Drilling & Production
- Permafrost Cement - Conclusion: Ceramicrete blends produce strong, low-permeability cements for arctic use
  Researchers at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois, have determined that blending ceramicrete with extendospheres and wollastonite or ash produces a superior cement for extremely cold climates.
- RWE Dea drilling in Germany
  The Wietze drilling department, part of drilling and production engineering at the Hamburg headquarters of German operator RWE Dea AG, owns and operates two rigs in addition to those leased from drilling contractors.
- Tight, stressed market leads to higher day rates, more newbuild contracts
  The drilling market is increasingly robust with an ever-increasing demand for rigs from a fleet of relatively fixed-size.
General Interest
- Editorial: New stage for SUVs
  Once again, the laws of motion and economics outmaneuver regulation. While fans of frantic governance harrumph about oil consumption and condemn American vehicle preferences, markets do their work-quietly, until now.
- BAS: Industry’s 2004 finding, development costs soar
  The aggregate fully loaded finding and development (F&D) cost for a study group of 12 major integrated international oil companies and 60 US independent companies increased considerably in 2004 over 2003, reported Banc of America Securities (BAS) in a report released April 18 (see Fig.
- Gas quality, interchangeability issues await policy
  Eighteen months of natural gas industry discussions culminate with the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s technical conference on gas interchangeability on May 17.
- OTC: Collaboration in deepwater projects raises issues
  The increased complexity of deepwater operations, coupled with continued downsizing by operators, has boosted the role of contractors in the development of deepwater and ultradeepwater projects, said a panel of industry executives at the recent Offshore Technology Conference in Houston.
- OTC: Cooperation urged to fix US-Libyan relations
  US and Libyan businessmen and government officials must work together to repair US-Libyan relations, said Ambassador Ali Suleiman Aujati at a breakfast meeting May 5 at the Offshore Technology Conference in Houston.
- OTC: Issues raised by offshore LNG terminals assessed
  Despite the many LNG terminals planned in major market areas of Western Europe and North America, especially the US, the industry is moving to solve technical issues for offshore LNG terminals.
- OTC: Technologies require new business models
  The energy industry, suffering a “crisis in technology,” must find a way to compress technology development time from first-generation innovation to product commercialization, said members of a May 4 panel at the Offshore Technology Conference.
- OTC: Analyst pushes plan for supply chain management
  The international oil and natural gas industry needs to institute reserves data reform immediately to establish “good supply chain management” of proven reserves, said Matthew R.
- Watching Government: IEA concerned about capital
  Top officials from International Energy Agency member governments met in Paris on May 3 against a backdrop of crude oil prices that had been above $50/bbl for several weeks.
- Watching the World: Bearing up in Baku
  It’s been a long time coming, but the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan crude oil pipeline looks set to begin operations, and it is already causing quite a political stir in the region.
- Company News: Duke Energy, Cinergy sign agreement to merge
  Duke Energy Corp., Charlotte, NC, and Cinergy Corp.
Regular Features
- Editor's Perspective
  - Bolivia threatens gas work with tax increase
    Bolivian lawmakers seem to want their country to remain one of Latin America’s poorest and least developed.
- Equip/Software/Lit
  - Equipment/Software/Literature
    The newly developed SandTrap service uses a formation stabilization system to assist operators with economical recovery of bypassed hydrocarbons in friable or weakly consolidated reservoir sands.
- Journally Speaking
  - Energizing the public
    One of the more interesting venues in which activities were held during the recent Offshore Technology Conference in Houston was the world-class Houston Museum of Natural Science.
- Market Journal
  - Upbeat industry outlook evident at OTC
    The 51,000 people who attended the annual Offshore Technology Conference in Houston on May 2-5-the biggest turnout since 1985-should be good news for crude market prices this year, said analysts in the Houston office of Raymond James & Associates.
- OGJ Newsletter
  - OGJ Newsletter
    The US Geological Survey, in an assessment released May 11, reported “significant” undiscovered oil and gas resources in the central part of Alaska’s North Slope and the adjacent state offshore area (see related story, p. 20).
Processing
- New formula yields coking refinery margins more reliably
  A new coking-spread formula is a simple, easily applied, and reliable indicator of US Gulf Coast heavy, sour crude coking margins.
Special Report
- The case of Alaska: modeling lease sales in a mature market
  In the last 20 years much of the work on oil and gas lease auctions has focused on purely theoretical issues of strategic behavior and ignored many relevant market factors.
- Severance tax change cuts North Slope asset values
  In his 2005 state-of-the-state address in January, Alaska Gov. Frank H. Murkowski announced with little warning some unexpected news.
Transportation
- Study finds outside-force damage still greatest threat to pipelines
  Outside force continues to lead all causes of serious pipeline incidents along US rights-of-way, according to a recently completed report.
- Study will examine Dutch gas transmission grid
  Europe’s demand for natural gas is increasing and with it the need for additional transmission capacity.
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