unit at the Yolla-A platform - has been completed ahead of schedule and under budget. This follows the drilling and completion of, and gas sales from the final two development wells, Yolla-5 and Yolla-6, in 2015. Gas, condensate and LPG from the Yolla fields is transported by...

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APPEA wants GST gas incentives

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The Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association (APPEA) is urging that the way GST revenues are shared is changed in order to incentivise states and territories to develop their own natural gas. The Productivity Commission is currently investigating the principle of horizontal fiscal equalisation, which underpins the distribution of GST revenue to state and territory governments. APPEA Director Matthew Doman said the current system disadvantaged jurisdictions that...

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Oil struggles to sail out of the doldrums

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The price of crude oil climbed for a seventh straight session on Friday, representing the longest bull run since April, albeit with the commodity sailing precariously close to its worst first half-year performance in 19-years. In spite of an OPEC deal to curb production brokered earlier this year, oversupply concerns have slugged Brent crude by 16% since January – three per cent worse than the first half-year slump in 1998. At the time of going to press Brent was trading at US$48.72...

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Katalyst announces well data coup

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Katalyst Data Management in the United States has announced today that it signed its first major well data project.  The well data project is essentially a “paper to digits” project involving the scanning and classification of physical well files associated with over 20,000 wells in the US Lower 48. This marks the first major well data project for Katalyst, who began providing geological data management solutions in 2016 after nearly 30 years focusing primarily on seismic data...

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