[shortonoil]

According to Wood Mackenzie in takes 71 days in the GOM to drill the average deep water well. That is about 6 wells per year if everything goes all right, which probably doesn’t happen that often. Since deep water wells come up dry more often than shallow water ones, maybe 4 of those wells might produce. With 25 ships available in ‘09, that is at best a 100 extra producing wells per year.

How do the presidential candidates propose to increase US production and reduce foreign oil dependency by drilling in deep water off the continental coast. It would require 100’s of ships (at several $100 million a shot) to have any kind of significant impact.

Sounds like more political malarkey to me!

[TheDude]

How do the presidential candidates propose to increase US production and reduce foreign oil dependency by drilling in deep water off the continental coast. It would require 100’s of ships (at several $100 million a shot) to have any kind of significant impact.

Sounds like more political malarkey to me!

Darn tootin'. Thanks for those estimates, I'm hitting the books about offshore now. Found a TOD piece: The Oil Drum | Deep Ocean Energy Resources -- A Critical Analysis. Interesting comment from the sadly recently deceased oilmanbob:

I'm in El Paso right now and can't look the apropriate references up, But J. Ben Carsey wrote an article for the AAPG Bulletin about deep structures in the Gulf of Mexico and Michael Halibouty published a map of the deep water salt domes in the pocket maps of his 2nd edition of Saltdomes of the Gulf Coast and Mexico. If someone could locate and post these we might have a little idea of the number of deepwater structures out there. Most, if not all, of the oil and gas fields in the Gulf are associated with salt domes.
I, personally, feel that there is a lot of oil and gas out there, plus in deeper depths of the salt domes in shallower water. But, it will only slow our decline in oil in the US. Natural gas is a different matter. The Gulf is gas-prone,as are wells more than 10,000 ft subsurface anywhere. But the deepwater stuff will have to be completed and operated by robotics and that isn't going to be cheap or easy.

I want to start aggregating all the relevant technical info on subjects like this that I can find, divorced from the inevitable sidetracks, like what is happening with our offshore thread - much of it done by Monte, the OP. Dieoff somewhere else, guys!

Good god, you'll love this bit of abiotic fume-sniffing short: linked to from our 2005 thread on Brazil's giant offshore oil discoveries, courtesy the thoroughly brain-addled Jeromi Corsi:

Moreover, Thunder Horse also defies "fossil-fuel" oil theorists who like to argue that oil comes from dead dinosaurs and decaying ancient forests. With the water depth of nearly 2 miles, Thunder Horse is truly an ultra-deep project. From the floor of the Gulf, BP has drilled down another 6 miles to hit oil. What evidence is there that any ancient dinosaur ever walked on land that is now 8 miles down?

Stick to the NWO or whatever you're about, Jeromi.

Thunder Horse in the Gulf

[Homesteader]

This a good thread, thanks Dude.

Mea culpa for driving the Offshore Drilling thread into the abyss.

[shortonoil]

The Dude said:

Interesting comment from the sadly recently deceased oilmanbob

This is the first I have heard of his death. It is very sad, he was a sharp and competent contributor to our understanding of PO; always a gentleman and he will be missed!

Good god, you'll love this bit of abiotic fume-sniffing short:

Jupiter’s moon, Titan, is covered in an ocean of methane; a hydrocarbon. Where did it come from? As far as we know production of methane in any significant quantity is almost exclusively a biological process. So let's give the adiotic fumed brain proponents the benefit of the doubt. That is, hydrocarbons do not come from, as they say, deno bones.

The earth has 4.3 trillion barrels of oil reserves that have been produced, as they content continuously, for the last 60 million years. Some simple figures gives us a world wide adiotic production of 72,000 barrels per year.

WOW, we are saved!!

Dude, it is a simple as this: “There is no substitute for stupidity”.

[Starvid]

Who build these rigs? Korean shipyards?

[shortonoil]

Starvid said:

Who build these rigs? Korean shipyards?

Also in Korea, Hyundai is building a drillship for Global Sante Fe using Rolls-Royce thrusters for propulsion and dynamic positioning. This will be an upgraded version of the existing C R Luigs and Jack Ryan vessels.

Rolls-Royce

I read somewhere that this little honey can be in YOUR garage for a mere $800 million!


There is also another thread here on all the oil Brazil is finding in deep water. Where are the drill-ships going to come from to develop all this oil, if it really is there. At $800 million a shot, I hope that the Brazilian treasury is in really good shape.

