As subsea tiebacks become more common, attention is typically drawn to the largest, longest and biggest budget projects employing the latest technologies. Still, companies are working on new technologies that... more

Experts say power delivery and communication transmission issues are the primary drivers for subsea control over bigger distances. Long offset developments depend on reliable power delivery and communication to the subsea... more

While the subsea market has taken great strides in the past decade, platform technology has not been neglected. Several new concepts are vying for roles offshore in greater water depths. By... more

Houston Engineer of the Year Ken Arnold recounts how the science and safety of offshore facilities have developed in the last few decades and how important professionalism is in achieving... more

As the result of a network storage overhaul, efficiency at Newfield Exploration extends from the IT department to remote geoscientists. In just a dozen years Newfield Exploration has grown from a... more

New acquisition techniques minimize the intrusiveness of seismic surveys without compromising data quality. Ask a dozen different explorationists how they define "low-impact seismic" (LIS) and you'll get at least 12 different... more

Deep high-pressure, high-temperature gas targets in the Gulf of Mexico's Shelf can be company-makers, but only for companies that do their homework first. Calling the US Gulf of Mexico's Deep Shelf... more

Optimization of production chemical delivery is possible with a monitoring and control system. A key component of recent advances in production optimization has been improvement in the ability to monitor and... more

Although vast reserves make Canadian bitumen seem like a good investment, Kyoto concerns and shortages of water, condensate, capital and labor may limit the number of projects. Production from Canadian oil... more

Continuous rate and water cut data reveal reasons for allocation errors and provide means for their correction. Field trials evaluating the performance of multiphase metering systems proved them as a viable... more

Combination of intelligent well design and ESP flexibility reduces water cut in UK offshore. Intelligent well completion technology enables operators to actively monitor and selectively modify the zones from which hydrocarbons... more

The Blue Team has acquired a nice piece of workflow software and signed two big IT contracts with national oil companies. Schlumberger Information Solutions (SIS) has bought Petrel and launched the... more

NORTH AMERICA EnCana will sell 10% of the Syncrude oil sands project to Canadian Oil Sands for about US $700 million (Cdn $1.1 billion). The deal includes an option for Canadian... more

NORTH AMERICA The Oklahoma Corp. Commission's District III's office named Anadarko Petroleum Corp. the 2002 "Operator of the Year." The award is based on the company's prudence as an operator... more

Five international oil majors are fighting over control of one of the world's biggest gas fields - right next to a potential war zone. Control of Phase 11 of the huge... more

NORTH AMERICA Apache Corp. appointed Janine J. McArdle vice president of oil and gas marketing and promoted Michael J. Benson to vice president of security. Enventure Global Technology promoted Kate Blasingame... more

1. Key Production Co. Inc., Denver, Colo., completed its 1-8 Lady Raiders test in an unnamed field 3 miles (5 km) north of Colusa, Calif., for 1.6 MMcf/d of gas... more

1. Pioneer Natural Resources Co. of Dallas reached 350 ft (107 m) of gas sand in a single zone at its Harrier Prospect discovery in East Breaks 759. The company... more

1. BP struck another major asset deal, stripping out interests in 14 gas fields in the Southern North Sea, which have been sold for US $162 million to UK-based Perenco. The... more

1. Shell started drilling the first of two wildcats offshore Trinidad and Tobago using the Stena Tay semisubmersible drilling rig, which had been working in Brazil. The well on the... more

1. Fusion signed up for more frontier acreage off West Africa. The UK independent signed a Petroleum Concession Contract with the Agence de Gestion et de Coopération entre la Guinée-Bissau... more

1. CanArgo Energy Corp. started drilling the NH4 horizontal well in its Ninotsminda field in Georgia targeting the fractured middle Eocene. The Oslo, Norway, company wants to place the well... more

1. Russian state-owned oil firm Zarubezhneft finalized an agreement to establish a joint oil and gas firm with Syria. Called Amrit, the new company will carry out geophysical surveys, drilling... more

1. Novus Petroleum sold its equity in two blocks in Sumatra, Indonesia, for around US $13 million. The Australian company said the money raised would be used to retire debt. The... more

In America, this means asking a question that gives one way more information than was expected. Perhaps the US National Petroleum Council has done just that. I recently was invited to... more

Several new well planning applications were released at the SPE/IADC Drilling Conference in Amsterdam. Of course. Why am I not surprised? The ink was hardly dry on my nice roundup article... more

Engineers can now can enjoy a head start in predicting reservoir production performance. The acorn doesn't fall far from the tree. He's a chip off the old block. The idea that... more

You are probably as tired as I am of our industry being hammered for our supposed environmental indiscretions. None of us deny that we have had accidents. We did not... more

Some oil and gas companies have allowed production goals to divert their attention from shareholder expectations. In combat situations, in the oil patch and in the corporate jungle, principles of good... more

Overall rig counts are down and rates are low, but the deepwater Gulf of Mexico is going strong. Exploration and construction in the deeper water of the Gulf of Mexico are... more

Plunging to depths no man has visited, underwater pilots in the Gulf of Mexico put oil and gas operations on the sea floor. Sonsub set depth records and conquered technological hurdles... more

Autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) have the potential to become stars someday, but at this point, they're character actors, handling survey and observation tasks in the great underwater oil and gas... more

In recent years, industry associations, academic institutions, and oil and gas companies have begun to recognize an unsettling trend: ours is an aging industry, and we are not attracting enough... more