Category: Oil and Gas business

The $14.65 billion South Stream project signed in 2007 by Gazprom (50%) and Italy’s Eni (50%) is designed to carry mostly Central Asian gas to Western Europe at a capacity of up to 30 bcm/year. Construction is due to take at least four years and is expected to begin in 2008-2009. This pipeline could have far reaching consequences to both gas producing countries and transit states. It could largely parallel the Nabucco project (the Nabucco pipeline is a project intended to diversify gas supplies to Europe) through southern and central Europe and since the latter has no throughput volumes yet confirmed (with the exception of Bulgaria that signed an agreement to purchase 1 bcm of gas per annum from Azerbaijan), Russia is in an ideal position to pressure the target Caspian countries to make sure they comply with Russian plans. The pipeline is especially being constructed to help Russia reduce its dependence on transit countries including Ukraine and Turkey for its gas destined for European markets.

The smartRASTER® is a depth calibrated well log data format first developed by TGS and now widely used in the oil and gas industry

An open market for natural gas characterized by short-term purchase agreements. Also for crude oil, refined products or LPG

One of 3 common methods to remove nitrogen from natural gas. In solvent recovery processes, the hydrocarbons in the feed stream are absorbed by a chemical solvent and the nitrogen that remains is dispersed by vent. The hydrocarbons are recovered from the solvent through a series of flash operations. Because the process requires that the gas stream be cooled to only -30 degrees, effective separation usually begins within 2 or 3 hours after start-up. In addition, solvent recovery processes provide the benefit of handling one of the problems commonly associated with nitrogen rejection: the presence of natural gas liquid elements in the feed stream. After nitrogen has been removed, the presence of these additional heavy hydrocarbons usually results in a stream with a hydrocarbon dew point that exceeds pipeline requirements. While other processes require an additional plant to remove the natural gas liquids, the solvent process conveniently handles both the separation of the nitrogen and the NGL’s in a single plant. Of course, the recovered liquids can also be sold, enhancing the overall revenue stream of a project.

A rock from which oil or natural gas is generated from organic materials. Source rocks are geologically rare. 90% of the world’s petroleum is generated in 6 discrete intervals, representing about 30% of post Cambrian geological time. Most petroleum is geologically recent – 67% is generated and trapped in the last 80 million years, whilst some older petroleum accumulations would have been destroyed through geological time by tectonic processes. 25% of the world oil has been generated during the last 5 million years

Method of moving a drilling rig on skids or rollers which are positioned under the derrick. It mostly refers to the process of sliding the rig off from the wellbore or moving it from one well slot to another on a fixed offshore platform. A skid is usually a steel frame on which portable equipment is mounted to facilitate handling with cranes or flatbed trucks. The skid is robust and is usually designed with attachment points for hooks, chains, or cables, and has at least two lengthwise beams to facilitate sliding the equipment into place on the rigsite

Norwegian giant StatoilHydro’s project to exploit the resources of three gas fields in the Arctic Barent Sea (Snohvit, Albatross and Askeladd ) about 140km northwest of Hammerfest in Norway or the most northern LNG project in existence. The consortium consists of Statoil (22.9%), Petoro (30%), TotalFinalElf (18.4%), Gaz de France (12%), Norsk Hydro (10%), Amerada Hess (3.26%), RWE-DEA (2.81%) and Svenska Petroleum (1.24%).

Thin sedimentary rock