Big Oil Ready to Deploy New Containment Device for Deepwater Spills
Monday, April 18, 2011
Dow Jones Newswires
by Angel Gonzalez
The high-tech marvel that's enabling oil companies to return to the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico sits in a sun-baked industrial lot in the outskirts of Houston, not far from a gas station, a taco truck, and a highway that could quickly take it to the scene of the next Gulf oil spill.
The new spill-containment device was developed by a consortium led by ExxonMobil to control future spills similar to the largest marine oil spill that leaked more than 4 million barrels in the Gulf in April last year.
"We like it here," Marty Massey, chief executive of the Marine Well Containment Co. (MWCC), said Friday, as the company unveiled to reporters the device, called a capping stack that is the heart of the containment system. "[The device was] built here; the people who built it can maintain it" and can be deployed to its destination "in a matter of days," Massey said. "We are ready to go."
The 30-foot tall, 100-ton stack--a tree-shaped mass of blue, yellow and white steel with protruding knobs and gauges--is meant to be lowered on top of a deepwater gusher, either killing the flow or funneling the oil to ships. It draws on the lessons of the system that BP struggled to develop during the three months it fought to control the damaged Deepwater Horizon well that unleashed a major environmental disaster.
The company said the containment system that the device is part of can capture up to 60,000 barrels a day from wells up to 8,000 feet below sea level.
Massey said that the consortium, created by Exxon, Chevron, Shell and ConocoPhillips, is also developing a similar system with a higher capacity capable of capturing up to 100,000 barrels a day from gushers as deep as 10,000 feet. This improved version, Massey said, will operate from several bases along the Gulf Coast and will be ready around mid-2012.
As the government suspended deepwater drilling following the Gulf disaster, the oil industry needed to quickly take steps and prove that it was capable of controlling any future
Showing posts with label Ready. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ready. Show all posts
Monday, April 18, 2011
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Petrobras CEO: Ready to Enter Kazakh Market
Petrobras CEO: Ready to Enter Kazakh Market
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Asia Pulse Pte. Ltd.
Petrobras, the Brazilian energy giant, is hoping to enter Kazakhstan's oil sector and is currently in cooperation talks with the state-owned oil firm, KazMunayGas, to do so.
"Kazakhstan is the largest crude oil producer of the world. We have had some business meetings with the KazMunayGas executives to discuss possible cooperation between the companies," CEO of Brazil's Petrobras Jose Sergio Gabrieli told Kazinform agency.
According to him, Petrobras is ready to work together with Kazakh oil and gas companies.
"Unfortunately, we have no business ties with Kazakhstan to date, but we hope to tune up cooperation soon," he said.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Asia Pulse Pte. Ltd.
Petrobras, the Brazilian energy giant, is hoping to enter Kazakhstan's oil sector and is currently in cooperation talks with the state-owned oil firm, KazMunayGas, to do so.
"Kazakhstan is the largest crude oil producer of the world. We have had some business meetings with the KazMunayGas executives to discuss possible cooperation between the companies," CEO of Brazil's Petrobras Jose Sergio Gabrieli told Kazinform agency.
According to him, Petrobras is ready to work together with Kazakh oil and gas companies.
"Unfortunately, we have no business ties with Kazakhstan to date, but we hope to tune up cooperation soon," he said.
Friday, March 25, 2011
Rosneft Ready to Defend its BP Deal
Rosneft Ready to Defend its BP Deal
Friday, March 25, 2011
by William Mauldin
Friday, March 25, 2011
by William Mauldin
Dow Jones Newswires
Rosneft Chairman Igor Sechin said the company is ready to defend its $16 billion tie-up with BP, after an arbitration tribunal extended a ban on the deal following complaints from BP's existing Russian partners, Russian newswires reported Friday.
State-controlled Rosneft is already suffering losses because the panel extended an injunction blocking the deal at the behest of BP's partner in TNK-BP, Sechin said, according to an Interfax report.
Sechin, who is also Russia's powerful deputy prime minister overseeing energy, said the final arbitration ruling will come out of Stockholm only on April 7. Rosneft is "not in negotiations" with AAR, BP's partner in TNK-BP, nor has it received proposal from AAR, Sechin said, according to the reports.
BP said late Thursday that the arbitration tribunal ruled that a temporary court injunction against BP's deal with Rosneft "should continue." In a statement, BP said it was "disappointed" that the agreements "cannot for now go ahead in the form intended."
Besides BP and Rosneft, the panel's ruling is seen as a setback for Sechin, who has sought to attract billions of dollars of foreign investment into Russia's oil sector.
Shares of Rosneft sank 1.2% to RUB266.10 on the Micex Stock Exchange at 1220 GMT, compared with only a slight decline for the broader index.
State-controlled Rosneft is already suffering losses because the panel extended an injunction blocking the deal at the behest of BP's partner in TNK-BP, Sechin said, according to an Interfax report.
Sechin, who is also Russia's powerful deputy prime minister overseeing energy, said the final arbitration ruling will come out of Stockholm only on April 7. Rosneft is "not in negotiations" with AAR, BP's partner in TNK-BP, nor has it received proposal from AAR, Sechin said, according to the reports.
BP said late Thursday that the arbitration tribunal ruled that a temporary court injunction against BP's deal with Rosneft "should continue." In a statement, BP said it was "disappointed" that the agreements "cannot for now go ahead in the form intended."
Besides BP and Rosneft, the panel's ruling is seen as a setback for Sechin, who has sought to attract billions of dollars of foreign investment into Russia's oil sector.
Shares of Rosneft sank 1.2% to RUB266.10 on the Micex Stock Exchange at 1220 GMT, compared with only a slight decline for the broader index.
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