Equatorial Guinea

ExxonMobil Plans Shift Away From West Africa

Journal of Petroleum TechnologyJanuary, 2023

ExxonMobil will wind down oil production in Equatorial Guinea and leave the West African country after its license expires in 2026, sources told Reuters. The exit is part of a larger exodus by oil and gas companies shifting their focus away from aging offshore projects in West Africa to lower-carbon natural gas and LNG projects inland and more-lucrative projects elsewhere. The operator has cut its output in the country to less than 15,000 BOPD through existing production unit Serpentina, according to the Reuters source. It evacuated staff from the offshore production platform Zafiro this year due to water entering the aging vessel. ExxonMobil's oil output in Equatorial Guinea peaked at more than 300,000 B/D 8 years ago and has been declining since.

Journal of Petroleum Technology

africa government, away, climate change, equatorial guinea government, ExxonMobil, gas monetization, liquefied natural gas, liquified natural gas, LNG, social responsibility, sub-sea system, sustainability, sustainable development, Upstream Oil & Gas, West Africa

Country: Africa > Equatorial Guinea (0.58)

Industry: Energy > Oil & Gas > Upstream (1.00)

SPE Disciplines:

Health, Safety, Environment & Sustainability > Sustainability/Social Responsibility > Sustainable development (1.00)
Health, Safety, Environment & Sustainability > Environment > Climate change (1.00)
Facilities Design, Construction and Operation > Offshore Facilities and Subsea Systems (0.62)
Facilities Design, Construction and Operation > Natural Gas Conversion and Storage > Liquified natural gas (LNG) (0.62)

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Mystery Supertanker Awaits Fate After Equatorial Guinea Seizure

Journal of Petroleum TechnologyAugust, 2022

An oil supertanker that Nigeria tried to seize has been stuck off the coast of nearby Equatorial Guinea for more than 10 days, where it was impounded by local authorities. The Nigerian navy said that its counterparts in Equatorial Guinea arrested the Heroic Idun on 12 August, four days after the same vessel allegedly tried to load a cargo of crude unlawfully from the deepwater Akpo field operated by TotalEnergies. The ship lacked the necessary clearance and left Nigerian waters before being intercepted by the Equatoguinean military, the navy said on 19 August. The Nigerian navy said that the ship was on hire to trading giant Trafigura Group, but that appears to not be the case, according to a person familiar with the matter. The tanker was on lease to BP from Mercuria Group around the time the navy tried to seize it on 8 April, according to another person with knowledge of the situation.

Journal of Petroleum Technology

equatorial guinea seizure, Fate, freight & logistics services, group, heroic idun, marine transportation, nigerian navy, ship

Country:

Africa > Equatorial Guinea (0.89)
Africa > Nigeria > Gulf of Guinea > Niger Delta (0.28)

Industry:

Energy > Oil & Gas (0.97)
Transportation > Marine (0.64)
Transportation > Freight & Logistics Services > Shipping > Tanker (0.64)

Oilfield Places:

Africa > Nigeria > Gulf of Guinea > Niger Delta > Niger Delta Basin > OPL 246 > Akpo Field (0.99)
Africa > Nigeria > Gulf of Guinea > Niger Delta > Niger Delta Basin > OML 130 > Akpo Field (0.99)

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Chevron Turns the Taps on Alen Gas Field

Journal of Petroleum TechnologyFebruary, 2021

Chevron subsidiary Noble Energy EG Ltd. has achieved first gas flow from the Alen Gas Monetization Project in the Douala basin offshore Equatorial Guinea. The project consists of a 70-km (43.5 miles) pipeline with a capacity of 950 million cubic feet of natural gas equivalent per day (MMcfe/D) that allows gas from the Alen field to be processed through onshore existing facilities, maximizing development of current and future regional gas resources. Noble calls the project a key step forward for the country's envisioned Equatorial Guinea Gas Mega Hub, which seeks to utilize existing infrastructure and support the gas industry within Equatorial Guinea. "As a company, we are proud to be a strategic partner in this joint effort, and we look forward to continue contributing to the economic and social development of the country," said Gene Kornegay, Vice President and Country Manager of Noble Energy EG Ltd. This project facilitates the transport of gas from offshore production infrastructure to existing onshore facilities at Punta Europa (the Alba Plant and the Equatorial Guinea LNG Plant), where it will be processed and converted into LNG, allowing for future discovered resources to be processed in the country, supporting jobs and economic growth.

