Category: Oil and Gas business

Drilling fluid mounted system compartments that can be moved from location to location either as part of a rig or separately

The Minerals Management Service is part of the US ministry of the Interior and is headquartered in Washington, D.C. It includes two major programs, Offshore Energy and Minerals Management and Minerals Revenue Management. The Offshore program, which manages the mineral resources on the OCS, comprises three regions: Alaska, Gulf of Mexico, and the Pacific. The MMS plays a key role in America’s energy supply by managing the mineral resources on 1.76 billion acres of the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). The OCS is a significant source of oil and gas for the Nation’s energy supply. The approximately 43 million leased OCS acres generally accounts for about 15 percent of America’s domestic natural gas production and about 27 percent of America’s domestic oil production. The MMS’s oversight and regulatory frameworks ensure production and drilling are done in an environmentally responsible manner, and done safely. The offshore areas of the United States are estimated to contain significant quantities of resources in yet-to-be-discovered fields. MMS estimates of oil and gas resources in undiscovered fields on the OCS (2006, mean estimates) total 86 billion barrels of oil and 420 trillion cubic feet of gas. These volumes represent about 60 percent of the oil and 40 percent of the natural gas resources estimated to be contained in remaining undiscovered fields in the United States.

The mass per unit volume of a drilling fluid. Weight is reported in lbm/gal (also known as ppg), kg/m3 or g/cm3 (also called specific gravity or SG)

In a Gas Sales Contract, the minimum amount of gas to be sold a year is determined. This is set as a percentage of annual contract quantity, usually around the range of 80% thereof from the total quantity the buyer agreed to pay for even if he did not consume it subordinate to the terms of the contract

There are a number of different types of moveable offshore platforms: drilling barges, jackup rigs, submersible rigs, semisubmersible rigs, drillships, offshore drilling and production platforms, fixed platforms, compliance towers, Seastar Platforms, floating production systems, tension leg platforms, subsea systems, spar platforms

Drilling fluid including most fluids used in hydrocarbon drilling operations. See also drilling fluid

A moratorium is a delay, a period during which certain proceedings or obligations are suspended. In April 2005 Qatar announced a moratorium on new gas projects in order to ensure optimal reservoir management and, therefore, the productive life of its North Field gas reservoir. This was only expected to last until 2008, but Doha seems reluctant to add to the 25bn cf/d it is already committed to producing, at least until 2012. North Field gas-supply commitments amount to 77m tons a year (t/y) of liquefied natural gas (LNG), most of which has already been contracted

Multibeam echo sounders collect bathymetric soundings in a swath perpendicular to the ship track by electronically forming a series of transmit and receive beams in the transducer hardware which measure the depth to the sea floor in discrete angular increments or sectors across the swath