INDUSTRY BRIEFS

TERMINALS STE. NATIONALE ELF AQUITAINE in partnership with port authority of Saint-Nazaire, Brittany, is conducting a 60 million franc ($10.5 million) feasibility study for a 140,000 b/d tanker terminal off Le Croisic that can accommodate very large crude carriers (VLCCs). Currently, tankers larger than 140,000 dwt must be lightered to deliver light crudes to Elf's Donges refinery on the Loire estuary. That step adds 20 francs/ton to Donges'
Dec. 6, 1993
11 min read

TERMINALS

STE. NATIONALE ELF AQUITAINE in partnership with port authority of Saint-Nazaire, Brittany, is conducting a 60 million franc ($10.5 million) feasibility study for a 140,000 b/d tanker terminal off Le Croisic that can accommodate very large crude carriers (VLCCs). Currently, tankers larger than 140,000 dwt must be lightered to deliver light crudes to Elf's Donges refinery on the Loire estuary. That step adds 20 francs/ton to Donges' acquisition costs, and Elf says the refinery's future upgrade hinges on it being supplied via VLCCs. A final decision is expected in 1995-96, and start-up in 1998 or later.

GOVERNMENT

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY named Walk, Haydel & Associates Inc., New Orleans, architect-engineer of general engineering services for the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) under a 2 year contract with as many as four optional 1 year extensions. Pending conclusion of final negotiations, Walk, Haydel will be responsible for capital improvements and upgrades of SPR storage sites at Bryan Mound and Big Hill, Tex.; West Hackberry, Bayou Choctaw, and Weeks Island, La.; and a marine terminal at St. James, La.

GAS STORAGE

ORANGE & ROCKLAND UTILITIES a gas and electric utility based in Rockland County, N.Y.. signed up as a customer of the proposed Avoca Natural Gas Storage Project at Avoca in Steuben County, N.Y. The utility agreed to buy 55 MMcfd of firm storage deliverability starting in winter 1995-96. Avoca will hold an open season Jan. 31-Feb. 28, 1994, to complete its customer base.

EXPLORATION

ARCO IRELAND INC. received exploration licenses for Blocks 46/26, 48/27, 56/5, 57/1, 57/2, 57/37 57/4, 57/5, 57/7, 57/8 and 57/9 off southern Ireland. The licenses are valid from Nov. 1 , 1993, to Feb. 28, 1995. ARCO has completed 300 line km of 2D seismic data acquisition, which comprises the only obligation work on the blocks.

SEAGULL ENERGY CORP.'S 2 OCS-G-9509 wildcat flowed a combined 18.8 MMcfd of gas and 213 b/d of condensate through 26/64 in. chokes from 85 ft of net Miocene pay in two zones at 8,00010,000 ft. It's Seagull's second discovery in 3 months on Vermilion Block 288 in the Gulf of Mexico, about 125 miles south of Lafayette, La. One zone flowed 10 MMcfd and 84 b/d with 2,415 psi flowing tubing pressure and the other 8.8 MMcfd and 129 b/d with 2,038 psi flowing tubing pressure.

FINA PETROLEUM DEVELOPMENT LTD.'S 44/29b-4 wildcat on U.K. southern North Sea Block 44/29b flowed gas from a Carboniferous sandstone reservoir at a stabilized rate of 39.9 MMcfd through a 4/64 in. choke. License partner Goal Petroleum plc, London. said Global Labrador 1 drilling rig drilled the well to 12,500 ft under the North Sea's first turnkey exploration drilling contract (OGJ, Nov. 22, p. 40).

DEN NORSKE STATS OLJESELSKAP AS plans to spud a wildcat in Block 6608/10 off Central Norway this month. The fourth well on the block, it will complete Statoil's drilling commitment. The target is a structure 3 km northeast of the Norne field discovery. Statoil said results of the latest well could influence development plans for Norne, a 440 million bbl field slated for fast track development (OGJ, Oct. 25, p. 99).

SHELL EXPLORATION & PRODUCTION ANGOLA BY chartered the Pelerin drillship to drill two wells on Block 16 off Angola during 1994. Water depth there is 200-1,500 m. Shell let contract to Foramer SA, Abu Dhabi, which operates the vessel in partnership with 80% shareholder Ross Offshore SA, Oslo. Operator Shell holds a 50% interest in the 4,912 sq km block. Its partners are Exxon Corp., Texaco Inc., Ste. Nationale Elf Aquitaine, and Petrofina SA. Pelerin currently is under contract to Elf Congo on a two well fixed contract with two optional wells. Drilling of Elf's fixed wells is to be complete by April 1994.

