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Noble Bully I drillship arrives in gulf
The Noble Bully I dynamically positioned drillship arrived in the Gulf of Mexico from a shipyard in Singapore and will drill development wells for Shell's deepwater Mars B Olympus tension-leg platform in 900 m of water, after completing commissioning and acceptance testing during December.
The Noble Bully I is the first of two Bully rigs jointly designed by the Royal Dutch Shell and Noble Corp. Noble expects the second Bully rig to start drilling next year offshore Brazil.
Bully rigs can drill in up to 10,000 ft of water and feature a compact box-type drilling tower, known as a multipurpose tower, instead of a conventional derrick. Because of the tower, Bully rigs are much smaller vessels compared with other deepwater drillships with similar capacity, Noble said.
The tower allows for offline standbuilding and the racking of up to 950 tonnes (more than 48,000 ft) of drill pipe and casing on two carousel-type setbacks. The tower handles drill pipe and casing in 135-ft lengths.
Devon receives approval for Jackfish project
Devon Energy Corp. received regulatory approval from the Alberta Energy Resources Conservation Board and Alberta Environment and Water to move forward with the $1.3 billion (Can.) Jackfish 3 steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) project, 15 km southeast of Conklin, Alta.
The company plans to start construction on its wholly owned Jackfish 3 project in January, with startup targeted for late 2014. Once fully operational, Devon expects Jackfish 3 to produce an average of 35,000 b/d of bitumen before royalties.
Like the Jackfish 1 and 2 SAGD projects, Jackfish 3 holds an estimated 300 million bbl of recoverable bitumen, Devon said.
Jackfish 1, in operation since 2007, continues to produce near facility capacity while Jackfish 2, which started up in June 2011, currently produces 13,000 b/d net, according to Devon.
Devon expects Jackfish 2 to reach full production capacity of 35,000 b/d in late 2012.
Devon notes that the Jackfish projects are specially designed to use saline water rather than fresh water thus minimizing environmental disturbance. Also Devon last year acquired 50% of BP PLC's interest in the Pike oil sands leases, adjacent to its Jackfish leases.
The company said the plan is to develop Pike in multiple phases similar to Jackfish, raising bitumen production from Jackfish and Pike to 150,000-175,000 b/d by 2020 from the current 44,000 b/d.
PROCESSING — Quick Takes
QP, Shell agree to develop petrochemical complex
Qatar Petroleum and Royal Dutch Shell PLC have signed a heads of agreement that "sets scope and commercial principles" to develop a petrochemicals complex in Ras Laffan Industrial City. The HOA follows the conclusion of a joint feasibility study by the two companies.
The agreement's scope includes a worldscale steam cracker, with feedstock from natural gas projects in Qatar; a monoethylene glycol plant with a capacity of up to 1.5 million tonnes/year that uses Shell's OMEGA technology; 300,000 tpy of linear alpha olefins using Shell's SHOP process; and another olefin derivative, QP and Shell jointly reported.
The complex will produce petrochemicals products to be marketed primarily in Asia. Ownership will be split QP 80% equity interest and Shell 20%.
QP and Shell delivered Pearl GTL and Qatargas 4 earlier this year also in Ras Laffan Industrial City (OGJ Online, June 14, 2011).
NPRA promotes two directors, hires counsel
Brendan Williams, National Petrochemical & Refiners Association senior director for advocacy, and David Friedman, senior director for regulatory affairs, have been named vice-presidents of the departments they lead.
NPRA hired Rich Moskowitz, previously vice-president and regulatory affairs counsel for the American Trucking Association, as general counsel.
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