I don't think that is accurate. Regardless of the reservoir type/properties (shale or not), you would still need to consider the method of crude evacuation. (Subsea/wellhead platform in either shallow/deep water)

One of the enablers for deep water developments, subsea is here to stay.

subsea good prospect? aker....fmc....GE?

Yes that is the concern. There are pros and cons

even with conventional drillings, there are also environmentalist who are against it saying it will disrupt the environment



Not too sure about it...

Afterall, my subsea friend think so... saying that shale technology has the capability and the capacity to do horizontal and vertical drillings and multiple drilling with just one drill and all thus reducing the numbers of subsea installation and allowing lesser footprint on the environment.

If the reservoir is big, there's a need of multiple "channels" to transport the liquids to surface. So big footprint on the surface is still there even though one multiple drilling is made on one hole.

For an analogy, look at the size of the monsoon drains that we have plenty in our rain-drenched country. Compare those with the drains in dry countries.

This post has been edited by Stamp: Jan 1 2016, 05:47 PM

I think your friend is confused. What shale oil has been doing has been done by offshore oil development since the 1970s. Horizontals? Pad Drilling (That's the same as drilling from one drill centre in offshore). Why would you want to do fracking offshore as the cost would be so much higher than on-shore and the UTC would be in the hundreds of dollars per barrel. We have to remember that fracking shale oil is only economical due to high oil price and for the ability to drill well one after another (thus on-shore). Shale oil wells have one characteristics that is unique, the well goes into decline almost from day 1 thus the need to drill more and more wells to maintain production. A shale oil well declines at an average rate of 50% per year so by 6 months or a year, that well will die.

Well I think with shale tech, one doesnt need a big footprint... it can go horizontally with many holes along the way to suck up oil prolly reducing the need of more offshore structures and subsea development.

Of course u may still need platforms and subsea development, but over a wider separated area.

Lets see what the future is.

This post has been edited by TheReaderReads: Jan 1 2016, 06:23 PM

Yes, u may be right. They do have reasons y they arent use offshore.

And yes shale tech has been around for ages...

But anything could happen in the future. It is just not right to completely reject the notion that such tech may be use in the future. When it does, looking back, u can remember how stiffly u rejected such ideas maybe due to job securities?

And yes, shale oil is from a different layer of subsurface that looks very much like tiramisu. What if it is use on a conventional subsurface that oil doesnt decline at 50% rate with shale oil tech horizontal drills?

This post has been edited by TheReaderReads: Jan 1 2016, 06:32 PM

It was not thought of before because previously it was expensive as compared to the conventional drilling. Now if you look at history, people always drill vertical wells when the drill onshore. It just does not make economic sense at the time to drill horizontals on-shore. Offshore wise, people drill highly deviated/horizontals wels or multilaterals because it does not make any sense to drill verticals from a single platform. So what you are seeing now is onshore activities that uses the technology from offshore. As for fracking, you frack because the permeability of the rocks are non-existent. You are basically creating the permeability for the rocks by injecting at high pressure the fracking fluids. Now unless it is economical to do that offshore, then we will see it happening. It all boils down to UTC, Saudi Arabia can produce their oil at a UTC of 2 dollars. If they want you to shit down your operation, they will let the oil price to come down to 10 bucks. That is what they are doing now. That is why you keep hearing OPEC saying that they want high cost producers to get a reality check.

And this is where the article which i shared in Post #1939 writes

American Private Oil Companies vs NOC of SA...

And this is why I keep saying that these American companies must be high on something. The pride before the bankruptcies come a calling.

I've talked to some of the commercial/strategy people at these companies while I was in Houston and it's not just pride. There are several smaller companies doing unconventionals/shale in North America so getting all of them inline to reduce production will be difficult. Also there's the legal side of things ie. DOJ & collusion plus land owners potentially suing because they're not getting enough royalties etc.

But I agree with you, they only way they'll go without reducing production is down and out.

The pride that I meant was the one written in that nonsensical article in oiljobsnd. It was seething with anger and ego without any rational supply and demand concept.

The only way for the oil price to recover is either we suddenly have huge demand (aka China) or we have massive bankruptcies of the shale pil companies which will permanently shut them down (hopefully the bondholders will be so averse to reinvest in them in the future) because if they are not shut down permanently, oil price will never recover above 60 dollars as these companies will then open the DUCs (Drilling Un-Completed) wells and flood the market again. See where this is going. If they don't give, this will be 1983-1999 all over again. That is a loooong period of price stagnation.

Graph.

C.c HSE guru Noyze

This post has been edited by mohdyakup: Jan 3 2016, 05:21 PM

Hi I've been looking for this from all the sifus here. Hope it can be answered.

Let say you're not working for the Malaysian NOC (Petronas), you're working for any international producer, for this case study sake (Shell, KPOC, etc), what happens if their PSC ends? Will most of the employees be out of jobs or will they be relocated?

Thanks in advance!

C.c to speedfamgirl

First thing to happen is that before the PSC ends an evaluation will be done to whether to extent the PSC. If yes it will be extended on different T&Cs. If not the employees will potentially be absorbed into the new company who gets the new lease from the NOC or let go.

Similar things when EnQuest bought over Seligi PM8 from EMEPMI.

Good read.

http://www.malaysiangas.com/portal/documen..._Annual_Rev.pdf

In all honesty, even if the shale oil companies goes bankrupt or shuts down, Exxon/Chevron or another big oil will take over, or a private group will do so. There's some risk aversion but there's also a lot of capital out there and a lot of willingness to spend while capital (and to a certain extent contracts/labor) are relatively cheap. The feeling I got while I was there was how the US companies are using technology to improve production and reduce costs. Obama lifting the crude export ban is driving this too.

I do see an extended price stagnation and agree mostly with Kaletsky's article from Jan 2015 where "the marginal cost of US shale oil (~$50) would become a ceiling for global oil prices, whereas the costs of relatively remote and marginal conventional oilfields in OPEC and Russia would set a floor (~$20)"

China isn't consuming energy the way it used to and the world economy is stagnating as well. I'm not looking forward to it but $20-$50 oil price seems to be the norm for what looks like a long time.