Issue: May 2017
Special Focus
Colloidal nanoparticles could prevent clay-related flow impairment in the reservoir.
Features
Part 1: In this first of two monthly reports, the authors review various artificial lift technologies and highlight innovations in beam/rod pumping, linear lift units, hydraulic jet pumps and more.
Oil and gas wells inevitably experience a reduction in bottomhole pressure, as they follow their natural decline curve. The decrease in lifting force leads to liquid-loading in the tubing and flowline. This build-up in hydrostatic pressure reduces production rates faster than natural decline.
Latin America schleps forward on its quest for recovery
Tale of the tape speaks volumes
Determining the extension and internal description of reservoirs is highly challenging in an unconventional shale play. The use of all available data is crucial to extracting maximum information.
In 2016, global natural gas consumption maintained moderate growth, up 1.6% to 3.528 Tcm, similar to the previous year but still below the past ten-year average of 2.5% per annum.
Columns
A truly remarkable feat was achieved on April 28, when the Allseas single-lift installation, decommissioning and pipelay vessel, Pioneering Spirit, set a world lifting record by removing the topsides of Shell UK’s Brent Delta platform from the North Sea. Removed in one piece, the 24,000-tonne topsides are the word’s heaviest, single offshore lift in history.
Methane emissions from fossil fuel development around the world are up to 60% greater than estimated by previous studies, according to new research led by scientists from the U.S.’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado in Boulder.
Digital transformation, data analytics and machine learning. What do these latest trends have to do with oil and gas? Everything.
What do you control? Did you read the story that Smart TV’s were recording what you watch and even reporting it to a demographic agency, which uses statistics, specifically neurologic routines, to predict what you will do next? Where is the line between technology, digital information processing, and your decision tree?
“The highest-IQ company in oilfield service…,” so goes the opinion of one industry observer, and, while impossible to designate with certainty—this business is lopsided with people on the right side of the bell curve—Core Lab would certainly be in the running for the trophy.
Energy companies around the world are adjusting their E&P strategies to take advantage of oil rebounding from the price slump of 2015–2016. For some, this means getting into natural gas to rebalance global portfolios that have been heavy with liquids.
The Russian military and Vladimir Putin got plenty of tabloid coverage in April, when they launched a virtual tour of the recently erected “Trefoil” base in the Franz Josef Land archipelago above the Arctic Circle.
It's quite fashionable these days to argue how the industry is close to constructing usable wellbores, using much of the same automated methodologies found in new-generation manufacturing plants.
In the depths of the Great Oil Bust that occurred in the second half of the 1980s, I was traveling with my family to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday with my aunt and cousins in Enid, Okla.
News & Resources
Gulf Publishing Company (GPC), publisher of World Oil, has acquired Oildom Publishing Company of Texas, Inc., publisher of Pipeline & Gas Journal. Oildom Publishing is a family-owned company that was founded 109 years ago.
The tug-of-war between OPEC and Russia continued to play out, with each consortium struggling to retain its market share while reducing crude output sufficient to keep benchmarks in the $50/bbl range.
Philippe Donche-Gay, executive V.P. president of the Bureau Veritas Industry & Facilities Division, has been promoted to senior executive V.P. of the Marine & Offshore Division.
Sparrows Group has secured a three-year contract to deliver fixed crane maintenance, as well as lifting and rigging services for the Ichthys LNG project—the largest discovery of hydrocarbon liquids in Australia in more than 40 years.
The Engineered Perforating Solutions Division of GEODynamics, Inc., has added SandIQ Optimized Perforating for Diversion to its set of multi-stage plug-and-perf technology.