Regular Features
- OGJ Newsletter
  - OGJ Newsletter
- Letters
  - Winners and losers
    If you simply look at the hard numbers (prices, profitability, margins, capacity utilization), you would draw the opposite conclusion and recognize that the oil industry’s best friends are those who claim to be its worst enemies.
- Journally Speaking
  - Injecting nanosensors
    A newly formed consortium aims to develop nanotechnologies that can characterize oil and gas reservoirs more comprehensively than the current means that rely largely on collecting near wellbore data.
- Editorial
  - Energy and economic woes
    Political responses to economic problems can do more harm than good. The US government is now rushing together a political fix for an economy unraveling at surprising speed.
- Area Drilling
  - Area Drilling
- Equip/Software/Lit
  - Equipment / Software / Literature
- Services/Suppliers
  - Services / Suppliers
- Editor's Perspective
  - Request for more oil highlights US contradictions
    These thoughts might have occurred to Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah when US President George W. Bush, during a visit to the desert kingdom, requested an increase in oil production…
- Market Journal
  - Crude futures price closes at 5-week low
    The February crude contract fell 71¢ to $90.13/bbl Jan. 17 on the New York Mercantile Exchange—its lowest closing in 5 weeks—after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told the US House Budget Committee downside risks to US economic growth in 2008 were “more pronounced” than ever.
General Interest
- COMMENT: Did Caspian summit share the sea or Iran’s oil riches?
  The Iranian oil and gas industry—although about a century old—has never been so derelict, poorly managed, and near bankruptcy as it is today.
- Bodman: Global energy security will need massive investment
  Billions of dollars in investments will be required annually to achieve global energy security by diversifying supplies, suppliers, and supply routes, US Secretary of Energy Samuel W. Bodman told business leaders in Saudi Arabia.
- GAO: US should improve oil product supply system
  The US petroleum product distribution system is constrained in key areas and will likely become more so without timely investments, the US Government Accountability Office warned in a Jan. 18 report.
- API: Rising oil prices, falling stocks constrain demand
  Rising oil prices combined with falling inventories to keep US petroleum product demand essentially flat during 2007, the American Petroleum Institute said on Jan. 17.
- Congressman seeks delay for Alaska Chukchi Sea lease sale
  US Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) has urged Secretary of the Interior Dirk A. Kempthorne to postpone the Minerals Management Service’s sale of leases in the Chukchi Sea off Alaska for a year until the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) decides whether to list the polar bear as an endangered species.
- CERA-IHS: Global oil field decline rate at 4.5%/year
  The aggregate global decline rate for producing oil fields is 4.5%/year rather than the 8%/year sometimes cited in other studies, said Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA) and IHS Inc. in a report entitled “Finding the Critical Numbers.”
- EIA gas projections to 2030 identify market changes
  This energy outlook for natural gas to 2030 was developed by the US Energy Information Administration and focuses on a short-term reference case, Annual Energy Outlook 2008 (AEO2008), which it compares with the Annual Energy Outlook 2007 (AEO2007) reference case.
- WATCHING GOVERNMENT: US trade groups expand reach
  US oil and gas trade associations may seem to have their hands full with domestic issues.
- PERSONNEL MOVES AND PROMOTIONS: Oxy names Chazen president, chief financial officer
  Occidental Petroleum Corp. has elected Stephen I. Chazen president and chief financial officer.
- COMPANY NEWS: ConocoPhillips approves $14.3 billion capital budget
  Oil and gas companies continue to report their capital spending plans for 2008.
- WATCHING THE WORLD: Bearing up in the Arctic
  The US Minerals Management Service has begun an evaluation of the environmental issues associated with future federal Outer Continental Shelf lease sales for oil and gas exploration in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas off Alaska.
Exploration & Development
- Trend surface residual anomaly mapping and well data may be underutilized combo
  Trend surface residual anomaly (TSRA) mapping techniques have been applied to three regions to demonstrate their use in the identification of blind structures and trends in areas with substantial well data and limited seismic data.
Drilling & Production
- SPECIAL REPORT: Technology advances continue to unlock additional resources
  Technology advances are allowing companies to extract more oil and gas from resources that in previous years were uneconomic to develop.
- SPECIAL REPORT: Operators develop, implement new downhole technologies
  BP PLC and Shell are developing and integrating new downhole technologies in their worldwide exploration and development projects.
Processing
- Asset-performance management helps US refiners comply with Baker Report
  To be successful, refiners must be profitable while maintaining safety performance that is more than just acceptable.
Transportation
- Industry ignoring potential of bidirectional LNG flows
  With record levels of LNG traveling in opposite directions through the Suez Canal, the economic rationale for swapping cargoes is growing stronger.
Print Ad Index
- Print Ad Index
Supplement to Oil & Gas Journal
- Energy of Today/Energy for Tomorrow
  - Egypt’s Downstream Operations and Opportunities: A capital-friendly environment will fuel downstream growth
    Growing demand for fuel, petrochemical feedstock and petrochemical products —both at home and in global markets— combined with Egypt’s petrochemical master plan offers attractive investment opportunities that will also speed the country’s downstream growth.
  - Egypt and Tomorrow’s Energy Markets: Comprehensive strategy equips Egypt for a competitive energy world
    If there is a single word that defines every facet of tomorrow’s energy markets, it is competition—for resources, for opportunities, for customers, for qualified employees and for capital.
  - Egypt’s Natural Gas Operations and Plans: EGAS guides strategy, Gasco’s expanding grid supplies gas, gas liquids
    As the potential of Egypt’s gas resources became well defined and the benefits of clean burning fuel more important, the Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Co.
  - Egypt’s Deepwater Oil and Gas Development: Technology will aid recovery from complex structures, find new fields
    At its most fundamental, deepwater exploration and development is about cost and risk.
  - Egypt’s Petroleum Future: Adding value to natural gas, developing deepwater prospects are key goals
    Egypt began the ascent to its position as a leading global energy player by leveraging its strategic location.
  - Egypt’s Natural Gas Operations and Plans: New discoveries, more liquids recovery both serve natural gas strategy
    The world’s energy future—at least a big part of it—belongs to natural gas.
  - An Exclusive One-on-one Interview with
    Q: How has re-structuring of the oil sector streamlined operations and enhanced the industry’s future potential?
  - Egypt’s Natural Gas Operations and Plans: PICO moves beyond Egypt and ‘leftover’ fields; new lines expand the grid
    Natural gas discoveries like those in the Obaiyed and Khalda concessions will be important to the growth of Egypt’s energy sector and the country’s economy.
  - Egypt’s Downstream Operations and Opportunities: Sidpec growth strategy built on product quality, export experience
    Turning crude oil and natural gas components into basic and intermediate petrochemicals adds significant value to petroleum reserves.
  - Egypt’s Downstream Operations and Opportunities: Three-phase plan will create a world-class petrochemical industry
    Rising oil and gas prices have made those basic commodities increasingly valuable to countries with substantial proven reserves and attractive exploration prospects.
  - Egypt’s Deepwater Oil and Gas Development: Work continues in existing fields, new discoveries await plans
    With the bulk of its natural gas resource in the Mediterranean—some studies estimate ultimate recovery from deepwater gas reserves at up to 70 tcf—and a strategic focus on optimizing the value of its natural gas supply, meeting deepwater challenges will be vital to Egypt’s energy future.