Eni producing 25,000 bopd from offshore Alaska field

Eni has achieved the important production goal of 25,000 bopd at the Nikaitchuq field, in which the company is operator with a 100% interest. The field, located offshore the North Slope of Alaska in a water depth of 3 m, holds reserves estimated at 200 MMbbl of crude oil. Nikaitchuq production, which began in January 2011, is the first operated by Eni in the Arctic.

Development of Nikaitchuq includes the drilling of wells and the construction of facilities both on land and on an artificial island built by Eni in the Beaufort Sea. The location’s extreme climate and environmental constraints required the application of Eni’s proprietary technologies and expertise to drill multilaterals horizontal wells and to build one of the most advanced production facilities in the North Slope, with maximum environmental compatibility and high operating efficiency.

Nikaitchuq horizontal wells are the most complex wells drilled by the industry to date in Alaska, with a lateral displacement that extends up to 22,000 ft. The field treatment plant is able to handle 40,000 bpd of crude oil and up to 120,000 bpd of water. Nikaitchuq production is transported through the Trans-Alaska Pipeline to be sold on the market without the need for further treatment. Eni is now working toward achieving the new production target of 30,000 bopd in the next 12 months.

In the United States, Eni owns interests in 200 leases in the Gulf of Mexico and 530 leases in unconventional plays (shale gas and shale oil) onshore Texas. In addition, Eni owns interests in 100 leases in the North Slope of Alaska, which include Nikaitchuq and 30% of the Oooguruk oil field, which has been in production since 2008. Total Eni’s daily net production is approximately 100,000 boe (75% operated).

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ZEiTECS completes first commercial rigless retrieval of cable deployed ESP

ZEiTECS has announced the world’s first rigless installation and retrieval of the NAUTILUS ESP, a cable-deployed electric submersible pump system (ESP), in a customer well in West Texas.

The system was deployed on December 19, 2013, and ran for 139 days until planned shutdown on May 7; the system was retrieved successfully on May 9.

The ESP was retrieved using ZEiTECS’ Launch and Recovery System (LARS). LARS is a compact, rigless injector-based system that eliminates the need for a rig or heavy coiled tubing unit to replace failed ESPs.

The NAUTILUS ESP system was deployed on a high-strength DC coaxial cable and converts DC power to AC power downhole to drive any standard inverted ESP. The system was set at 2,600 ft. and retrieved in only 40 minutes using the LARS, at an average rate of 65 ft. per minute.

The rigless ESP operation was completed using a 400 series Baker Hughes inverted ESP deployed inside 5.5” tubing, producing 900 bbl of fluid per day. The NAUTILUS ESP system can be used as a permanent production system, as well as a temporary well intervention system for well testing and well clean-up purposes.

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Germany to draft anti-shale fracing rules on public opposition

Germany plans to adopt regulation that will rule out shale fracing for the foreseeable future.

The government wants to ban hydraulic fracturing in shale rocks and coal beds at depths less than 3 km (1.8 miles) and prohibit all types of fracing in water protection areas, Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel and Environment Minister Barbara Hendricks said today, July 4. The government will start drafting legislation and seek to adopt it in the second half, Hendricks told reporters today in Berlin. The rules will be re-evaluated in 2021.

Fracing is unpopular in Germany even as Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government is keen to develop domestic energy sources as it closes nuclear plants by 2022. While companies including Exxon Mobil Corp. have drilled test wells into unconventional gas reservoirs in Germany to emulate the U.S. shale-gas boom, little headway has been made because of public opposition.

The new rules, if adopted, would be “the strictest that ever existed in this respect,” the ministers said in a joint letter to the Social Democrats. “Fracing for shale and coal bed gas for economic reasons won’t be possible in Germany for the foreseeable future.”

Fracing for tight gas, which has been done in Germany since the 1960s, will remain allowed under stricter conditions for frac fluids, the ministers said. Fracing will be allowed for scientific purposes if the fluids aren’t harmful to water supplies, it said.

Not Far Enough

The rules don’t go far enough and leave “loopholes” to allow fracing at a later stage, said Julia Verlinden, energy spokeswoman for the opposition Green Party.

“If you want to prevent fracing, you don’t need science projects,” she said today in an emailed statement. “The risk to harm our ground and drinking water supplies with fracing doesn’t justify the short-term drilling for comparably little gas.”

Europe is divided into different camps on fracing. It’s backed by nations including the UK, Poland and Spain and opposed in countries such as France and Germany.

