E&P Notes (December 2017)

Abstract

E&P Notes BHGE Shares Strategy for Integration of Services, Products, and Digital Platforms Pam Boschee, Senior Editor Marking 100 days as a new company after the merger of Baker Hughes and GE Oil and Gas, Baker Hughes, a GE company (BHGE), shared its strategies and plans for taking a fullstream approach to global oilfield services, products, and digital capabilities to improve productivity, safety, and project economics. Speaking at the SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition in October, Mathias Schlecht, BHGE vice president of enterprise technology, described the concept as the full integration of services from upstream to midstream to downstream. “We know how to get the molecules and transport and use them. From molecules to megawatts, and deep sea to the cloud.” Accidental Discovery: Bitumen Pellets for Heavy Oil Transport Stephen Whitfield, Senior Staff Writer Researchers at the University of Calgary have developed something that may have a significant impact on the transport of heavy oil, and it is the size of a pill. The discovery is a pellet, self-sealing with a liquid core of either bitumen or heavy oil within a super-viscous, semi-solid, or solid skin that reduces the chance of a damaging spill during transport. The pellets can be designed to be buoyant and safe if they are spilled into the environment by incorporating agents within the pellets, like gas bubbles, catalysts, and solvents. Their outer coating is unreactive, making them much less likely to cause environmental damage than a liquid heavy oil or bitumen spill. Jones Energy CEO Tells of Company’s Transformation Joel Parshall, JPT Features Editor Jones Energy CEO Jonny Jones described his company’s transformation from a small private entity to a publicly traded company in a talk in October at the Leaders in Industry Luncheon, sponsored by the Independent Producers Association of America and the Texas Independent Oil Producers & Royalty Owners, at the Houston Petroleum Club. Jones highlighted the company’s entry into the Merge oil play, a newly defined play at the junction of the SCOOP (South Central Oklahoma Oil Province) and STACK (Sooner Trend, Anadarko and Canadian and Kingfisher [counties]) plays in central Oklahoma. Largest Gulf of Mexico Lease Sale Announced John Donnelly, JPT Editor The US Department of the Interior in October proposed the largest oil and gas lease sale ever held in the United States—almost 77 million acres offshore Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida. The sale would be held in March 2018 and is attempted to revive interest in a sector that has been reeling since oil prices fell sharply beginning 3 years ago. The sale includes all available unleased areas on the Gulf ’s Outer Continental Shelf. The Trump administration said the auction should make the US energy industry stronger. This proposed sale follows a lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico in August that attracted $121 million in high bids on 90 offshore tracts.