Journal of Petroleum Technology

alen field, alen gas field, chevron turn, Equatorial Guinea, gas monetization, gepetrol, glencore, interest owner, liquified natural gas, LNG, Midstream Oil & Gas, noble energy eg ltd, Offshore Equatorial Guinea, Upstream Oil & Gas

Country: Africa > Equatorial Guinea > Gulf of Guinea > Bioko Island (0.82)

Industry:

Energy > Oil & Gas > Upstream (1.00)
Energy > Oil & Gas > Midstream (1.00)

Oilfield Places:

Africa > Equatorial Guinea > Gulf of Guinea > Bioko Island > Block O > Alen Field (0.99)
Africa > Cameroon > Douala Basin (0.99)

SPE Disciplines: Facilities Design, Construction and Operation > Natural Gas Conversion and Storage > Liquified natural gas (LNG) (1.00)

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Rigless Intervention Case Studies in the North Sea and Equatorial Guinea

Journal of Petroleum TechnologyJanuary, 2021

There are considerable benefits to conducting rigless subsea well intervention from specialized monohull vessels. Two case studies provide an overview of operations on subsea wells, from intervening through the production tree (XT) to XT change-out and well-plug-and-abandonment (P&A)/wellhead-removal operations. Rigless and RLWI activities have been carried out for more than 25 years across the North Sea. The purpose of the following case studies is to demonstrate that with effective project management (planning, developing, execution, and close-out), the use of RLWI is a flexible and extremely cost-effective method that operators can use for a single well or across a number (a campaign) of subsea wells, irrespective of subsea-tree type or close proximity. The SIL provides access to the wellbore.

Journal of Petroleum Technology

Country:

Europe > United Kingdom > North Sea (0.63)
Europe > Norway > North Sea (0.63)
Europe > North Sea (0.63)
(3 more...)

Industry: Energy > Oil & Gas > Upstream (1.00)

Oilfield Places:

Europe > United Kingdom > North Sea (0.89)
Europe > Norway > North Sea (0.89)
Europe > Netherlands > North Sea (0.89)
(2 more...)

SPE Disciplines:

Well Completion (1.00)
Production and Well Operations (1.00)
Facilities Design, Construction and Operation > Offshore Facilities and Subsea Systems (1.00)
(3 more...)

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Equatorial Guinea

Journal of Petroleum TechnologyDecember, 2020

On the basis of a case study in Equatorial Guinea, this paper demonstrates how barrier provisions with remotely controlled open/close technology capabilities enable interventions to be removed from a completion design.

Journal of Petroleum Technology

Equatorial Guinea, Upstream Oil & Gas

Country: Africa > Equatorial Guinea (0.85)

Industry: Energy > Oil & Gas > Upstream (0.83)

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High resolution velocity and impedance estimation using refraction and reflection FWI: The Fortuna region, offshore Equatorial Guinea

OnePetroSeptember, 2019

ABSTRACT The primary objective of this project was to improve the understanding of the internal structure of the Viscata and Fortuna reservoirs, and this objective was met via clearer internal imaging of these reservoir intervals and the overlying gas-charged sediments. The underlying geophysical challenge was the presence of extensive, but small-scale low-velocity gas pockets, which gave rise to significant and cumulative image distortion at target level. This distortion had not been resolved in a vintage 2013 broadband preSDM project, as the velocity model was not sufficiently well resolved. But in the initial commercial phase of this project, high-resolution non-parametric tomography using improved broadband deghosted data enabled us to achieve the stated objectives. The follow-on work, considered here, deals with the use of full waveform inversion, to see if we could further delineate small-scale velocity anomalies, associated with the highly compartmentalized reservoir units, and also, to use the waveform inversion velocities to better constrain and augment acoustic impedance estimation. Presentation Date: Tuesday, September 17, 2019 Session Start Time: 1:50 PM Presentation Time: 3:05 PM Location: 302B Presentation Type: Oral

OnePetro

doi: 10.1190/segam2019-3201697.1

SEG

SEG-2019-3201697

SEG International Exposition and Annual Meeting

constraint, fortuna region, fortuna west well, Gardner, high resolution velocity, Impedance Estimation, impedance inversion, inversion, iteration, Offshore Equatorial Guinea, reflection FWI, Reservoir Characterization, reservoir unit, seg international exposition, Upstream Oil & Gas

Country: Africa > Equatorial Guinea (0.51)

Geophysics: Geophysics > Seismic Surveying > Seismic Modeling > Velocity Modeling (1.00)

Industry: Energy > Oil & Gas > Upstream (1.00)