[Fiddlerdave]

How do the presidential candidates propose to increase US production and reduce foreign oil dependency by drilling in deep water off the continental coast. It would require 100’s of ships (at several $100 million a shot) to have any kind of significant impact.

Sshhhh! Don't let the sheeple hear you, they get all confused with that kind of talk! They might start thinking oil won't be $50/bbl next year...

[frankthetank]

Some more...

Opening new areas in the Gulf of Mexico, Alaska and elsewhere to exploration and production, as President Bush proposed Wednesday, would exacerbate those challenges, analysts say.

"Unless we have some sort of severe recession and demand drops considerably, equipment vendors, service vendors and engineers and construction laborers are likely to remain in very short supply," said Candida Scott, a senior director of cost and technology at Cambridge Energy Research Associates, the Massachusetts-based consultancy.

However, Ms. Scott and others say, even if the long-standing ban were lifted immediately, it could be a couple of years and maybe longer before any marked activity would take place.

way to secure adequate engineering resources, the organization has said.

The supply of drilling rigs is extremely tight. ODS-Petrodata, which tracks the rig market, says every semisubmersible rig and drillship available in North America is in use.

In some cases, oil companies would have to prioritize projects. If an outfit were able to gain access to a field that looked to have long-term potential, it might shift resources from an older, maturing field, said Scott Mitchell, an analyst with research and consulting firm Wood Mackenzie.

http://www.redorbit.com/news/business/1 ... _industry/

[copious.abundance]

There is also another thread here on all the oil Brazil is finding in deep water. Where are the drill-ships going to come from to develop all this oil, if it really is there. At $800 million a shot, I hope that the Brazilian treasury is in really good shape.

Money doesn't seem to be their problem.

--> Petrobras to order $30b of drill ships <--

Petroleo Brasileiro, owner of the Western Hemisphere's largest oil discovery in three decades, plans to order 40 drilling ships and platforms worth about $30 billion for delivery by 2017.

--> Brazil launches US$5 billion program to build ships and oil rigs <--

State-run oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA, or Petrobras, will spend $5 billion to build 146 ships and plans to hire 40 deep-water drilling rigs and platforms, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva told shipbuilders in Niteroi, a harbor town near Rio de Janeiro's coast. Analysts said the additional equipment could cost an extra $15 billion.

In fact, Petrobras seems to be hogging most of the existing deepwater rigs these days. No wonder they've ordered a bunch more.
--> Petrobras Hires 80% of Deepwater Rigs, Inflates Rents <--

Petroleo Brasileiro SA, Brazil's state-controlled oil company, leased about 80 percent of the world's deepest-drilling offshore rigs to explore prospects including the Western Hemisphere's biggest discovery in decades.

Petrobras, as the Rio de Janeiro-based company is known, is hiring rigs that can drill in at least 3,000 meters (9,800 feet) of water, Chief Executive Officer Jose Sergio Gabrielli said in an interview last week. The world has 21 such vessels, according to Rigzone.com, which tracks the offshore drilling industry.

[shortonoil]

Simple back of the envelope calculation:

Let say the world’s oil fields are depleting by 3% per year (reasonable figure).

Deep water is now the most likely source of new replacement oil. If each new well produced 3000b/d it would take 850 new wells per year. At 4 successfully completed wells per year/ship it would 213 deep water drill-ships to do it.

Looks like we have a ship shortage to go along with our oil shortage.

[copious.abundance]

Deep water is now the most likely source of new replacement oil. If each new well produced 3000b/d it would take 850 new wells per year. At 4 successfully completed wells per year/ship it would 213 deep water drill-ships to do it.

75 of which are coming online between now and 2011.

[DantesPeak]

Money doesn't seem to be their problem.

That's a strange comment. A contract has to be paid for.

Despite increasing it's earnings, Petrobras had to use $6 billion of its own cash to get through 2007, plus borrowed $2 billion. It will be interesting to see just how a quasi-public company plans on borrowing hundreds of billion of $s before it earns much in the way of revenues from deep water drilling.

We are exposed to increases in prevailing market interest rates, which leaves us vulnerable to increased financing expenses.
In spite of marked improvements in our credit ratings, which have facilitated our access to fixed-interest long-term capital, a substantial portion of our total debt is represented by structured finance, export credits, trade financing and other similar financing methods the funding of which depends on floating rate instruments, and which for contractual, cost or other considerations cannot be prepaid. As of December 31, 2007, approximately 66%— U.S.$14,452 million of our total indebtedness—consisted of floating rate debt. In light of cost considerations and market analysis, we decided not to enter into derivative contracts or make other arrangements to hedge against the risk of an increase in interest rates. Accordingly, if market interest rates (principally LIBOR) rise, our financing expenses will increase, which could have an adverse effect on our results of operations and financial condition.

