pup55 wrote:. There is a giant, ready customer just to their north, with insatiable demand. The stuff (especially weed) grows readily in their rich soil, under the prevailing weather conditions, and transportation is relatively simple, and best of all, the ruling elite that is involved in the other three are already deeply entrenched in the fourth.
There is the minor issue that it's illegal in the US, but the supply chain is already well developed, no problem to get the stuff cheaply in anyplace in the US.
So let the fun begin.
its hard to figure how this will generate all that much money for Mexico.
The US is set to require oil companies to plug 3,500 non-producing Gulf of Mexico oil wells in an effort to prevent future leaks, officials say.
The interior department will also require companies to dismantle 650 unused oil and gas platforms.
Some installations have sat idle for decades without inspection for leaks.
....
In an order issued on Wednesday, the interior department said wells that had not been used in the past five years for exploration or oil production must be plugged and their pipelines and rig structures dismantled.
"As infrastructure continues to age, the risk of damage increases," said Michael Bromwich, director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, in a statement.
A small offshore oil platform caught fire in shallow water near the coast of Louisiana on Friday and a sheen was seen in the sea after workers were evacuated, officials said.
All 28 workers aboard were taken from the platform, located about 20 miles (32 km) east of the boot tip of Louisiana, onto a nearby supply vessel and taken ashore. No one was hurt, according to the U.S. Coast Guard.
Privately-held Texas Petroleum Investment Co, which owns and operates the platform, shut off production. A company spokesman said the platform can produce up to 2,200 barrels per day of crude oil from up to 60 wells.
The platform is tiny by Gulf of Mexico standards, where big platforms have capacity of up to 250,000 bpd.
The fire was still burning at midday Friday with response vessels on site. It was unclear how much oil had leaked, but the Coast Guard said it had seen a 1.4 nautical mile "rainbow sheen" drifting southwest of the platform.
The platform can store up to 4,000 barrels of crude, but those tanks held just 100 to 120 barrels at the time of the fire, the company said.
The Coast Guard initially said 4,000 barrels of crude were aboard the platform, but later revised that estimate to 130 barrels, closer to the company's number.
Texas Petroleum said no repairs or maintenance work were under way when the fire ignited.
The platform, in Breton Sound Block 21, is in state waters overseen by the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources.
Texas Petroleum Investment Co is a Houston-based, private exploration and production company with operations along the Gulf coast of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, according to its LinkedIn profile.
The company was founded in 1989 and operates more than 2,000 producing wells, it said.
Chevron Corporation (NYSE: CVX) today announced the successful appraisal of the Anchor discovery in the Lower Tertiary Wilcox Trend.
“The positive results of our appraisal work at Anchor indicate a significant discovery of potentially hub class scale.” said Jay Johnson, executive vice president Upstream, Chevron Corporation.
The original Anchor discovery well, located in Green Canyon Block 807, approximately 140 miles (225 km) off the coast of Louisiana in 5,180 feet of water (1,579 m), was drilled in late 2014 to a depth of 33,750 feet (10,287 m) and it encountered 690 feet (210 m) of net oil pay.
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Chevron Corporation (NYSE: CVX) announced today that it successfully completed a record setting production test on the Jack #2 well at Walker Ridge Block 758 in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico. The Jack well was completed and tested in 7,000 feet of water, and more than 20,000 feet under the sea floor, breaking Chevron's 2004 Tahiti well test record as the deepest successful well test in the Gulf of Mexico. The Jack #2 well was drilled to a total depth of 28,175 feet.
The test was conducted during the second quarter of 2006 and was designed to evaluate a portion of the total pay interval. During the test, the well sustained a flow rate of more that 6,000 barrels of crude oil per day with the test representing approximately 40 percent of the total net pay measured in the Jack #2 well. Chevron and its co-owners plan to drill an additional appraisal well in 2007.
NEW ORLEANS, March 24 (UPI) -- A lack of interest in new oil and gas acreage for sale in the U.S. waters of the Gulf of Mexico may be indicative of a weak energy market, the government said.
