February 23, 2011
ExxonMobil Expands Black Sea Deepwater
ExxonMobil and Rosneft have entered an agreement to explore for oil and gas in the Tuapse Trough in the Russian portion of the Black Sea. The area of interest covers 11,200 sq km.
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BP Expanding International New Business Development Programs
BP will acquire a 30% share in 23 Reliance PSCs (20 million net acres) in India's deepwater. The majority of these are contiguous blocks along India's east coast.
The acquisition cost includes US$7.2 billion up front and another US$1.8 billion to be paid on a contingent basis depending on exploration results yielding development projects. BP and Reliance will also form a 50/50 JV to source and market natural gas in India.
The primary producing asset in the transaction is the KG-D6 gas field with an interest in the much smaller MA-1 producing oil field.
Bight and Carnarvon Basin Awards
BP was awarded a 100% interest in four Ceduna sub-basin blocks in the Bight basin:
- EPP-37: 6,125 sq km in water depths ranging from 140 to 1,550 meters
- EPP-38: 6,000 sq km in water depths ranging from 1,500 to 4,500 meters
- EPP-39: 6,335 sq km in water depths ranging from 1,200 to 4,600 meters
- EPP-40: 6,110 sq km in water depths ranging from 1,300 to 4,500 meters
EPP-38, 39 and 40 are Designated Frontier areas. The work program is expected to include 11,400 sq km of 3D seismic and four exploration wells.
These awards were preceded by Woodside winning WA-451-P and Riverina Energy's award in November 2010 of WA-452-P. Both blocks are in shallow waters of the Dampier sub-basin in the Carnarvon basin.
Finder Exploration acquired WA-450-P, an 80 sq km block, in June 2010. The block is in 1,640 feet of water south of Gorgon in the Carnarvon basin. On 17 August 2010 Apache farmed into WA-450-P for a 75% interest and operatorship.
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Chevron Expands its Shale Operations in North America
Chevron announced that it has accumulated 200,000 acres in Alberta's Duvernay shale play.
Angolan Pre-Salt Awards
Angola has announced tentative awards of multiple offshore blocks as part of its Pre-salt Licensing Round.
Statoil has been chosen to participate in four blocks including:
- Block 38 (40% and operator)
- Block 39 (40% and operator)
- Block 22 (20%)
- Block 25 (20%)
- Block 40 (20%)
Cobalt International announced that it has been chosen to take a 40% interest and operatorship of Block 20 which consists of 1.2 million acres. The company already holds interests in Blocks 9 and 21.
ENI will operate Block 35 (30%) in partnership with Sonangol (45%) and Repsol (25%). The partners will drill two wells and conduct 2,500 sq km 3D seismic over the first five year exploration period. The block covers an area of 4,831 sq km.
Apache Enters Kenyan Block
Apache has reached agreement to take a 50% interest in Block L8 offshore Kenya. Origin's share in the block will fall to 25% and operatorship will pass to Apache. Apache will reimburse Origin for US$13.2 million in past costs and will carry an unspecified share of Origin's future exploration costs associated with drilling a well on the Mbawa structure.
Occidental Plans for 2010 & Beyond
In its recent 4th quarter earnings release Oxy announced plans to increase capital spending from US$3.9 billion in 2010 to US$6.1 billion in 2011. This does not include the company's 40% share in the US$10 billion Shah Sour Gas project. An estimated 6% of this budget (US$366 million) is expected to be devoted to new acquisitions.
Unconventional operations include a potential for 520 shale wells in California. Management highlighted that this expected well potential is calculated on a small percentage of the company's acreage. Total possible well locations were reported to be as much as triple, i.e., 1,560.