Regional Government

Is your energy business ready to go global?

In today's market there are few companies that are able to strictly focus on domestic opportunities. Increased competition in saturated home markets offer stagnant returns and in order to achieve growth, a company must either innovate, explore opportunities in foreign markets or both. By internationalizing, a company can capture new market share and may achieve continuous business growth. To accomplish this however, a thorough examination of the barriers and key considerations is vital for companies who are considering taking their business to the international stage.

To begin, a company should find a market for their goods and services and then plan, test and evaluate their internationalization strategy. By reviewing different models, theories and tools meant to assist a company when entering into the global economy, these findings and concepts are then applied to a case study of an oil and gas mid-sized service company which internationalized into the South East Asian market.

The intent of the paper is to identify key external considerations that a small to mid-sized oilfield service company should be cognizant of prior to entering into a host market. For many businesses, the rewards far outweigh the risks when a company decides to internationalize. Ensuring they have a proper strategy will set the company up for success. Key global expansion considerations were validated during the initial phases of the internationalization process and after creating a roadmap for the case study oilfield service company as it expanded into South East Asia. Further, several recommendations were put forth. These included host regulatory environment risks, political stability and culture. The goal of this paper outlines how companies can follow their own path, rather than following a herd mentality to go global successfully.

The objective is to present a matrix to identify environmental and social aspects which may impact the initiation, assessment, approval of final investment decision and implementation of oil and gas projects in Mexico. The matrix is applied to 19 blocks. The results demonstrate the usefulness in ease of identification of key elements which may be focus of attention to project feasibility. This may be used as tool for resource classification, and thus adapted to other countries.

The Agency for Safety, Energy and Environment (ASEA) with collaboration from the Energy Ministry (SENER) were involved while the project selection was integrated by the National Hydrocarbon Commission (CNH). CNH selected 19 blocks for review with 75 oil and gas projects. SENER and ASEA developed a matrix with clear identification of environmental and social aspects which may have an impact on the potential implementation of each project. The traffic light and multivariate analysis methods were adopted to colour code the environmental and social elements. This coding allowed quick identification of key areas which need to be addressed for project feasibility.

The selected blocks were located both offshore and onshore with different environmental and social issues. Unconventional and conventional resource developments were covered in the projects. The use of the matrix provided a consistent tool for better identification and understanding of the social and environmental aspects interacting in each block. It also emphasized the main sources of information and the best way to evaluate systematically the social and environmental aspects. The application of the matrix on real blocks exposed the social and environmental aspects that must to be addressed for the oil industry to develop from a sustainable vision. The evaluation of diverse blocks allowed for the identification of common characteristics and the subsequent classification of the blocks. The developed matrix may be used as a tool for making energy policy decisions. At the national level, it may also assist in understanding and meeting some of UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG's).

This paper presents a novel matrix to identify environmental and social elements relevant for the development of any oil and gas project. It also proposes a useful traffic light and multivariate analysis methods for the evaluation of these elements. The matrix allows quick and easy reference for identification of the key elements which may be focus of attention to oil and gas project feasibility. This approach may benefit the decision-making process within an integrated sustainability perspective.

Results of the Integrated CCS for Kansas pre-feasibility study indicate that large-scale CO₂ capture, transportation and storage in saline aquifers in Kansas is both technically and economically feasible and deserving of further study. Based on the technical work on multiple geologic sites, there appear to be up to four sites within the North Hugoton Storage Complex (NHSC) in Southwest Kansas where >50 million tons CO₂ could be injected over a 25- to 30-year period and safely stored in a set of stacked saline aquifers at ideal depths of 5200-6400 ft. The saline aquifers (Mississippian Osage, Ordovician Viola, and Cambrian-Ordovician) are overlain by oil reservoirs that are candidates for CO₂ Enhanced Oil recovery (EOR). Of the four possible sites in the NHSC, the Patterson site was chosen as the primary site for a CarbonSAFE Phase II project. Patterson was chosen because the operator of the overlying fields, Berexco, was a long-term research partner of the Kansas Geological Survey (KGS), having participated in several DOE-funded studies with the KGS. Patterson has EOR opportunities in overlying reservoirs and most of the prospective injection site is already unitized.

