Oil Spill Response Limited (OSRL) has reached another important milestone in the development of its subsea capping and containment response capabilities – successfully completing an air transport test flight of a fully assembled subsea capping stack for the first time. OSRL said the newly demonstrated capability has the potential to significantly reduce capping stack mobilisation times, and represents the realisation of a key objective for the company and all those involved in its Subsea Well Intervention Services (SWIS).
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Bridgeport Energy completes three-month refurbishment of self-owned rig
Bridgeport Energy has announced that its BDR-1 rig, which is capable of drilling to depths of up to 2,500m, commenced the first of five oil development wells on 31 August. The two-month campaign was started in the Surat Basin on the Moonie field with Moonie-46, which will be follow by Moonie-45. Thereafter the rig will move to the Cooper Basin where it will drill three development wells on the Utopia field. Bridgeport said the rig will then go back into service mode to continue with infield workover activities planned for the balance of the year at Bridgeport’s producing fields.
Terrex appoints new CEO
Terrex Seismic has announced the appointment of Dave Stegemann as its new CEO, bringing over selected senior management from Geokinetics Australia. Dave Stegemann is a highly regarded industry leader with 25 years of experience in the global seismic exploration industry, including five years as Managing Director of Geokinetics Australia before its assets were recently acquired by US-based SAExploration. Terrex said Stegemann’s appointment comes as the company prepares to launch a second seismic crew in the coming months with a “significant new investment into state-of-the-art autonomous SmartSolo nodes”.
ExxonMobil drilling two exploration wells in Gippsland Basin
ExxonMobil has commenced an offshore exploration drilling program in the Gippsland Basin in the search for new sources of gas supplies. ExxonMobil said that it was drilling two exploration wells, Baldfish and Hairtail, on the VIC/P70 block, located approximately 90km off the East Gippsland Victorian coast, in which Exxon’s Australian subsidiary Esso Deepwater Gippsland holds a 100 percent interest. The operation is expected to take several months and the wells are being drilled by Diamond Offshore’s Ocean Monarch semi-submersible drilling rig.
Woodside targeting Senegalese oilfield production by 2022
Woodside, is aiming to commercialise Senegal’s first ever oilfield by 2022, Mr Jamie Stewart, Woodside’s Business Integration Manager for the Senegal Field Development, told the Paydirt 2018 Africa Down Under mining conference in Perth last week. In an update on the SNE Development – Phase 1, Mr Stewart said a number of important items have already been ticked off in the lead-up to a Final Investment Decision (FID) in 2019 for the world-scale project, with a number of key decisions on the horizon.
CGG Develops a Centre for Advanced Imaging for PETRONAS Carigali Sdn Bhd
CGG and PETRONAS Carigali, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Petroliam Nasional Berhad (PETRONAS), have agreed on collaboration to provide access to CGG’s latest technology and expertise in high-end seismic and multi-physics imaging and reservoir characterization, the Paris-based geoscience company announced. CGG said it had received a five-year contract by PETRONAS Carigali to develop a Centre for Advanced Imaging (CAI) to be operated by PETRONAS Carigali at its headquarters in the landmark PETRONAS Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Teen girl bags gold medal for Australia at Earth Science world games
Rebecca Whittle, a Year 11 student from Abbotsleigh high school in Sydney, has won a gold medal at the International Earth Science Olympiad in Thailand, securing Australia’s best gold medal performance at the UNESCO-sanctioned International Science Olympiads since 2009. Rebecca competed against more than 140 students from 38 countries to win gold, finishing in the top 10 per cent of Earth Science students in the world. Her medal is the second gold for Australia at this year’s International Science Olympiads, following a gold-medal performance by Sydney Grammar School student Hugo McCahon-Boersma at the International Physics Olympiad in July.
FAR finalises well location for exploration program in Gambia
FAR Limited has selected its final well location for the upcoming Samo-1 well in its Gambian exploration programme. This follows reprocessing and interpretation of 3D seismic data, detailed mapping of the Samo Prospect and detailed well engineering, FAR announced recently. The Samo Prospect lies immediately to the south and along trend from the giant SNE oil field in Senegal – a trend which has so far seen nine successful exploration and appraisal wells (at 100% success rate). The Samo-1 well will be located in approximately 1,017m water depth and 112km offshore Gambia in the highly prospective Mauritania-SenegalGuinea-Bissau-Conakry Basin.
APPEA: New Ministers but same energy policy mountains to climb
The Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association (APPEA) has congratulated Australia’s new Minister for Energy, the Hon Angus Taylor and also welcomed the reappointment of Senator Matt Canavan as Minister for Resources and Northern Australia. “APPEA looks forward to working with Mr Taylor. He has been given a huge policy challenge,” APPEA Chief Executive Dr Malcolm Roberts said. “Mr Taylor’s extensive commercial understanding will be critical in finding solutions to the competing arms of containing prices, maintaining reliable supply and attracting new investment to the energy sector. Australia’s oil and gas industry welcomes the opportunity to work with the Minister.
Gazprom will be the big spenders on global oil and gas projects to 2025
Gazprom, China Petrochemical Corp (Sinopec) and Royal Dutch Shell are predicted to be the big global spenders on planned and announced projects among oil and gas companies. That is according to data and analytics company, GlobalData, which revealed that Gazprom tops the list with estimated capital expenditure of US$160bn expected to be spent on 84 oil and gas projects globally to 2025. Sinopec and Royal Dutch Shell follow with US$87bn (74 projects) and US$86bn (91 projects) respectively.