Oilfield Places: Africa > Equatorial Guinea > Gulf of Guinea > Block R > Fortuna Field (0.94)

SPE Disciplines: Reservoir Description and Dynamics > Reservoir Characterization > Seismic processing and interpretation (1.00)

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Slim Well Casing Design for a Deepwater Application Using a Fast and Flexible Finite Element Engine

Panayirci, Murat (Schlumberger) | Houette, Olivier (Schlumberger) | Brands, Sjoerd (Schlumberger) | Paraschiv, Marius (Schlumberger) | French, Simon (Energean Oil & Gas)

OnePetroMarch, 2019

Abstract In the exploration and production (E&P) industry attempts at reducing the cost of the well construction by applying various well architecture slim designs has attracted attention from operators for decades. The recent industry downturn has further contributed to a renewed focus on this strategy. In this study we present a slim well design application within the FortunaCo project (a Joint Venture between OneLNG and Ophir), which aims at developing the Fortuna and Viscata fields in Deepwater offshore Equatorial Guinea. An advanced static nonlinear Finite Element engine is used in this process, which considers contact and friction; can handle large deformations and is therefore suitable to carry out buckling analysis. The top hole structural robustness is analyzed using this engine in the event of a worst case axial load, which for this study is assumed to be:The Conductor Pipe (CP) able to take its own weight only, The upper section of the surface casing (inside the CP) free of cement, The full buoyant weight of the Horizontal Christmas tree and Subsea Blowout Preventer applied onto the well. This paper demonstrates that the selected numerical model is suitable to estimate critical buckling loads and identify post-buckled modes exerted on surface structural casings. Furthermore, it is shown that the visualization capabilities and speed of the engine allow the operator to optimize the design iteratively in an efficient manner. We conclude that the selected methodology is suitable for the operator to validate a slim well design for a Deepwater development application at concept phase for minimal cost with the necessary level of confidence.

OnePetro

doi: 10.2118/194056-MS

SPE

SPE-194056-MS

SPE/IADC International Drilling Conference and Exhibition

Country:

North America > United States (0.29)
Africa > Equatorial Guinea (0.25)

Genre: Research Report > New Finding (0.35)

Industry: Energy > Oil & Gas > Upstream (1.00)

Oilfield Places: Africa > Equatorial Guinea > Gulf of Guinea > Block R > Fortuna Field (0.94)

SPE Disciplines:

Well Drilling > Drilling Operations (1.00)
Well Drilling > Casing and Cementing > Casing design (1.00)

Technology: Information Technology (0.47)

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Equatorial Guinea Congratulates Oil Services Companies for Steps Toward Local-Content Compliance

Journal of Petroleum TechnologyNovember, 2018

Equatorial Guinea's minister of mines and hydrocarbons has commended international oil services companies Schlumberger and TechnipFMC on their proactive measures taken to comply with the country's local-content regulations. "Both Schlumberger and TechnipFMC have a long history of working in our country, and their recent engagement with local companies; commitment to train, develop, and promote our citizens; as well as setting up a robust workplace nationalization program demonstrates their willingness to ensure that benefits of oil contracts are shared with our citizens." "I want urge the entire industry to continue with our policy of building a culture of compliance. We will continue to be flexible and will continue working on making our country the best place for oil companies to operate in the region." The announcement follows the decision, earlier this week, to cancel all contracts awarded to international oil services firm Subsea 7 for failure to comply with local content rules in Equatorial Guinea.

Journal of Petroleum Technology

asset and portfolio management, contractor, Equatorial Guinea, guinea congratulate oil service company, hydrocarbon, local company, local-content compliance, Minister, TechnipFMC, Upstream Oil & Gas

Country: Africa > Equatorial Guinea (1.00)

Industry: Energy > Oil & Gas > Upstream (1.00)

SPE Disciplines:

Management > Asset and Portfolio Management (1.00)
Facilities Design, Construction and Operation (0.62)

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Real-time 4D acquisition optimization for marine streamer surveys

Srinivasan, Arjun (ExxonMobil Upstream Research Company) | Lu, Xinyou (ExxonMobil Upstream Research Company) | Bishop, JJ (ExxonMobil Development Company)