Capture, compression and transportation of large volumes of CO₂ is economic in the region, particularly since the extension and expansion of Federal 45Q tax credits in February 2018 that provide $35/ton for CO₂ stored during EOR and $50/ton if stored in a saline reservoir and can be captured for a 12-year period. Without these credits, saline aquifer storage is not economically viable. The most economic scenario involves CO₂ aggregated from multiple ethanol plants via small-diameter pipelines that tie into a main trunk line for delivery to market. CO₂ EOR likely needs to be part of the system to provide economy of scale and, potentially, additional subsidy for saline aquifer injection through CO₂ sales. High capture costs at the two power plants and refinery in this study make them non-economic options without further subsidy that may arise from a large regional pipeline system.

Legal, regulatory, public policy aspects of a project of the scale envisioned will require significant changes at the State level. In particular, legislation that would regulate capture, transportation, injection and storage as a public utility would be required along with allowances for eminent domain to be used for pipeline right-of-way and pooling of pore space. Streamlining the U.S. EPA UIC Class VI well permit process and/or establishing State primacy would further support development of commercial-scale CCS. Effective public outreach is critical for support of State regulatory changes, and for public acceptance, particularly in light of possibility for induced seismicity due to injection in certain areas and mixed public opinions about pipeline construction.

One of the goals cherished by modern organizations is gender balance, as a proven way to enhance productivity, boost the motivation of employees and enrich the leadership pipelines of internal succession plans. The energy sector follows closely this trend, inclusive of major organizations of operations and services, especially in Oil and Gas. And in no other region of the world this is now more visible than in the Middle East, one of the most active and traditionally leading and strategic regions in the segment. This paper summarizes what factors were fundamental for the very visible blooming of the female leadership, particularly in the oil and gas sectorin the Gulf Cooperation Council GCC countries. Certainly, middle-eastern women do not account yet for a large or representative number inthe highest roles of private or National Oil Companiesof their countries, but things are rapidly changing, and the blooming is real.

A comparison of key elements considered diagnostic about the empowerment of women, like female workforce percentages, gender gap indexes, and representation of women in leadership roles in oil and gas are herein analyzed for the GCC, comparing those with figures of other regions of the World. Other indicators were included in the analysis, which proved to be key for developing women's leadership, in particular, communication strategies, empowering plans, training, active and visible endorsement of top leaders and other strategies of governmental agencies and corporations. Definitively, the Middle East, and particularly the GCC countries, in which our study is centered, have boldly address cultural issues and traditional barriers, to produce step-changes that are quickly transforming the oil and organizations in all countries of the region. A forecast of opportunities for women's leadership in the upstream and downstream sectors of the oil industry in the future is proposed, in a story of learned best practices worth sharing.

The paper includes a summary of the standing and utilization of social media channels by main organizations in oil and gas. A frame of the current trends analyzed resulted in the identification of the organizations more successful in the utilization of these key channels, so relevant for the general audiences and the new generations. Some unexpected findingsshaped our conclusions about strategies instrumental for step-changes needed in political or cultural settings that may be challenging for boosting women's empowerment.

Water is considered the ‘oil of space’ with applications ranging from fuel production to colony consumption. Recent findings suggested the presence of water-ice in the Permanently shadowed craters on Lunar poles. This water present on the Moon and other planetary bodies can significantly bring down the cost of space exploration, fueling the colonization of the solar system. With low-resolution orbital data available, the next step is to drill and analyze samples from the Moon.

An extensive review of drilling systems designed by NASA was conducted focusing on the effect of different planetary environments on the drill design. Inspired by this and the drilling systems developed in the petroleum industry, an auger based rotary drilling rig was designed and fabricated with an extensive high-frequency data acquisition system, measuring all essential drilling parameters. Several analog rocks were cast with regolith simulant grout to replicate different subsurface geotechnical properties in the Lunar polar craters. The drill was tested on samples with different geotechnical properties to account for the varying properties expected in the Lunar poles.

