Petrobras America, Inc. (PAI) received permit approval from the BOEMRE on September 2 to drill a well in its Cascade field in Walker Ridge Block 206. The company is the first non-member of the Marine Well Containment Company (MWCC) to receive an approved drilling permit. The MWCC system can be made available to non-members on a well by well basis and allows the operator to cite the system in its permit applications. PAI has ENSCO, plc drillship ENSCO DS-5 under contract and has moved the rig onto location. Drilling and completion operations are scheduled to last 231 days, which will keep the rig on location to April/May 2012. Water depth at the site is 8,143 fsw.

Mexican state oil company Pemex will confirm recent jackup contract awards on September 15 for tender 521-11. In Part 1, a 612-day term starting October 22, 2011, Diamond Offshore was the low bidder with the Ocean Scepter. The rig is currently working for OGX in Brazil under a one-year contract that is not scheduled to end until February 2012. It is unclear as to how the rig will be freed up to mobilize to Mexico. The original day rate cap of $124,000 was ...

Weatherford International, Ltd. has reached an agreement with BP to settle any claims that may have arisen between the companies relating to the Deepwater Horizon incident and oil spill. Under the settlement, BP will indemnify Weatherford for current and future compensatory claims resulting from the incident and the impacts from that event.

Marine Well Containment Company (MWCC) announced that its capping stack has met the requirements for containment operations in water depths up to 10,000 feet, which is an increase from the previous water depths of up to 8,000 feet.

The Marine Well Containment Company (MWCC) has opened its headquarters in Houston. The offices house the day-to-day business operations as well as a dedicated emergency response center in the event MWCC is called to respond to a deepwater well control incident in the Gulf of Mexico.

KBR has been awarded a contract by Chevron U.S.A., Inc. to execute detailed design engineering for the Jack and St. Malo floating production unit (FPU) located in the Lower Tertiary trend in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico.

The Marine Well Containment Company (MWCC) announced that its membership has grown to 10 members at the conclusion of the company’s formation period. The MWCC member companies are now Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, Shell, BP, Apache, Anadarko, BHP Billiton, Statoil and Hess. These 10 companies operated approximately 70 percent of deepwater wells drilled in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico between 2007 through 2009.

McDermott International, Inc. announced that one of its subsidiary companies was awarded fabrication and installation work from Chevron U.S.A., Inc. to support the development of the Jack and St. Malo fields.

BHP Billiton Petroleum has joined the Marine Well Containment Company, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to ensuring the ability to quickly respond to a well control incident in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico.

Chevron Corporation announced that Paul V. Bennett has been named Vice-President and Treasurer, effective May 1, 2011.

Noble Energy, Inc. has suspended drilling operations at the Leviathan #1 location, which was testing deeper potential in the well, offshore Israel. The company identified wear on the wellbore casing, requiring additional material and equipment necessary to complete the drilling of the well. Noble Energy is working to secure the needed items, which are not available in Israel.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE) approved three deepwater permits this past week, bringing the total of approvals to six since the deepwater drilling moratorium was lifted last October. Two of the three are designated by the agency as completely new exploration, defined as exploration drilling in a field or reservoir that has never produced. The first approval, on March 22, was ExxonMobil’s revised permit application to drill the #3 well in Keathley Canyon 919 in 6,941 feet of water.

The permit was the first to designate the Marine Well Containment Company (MWCC) containment system of which ExxonMobil is a member. The operator had an approved permit and had moved Seadrill semi West Sirius on location when deepwater drilling operations were suspended. On March 24, the agency approved Chevron’s revised permit to drill the #1 well in the Moccasin prospect in Keathley Canyon 736. The BOEMRE said this was the first approval for completely new deepwater exploration drilling under the new regulations. Water depth at the site is 6,730 feet. Chevron was about 80 percent of the way done with the original 29,000 foot well with Transocean drillship Discoverer Inspiration when operations were halted on ...