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GoM Production, 2017 Summary

George Kaplan 168 Comments

A Guest Post by George Kaplan

2017 was the highest producing year for oil in the GoM and included the record month in March. Gas, which has tended to come from shallow water wells, had accelerated decline. The production would have been higher but for some disruptions from Hurricanes, in particular Nate, though that had the least impact onshore, and some unplanned outages in November and December due to equipment failures. The failure to Delta House subsea manifold affected Rigel, Otis and Son of Bluto 2 fields, and the first two still appear to be off-line while Son of Bluto 2 resumed production in December (LLOG, the operator, I think calls the Rigel field Neidermeyer, which is much better for the Animal House theme). The Enchilada gas pipeline appears to have ruptured at the main platform and has resulted in Baldpate, Salsa, Llano, Cardamom and Magnolia going off-line. Plans were recently announced to restart Baldpate/Salsa, which do not go through the platform, but I haven’t seen any notice of the restart.

 

Oil Average

Oil Exit Rate

Gas Average

Gas Exit Rate

Total Average

Total Exit Rate
  (kbpd) (kbpd) (mmscfd) (mmscfd) (kboed) (kboed)

2016

 1600 1728 3308 3363 2151 2289

2017

 1685 1570 2955 2381 2177 1967

Change

 85 -158 -354 -982 26 -322

Ratio

 5.3% -9.1% -10.7% -29.2% 1.2% -14.1%

C&C Production

December production numbers were dominated by the unplanned outages, so comparisons with November don’t mean much. As well as the two issues given above the Tahiti and Caesar/Tonga fields were off line for a few weeks, though I have seen no news why (these share a common set of leases but are produced separately to the Tahiti and Constitution platforms). Each month that these are three issues hold current outages would knock about 10 to 12 kbpd off the achievable average production for 2018.

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Despite recent variability it certainly looks like the new fields brought on since late 2013, and which have seen all the net growth since then, have peaked. Any average decline rate can’t really be extrapolated yet, given the recent upsets, but the BOEM reserve estimate updates, due in the next couple of months, will provide better R/P numbers as there will be longer operating data for all the fields.

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ESTIMATING TEXAS PRODUCTION-BRIDGING THE GAP

D Coyne 148 Comments

A Guest Post by Guy Minton

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(Details for the chart above are explained in the post.)

The Texas Railroad Commission (RRC) had the oil and gas production reported online in early 2005, and became fully online for producers and the public on Feb 14, 2005. At the time it was set up, it required the producers to input their production in the production file for existing approved leases, and in the pending lease data file for those leases which have not yet received an approved lease number by the RRC. Each month, the RRC only reports the oil and condensate that is currently updated that month which is in the production file.

Historically, the production did not seem to be completely reported. The lag time to near full reporting of RRC production went from almost 18 months, down to about nine months within the past two years. Even at nine months it leaves interested parties trying to find some way to estimate what current Texas oil production is. Read More

Brazil and Mexico, 2017 Summaries

George Kaplan 139 Comments

A Guest Post by George Kaplan

Brazil

Brazil had a fairly uneventful 2017 for C&C production. Overall production was up 4.5% at 957 mmbbls (114 kbpd average), but the December exit rate was down 4.5%, or 124 kbpd, at 2612 kbpd. There were only two new platforms with significant ramp-ups, and one of those went off line for a couple of months late in the year. The Libra (now Mero) extended test FPSO came on line in November but had achieved only 11 kbpd.

Pre-salt production exceeded 50% for the first time. It was 1356 kbpd, or 52%, in December compared to 1262, or 46%, for December 2016. There were 85 pre-salt wells up from 68, but average production for each had fallen from 19 kbpd to 16, which is as expected as they were drilled mostly on producing platforms.

Petrobras owned 94% of December production, with Statoil at 2.4% (63 kbpd) and Shell, from their BG purchase at 2.1% (57 kbpd); for 2016 the numbers were 94%, 2.1% and 2.0%.

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(Note that December water data wasn’t available at the time of writing so the water cut values have been assumed to be the same as November for the chart.)

Santos platforms increased overall, but some of the older ones may be showing signs of coming off plateau. Campos platforms declined and the rate may be increasing as the water cut growth is accelerating.

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