ARCO PHILIPPINES and partners signed a letter of intent to conduct exploration off Philippines in the South Sulu Sea. ARCO expects to start seismic surveys early in 1994 northeast of Borneo and 540 miles south of Manila, with completion by yearend 1994. Two earlier offshore exploration agreements by ARCO off Philippines failed to lead to production. Its most recent exploration operations there were abandoned several years ago.

BOW VALLEY ENERGY INC., Calgary, took a farmout on an exploration license covering Quadrant 1911 in the Walvis basin off Namibia. The company acquired a 15% working interest, of which Norsk Hydro AS and Saga Petroleum will each contribute 7.5%. The license covers 11,600 sq km in water depth of 200-1,250 m. The first wildcat on the acreage was spudded Nov. 4.

REFINING

SHELL NEDERLAND RAFFINADERIJ BY let a 15 year contract to Air Products plc, Walton-on-Thames, U.K., to supply 1,700 metric tons/day of oxygen for its Pernis refinery at Rotterdam. Supply will begin in 1997 to three new gasifiers to be installed as part of a Pernis upgrade (OGJ, Jan. 25, p. 40).

EASTERN REFINERY LTD. added a $625,000 secondary recovery unit at its 31,200 b/cd capacity Chittagong, Bangladesh, refinery. The addition gives the plant capability to process 500,000 metric tons/year of furnace oil, 14,000 tons/year of diesel, 1,500 tons/year of naphtha, and 1,500 tons/year of liquefied petroleum gas.

PIPELINES

SARAWAK SHELL BHD. let contract to TL Offshore Sdn. Bhd., Offshore Pipelines Inc.'s joint venture company in Malaysia with Renong Bhd., to lay 255 miles of 24-36 in. pipeline off Sarawak, Malaysia. The line will link offshore fields with MLNG-DUA onshore receiving facilities. Work is to get under way during OPI's fiscal third quarter 1994.

COLUMBIA GAS TRANSMISSION CORP. received U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approval to modify facilities under construction to serve Eagle Point Cogneration Partnership and New England Power Co. Planned changes stem from an agreement the pipeline reached with Harford County, Md., citizens groups whose members opposed the siting of Columbia's Rutledge compressor station. The station is part of 16,790 hp in compression being added by Columbia. Columbia agreed to use electric motor driven centrifugal compressors at the Rutledge station instead of natural gas reciprocating compressors.

CLEANUP IS UNDER WAY on an oil spill that occurred last month on a section of Russia's Druzhba pipeline. A connection at a point between Penza and Samara in southern Russia failed under pressure, spilling crude that covered more than 1,000 sq m of farmland and ran into a covered water reservoir. Dams were built to contain the oil, and the damaged pipe was replaced. It was the second Druzhba line spill in the Penza region in the past 18 months.

ABU DHABI NATIONAL OIL CO. ordered 180 km of longitudinally welded large diameter steel pipe from Europipe GmbH, Ratingen, Germany, for its Bab-Magta-Taweelah gas pipeline project. Pipe production will be shared between Europipe's Dunkerque and Mulheim, Germany, mills from yearend 1993 to spring 1994.

ALBERTA ENERGY CO. LTD., Calgary, commissioned its secondPrimrose Range gas compressor station in Northeast Alberta, 250 km northeast of Edmonton. The Caribou Lake gas plant near Cold Lake is delivering 45 MMcfd of gas from a nine well, 24 km gathering system to customers in California and Washington. Throughput at the $16 million facility is to increase in November 1994 to 55 MMcfd. AEC's North Primrose plant, commissioned 3 years ago, is processing as much as 36 MMcfd of gas. The company's Primrose gas production by late 1995 is expected to reach 100 MMcfd.

COMPANIES

BRITISH PETROLEUM CO. PLC sold its last remaining consumer business, Paragon Petcare, to Dalgety plc for 42 million ($63 million) cash. BP said this marked the successful continuation of divestment of its nutrition division. Remaining BP nutrition assets in the agricultural sector are also due to be sold (OGJ, Mar. 22, p. 25).

SMITH INTERNATIONAL INC., Houston, agreed to pay a $675,000 fine to settle a criminal action filed Oct. 22 by the U.S. Justice Department. The government charged that Smith and certain competitors violated the Sherman Act in connection with pricing drillbits during part of 1989 (OGJ Nov. 1, p. 36). Also, Camco international Inc., Houston, agreed to pay a $575,000 fine to settle a charge of price fixing Justice filed Oct. 22 against its Reed division. The settlements end the government's 3 year investigation of the U.S. drillbit industry.

