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 ...

Jackup ENSCO 99 has completed its contract with ExxonMobil Corporation in Galveston Block 209 and is now moving off the location. The rig will next move to West Cameron Block 317, where it will undergo a flag change and UWILD inspections, which will take 7–10 days. While no follow-up contract is yet in place, Ensco expects to have at least one deal signed shortly. Details of that work will be reported once they are finalized. Spud can inspections in West Delta Block 122 have been completed on jackup ENSCO 87, and the rig has now moved to Main Pass Block 315, where it has another week of leg liner repairs to finish before it returns to work under its contract with Apache Corporation. The rig is operating under a 9-month extension with Apache that began January 1.

 

Jackup Noble Johnnie Hoffman has left Brownsville, Texas, for Mexico, where it will begin a 590-day contract with Pemex on May 22. With the departure, Noble Drilling has only the jackup Noble Sam Noble remaining in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, and with the company planning on bidding the unit in a currently outstanding Pemex tender, it very likely could end up ...

Rowan Companies reported a net income of $32.1 million on revenues of $364.3 million for the three months ended March 31, 2011. That compared to a net income of $64.6 million on revenues of $432.4 million for the same period in 2010. Transocean, Ltd reported that for the three months ended March 31, 2011, it earned net income of $310 million on revenues of $2.144 billion versus net income of $677 million on revenues of $2,579 billion. Parker Drilling said it had a net income of $4.8 million on revenues of $156.2 million for the first quarter of 2011 compared to a net loss of $2.1 million on revenues of $157.6 million for the first three months of 2010. Atwood Oceanics said it earned net income of $70.6 million on revenues of $159 million for the first three months of 2011 versus a net income of $66.7 million on revenues of $159 million for the same period a year ago.

 

Diamond Offshore jackup Ocean Titan has moved to Ship Shoal Block 290 to begin the final well of its contract with ANKOR Energy. Operations are expected to last around 30-days. Also, jackup Ocean Columbia is now on location in ...

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE) has approved a tenth deepwater well permit since the end of February. Although the deepwater drilling moratorium following last year’s Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill was officially lifted in October 2010, subsequent BOEMRE permit approvals have been slow in coming—which the agency attributes to more-stringent safety reviews. The approved permit is a revised permit to drill Statoil Gulf of Mexico, LLC’s Well # 1 in Walker Ridge Block 969 in 7,813 ft of water.

Cameron has received an order from Petrobras for 27 subsea trees and related equipment, worth approximately $74 million, for use in their developments offshore Brazil. The order represents the remaining trees under a 138-tree frame agreement announced in September 2009.

 

Technip was awarded a contract by Chevron NorthAmerica Exploration and Production for the development of the Jack & St. Malo fields, located in the Walker Ridge area at a water depth of approximately 7,000 feet. The contract covers the engineering, fabrication and subsea installation of flowlines, steel catenary risers, pipeline end terminations, manifolds, pump stations and tie-in skids.

Chevron Corporation has sanctioned development of its $4 billion Big Foot project in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico. Big Foot is in 5,200 feet of water in the Walker Ridge area. The development will utilize a dry tree extended tension leg platform with an onboard drilling rig. Production capacity is slated at 75,000 b/d of oil and 25 MMcfd of gas. First oil is anticipated in 2014. Chevron has a 60 percent working interest in the project. Total recoverable resources are estimated to be more than 200 MMboe.