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Showing posts with label oil and petroleum. Show all posts
Showing posts with label oil and petroleum. Show all posts
Feb 2, 2011
petroleum
BP faces US investigation into gas market manipulation
BP, the oil company struggling to restore its image in the United States following the Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster, may face charges relating to manipulation of the US gas market.
"The US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) are currently investigating several BP entities regarding trading in the next-day natural gas market at Houston Ship Channel during October and November 2008," BP said on Wednesday.
The FERC's enforcing body is now considering whether to pursue charges against BP.
In 2006, the company was prosecuted on propane market manipulation charges in the country. BP paid around $300m to settle those charges.
“BP conducts its trading and transportation activities in compliance with the law and regulations,” Scott Dean, a company spokesman, said.
The company said it had fully cooperated with the FERC and the CFTC investigations and provided “a detailed response that it did not engage in any inappropriate or unlawful activity”.
BP also faced a call from Mississippi for the US courts must compel the administrator of BP's $20bn oil spill fund to meet his legal obligations and stop short-changing victims of the Gulf of Mexico disaster.
Until now, "sweeping deficiencies and violations of law" characterize the Gulf Coast Claims Facility (GCCF) fund run by independent administrator Kenneth Feinberg, state Attorney General Jim Hood said in a memorandum to a federal court in Louisiana on Tuesday, Reuters reports.
"Court intervention and action is needed to compel BP to cure its failure to provide a claims process that fulfills the requirements of the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, state law and prior public commitments of BP," the memorandum said.
This news cames as the row between BP and it Russian partners in it joint venture TNK-BP escalated.
BP admitted it may be forced to pay compensation to its Russian oligarch partners, as the two sides agreed to let an UN arbitration court settle their latest bitter row.
The oligarchs, who co-own BP's Russian oil fields, are unhappy about their British partner's plans to swap £5bn of shares with Rosneft – a Kremlin-backed rival. On Tuesday they were granted an injunction to halt the £10bn Rosneft deal temporarily.
The furore overshadowed BP's full-year results and the first quarterly dividend payment since the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. The dividend, seven cents per share, is half its previous level. BP also swung to a full-year loss of $4.9bn (£3.1bn), posted lower-than-expected profits for the fourth quarter of $4.4bn and put its troubled Texas City refinery up for sale.
Oligarchs 'very friendly'
At a results presentation, Bob Dudley, the chief executive, insisted that relations were still "very friendly" with the oligarchs behind TNK-BP, the Russian joint venture that produces a third of BP's oil output. Asked about the dispute, he said: "I'm sure we will reach a good business resolution. It may be a financial or strategic direction. I think it will resolve itself."
But just an hour later, lawyers for the two sides were fighting it out at London's High Court, where a judge granted a temporary order preventing all further talks between BP and Rosneft. It will apply until the dispute is heard at a United Nations arbitration court in Sweden and may be extended.
The billionaires known as Alfa Access Renova (AAR) – Mikhail Fridman, Len Blatvatnik, German Kahn and Viktor Vekselberg – claim the Rosneft deal violates their previous agreement with BP.
They claim that all deals in Russia should be conducted through TNK-BP and that it should have been included in talks. BP insisted that an injunction will not derail the deal, only cause a "time-out",adding that the oligarchs' threat to withhold a $1.8bn dividend was not material.
Wikileaks revelations
The row is a reignition of tensions between BP and the oligarchs from 2008, when Mr Dudley was forced to flee Russia alleging he had been harrassed.
US diplomatic cables revealed by Wikileaks claim Mr Dudley did not trust Rosneft and likened Russia's attitude towards the oil industry to Venezuela - where private assets were routinely seized.
Mr Dudley dismissed the cables as "more fairytale than fact". Asked what reasons he had for trusting the Kremlin and whether investors could be sure BP's Russian assets would not be seized, he said: "All I can promise is my belief that [seizure] won't happen."
Unveiling the company's strategic review, Mr Dudley said the Rosneft deal was a "good example" of potential future partnerships with state oil companies. He said a smaller BP would now focus on "value, not volume; and quality, not quantity".
