More than 60 oil and gas companies committed on 23 November to a new framework to report methane emissions as the United Nations reported that atmospheric levels of the greenhouse gas reached a record high. As a part of the voluntary framework, companies will share their own methane reduction targets with OGMP, an initiative managed by the UN Environment Programme. The plan revamps an existing OGMP framework and calls on companies to outline how they will realize their objectives to cut methane emissions. The 62 companies that have joined OGMP represent an estimated 30% of global oil and gas production, according to the partnership. The group said it seeks to deliver a 45% reduction in the oil and gas industry’s methane emissions by 2025.

Cerebras' CS-1 computer is a refrigerator-sized machine that contains the largest computer chip ever made. For certain classes of problems in high-performance computing, all supercomputers have an unavoidable, and fatal bottleneck: Memory bandwidth. That is the argument made this week by one startup company at SC20, a supercomputing conference that takes place in a different city each year, but this year is being held as a virtual event given the COVID-19 pandemic. The company making that argument is Cerebras Systems, the artificial intelligence computer maker that contends its machine can achieve speed in solving problems that no existing system can. "We can solve this problem in an amount of time that no number of GPUs or CPUs can achieve," Cerebras's chief executive officer, Andrew Feldman, told ZDNet in an interview by Zoom.

Whenever I am considering a topic or a theme for the paper selection, I realize that certain topics may generate some instant reaction that is counterproductive. I say counterproductive because it may lead to a decision not to read the synopses, let alone the papers themselves, even though there may be good reasons to read them. The topic for this selection falls in that category: offshore wind energy. Now, if you are tempted to stop reading, please bear with me for a few minutes. I did not select this topic because I want to promote renewable energy or because I believe that oil and gas production will end in the foreseeable future.

A system was designed to extend the offshore wind-energy concept from the power grid to a subsea field-development application. The system integrates a floating foundation with a wind-turbine generator, with all the required utilities hosted directly onboard the same floater.

In this 27 November 2007 file photo, a rough-legged hawk feeds on a rodent in a field near Great Falls, Montana. Down to its final weeks, the Trump administration is working to push through dozens of environmental rollbacks that could weaken century-old protections for migratory birds, expand Arctic drilling, and hamstring future regulation of public health threats. Down to its final weeks, the Trump administration is working to push through dozens of environmental rollbacks that could weaken century-old protections for migratory birds, expand Arctic drilling, and hamstring future regulation of public health threats. The pending changes, which benefit oil and gas and other industries, deepen the challenges for President-elect Joe Biden, who made restoring and advancing protections for the environment, climate, and public health a core piece of his campaign. The proposed changes cap 4 years of unprecedented environmental deregulation by President Donald Trump, whose administration has worked to fundamentally change how federal agencies apply and enforce the Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, and other protections.

The industry requires the ability to test system concepts in a realistic environment on a pilot-scale size. While several units up to 10 MW are being tested onshore, existing electrolyzer technology to convert power to H2 has not yet been applied offshore. However, many suppliers are developing innovative concepts and are scaling up to larger units. It has been estimated that at least 1 MW of electrolyzer capacity can be placed on an offshore platform with existing technology.

Is It Time To Buy Oil Acreage? The Wolfcamp formation in the Midland Basin, which is part of the Permian Basin, has attracted many oil companies because of its stacked potential. Shown here is a structure and thickness map for the formation. A private-equity firm has agreed to put in $900 million to start a company that will buy US oil and gas operations with a focus on finding more oil. The equity investment by Oaktree Capital Management is far below the records set when the industry was looking up, but with acquisitions activity at a crawl, the timing is striking.

For any offshore development, especially an ORE project, a specific site investigation is required to qualify environmental, geophysical, metocean-related, and geopolitical issues. Most ORE developments will cover a significant area of ocean or seabed and will require investigation to ensure that marine life, antiquities, unexploded ordinance, and other ocean users will not be put at risk when installation and operation activities are performed. Obtaining the required permits and approvals from all those potentially affected by an ORE development is a complex and time-consuming operation. All stakeholders connected with a development must be considered because the installation could be in position for 30 or more years. A summary of the types of wind and MHK devices is presented in Table 1 of the complete paper.

Offshore wind is a rapidly maturing sector, increasingly seen as a major contributor to electricity supply in states with coastal demand centers and good wind resources. While an almost 3-decade history exists in European experience, the US only recently is beginning to move forward with grid-scale projects on national and state levels. As floating wind is scaled up, to minimize technical risks experienced in the past, formal processes will help to identify the novel features, novel applications, and highest-risk components. Large offshore wind farms have been built by all countries with coastlines on the southern North Sea, the area with the most favorable conditions: strong, consistent winds; water depths of less than 40 m; sand or clay deeper than 70 m; and close proximity to onshore electrical distribution networks and centers of high demand. Rapid reductions have been realized in the cost of electricity, calculated over the full project lifetime, from well over 200 Euros/MWhr for the first large-scale wind farms to 50/MWhr.

The 2020 Presidential Award received by the SPE Bandung Institute of Technology student chapter marks the ninth consecutive award the chapter has received since 2012, with 6 Outstanding Student Chapter Awards and 3 Gold Standard Awards received earlier. Many events are held by the chapter to facilitate members with platforms to better themselves. Two highlight events held in 2020 are “exSPEdition” and “Integrated Petroleum Festival (IPFEST) 2020.” ExSPEdition is a field trip event series with a total of seven visits to oil and gas companies across Indonesia. It is further divided into regular field trips, Freshman on Field, and Big Field Trip.