Category: Oil and Gas business

Highly volatile, water-white liquid hydrocarbons separated from casinghead gas by the reduction of pressure at the wellhead or by a separator or an absorption plant

Russia, Iran and Qatar, the three largest gas exporting countries, have stated that they will examine the option of setting up a cartel of gas exporting countries similar to OPEC, although analysts predict that this will not have a significant impact on the global gas sector. According to estimations these three countries hold about 55% of global natural gas reserves: 25% in Russia, 16% in Iran and the rest in Qatar. Experts say there is little substance in modeling a gas cartel on OPEC because natural gas contracts are often signed over the long term and differ significantly in exporting methods and prices from country to country. On 24th December 2008 the 15 largest natural gas exporting countries signed a charter to coordinate their forecasts, investments and links with consumers in order to safeguard their interests in light of the continuing fluctuations in the price of energy. The group’s office will be initially set up in Doha, Qatar.

A porous marine limestone composed of fine-grained remains of microorganisms. A good example are the White Cliffs of Dover in the UK or the Austin Chalk of the US Gulf coast which is a rich fractured oil reservoir where widespread horizontal drilling activity took place

The portion of the wellbore that has had metal casing placed and cemented to protect the openhole from fluids, pressures, wellbore stability problems or a combination of these (opposite of openhole)

Oil recovery practices leave behind a large resource of “stranded oil”. Such stranded oil provides a substantial target for enhanced oil recovery technology. Emerging, advanced EOR technologies such as CO2 first tried in 1972 could double the incremental oil recovery. Until recently, most of the CO2 used for EOR has come from naturally-occurring reservoirs. But new technologies are being developed to produce CO2 from industrial applications such as natural gas processing, fertilizer, ethanol, and hydrogen plants in locations where naturally occurring reservoirs are not available

The World Bank announced on September 9, 2008 that it was ending its support for the controversial Chad-Cameroon pipeline. The announcement came after the Chadian government repaid $65.7 million in outstanding loans to close out its debt to the Bank for the project. The World Bank’s request amounts to an admission of failure in one of its most controversial and disastrous projects – once touted as a “model” for high-risk projects – after the Chadian government repeatedly used its newfound oil wealth in contravention of its agreements to invest in poverty reduction. In 2001, the World Bank agreed to help finance the pipeline after ExxonMobil, the leader of the consortium of oil companies, requested Bank assistance as a precondition for pursuing the project, knowing that the project could become a serious reputational liability. The pipeline, which constitutes one of the largest on-shore investments in Africa, is routed through areas with delicate environments and indigenous groups already wary of their governments. Both the Cameroonian and Chadian governments were widely considered corrupt and repressive dictatorships with questionable capacity to manage such large investments. By agreeing to support the project, the World Bank catalyzed finance for the construction of the pipeline, turning Chad into Africa’s newest oil producer. Facing stiff resistance from civil society, the Bank went to great lengths to promote the pipeline as a model for using revenues from high-risk projects to reduce poverty. It instituted an unprecedented, elaborate system for ensuring that revenues were devoted to social spending. Since it was commissioned in 2003, however, the project has been fraught with persistent problems, and the financial system put in place to manage Chad’s oil proceeds never worked as intended. The bellwether for the system was President Idriss Deby’s use of a $25 million “signing bonus” for re-arming his military; civil society complained heavily, but the Bank ultimately decided that the signing bonus was not covered by the terms of its contract with the Chadian government.

Pieces of rock that come from the wellbore but were not removed directly by the drill bit