The U.S. government said there were $156 million in high bids generated for the 128 parcels on the auction block in the Gulf of Mexico.
"The sum of all bids received totaled $179,172,819," the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management said in a statement. "No bids were received in the Eastern planning area [of the Gulf of Mexico]."
Advocacy groups protested the lease sale held in downtown New Orleans, saying it was time for U.S. energy policies to focus more on clean energy alternatives. The government last week removed drilling consideration for the Atlantic Ocean, where some of the first commercial offshore wind farms are slated for development.
BOEM Director Abigail Ross Hopper said some of the lackluster interest in the new acreage may be a reflection of weakness in energy markets.
"The decline in oil prices and low natural gas prices obviously affect industry's short-term investment decisions," she said in a statement.
Crude oil prices are down 25 percent from this time last year and 62 percent below this date in 2014. That's led energy companies to trim spending on exploration and production in an effort to preserve a competitive edge during the market downturn.
Randall Luthi, president of the National Ocean Industries Association, said those companies that did submit bids were making a statement about the resilience of the oil and gas potential in the Gulf of Mexico.
"Even though the Eastern Gulf sale was a non-starter, and the Central Gulf sale saw the lowest industry interest in the history of such sales, the companies that stepped up and submitted bids demonstrated their commitment to staying in U.S. waters and producing home grown energy, despite a tough operating environment," he said in a statement.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates output from the Gulf of Mexico will account for about 21 percent of total U.S. crude oil production by next year.
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
ROCKMAN wrote:T - One should understand that interest in the GOM shelf area (above 600' water depth) peaked decades ago. For the last20+ years the focus has been heavily on the Deep Water leases. I don't have time now but if you look at the number of wells drilled on the shelf when oil prices were high you would see a similar lack of enthusiasm as was seen in this latest lease sale. As a consultant in the last 15 years the Rockman has worked on exactly ONE SHELF WELL but has worked on many Deep Water GOM and west coast Africa wells..
How does Pensacola, Alabama sound? Well, get used to hearing it. The Pensacola City Council and the Escambia County Commission have passed a joint resolution asking that Mobile and the state of Alabama annex the county and its largest city.
"Everything is brighter in Alabama," Mayor John Fogg tells his fellow elected officials. "Mobile is bursting at its seams. Northrup Grumman has been awarded a $40- billion contract to build the new Air Force Refueling Tanker. They already have ThyssenKrupp Steel Mill, Air Bus, a NASCAR track, and a new regional cancer center coming to South Alabama, not to mention all the vendors and sub-contracting companies which attach themselves to all of these industries."
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
U.S. shale is the lowest cost option for new oil production and is likely to be more competitive than conventional offshore drilling, according to a new report from Wood Mackenzie.
The U.S. shale industry has weathered the oil price downturn, tweaking drilling practices and cutting costs in order to stay in business. A new report from Wood Mackenzie finds that the industry is proving to be resilient and flexible in the face of the worst oil market crisis in three decades.
The report concludes that U.S. shale companies have managed to cut costs by as much as 40 percent since 2014. Much of that comes from lower costs from equipment suppliers and oilfield services firms. But it also comes from improved productivity from the average shale well. Instead of drilling anywhere and everywhere, U.S. shale companies are getting better at finding the “sweet spots.”
Intriguingly, the report finds that conventional oil drillers have not had as much success in reducing costs. Non-shale drilling projects only achieved cost reductions on the order of 10 to 12 percent, Wood Mackenzie found. That means that a lot of large oil projects are not economical with oil prices at $60 per barrel.
By comparison, the Eagle Ford has an average breakeven price of $48 per barrel for Brent, and the Wolfcamp in the Permian Basin has a breakeven price of just $39 per barrel.
In other words, America’s shale industry is now more competitive than places like the North Sea, West Africa or other deepwater drilling areas, places that have seen high levels of interest and investment for a much longer period of time. “There are more opportunities to invest in the U.S., and that’s where the investment will take place,” Simon Flowers of Wood Mackenzie said.
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
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