Half of BP's US refining business will be spun off and the company will continue to sell peripheral assets to help fund the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. BP warned that oil production will be lower while it "consolidates". Output will also be hit by continuing disruption to activities in the Gulf of Mexico, where deepwater drilling has still not fully recovered.
BP also added an extra $1bn to its earlier $40bn estimate of the cost of the oil spill, at a time when analysts have been starting to cut their estimates for the bill.
Case stays secret
Shareholders may never know how deeply the dispute runs between BP and the oligarchs, because a judge ruled the Russians’ application for an injunction should be heard in private.
David Price, solicitor advocate for The Telegraph, challenged the ruling, arguing that information revealed in an earlier session attended by journalists should be reported in the public interest. However,
Mr Justice Burton decided the hearing should remain behind closed doors. This means the press cannot report which side wanted the hearing to be in secret and what their reasons are for asking for information to be kept out of the public domain.
More than 30 journalists were at the High Court expecting to hear details of the dispute between Alfa Petroleum Holdings, the vehicle of one oligarch, and BP.
After Mr Justic Burton granted the order, the two sides agreed to enter arbitration proceedings in Sweden, which will remain in private.
oil
Watch out: oil still has the power to shock
Oil, it seems, still has the power to shock. It's impossible to know where the political turmoil in Egypt and the rest of the region might end, but one thing it has already done is further drive up the oil price, threatening to wreak havoc with the still fragile recovery in many advanced economies.
The oil price is high while the advanced economies are weak, the reverse of what's happened in the past. The West is seriously out of sync with the oil price Photo: AP
How serious a problem is this, and how should policy makers react? The first thing to note is that high oil prices nearly always play some sort of role in recessions. In the US, all post-war recessions have been preceded by an oil price spike. The last all-consuming one is widely attributed to the fallout from Lehman Brothers' collapse, but in fact record prices at the pumps had put consumer confidence and spending into a tailspin several months before. Lehman was only the icing on the cake – more of a symptom than a cause. Americans took one look at the price of filling up, and decided to stop spending.
The second point to note is that price shocks of this sort have always been a policy nightmare for central banks. A rising oil price is both inflationary, in that it adds to the cost of living, and deflationary, in that it also acts like a tax by taking money out of people's pockets. The cost to the US economy of last year's rise in the oil price was approximately $120bn (£74bn), or nearly 1pc of GDP. That's a big hit.
Should policy makers therefore react by tightening monetary conditions to choke off any inflationary consequences, or by easing them to counteract the negative consequences for demand?
Both these responses have been tried in the past, with disastrous consequences on each occasion. In the 1970s, the oil price shocks were met by a loosening of policy in the US and Europe, but this only succeeded in further embedding the inflationary problem. Mindful of this, the European Central Bank raised rates in July of 2008 to deal with sky-high oil prices, only to run headlong into the most serious recession since the 1930s.
The ECB Governing Council meets on Thursday to decide on what to do this time. We can but hope that it has learned from past mistakes. Does policy remain in the sway of the Germans, with their strongly growing economy, or will the needs of the deflating periphery continue to dominate?
oil
Oil hovers below $91 as US crude supplies jump
Oil prices hovered below $91 a barrel Wednesday as markets kept an eye on developments in Egypt and a report showed U.S. gasoline and crude supplies rose more than expected last week, suggesting the recovery in demand remains uneven.
By early afternoon in Europe, benchmark crude for March delivery was down 19 cents at $90.58 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell $1.42 to settle at $90.77 a barrel on Tuesday.
In London, Brent crude was unchanged at $101.65 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange. It rose as high as $102.04 earlier in the session.
The large difference between the Nymex and Brent contracts "is attributable mainly to declining European inventory levels ... as well as reports of sporadic field outages and trader accumulation of some North Sea cargoes that took place in late January," said Edward Meir, senior commodity analyst at MF Global in New York.
The American Petroleum Institute said late Tuesday that gasoline inventories rose 3.9 million barrels last week while analysts surveyed by Platts, the energy information arm of McGraw-Hill Cos., had forecast an increase of 2.0 million barrels. Inventories of crude rose 3.8 barrels and distillates fell 1.1 million barrels, the API said.
The Energy Department's Energy Information Administration reports its weekly supply data — the market bechmark — later Wednesday.
