PetroJournal - May 2018

PETRO JOURNAL

MAY 2018 EDITION JOURNALISM SPE ITS SC 2017/2018

Company Profile

Flash News

Flash Course

Quotes

INDEX.

FLASH NEWS.

Bank To Stop Financing Oil Projects.

On 20th April of 2018, London-based HSBC, the largest bank on Europe, announced that it would extend its existing bans on financing coal-fired electricity to offshore oil and gas in Arctic, and said that it will not support new greenfield oil-sands project.

The effort was part of its attempt to help its client to transition into a low-carbon economy.

Oil sands (sometimes referred as ‘tar’) are either loose sands or partially consolidated sandstone containing a naturally occurring mixture of sand, clay, and water, saturated with a dense and extremely viscous form of petroleum technically referred to as bitumen.

Under the changes, the bank will no longer fund new coal-fired power plants, greenfield oil sands projects or offshore oil or gas extraction in the Arctic, with some exceptions.

It will also prohibit the financing of new large dams for hydro-electric projects which do not align with the World Commission on Dams Framework, as well as new nuclear projects inconsistent with the International Atomic Energy Agency standards.

HSBC’s move follows similar announcements from other financial institutions last year, including National Australia Bank, The World Bank Group, Deutsche Bank, ING, BNP Paribas, Natixis and Axa. Environmental activist groups, including Greenpeace, have welcomed the banks’ new restrictions on tar-sands activities, which are particularly carbon-intense source of energy. John Sauveen, executive director of Greenpeace Uk, commented that “This latest vote of no-confidence from a major financial institution shows that tar sands are becoming an increasingly toxic business proposition. It makes no sense to expand production of one of the most polluting fossil fuels if we are serious about dealing with climate change in a post-Paris world.”

COMPANY PROFILE.

Halliburton Company, incorporated on 7th November, 1996, is a provider of services and products to the upstream oil and natural gas industry throughout the lifecycle of the reservoir, from locating hydrocarbons and managing geological data, to drilling and formation evaluation, well construction and completion, and optimizing production throughout the life of the field. The Company operates through two segments: the Completion and Production segment, and the Drilling and Evaluation segment.

The Completion and Production segment delivers cementing, stimulation, intervention, pressure control, specialty chemicals, artificial lift and completion services. The Drilling and Evaluation segment provides field and reservoir modeling, drilling, evaluation and wellbore placement solutions that enable customers to model, measure, drill and optimize their well construction activities.

Halliburton Company, incorporated on 7th November, 1996, is a provider of services and products to the upstream oil and natural gas industry throughout the lifecycle of the reservoir, from locating hydrocarbons and managing geological data, to drilling and formation evaluation, well construction and completion, and optimizing production throughout the life of the field. The Company operates through two segments: the Completion and Production segment, and the Drilling and Evaluation segment. The Completion and Production segment delivers cementing, stimulation, intervention, pressure control, specialty chemicals, artificial lift and completion services.

COMPANY PROFILE.

The Drilling and Evaluation segment provides field and reservoir modeling, drilling, evaluation and wellbore placement solutions that enable customers to model, measure, drill and optimize their well construction activities.

The Completion and Production segment consists of various product service lines, which include Production Enhancement, Cementing, Completion Tools, Production Solutions, Pipeline & Process Services, Multi-Chem and Artificial Lift. The Drilling and Evaluation segment consists of product service lines, which include Baroid, Sperry Drilling, Wireline and Perforating, Drill Bits and Services, Landmark Software and Services, Testing and Subsea, and Consulting and Project Management Halliburton conducts business worldwide in approximately 70 countries. The business operations of divisions are organized around four primary geographic regions: North America, Latin America, Europe/Africa/CIS and Middle East/Asia. 41% of Halliburton’s consolidated revenue are from United States and no other country accounts for more than 10% of revenue. As of 31 December 2016, Halliburton employs approximately 50,000 people worldwide. Halliburton’s main office in Indonesia is located at Buildings 107 Cilandak Commercial Estate, Jakarta.

2015 and 2016 have seen the oil prices declining into the bottom of 27$ a barrel in 2016.

