Denbury Resources announces executive appointments

Denbury Resources Inc., an E&P focused on EOR utilizing CO2 in the Gulf Coast and Rocky Mountain regions, has announced the appointment of Brad Kerr as senior V.P. of planning, technology, CO2 supply and pipelines. In his role, Kerr will oversee Denbury' s long-range development plan, CO2 supply and pipeline operations.

Kerr is assuming the role formerly held by Charlie Gibson, who has been appointed to the newly created position of senior V.P. of production operations. In his new role, Gibson will oversee all of Denbury' s hydrocarbon producing assets, with a focus on implementing various operational improvement initiatives and best practices across the company' s operating regions.

Kerr has 31 years of oil and gas industry experience, serving in various roles at Shell and at Exxon Mobil. His responsibilities included providing operational and technical leadership, new technology implementation, and reservoir engineering for diverse oil and gas exploration and development projects, including EOR and unconventional drilling projects in Alaska, West Texas, the Rockies, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

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Statoil reports fire at Ohio wellsite

A fire reported on June 28 at Statoil’s onshore Eisenbarth well pad in Monroe County, Ohio has been extinguished but follow-up work is continuing.

The fire was limited to surface equipment; none of the wells have been on fire. A Statoil well inspection team on site reported yesterday, June 29, that all wells are secure and are shut-in.

All personnel working on the site were evacuated and remain safe. In addition, as a precautionary measure, residents living nearby were evacuated temporarily. There have been no reports of serious injuries to date associated with this incident.

Statoil continues to work with local, state and federal authorities to manage this incident.

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Scotland may hold billions of barrels of shale oil, report says

Scotland may have billions of barrels of shale oil buried under the country’s most densely populated areas, geologists said June 30.

Scotland’s central belt, running between Glasgow and Edinburgh, may have 6 billion barrels of oil in place, according to a report by the British Geological Survey. While only a fraction of the resource will end up being viable, the deposits could supplement the UK’s 3 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, held mostly in North Sea fields off Scotland’s coast.

The oil and gas industry is central to the debate on Scotland’s independence before a referendum in September. The Scottish government says existing fields in the North Sea will underpin the economy of an independent nation, while opponents say declining production from offshore reserves leaves the country vulnerable.

“This report will give reassurance to investors who wish to explore for oil and gas onshore in Scotland,” said Ken Cronin, CEO of the UK Onshore Operators Group, an industry lobby. The resources “can help replace the UK’s growing dependency on imports and balance the decline of the North Sea.”

Bowland shale

Scotland’s shale gas potential is a fraction of northwest England, the report showed. Scotland’s central belt has shale gas in place of 80.3 Tcf, according to the middle estimate in the report. That compares with 1,300 Tcf in the Bowland shale in northwest England, according to research published by the British Geological Survey last year.

Exploiting the UK’s shale resources has been opposed by environmental campaigners and property owners concerned drilling techniques, including hydraulic fracturing, risk polluting water supplies. Britain’s greater population density will likely make production more difficult than in the U.S, where a shale boom has reversed declining oil and gas output.

The UK government is offering tax breaks to shale drillers to spur development of the resource as North Sea reserves dwindle. The Bowland basin in northern England may supply local natural gas demand for half a century at extraction rates of 10% similar to U.S. fields, according to a report last year.

“Only the broad shoulders of the UK can attract investment in new energy sources and maintain the UK’s position as one of the world’s great energy hubs,” said UK Energy Minister Michael Fallon.

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U.S. crude exports in April rise to highest level in 15 years, says EIA

The U.S. exported 268,000 bpd of crude oil in April (the latest data available from the U.S. Census Bureau), the highest level of exports in 15 years, reported the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Exports have increased sharply since the start of 2013, and have exceeded 200,000 bpd in five of the past six months. The increase in crude exports is largely the result of rising U.S. crude production, which was 8.2 million bpd in March.

To export crude oil from the U.S., a company must obtain a license from the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) of the U.S. Department of Commerce. Under export licensing requirements, the following kinds of transactions will generally be approved:

Exports from Alaska' s Cook Inlet
Exports to Canada for consumption or use therein
Exports in connection with the refining or exchange of strategic petroleum reserve oil
Exports that are consistent with international energy supply agreements
Exports of foreign-origin crude
Exports of California heavy crude up to an average of 25,000 bpd
Temporary exports or exchanges

Licenses for other exports of U.S.-origin crude are considered on a case-by-case basis. For such other exports, the regulations describe the characteristics of transactions that will generally be approved as in the national interest.

Almost all of the crude oil exported from the U.S. has been delivered to Canada, and most of the recent increase in crude oil exports has been from the U.S. Gulf Coast (PADD 3). Gulf Coast crude exports averaged 134,000 bpd in first-quarter 2014, a 283% increase over 2013' s record high of 35,000 bpd. In first-quarter 2014, nearly 75% of Gulf Coast exports have left the region from the Houston-Galveston district, in Texas. The remaining barrels were loaded in Port Arthur, Texas, and New Orleans, La.

Exports from the East Coast (PADD 1) averaged 30,000 bpd in first-quarter 2014, down slightly from 2013 levels, but up from 9,000 bpd in 2012. First-quarter exports from PADD 1 were evenly distributed between the Port of New York and Portland, Maine, which is the starting point of a pipeline that delivers crude to refineries in the Montreal area. Exports of crude from the Midwest (PADD 2) have long been a source of crude for refineries in Sarnia, Ontario.

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