Oil has come off two-year highs above $92 earlier this week as investor fears eased that chaos in Egypt could disrupt the two million barrels of crude per day that pass through the Suez Canal and an adjacent pipeline.
There's "mounting evidence that crude supplies through either the Suez Canal or SUMED pipeline are unlikely to be disrupted as a result of continued Egyptian street uprisings," Ritterbusch and Associates said in a report.
The influence of the situation in Egypt, however, was expected to continue supporting prices.
"The problem is not ... Egypt as an oil producer, it's Egypt as a stabilizer of this region, or as a destabilizer of this region," Jean-Louis Schilansky, head of the French Oil Industry Union told AP Television News. "It's the fear of what can happen by contagion in other countries of this region that provokes this tension."
In other Nymex trading in March contracts, heating oil was down 0.14 cent at $2.7556 a gallon and gasoline fell 0.88 cent to $2.5106 a gallon. Natural gas futures for March delivery were up 1.8 cents at $4.365 per 1,000 cubic feet.
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Alex Kennedy in Singapore contributed to this report.
Jan 18, 2011
Pilgrim Hot Springs Geothermal Resource Assessment Project
Project location:
Nome (Pilgrim Hot Springs)
Project Lead: Gwen Holdmann, Anupma Prakash, Jo Malcolm
Pilgrim Hot Springs is located about 60 road miles north of Nome, Alaska. The Alaska Center for Energy and Power (ACEP), in collaboration with the Geophysical Institute, was awarded a grant from the Department of Energy to test an innovative remote sensing technique that has the potential to significantly reduce the cost of geothermal exploration for low and moderate temperature geothermal sites around the world. By testing and verifying this technique at the Pilgrim Hot Springs site and hopefully locating the source of the geothermal water, ACEP will be able to assess the feasibility of developing this site to benefit the region and its residents. Match funding for the project has been provided by the Alaska Energy Authority through the Renewable Energy Fund.
Pilgrim Hot Springs is located about 60 road miles north of Nome, Alaska. The Alaska Center for Energy and Power (ACEP), in collaboration with the Geophysical Institute, was awarded a grant from the Department of Energy to test an innovative remote sensing technique that has the potential to significantly reduce the cost of geothermal exploration for low and moderate temperature geothermal sites around the world. By testing and verifying this technique at the Pilgrim Hot Springs site and hopefully locating the source of the geothermal water, ACEP will be able to assess the feasibility of developing this site to benefit the region and its residents. Match funding for the project has been provided by the Alaska Energy Authority through the Renewable Energy Fund.
Wellhead repair work at Pilgrim - example of corroded standpipe on PS-3
Our overall project goal is to use a combination of existing and innovative remote sensing and geophysical techniques to develop a preliminary conceptual model of the Pilgrim Hot Springs geothermal resource, and to confirm this model through the drilling of two confirmation slim holes. The project also includes a comprehensive economic analysis of a variety of potential options for developing the springs. Options include a large scale power generation project to support the region as well as direct use, such as a greenhouse to supply fresh produce to the region. To read the full Statement of Project Objectives, click here.
Local project partners include:
• Unaatuq LLC, the property owner
• Mary's Igloo Native Corporation (MINC)
• Bering Straits Native Corporation (BSNC)
Local project partners include:
• Unaatuq LLC, the property owner
• Mary's Igloo Native Corporation (MINC)
• Bering Straits Native Corporation (BSNC)
Emerging Energy Technology
Emerging energy technology is critical to developing energy solutions for Alaska. Technology has a development process: it moves from ideas, to the lab, to demonstration, then to commercialization. Emerging energy technology is a critical stage in the overall development of energy solutions for Alaska, especially as the opportunities and challenges for delivering energy in Alaska are unique. The options we are given to address our energy needs are limited to commercialized energy solutions, often imported from the Outside.
Alaska is an ideal test bed for emerging energy technology. Given our abundant energy resources, the high cost of energy, and the variation in climate and landscape, projects can prove financially viable, even in the research, demonstration, and development phases. By developing emerging energy technology in Alaska, we have the opportunity to:
- Address specific Alaskan energy issues.
- Support pre-commercial energy technologies, or commercial technologies that have not been demonstrated in Alaska.