Such condition has forced the company into increasing efficiency and improving technology. The company has listed 738 new patents in 2017 alone, putting it in the neighborhood of tech heavyweights like Oracle Corp. and Micron Technology Inc.

FLASH COURSE.

How Offshore Drilling Works.

Offshore Production Platforms Once the exploratory drilling phase is over and geologists have determined that a petroleum reservoir is worth the massive expense, oil companies prepare to establish an offshore production platform. These rigs are designed to last decades, often far from land and in some of the most hostile waters on Earth.

Construction crews typically build the platforms on a nearby coast and then transport them as needed to the drilling site. Production costs for these vessels typically run in the hundreds of millions of dollars. There are currently seven different varieties of offshore platforms.

Fixed platform: This platform design tackles the challenges of offshore drilling in the most straightforward and industrial way imaginable. Need to fix production facilities to a position above your drilling site? Why not construct a gigantic tower of concrete and steel and mount your oil rig on top? To fully comprehend the amount of materials that go into constructing this underwater structure, consider that they operate at depths of 1,500 feet (457 meters) or less -- that's just a little taller than Chicago's Sears Tower. These platforms are extremely stable, despite the fact that the concrete base isn't even attached to the seafloor. It simply stays in place due to all the weight above it. However, at depths greater than 1,500 feet, the design begins to become more impractical due to material costs.

FLASH COURSE.

Compliant tower: These rigs take the basic idea of the fixed platform and make it viable to operate in depths of 1,500 feet to 3,000 feet (457 meters to 914 meters). The design achieves this by relying on a narrower tower of steel and concrete. But while fixed platform designs are rigid, compliant towers are designed to sway and move with the stresses of wind and sea -even hurricanes. In this respect, they're much like modern skyscrapers that are built to sway with the wind.

Sea Star platform: The Sea Star platform is basically a larger version of the semisubmersible design we talked about in the last section. The production facilities sit atop a large submersible hull on a tower. When the lower hull fills with water, it sinks to a lower depth, providing stability while keeping the facilities high and dry.

However, instead of giant anchors holding it in place, the Sea Star is connected to the ocean floor by tension legs.

These long, hollow tubes remain rigid at all times, preventing any up-and-down motion on the platform. The legs are just flexible enough to allow side-to-side motion, which helps absorb the stress of waves and wind. These platforms operate from depths of 500 to 3,500 feet (152 to 1,067 meters) and are typically used to tap smaller reservoirs in deep waters.

FLASH COURSE.

Floating production system: These platforms can take the form of either floating semisubmersible platforms or drill ships. The basic idea behind their design is that, once the well has been drilled, much of the production equipment can be mounted on the seafloor and the petroleum pumped to the surface facilities through flexible risers. Meanwhile, the platform or ship stays in position with anchors or a dynamic positioning system.

This approach allows oil companies to reach depths of up to 6,000 feet (1,829 meters).

Tension leg platform: This platform is essentially a king-sized version of the Sea Star platform, except the tension legs extend from the ocean floor to the platform itself. It experiences more horizontal motion and a certain degree of vertical motion, but it allows oil companies to drill at depths of up to 7,000 feet (2,134 meters), well over a mile (1.6 kilometers) beneath the waves.

FLASH COURSE.

Subsea system: This approach takes the idea of mounting the wellhead on the sea floor and applies it to even greater depths -- 7,000 feet (2,1334 meters) or more. Once the well has been drilled by a surface platform, the automated systems transfer the oil and natural gas to production facilities by either risers or undersea pipelines.

Spar platform: Finally, if you absolutely need to drill a hole at a depth of 10,000 feet (3,048 meters), then the spar platform is the oil rig for you. With this design, the drilling platform sits atop a giant, hollow cylindrical hull. The other end of the cylinder descends around 700 feet (213 meters) into the ocean depths. While the cylinder stops far above the ocean floor, its weight stabilizes the platform. A network of taunt cables and lines trail out from the cylinder to secure it to the ocean floor in what is called a lateral catenary system. The drill string descends down through the length of the cylinder's interior and down to the ocean floor.

"If your only goal is to become rich, you will never achieve it. Don't be afraid to give up the good to go for the great."

John D. Rockefeller American oil industry business magnate, industrialist, and philanthropist