Good article in Gulf Of Mexico off shore drilling and its recent recovery.
I still believe that ESV with its Atwood and recent Rowan acquisitions is now the superstar driller in this depressed and growing sector:
As energy world focuses on Permian, Gulf makes its own comeback
Jordan Blum Feb. 26, 2019 Updated: Feb. 26, 2019 10:14 p.m.
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1of5Shell's largest floating platform in the Gulf of Mexico, the Appomattox, trekked from Ingleside in May 2018 to its location 80 miles off the southeastern coast of Louisiana. The platform is expected to start producing oil this fall.Photo: Shell Oil
2of5BP's Argos floating platform is being built by Samsung Heavy Industries in South Korea. The platform is supposed to come online in the Gulf of Mexico's Mad Dog field in 2021. The platform is part of the $9 billion Mad Dog Phase 2 project.Photo: BP
3of5Tow vessels begin moving Chevron’s Big Foot production platform into the Gulf of Mexico on March 13, 2015, from Gulf Marine Fabrication Yard near Corpus Christi, where it received two years of finishing work after arriving from a Korean shipyard in 2013. The $5.1 billion platform will work in mile-deep water 225 miles south of New Orleans, Photo: Chevron Corp. / Chevron Corp.
The attention of the energy industry has focused in recent years on the Permian Basin, the once tired West Texas oil field that roared back to life when hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling freed the vast reserves locked in its shale. But as the Permian gathers the attention, another aging oil field is making its own comeback.
The Gulf of Mexico is producing a record of almost 2 millions barrel of crude oil a day and expected to increase its output each year over at least the next five years as new projects begin operation and new discoveries in deeper waters are made. After struggling in the aftermath of the oil bust as investment shifted onshore, the Gulf has found new life as oil companies have succeeded in lowering costs, and market dynamics have made the heavier crude produced in the Gulf more valuable and sought after by refineries from the Gulf Coast to Asia.
The energy research firm Wood Mackenzie projects Gulf drilling activity to jump 30 percent this year after four consecutive years of declines. The federal government forecasts production to grow another 15 percent next year to 2.3 million barrels a day as as oil companies, particularly the biggest players, find advantage in deepwater wells that deplete far more slowly than shale reservoirs._
Bob |
