Constantly advancing technology has always been the driver behind the advance of the oil-and-gas industry since the first successful U.S. well was drilled by Edwin Drake near Titusville, Pennsylvania, in 1859. The Drake well was drilled to a then unheard-of depth of 69 feet using the most primitive equipment imaginable.
This week, 165 years later, U.S. oil giant Chevron announced it had achieved first production in its Anchor field in the Gulf of Mexico. At its shallow depth, underground pressure in the Drake well would have been negligible, just enough to force the oil up out of the ground. The Anchor semi-submersible floating production unit (FPU) that was started up by Chevron this week enables the capture of massive volumes of oil and natural gas from underground formations up to 34,000 feet below sea level at pressures up to 20,000 pounds per square inch.
“The Anchor project represents a breakthrough for the energy industry,” said Nigel Hearne, executive vice president, Chevron Oil, Products & Gas. “Application of this industry-first deepwater technology allows us to unlock previously difficult-to-access resources and will enable similar deepwater high-pressure developments for the industry.”
Chevron says seven deepwater wells will be tied into the Anchor FPU, which has the capacity to capture, process and transport as much as 75,000 barrels of oil and 28 million cubic feet of natural gas every day. The company estimates reserves in the field of 440 million barrels of oil equivalent with current technology. But, again, the technology deployed by the industry advances every day, meaning a far bigger amount of oil and gas will ultimately be recovered over the coming years.
Other major oil companies, like BP, are also beginning to deploy similar high-pressure technology that they and analysts believe will help them tap into billions of new barrels known to exist in deep, high-pressure formations in various parts of the world. Globally, BP says it believes deployment of advanced technology could help it access up to 10 billion barrels of known high pressure reserves.
Reuters quotes Wood Mackenzie principal analyst Mfon Usoro as saying the new high pressure technologies could enable companies like BP and Chevron to unlock as much as 2 billion barrels of known reserves in the Gulf of Mexico alone. “The industry has done their bit to safely deliver the barrels, with the new technology,” she said, adding: “These ultra-high-pressure fields are going to be a big driver for production growth in the Gulf of Mexico.”
On the same day Chevron made its announcement, Chinese national oil company CNOOC announced the completion of what it believes is the largest offshore platform on Earth, the Marjan facility. The giant platform, which serves similar functionality as the Anchor FPO, will now be shipped 6,400 nautical miles to the Persian Gulf, where it will facilitate the full development of Saudi Arabia’s deepwater Marjan Field.
It is important to keep in mind that the mounting of these massive offshore facilities and drilling of the deepwater wells are all long-term, multi-billion-dollar projects. These are facilities designed to handle the production from these deepwater fields for decades, not just a few years until the vaunted energy transition takes away all the demand for the commodities being produced.
In addition to the projects in the Gulf of Mexico and Persian Gulf, all the companies mentioned here are involved in aggressive efforts to discover and produce oil and gas in deepwater regions around the world. CNOOC, for example, is a 20% owner in the prolific Stabroek block development offshore of Guyana operated by ExxonMobil. Chevron stands to become a 30% owner in that same development via its proposed buyout of Houston-based Hess Corp.
These companies, all run by smart business people, continue to invest many billions of capital dollars in these risky, long-term projects even as “experts” like the bureaucrats at the International Energy Agency (IEA) continue to predict demand for crude oil is about to peak in the next few years. Meanwhile, OPEC says it believes demand for crude will keep rising through at least 2045, perhaps longer.
Someone will be right, and someone will be wrong. Regardless, we can rest assured that advancing technology in the industry itself will ensure there will be no shortage of supply.
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