Table of Contents

• New Technology Is 'Lifeblood' For Northwest Europe Offshore
  As the average size of Northwest Europe's remaining development prospects dwindles and operators look to screw down development and operating costs, new technology is the key to making many projects viable.
• Seabed lander measures seabed sediments
  HIGH ON THE AGENDA FOR any decommissioning project is establishing the environmental impact from the legacy of contaminated cuttings piles around platforms.
• Combining GIS And Web Simplifies Access To Corporate Data
  The development of new software systems has led industry into a situation in which the amount and flow of information can prevent workers from being focused on executing their primary tasks.
• Jorin's Particle Analyzer Designed To Improve Oil/Water Separation
  Produced water is a headache for offshore operators, but a British company has designed an instrument intended to make analysis and decision-making easier.

• The U.N.: oil safeguard?
  The United Nations, busy rebuilding the Iraqi oil industry, now plays safeguard to the recovering oil market it helped destroy. Its influence in the oil industry since 1996 has been surreal.

• U.S. wellhead deliverability slide may spike gas prices in late 1999
  The continuing decline in U.S. natural gas wellhead deliverability may be setting the stage for a sharp spike in natural gas prices later this year.
• Canadian producers scrambling to boost gas deliverability
  Improving oil and natural gas prices are spurring Canadian gas producers to ramp up efforts to increase wellhead deliverability and fill new export pipeline capacity.
• Growth in U.S. cogen use of gas to slow
  The U.S. cogeneration market will continue to favor natural gas as its primary fuel source in the coming years, but the 10%/year growth rate of gas use in cogeneration seen in the late 1980s and early 1990s is not likely to continue.
• Talisman-Rigel latest big Canadian M&A deal
  Merger and acquisition action in Canada's petroleum sector continues to heat up.
• Norway's assets jam
  After the Norwegian government was criticized for its role in the takeover battle for Saga Petroleum AS, the country's assets are in the news again.
• U.K. tightens offshore spill regulations
  The U.K. government passed new environmental controls for the offshore oil and gas industry that will bring the U.K. in line with European Commission law.
• Yadana field start-up delayed again over power plant woes
  Commercial production from Yadana, Myanmar's largest offshore gas field, has been postponed again, to early next year due to the extended delay in completion of a major power station in Thailand.
• Industry Briefs
  Gas distribution
  
  Mexico's Energy Regulatory Commission
  (CRE) created a geographic zone for natural gas distribution covering 51 towns in Puebla and Tlaxcala states in Mexico. Development of the Puebla-Tlaxcala distribution network will require capital investment of $50 million, CRE said. It plans to begin a permit bidding process for the area shortly.
• Inland barge to allow cluster drilling in Nigeria
  A unique shallow-water drilling barge designed for sequential well drilling should commence operations in September in the Tunu field of Nigeria. "The barge will allow us to remain in place and drill a cluster of six wells without moving," says Herman Schellstede, president and owner of Herman J. Schellstede & Associates Inc.

• Fracturing fuss
  Alabama has yielded to a court mandate requiring that fluids used to fracture coalbed methane reservoirs must meet the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's primary drinking water standard.
• NW Europe production lower than expected
  Northwest Europe's offshore oil and NGL production during first half 1999 showed an increase from the same period last year but fell short of expectations.
• Formation mineral content key to successful sandstone acidizing
  To improve the success of sandstone-acidizing, operators must know the mineral content of producing formations. Otherwise, they may encounter problems with clay swelling, fines migration, gel formation, and precipitation.

• South Africa, Ireland slate refinery upgrades
  State refining companies in South Africa and Ireland have slated refinery upgrades.

• Ethylene demand, capacity to rise through 2010
  Global consumption of ethylene is expected to increase to 139 million metric tons by 2010 from 80.5 million tons in 1998.

• CNPC shelves China-Kazakhstan oil pipeline
  One of China's major state oil companies has decided to postpone its plan to build a pipeline to move crude oil from Kazakhstan to northwestern China, citing insufficient reserves in Kazakh- stan's Uzen and Aktyunbinsk oil fields to justify the pipeline's construction.
• Prospect of arctic gas line leads to thermal simulation program
  In 1996, Yukon Pacific Corp. began an in-house program to study the design of arctic natural gas pipelines that could operate according to a desired temperature profile.

• Gulf sale marked by lack of participants
  If no one at last week's western Gulf of Mexico offshore lease sale was surprised by the sale results, it is probably because not many expected much to happen. In fact, one would have to think back to the sales held in 1992-93 to see a sale with such a low turnout, noted the event's radio announcer. "Today just wasn't a red jacket day," he said, alluding to the red jackets typically worn to herald a robust sale.
• Potential outlined for Kamchatka back-arc basin, Far East Russia
  The Kamchatka back-arc basin is a relatively unexplored petroleum region of Russia. Similar in many respects to the Sumatra basin of Indonesia, this region of Russia has the promise of becoming a major producing region.

Area Drilling

• Area Drilling
  Costa Rica
  
  The ministry signed final concession agreements Aug. 12 on blocks 2, 3, 4, and 12 covering a combined 5,634 sq km on and offshore in the North and South Limon back-arc basin along the Caribbean coast (see map, OGJ, July 13, 1998, p. 84).

Journally Speaking

• Aberdeen's fringe
  Every August, the city of Edinburgh hosts an arts festival, in which the city's main theaters, concert halls, and art galleries put on a wide range of "high art."

Letters

• Letters
  MTBE's misconception
  
  Your editorial," MTBE's slide continues," makes a number of very good points on the absurdity (and possibly the inevitability) of the loss of methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE) as a component in U.S. gasoline (OGJ, Aug. 2, 1999, p. 17).

OGJ Newsletter

• OGJ Newsletter
  Is there a change in the wind regarding how OPEC will manage production in response to oil price changes?