Drilling Moratorium more pain?

Many collegues are suffering the Gulf of Mexico no drilling moratorium, some of them were transfered overseas and another ones were laid off. The economy shows signals of recovering, but demand for oil products still lack the bullishness of the past 4 years.

The energy people lifes are in tune with the swings of the oil price, my wife says always that she is already cured of that disease, she knows the boom times would not last and we try to keep some financial assurances for the bust times.

The biggest oil reserves are in the middle east, and these countries are capable of keeping the price under control on the 70's range for a while untill the economy starts picking again.

Therefore geopolitics plays a very important role and owners of the oil & gas reserves use this on their advantage. If alternative fuels are developed they will be only economical when the oil & gas reserves deplete and fuel shortages plague the globe. We may still have oil & gas for years to come, we had lately encouraging discoveries with the help of new technologies like Tupi offshore Brazil.

See ya soon!

Driller

Back to work after a long Labor Day weekend

Houston was very busy this weekend, mainly on the electronic shops with deep discounts. I manage to service my SUV at the Toyota dealer and when I got there at 9:00 am, seventy cars were in line on front of me. I was thinking the amount of Petroleum derivatives are consumed on a daily basis on this sites??. Is a lot, people normally change the oil every 3000 miles automatically. I browse the manual of my car and recommends every 7500 miles. Maybe is time to check your manual since you may be waisting your time and money.

I remember during my University days I visited the lubricant plant in el Callao,Peru. And saw that all the brands were manufactured in the same plant. I was surprised?. My question at that time was all of them use the same base oil, there may be different additives added?, or we only paying for the Brand name?.

The same occurs with the the gasoline in Lima,Peru. We have two 2 refineries and they supply all the brands, are we paying for the same gasoline in all the outlets? Why the difference in price?.

See ya soon!

Driller

Another explosion in the Gulf of Mexico? Alert!

Every activity in life involves a risk, even walking around the house or even driving our cars. The more complex the activity the more risk is expected. The safety trainning and procedures even though are followed strictly there is a chance that in the moment less expected an accident could potentially occured.

The oil & gas business specially in the Gulf of Mexico is on close watch due to the last explosion of the Macondo Well, whatever the causes of the event is an accident, preventable maybe as all of the other accidents in any other industry.

Goverments cannot declare moratorium of flights if a plane crashes that is an extreme measure that affects with job losses,etc. I do not understand why the oil industry personnel has to be punish with these extreme measures.

I believe that a more stringent safety approach to daily activities is a corporate responsability of the operators and must be constantly communicated to the employees, to create a culture towards safety.
Be aware of our surroundings, have JSA's (Job safety analysis) implemented before any task is performed, you are safety champion!

See ya soon!,

Driller

Alert Wellbore Stability issues cost industry 8 billion USD/year in Non Productive Time!!

Wellbore stability issues are a major contributor to non productive time during drilling operations. This costs the industry 8 billion dollars a year by some estimates, this is an insane amount of money!.

This issues are more critical when drilling deviated wells, horizontal wells mainly. The key is to drill in the correct direction thus the earth stress direction of the field.

Logically there are other issues to take in consideration, one of the critical ones is the interaction of the drilling fluid with the formations drilled, the design and specification of the correct drilling fluid is key, enviromental laws are getting more stringent this will push the engineers to figure the most optimum fluid to cope with the formation and the legal requirements.

Using geomechanics we can determine the specific mud weight window to drill to keep us safe of wellbore collapse and assuring stability of the wellbore. The geomechanical studies are an extra cost in the AFE but the payout in savings the long term is very substantial. Drilling Engineers are pushed to cut costs on the AFE's, normally this type of studies are not approved by management, this shortcuts are expensively paid with NPT and in the worst case, sidetracks and lost of a well.

On the operations side is critical to have a drilling crew that understands the interaction of the drillstring and bottom hole assembly with the formations drilled is important to let the well dictate the operation. Monitor drag and check drillstring while pulling out of the hole for balling on stabilizers and bit.

Lets focus on the big money drain and this is a big one.

Se you soon!

Driller