JPT November 2020 Issue
On the Cover
When nearby wells are fractured, they interact. There is a growing body of evidence that interference has some advantages. Source: Getty Images.
Guest Editorial
President's Column
This is a particularly hard column to prepare. It is early October and I had hoped to tell you how being an SPE member and being an active part of SPE was part of your professional responsibilities/duty. It is, but we will save that discussion for later.
Monthly Features
-
Competency in human factors is all too often focused on frontline operators, and the importance of human-factors skills among other groups is unappreciated. To be truly effective, human-factors principles have to be implemented throughout an organization. -
In 2020, several changes were made to increase the usability of the annual SPE Membership Salary Survey. Among the added highlights, the 2020 survey offers new analyses of compensation by engineering title and overall work experience. -
Operators of unconventional plays face a conundrum—how to dispose of produced water economically without risking seismicity or aquifer contamination. A recent paper and virtual forum offer ideas for optimizing saltwater disposal. -
Wellbore tortuosity is a term that has steadily increased in relevance to the oil and gas industry over the past decade, but its importance is especially clear in the current environment. -
The success of any digital oilfield project is predicated on the quality of the data structure, acquisition, communication, validation, storage, retrieval, and provenance of the data. -
Groups of wells communicate, interfere, and hit each other. It is an unruly scene that can offer benefits. Three stories look at why competing fracture networks can add to the production from rock that might otherwise be missed. -
A recent datathon and the team that took home the grand prize help paint a picture of both the industry’s’ digital transformation and how oil and gas engineers are embracing it to navigate uncertain times. -
The challenge is immense, but the promise is, too. If the oil and gas business can scale up CO2 EOR, then it can play a very big role in mitigating climate change while offering carbon-negative fuels.
The Broadside exploration well in Block TTDAA 3 within BHP’s Southern Deepwater Acreage was drilled in September.
Drilling rig scheduled to arrive on 27 October.
Dutch oil major Shell is looking to further develop its North Slope oil position in Alaska. The company’s offshore unit applied to form the West Harrison Bay Unit offshore from the National Petroleum Reserve–Alaska with plans for drilling and exploration.
Warrego Energy and partner Strike Energy spudded their second well, West Erregulla 3 (WE3) in the Perth Basin onshore West Australia.
Equinor issued a letter of intent to Odfjell Drilling and its semisubmersible rig Deepsea Aberdeen for the drilling of 15 wells for the Breidablikk Group, which recently submitted the plan for development and operation. Drilling is scheduled to start in spring 2022 with the campaign estimated to last through autumn 2024.
BP, in partnership with OQ, PETRONAS, and the Ministry of Energy and Minerals in Oman, announced in mid-October that production had begun from the Block 61 Phase 2 Ghazeer gas field, 33 months after the development was approved.
Many major oil and gas operators have announced their intentions to achieve various emissions goals. Obviously, the transition cannot be achieved with a simple flip of a switch and will require some time.
Technology Focus