DRILLING-PRODUCTION

SONAT EXPLORATION CO., Houston, a unit of Sonat Inc., Birmingham, Ala., plans to drill 70 or more wells by mid-1994 on South Texas leases with estimated reserves of 90 bcf of gas equivalent acquired recently from Tri-C Resources Inc., Houston. Sonat paid Tri-C $62 million for the leases. which produce 18 MMcfd of gas equivalent mostly in Webb and Duval counties. Acquired holdings include interests in 87 wells in 18 fields on 40,000 acres.

OCCIDENTAL PETROLEUM CORP. signed a 20 year operating agreement with Petroleos de Venezuela SA unit Maraven to increase oil production and reserves on the 968,600 acre DZO Unit west of Lake Maracaibo. Oxy expects to increase production from the unit's eight partially developed fields to 40,000 b/d from the current 6,000 b/d and increase estimated recoverable oil to 130 million bbl. It plans to start a workover/drilling program no later than February 1994.

FOSTER WHEELER ANDINA SA, Bogota, and Foster Wheeler Petroleum Development Ltd., London, will design and engineer 45 miles of multiphase flow lines and injection pipelines and establish, initially, 13 permanent well pads for BP Exploration Co. (Colombia) Ltd.'s Cusiana Phase 1 development project in Colombia. The new facilities are to begin operation in July 1994. The companies also will perform an unspecified upgrade of the Oleoducto Colombia pipeline.

STATOIL upgraded oil reserves in its Gullfaks and Statfjord fields. Gullfaks reserves were boosted by 145 million bbl to 1.59 billion bbl. Statfjord reserves were increased 126 million bbl to 3.68 billion bbl. Statoil said the upgrades were due to improved reservoir understanding, horizontal drilling making production from thin layers viable, and developments in enhanced oil recovery.

NORSKE SHELL AS let a 180 million kroner ($25 million) contract to Rockwater AS, Stavanger, Norway, for subsea tie-ins for the East Troll gas field development project off Norway. Work includes installation of spool pieces and hyperbaric welding of two 36 in. wet gas pipelines from the offshore platform to the onshore processing plant at Kollsnes and a 40 in. dry gas export line from Kollsnes to the Zeepipe offshore trunk line.

HAMILTON OIL CO. LTD., London, let a 970 million ($105 million) contract to McDermott-ETPM (U.K.) Ltd., London, to install landfall and offshore pipelines for its Liverpool Bay oil and gas field development (OGJ, Nov. 1, p. 34). Work on landfall pipelines is expected to begin early in 1994 for completion in July. Offshore pipelines will be laid in second half 1994.

NORSKE SHELL halted production from Draugen field off Central Norway for 36 hr last month after a storage tank leaked oil. Shell was pumping crude into storage cell No. 5 Nov. 14, for the first time since production began Oct. 19, when about 7 bbl of oil leaked into the sea. Oil was immediately pumped from cell into cell 4, and the leak stopped. Norwegian Contractors plans to use a remotely operated vehicle to repair two small holes found near the top of cell 5.

THE FIRST OF FOUR extended reach production wells is scheduled to be spudded from the Draugen field platform this month. Production is expected to reach 95,000 b/d in late summer 1994 after platform production wells are brought on stream. The first shuttle tanker is scheduled to offload Draugen oil this month.

SEMBAWANG ENGINEERING GROUP, Singapore, will build a $37.5 million platform in the South China Sea for Yacheng 13-1 gas field under development by China National Offshore Oil Corp. and ARCO. Sembawang will engineer, procure, fabricate, precommission, and deliver the topsides of a three level, 5,800 metric ton platform complete with bridge and vent boom, and a four level. 36 man accommodation unit. It also will handle offshore hookup and commissioning of the process platform topsides and wellhead platform topsides.

TRANSPORTATION

NATIONAL PETROLEUM CONSTRUCTION CO. of Abu Dhabi commissioned an expansion of pipe coating facilities at its Mussafah yard in Abu Dhabi. The new plant can handle 3-48 in. pipe with bonded epoxy, two and three layer polyethylene, and two and three layer polypropylene coating systems. An existing plant has coal tar and concrete coating systems.

PETROCHEMICALS

ALGERIA borrowed $100 million from Spain to finance construction of a 130.000 metric ton/year high density polyethylene plant at an undisclosed site. The plant will be operated by Polymed, an enterprise owned two-thirds by Algerian petrochemical company ENIP and one-third by Spanish state company Repsol Quimica.

A TEXAS DISTRICT COURT jury in Houston awarded a combined $730,500 to 15 persons injured in an Oct. 23, 1989, explosion at Phillips 66 Co.'s Pasadena, Tex., petrochemical plant. Plaintiffs sought $200 million in damages. Awards of $2,500-110,000 were made for a range of mental and physical injuries.

Copyright 1993 Oil & Gas Journal. All Rights Reserved.

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