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Gold/Mining/Energy : Strictly: Drilling and oil-field services -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Teddy who wrote (15576)	3/19/1998 7:34:00 PM
From: bw	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 95453

Mobil also committed to deepwater: biz.yahoo.com Sorry if this was already posted....

To: Teddy who wrote (15576)	3/19/1998 7:40:00 PM
From: HH	Respond to of 95453

Shell's excited too; INTERVIEW-Shell Gulf CEO sees brighter oil outlook NEW YORK, March 19 (Reuters) - Shell Oil Co, one of the early pioneers in offshore Gulf of Mexico exploration, said Thursday it will press on with plans to spend $1 billion to develop three more oil and gas fields over the next few years, despite the current world oil slump. The decision is based partly on the company's view that oil prices will rebound over the life of the projects, but also because Shell's size in the area means it can keep costs relatively low by tying the new fields into the vast infrastructure it already has built up, according to the head of Shell's deepwater Gulf projects. "We've been evaluating these three projects, all of which come onstream in 1999, and from our standpoint we don't make these decisions based on what prices are doing today but over the life of project. I think we and the industry on the whole have confidence prices are going to improve over the long haul," said Rich Pattarozzi, president and CEO of Shell Deepwater Development Inc, in a telephone interview with Reuters. Shell Oil Co, the main U.S. subsidiary of giant Royal Dutch/Shell Group <RD.AS><SHEL.L>, has had a long-term aim of shifting its production away from the low-margin heavy onshore crude of West Texas and California and toward more profitable offshore Gulf of Mexico output. The three new projects -- Macaroni, Angus and Europe -- will add 135,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude production and 170 million cubic feet of gas per day (cfd) as they reach peak production between the end of next year and early 2001, with most of it on-stream by end 1999, Shell said Thursday. The three projects tie into existing, larger Gulf of Mexico operations, such as Augur and Mars. "The nice thing about these three is that they are developments which would not have been justifiable without the infrastructure which is in place. By having made the decisions on the other ones, it is allowing us to make these smaller ones work," said Pattarozzi. Shell owns 100 percent of Macaroni, which ties into the Augur platform, 80 percent of Angus, tying into the Bullwinkle fixed platform on Green Canyon Block 65, and 66 percent of Europa, which will link with the Mars tension leg platform in Mississippi Canyon Block 807. Shell, which is the largest leaseholder in the Gulf with almost five million acres, had average production there of 185,000 bpd of crude and 1.1 billion cfd of gas toward the end of last year. Of the major projects, Pattarozzi said Mars is producing around 120,000 bpd of crude, with expectations for it to ramp up to 140,000 peak production by the middle of this year. Ram Powell is producing 45,000 bpd and is expected to see a fourth well come on "in the next couple of weeks" to bring that up to 60,000 bpd, the field's design capacity. One factor which the company had said might delay projects was the high cost of rigging, something Pattarozzi said was still a problem for deepwater equipment, notwithstanding the pressure oil service companies have seen from a general reduction in spending plans by oil companies.