OnePetroOctober, 2018

There have been many technology advancements in marine acquisition to improve repeatability, such as steerable One of the primary goals of a 4D marine acquisition is to sources and streamers (Monk, 2010), dynamic controls to replicate the source/receiver positions of a previously record shots at any pre-plot location (Calvert, 2005), and the acquired baseline so as to maximize repeatability. Some of use of multi-measurement streamers that can generate the originally shot lines (often called prime lines) are reacquired shots/receivers at any given subsurface location to improve repeatability, usually depending on (Eggenberger, 2014). Adjacent sail lines are also sometimes proximity to the prospect/reservoir and the availability of acquired in an overlapping manner for 4D marine streamer funds. The decision to re-acquire a line or a swath is surveys (Cappelle, 2009) which reduces the need for commonly based on sub-surface coverage (fold) plots, dS dedicated reshoots or infills due to feathering or water (distance between sources) plots and/or dSdR (sum of currents. In spite of dedicated techniques to reduce costs and distance between sources and distance between receivers) improve efficiency of 4D monitor acquisition, we often still plots that are generated onboard as a part of standard QC end up acquiring more data than we need.

OnePetro

doi: 10.1190/segam2018-2996951.1

SEG

SEG-2018-2996951

2018 SEG International Exposition and Annual Meeting

acquisition, acquisition optimization, cdp offset bin, decision making, dsdr, dsdr field, infill line, information, marine acquisition, monitor survey, real time system, repeatability, Reservoir Characterization, seg 10, seg international exposition, streamer, Upstream Oil & Gas, vintage, workflow

Country: Africa > Equatorial Guinea (0.31)

Geophysics:

Geophysics > Time-Lapse Surveying > Time-Lapse Seismic Surveying (1.00)
Geophysics > Seismic Surveying > Surface Seismic Acquisition > Marine Seismic Acquisition (0.71)

Industry: Energy > Oil & Gas > Upstream (1.00)

Oilfield Places: Africa > Equatorial Guinea > Gulf of Guinea > Block B > Zafiro Field (0.99)

SPE Disciplines:

Reservoir Description and Dynamics > Reservoir Characterization > Seismic processing and interpretation (1.00)
Reservoir Description and Dynamics > Reservoir Characterization > Four-dimensional and four-component seismic (1.00)

Technology: Information Technology > Architecture > Real Time Systems (0.55)

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Step Change in Deepwater Drilling Performance Through Optimisation Saves Operator 3.5 Rig Days, West Africa

Trulsvik, Nils (Starc Ltd) | Grant, Lauren (Underground Maintenance Systems Ltd, formerly with AGR Petroleum Services) | Alexander, Gregg (Schlumberger) | Alvarado, Robert (Schlumberger) | Diffendaffer, Waco (Schlumberger) | MacLeod, Lindsey (TWMA Ltd, formerly with Schlumberger) | Tetley, Nicholas (formerly with Schlumberger)

OnePetroNovember, 2017

Abstract An operator was planning to drill a 12¼-in. vertical borehole through highly interbedded shale and sandstone off the coast of Equatorial Guinea in deepwater West Africa. Offset data predicted bands of highly abrasive sandstone with unconfined compressive strength of up to 30,000 psi, which had resulted in multiple bit/bottomhole assembly (BHA) trips and associated nonproductive time (NPT). A new approach was required to find the optimal bit design that would drill the section in a single run whilst ensuring full compatibility with the planned BHA. Offset wells were utilising heavy-set bits to offer greater abrasion resistance. The initiation of wear flats with such heavy-set bits had a detrimental effect on rate of penetration (ROP), particularly in the more-competent sandstone, and required high weight on bit (WOB) to drill ahead. This introduced harmful downhole drilling dynamics, which further accelerated any bit damage, leading to costly bit trips. A time-based holistic modeling suite was used to capture the entire drilling system and push the boundaries of bit design to deliver optimal performance without sacrificing durability. A lighter-set drill bit was designed and validated using the modeling system to maximise dynamic stability over the benchmark. The new bit design and improved stability coupled with the latest cutter technology allowed the cutters to be kept sharp to deliver improved ROP and section length. The 12¼-in. bit drilled 1,140.2 m—24% further than planned—in one run at an average ROP of 38.4 m/h. The bent-motor BHA maintained verticality throughout the section without any significant shock or vibration, and the bit was pulled out in good dull condition. The combination of new bit design and optimal BHA and operating parameters enabled the operator to complete the 12¼-in. section 3.5 days ahead of schedule, resulting in cost savings of USD 3.5 million. Implementing holistic drilling system design and optimisation methodologies that consider not only the bit, but the entire BHA, drillstring, trajectory, and rock, can deliver proven performance in the most challenging environments.

OnePetro

doi: 10.2118/188428-MS

SPE

SPE-188428-MS

Abu Dhabi International Petroleum Exhibition & Conference