The oil and gas industry says fracing should be at least tested to keep the door open to a technology that may redraw the energy map across Europe by reducing reliance on Russia. Germany has shale gas reserves for about 10 years of full supply and “maybe much more than that,” Kurt Bock, the CEO of the world’s biggest chemical maker BASF SE, said yesterday at a conference in Berlin.

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Former NATO commander returns to Balkans hunting for Albanian oil

Fifteen years after Wesley Clark led NATO’s bombing campaign against Serbia, the retired U.S. general is back in the Balkans - looking for oil.

Clark, who was also a presidential candidate in 2004, is a director of two Canadian explorers working in Albania, Bankers Petroleum Ltd. and Petromanas Energy Inc. They’re using modern drilling techniques to revive production in one of Europe’s poorest countries, where oil was first produced in the 1920s.

“Albania has an enormous economic significance for Europe as it has a robust supply of oil, and it should be a strong component of European energy policy,” Clark said in a telephone interview.

Oil exploration is part of Albania’s strategy to repair the damage of four decades of economic isolation under the communist regime of Enver Hoxha, who built more than 700,000 concrete military bunkers before he died in 1985. Albania’s economy, where per capita income remains the lowest in Europe after Bosnia, Ukraine and Moldova, has almost doubled in size in the last decade, according to the World Bank.

Clark, who’s been on Bankers’s board since 2008 and became a Petromanas Energy director last year, was NATO’s supreme allied commander in Europe when the alliance’s bombing campaign forced Serbia to withdraw from Kosovo, where ethnic Albanians make up the majority of the population.

Horizontal Drilling

Bankers, based in Calgary, is using horizontal drilling and water flooding to revive Patos-Marinza, first discovered in 1928 and once Europe’s largest producers. Output, which had dwindled to almost nothing in 2004, is now 20,000 bpd and Bankers plans to drill 170 wells a year to boost production to almost 50,000 bpd by 2020.

“Bankers is a lower risk investment alternative that provides predictable and growing production on a significant reserves and resource base,” Darren Engels, an analyst at FirstEnergy who rates the company a buy, said this month.

Petromanas Energy, also based in Calgary, is a partner with Europe’s largest oil company, Royal Dutch Shell Plc, to hunt for new oil fields in Albania, where the geology is similar to southern Italy, home to some of Europe’s largest onshore fields.

Two wells drilled by the companies have found about 375 MMbbl of oil, according to Petromanas, which holds a 25% stake in the venture. A third, called Molisht-1 is being drilled at the moment.

“What’s happening in Albania is representative of the fact that if price of oil stands at $100 a barrel, people are looking at new opportunities,” Clark said. “If the price stays there, it has changed the geography of oil; it is happening in Albania, it is happening elsewhere in Europe.”

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Eni granted three new permits in Algeria

Eni has been granted three prospection permits by Sonatrach, the Algerian state company. The permits authorize Eni, as operator, and Sonatrach to carry out prospection activities in the basins of Timimoun and Oued Mya, in onshore southern Algeria.

The three permits (El Guefoul, Tinerkouk and Terfas), issued from the national agency for the exploitation of hydrocarbon resources (Agence Nationale pour la Valorisation des Ressources en Hydrocarbures, ALNAFT), are valid for two years and cover a total area of 46,837 sq km. The work program includes studies and drilling of prospection wells to define the potential of the areas. The three areas are considered of great interest and potential.

Eni has been present in Algeria since 1981 and has interests in 29 exploration and development licenses, which are currently in production, and in 3 permits under development. Eni is the leading international producer in the country, with daily equity production of approximately 125,000 boe.

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Gazprom Neft inks drilling, fracturing agreement with C.A.T. oil AG

C.A.T. oil AG, a provider of oil and gas field services in Russia and Kazakhstan, signed a framework agreement with Gazprom Neft on drilling and hydraulic fracturing services on June 17, 2014.

The agreement guarantees full utilization of four new drilling rigs and one new fracturing fleet until the end of 2016 and foresees conclusion of respective service agreements between the operating subsidiaries of Gazprom Neft and C.A.T. oil.

The new drilling and fracturing capacities will be successively deployed in the field from September to December 2014 and are part of C.A.T. oil’s growth strategy.
 
In November 2013, C.A.T. oil announced its 2014-16 investment program of EUR 390 million aiming at expansion of its operating capacities by around 33% for fracturing, 55% for sidetracking and 170% for drilling by the end of 2016 as compared to the end of 2013

For 2014, C.A.T. oil has ordered six drilling rigs, four sidetracking rigs and one fracturing fleet. Execution of the program and manufacturing of the ordered new capacities are fully on schedule.

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