Petrobras SEC Filing

[copious.abundance]

Money doesn't seem to be their problem.

That's a strange comment. A contract has to be paid for.

Despite increasing it's earnings, Petrobras had to use $6 billion of its own cash to get through 2007, plus borrowed $2 billion. It will be interesting to see just how a quasi-public company plans on borrowing hundreds of billion of $s before it earns much in the way of revenues from deep water drilling.

Obviously the banks (or whoever) who will lend Petrobras the money for these things consider it to be a good investment.

[DantesPeak]

Money doesn't seem to be their problem.

That's a strange comment. A contract has to be paid for.

Despite increasing it's earnings, Petrobras had to use $6 billion of its own cash to get through 2007, plus borrowed $2 billion. It will be interesting to see just how a quasi-public company plans on borrowing hundreds of billion of $s before it earns much in the way of revenues from deep water drilling.

Obviously the banks (or whoever) who will lend Petrobras the money for these things consider it to be a good investment.

Petrobras debt mangement record has been horrendous. They lost $500 million in bad financial derivative bets in 2007 alone. They did so badly they gave up trying to forecast interest rates and now just accept whatever the current short term interest rate is.

[copious.abundance]

Obviously the banks (or whoever) who will lend Petrobras the money for these things consider it to be a good investment.

Let's do a little back-of-the-envelope calculation.

According to this article here, Petrobras expects to pump 500K bpd from Tupi by 2020.

Let's say the price of oil is around $100 then.

500,000 bpd x 365 days/year x $100/barrel = $18.25 billion in revenue just from one year's production from one field. That pays for 24 of those 40 new drilling ships. Maybe if you take into account interest on the loan it's only 20 of the 40. But then just 2 year's production from Tupi can pay for all 40 of them.

If I were a bank, I'd sure lend them the money.

[shortonoil]

If I were a bank, I'd sure lend them the money.

Do you work for Citigroup, Country Wide, or Bear Stearns by any chance?

[copious.abundance]

If I were a bank, I'd sure lend them the money.

Do you work for Citigroup, Country Wide, or Bear Stearns by any chance?

Nope. I do GIS for an Indian tribe.

[joewp]

If I were a bank, I'd sure lend them the money.

Do you work for Citigroup, Country Wide, or Bear Stearns by any chance?

Nope. I do GIS for an Indian tribe.

If that's true, you should really talk to them about how to live sustainably.

Hint: It doesn't involve sucking up the last remaining oil out of the ground and burning it up as fast as possible.

That you think the "solution" to our current mess is to find more oil is what makes your posts nothing but jokes. There's one question that your chosen name screamingly begs:

Fine, we'll find and pump all the remaining oil out of the ground....

AND THEN WHAT???

[Buggy]

good article considering the source.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25287795/

[vampyregirl]

The Perdido spar arrived in the Gulf of Mexico last month. Perdido consists of three deepwater fields covering a 48 kilometer radius. Great White, Tobago and Silvertip. Tobago which lays in 2925 metres of water is the deepest subsea completion in history.
Development wells are currently being drilled by the Noble Clyde Boudreaux.
Perdido is expected to begin producing in 2010 with peak production of 130k bpd, about the same as Na Kita is currently producing.
Partners in Perdido are Royal Dutch Shell with a 35% stake, ChevronTexaco with 37.5% and BP with a 27.5% stake.

In January develoment drilling commenced in the Gumusut Kakap Field in 1200 metres of water off the coast of Sabah, Malaysia. The field is expected to produce 155k bpd.
A new oil and gas terminal is under construction in Sabah.
Gumusut Kakap is operated by Shell which has a 33% stake. ConocoPhillips also has a 33% stake. Petronas Carigali holds a 20% stake and Murphy Oil 14%

Sakhalin2 project which includes development of the Lunskove gas field and Piltun Astoknskoye oil field is making good progress. The first wells are being drilled from the Lunskoye platform and the 805 metre export jetty has been completed at the LNG plant on Sakhalin Island. The first LNG shipments to Japan are scheduled for early 2009. The Piltun Astoknskoye B platform has been installed and Phase 2 of the offshore pipeline network is now complete.

BC 10 project is intended to develop Brazil's offshore heavy crude. The Arctic 1 which will drill the development wells arrived in Brazil in Febuary. Moored in 1780 metres of water it is expected to produce 100k bpd.
BC 10 is operated by Shell with a 50% stake