- Showcase technologies that have the potential for developing export markets for Alaskan products, ideas, and expertise.
- Disseminate data collection, analysis, and reporting.
The Alaska Center for Energy and Power, working with partners such as the Denali Commission, the State of Alaska, and the Alaska Energy Authority, supports emerging energy technology through applied energy research and program management. For information on specific projects, please see the following:
Emerging Energy Technology Grant
Other Emerging Energy Technology Projects
Other Emerging Energy Technology Projects
Emerging Energy Technology Projects
View Emerging Energy Technology Projects in a larger map
Energy Storage Devices – Flow Battery Testing
Project location:
Fairbanks, Kotzebue
One of the most significant challenges associated with installing renewable energy technologies on small, isolated power grids like those found in many rural Alaskan communities involves integration with the existing diesel generators and electric grid. This issue is complicated even further by the fact that many renewable resources, such as wind, are available only intermittently and do not always match peak load requirements. For this reason, it is necessary to have diesel generators available as a constant ‘spinning reserve’ even when the wind is blowing, limiting the amount of diesel fuel which can be offset by a wind power system in rural Alaska.
A solution to this issue would be to store energy generated from an intermittent renewable resource like wind so that energy generated during times when the wind is blowing can be stored for later use. An example of a potential energy storage device is the VRB battery, a new type of battery which is currently undergoing testing through the Alaska Center for Energy and Power (ACEP). This ‘flow battery’ is advertised as having high energy conversion efficiencies and extremely long life. The VRB battery could potentially be integrated into wind diesel hybrid systems in rural Alaska to increase the installed capacity of wind power on small, isolated grids.
One of the utilities interested in installing a VRB battery system in conjunction with their wind farm is Kotzebue Electric Association. Hopefully a larger scale version of the VRB battery will be successfully deployed in Kotzebue in the near future. However, the initial testing conducted through ACEP has proved valuable both for assessing the technology as well as the commitment and expertise of the manufacturer.
While the battery has shown real promise, testing through ACEP has demonstrated that there are several manufacturing and technical challenges which need to be addressed before successful installation in a rural community. ACEP is working with the manufacturer to address and resolve those issues, and at the same time is providing an impartial third party assessment of the viability of this energy storage system.
A solution to this issue would be to store energy generated from an intermittent renewable resource like wind so that energy generated during times when the wind is blowing can be stored for later use. An example of a potential energy storage device is the VRB battery, a new type of battery which is currently undergoing testing through the Alaska Center for Energy and Power (ACEP). This ‘flow battery’ is advertised as having high energy conversion efficiencies and extremely long life. The VRB battery could potentially be integrated into wind diesel hybrid systems in rural Alaska to increase the installed capacity of wind power on small, isolated grids.
One of the utilities interested in installing a VRB battery system in conjunction with their wind farm is Kotzebue Electric Association. Hopefully a larger scale version of the VRB battery will be successfully deployed in Kotzebue in the near future. However, the initial testing conducted through ACEP has proved valuable both for assessing the technology as well as the commitment and expertise of the manufacturer.
While the battery has shown real promise, testing through ACEP has demonstrated that there are several manufacturing and technical challenges which need to be addressed before successful installation in a rural community. ACEP is working with the manufacturer to address and resolve those issues, and at the same time is providing an impartial third party assessment of the viability of this energy storage system.
10kW VRB battery system currently undergoing testing at the University of Alaska.
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Jan 16, 2011
Petroleum engineering
Petroleum engineering
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Petroleum engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the activities related to the production of hydrocarbons, which can be either crude oil or natural gas. Subsurface activities are deemed to fall within the upstream sector of the oil and gas industry, which are the activities of finding and producing hydrocarbons. (Refining and distribution to a market are referred to as the downstream sector.) Exploration, by earth scientists, and petroleum engineering are the oil and gas industry's two main subsurface disciplines, which focus on maximizing economic recovery of hydrocarbons from subsurface reservoirs. Petroleum geology and geophysics focus on provision of a static description of the hydrocarbon reservoir rock, while petroleum engineering focuses on estimation of the recoverable volume of this resource using a detailed understanding of the physical behavior of oil, water and gas within porous rock at very high pressure.