Application of the drilling engineering concepts has resulted in the development of a robust drilling system capable of replicating drilling process for different planetary environments like the Moon and Mars. Using the data acquisition system on the rig, an advanced machine learning algorithm capable of processing and analyzing the real-time high-frequency drilling data to estimate a sample's geotechnical properties and water content was created. The evolving algorithm was developed based on initial drilling tests on homogenous and heterogeneous analogs. It was tested on samples with varying heterogeneity to estimate the geotechnical properties and the water content accurately. With some modifications, this algorithm can be applied in the Lunar and Martian missions to estimate the geotechnical properties in real-time, without the need to analyze the subsurface samples on the surface. This can result in a cost-effective exploration of water-ice resources on the Moon and Mars, kickstarting the space resources industry and the human colonization on those planetary bodies. The expertise of the drilling engineers in designing and executing wells in extreme terrestrial environments can help create significantly effective drilling systems for extraterrestrial environments.

This work details the design considerations to drill on the Moon and other planetary bodies focusing specifically on the application of drilling data to evaluate geotechnical properties and water content at Lunar polar conditions. The techniques developed here might pay a vital role in understanding the extent and composition of water-ice on the Moon, leading to efficient colonization of the solar system.

As data computing and big data driven analytics become more prevalent in a number of spatial industries, there is increasing need to quantify and communicate uncertainty with those data and resulting spatial analytical products. This has direct implication in oil & gas exploration and development where big data and data analytics continue to expand uses and applications of spatial and spatio-temporal data in the industry without providing for effective communication of spatial uncertainty. The result is that communications and inferences made using spatial data visuals lack crucial information about uncertainty and thus present a barrier to accurate and efficient decision making. With increasing cost awareness in oil & gas exploration and development, there is urgent need for methods and tools that help to objectively define and integrate uncertainty into business decisions.

To address this need, the Variable Grid Method (VGM) has been developed for simultaneous communication of both spatial patterns and trends and the uncertainty associated with data or their analyses. The VGM utilizes varying grid cell sizes to visually communicate and constrain the uncertainty, creating an integrated layer that can be used to visualize uncertainty associated with spatial, spatio-temporal data or data-driven products.

In this paper, we detail the VGM approach and demonstrate the utility of the VGM to intuitively quantify and provide cost-effective information about the relationship between uncertainty and spatial data. This allows trends of interest to be objectively investigated and target uncertainty criteria defined to drive optimal investment in improved subsurface definition. Examples are presented to show how the VGM can thus be used for efficient decision making in multiple applications including geological risk evaluation, as well as to optimize data acquisition in exploration and development.

Today, uncertainty, if it is provided at all, is generally communicated using multiple independent visuals, aggregated in final displays, or omitted altogether. The VGM provides a robust method for quantifying and representing uncertainty in spatial data analyses, offering key information about the analysis, but also associated risks, both of which are vital for making prudent business decisions in oil & gas exploration and development.

The US Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science Graduate Student Research (SCGSR) program is now accepting applications from graduate students for doctoral dissertation/thesis research opportunities at DOE national laboratories. The program provides supplemental awards for PhD students to conduct part of their thesis research at a DOE laboratory for 3 to 12 consecutive months. Applications are due 16 May 2017 at 5:00 pm Eastern Time. The research opportunity is expected to advance the graduate students' overall doctoral thesis by providing supplemental funds for awardees to conduct part of their thesis research at a host DOE laboratory in collaboration with a DOE laboratory scientist within a defined award period. SCGSR has identified six priority research areas for the SCGSR 2017 Solicitation 1 and applicants must be pursuing graduate research in an area aligned with one or more of these: advanced scientific and computing research, basic energy sciences, biological and environmental research, fusion energy sciences, high energy physics, and nuclear physics.

The first OTC Brasil 2017 Advisory Committee Meeting took place on 25 July with several authorities, executives of oil and gas companies, and representatives of business entities in attendance. Among them were Christino Áureo, Secretary of State for Civil and Economic Development; Pedro Parente, Petrobras CEO; three Petrobras directors; and João de Luca, OTC Brasil 2017 Chairman. Their planning will contribute to the success of the 2017 event, scheduled for 24-26 October at Rio Centro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Brazil is now the largest oil producer in Latin America, ahead of Mexico and Venezuela*. As a result of the government's energy reforms, OTC Brasil is a timely venue for investment opportunities in the country.

Every year, SPE recognizes members who have made an exceptional effort to ensure the technical excellence of the Society's peer-reviewed journals. For their contributions, the following individuals are recipients of the 2017 Outstanding Technical Editor Award.