The combined efforts of geologists and petroleum engineers throughout the life of a hydrocarbon accumulation determine the way in which a reservoir is developed and depleted, and usually they have the highest impact on field economics. Petroleum engineering requires a good knowledge of many other related disciplines, such as geophysics, petroleum geology, formation evaluation (well logging), drilling, economics, reservoir simulation, well engineering, artificial lift systems, and oil & gas facilities engineering.
Contents[hide] |
Overview
Petroleum engineering has become a technical profession that involves extracting oil in increasingly difficult situations as much of the "low hanging fruit" of the world's oil fields has been found and depleted. Improvements in computer modeling, materials and the application of statistics, probability analysis, and new technologies like horizontal drilling and enhanced oil recovery, have drastically improved the toolbox of the petroleum engineer in recent decades.
Deep-water, arctic and desert conditions are commonly contended with. High Temperature and High Pressure (HTHP) environments have become increasingly commonplace in operations and require the petroleum engineer to be savy in topics as wide ranging as thermo-hydraulics, geomechanics, and intelligent systems.
The Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) is the largest professional society for petroleum engineers and publishes much information concerning the industry. Petroleum engineering education is available at 17 universities in the United States and many more throughout the world - primarily in oil producing regions - and some oil companies have considerable in-house petroleum engineering training classes.
Petroleum engineering has historically been one of the highest paid engineering disciplines; this is offset by a tendency for mass layoffs when oil prices decline. In a June 4th, 2007 article, Forbes.com reported that petroleum engineering was the 24th best paying job in the United States.[1] The 2010 National Association of Colleges and Employers survey showed petroleum engineers as the highest paid 2010 graduates at an average $86,220 annual salary.[2] For individuals with experience, salaries can go from $150,000 to $200,000 annually.
Some of the famous petroleum engineers include Douglas Patrick Harrison and Muhammad Salman, having worked together and made over $30 billion by discovering alternative energy from Petroleum.
Types
Petroleum engineers divide themselves into several types:
- Reservoir engineers work to optimize production of oil and gas via proper well placement, production levels, and enhanced oil recovery techniques.
- Drilling engineers manage the technical aspects of drilling exploratory, production and injection wells.
- Production engineers, including subsurface engineers, manage the interface between the reservoir and the well, including perforations, sand control, downhole flow control, and downhole monitoring equipment; evaluate artificial lift methods; and also select surface equipment that separates the produced fluids (oil, natural gas, and water).
- Mud engineer Correctly called a Drilling Fluids Engineer, but most often referred to as the "Mud Man" works on an oil well or gas well drilling rig, and is responsible ensuring the properties of the drilling fluid, also known as drilling mud, are within designed specifications.
See also
- Engineering
- Petroleum
- Reservoir evaluation
- Society of Petroleum Engineers
- SPE Certified Petroleum Professional
- Seismic to Simulation
Jan 2, 2011
United States Oil Consumption and Reserves: A matter of exponential growth and finite resources
It is a well known fact that the United States has been importing Oil since the 1970's because the home oil production cannot meet the rising demand. According to 2009 yearly average, the U.S. Crude Oil consumption is around 21 million barrels a day and home production is only around 5 million. Why are things escalating so fast? Why are resources running out at such speed? We will try to answer these questions on this article. There is no simple answer but it is all pretty much related to one single concept: exponential growth.Within the last two centuries, advances in human technology has made the civilization completely Oil, Gas & Coal dependant, which are mainly used as fuel for diverse purposes. What makes Oil different is the immense variety of products that can be derived from it. A "brief" list of some of these products: Gasoline, Diesel, Fuel oil, Propane, Ethane, Kerosene, Liquid petroleum gas, Lubricants , other alkanes, Heating oil, asphalt, bitumen, Plastic, bags, toys, candles (paraffin), clothing (polyester, nylon), cosmetics, petroleum jelly, perfume, dish-washing liquids, ink, bubble gums, car tires, etc, etc etc.
So it is obvious that the modern industry is completely dependant on Oil.
However, the amount and size of Oil Reserves on the U.S. is - or was- enormous. It is in fact the third producing country after Saudi Arabia and Russia. So once again, why it is running out so fast? Answer is exponential growth in both population and oil-dependant technologies. » READ ALL »
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