SPECIAL REPORT: Projects being developed encompass a diverse mix
A wide variety of oil and gas projects will start producing in next the few years.
The accompanying table lists projects in 47 countries that will have a peak production in 2008 or after. If all the projects’ peak production rates occurred in the same year, world production capacity would increase by 28.5 million b/d of liquids and 74.7 bcfd of gas.
The list includes individual fields and in some cases the required infrastructure. Listed are:
- Discoveries that have announced publicly available development plans.
- Field redevelopments for recovering bypassed oil.
- Stranded-gas projects and projects to eliminate gas flaring. These projects often include new infrastructure such as pipelines for transporting the gas to end users or facilities for producing LNG and GTL.
- Heavy-oil projects that may include new infrastructure such as pipelines, crude oil upgraders, and mines.
- Deepwater projects, some of which rely on long flowline tiebacks and hub facilities.
- Unconventional resources such as tight sands, shale gas, and coalbed methane gas.
Although joint ventures operate some projects listed in the table, for simplification, the table only includes name of one company in each joint venture (see accompanying table listing the parent companies’ full names).
The year shown in the project list is when production may peak or enter a peak production plateau that could last for several years.
Asia-Pacific
LNG projects continue to dominate the Asia-Pacific region with Australia having several. Greater Gorgon will develop fields containing about 40 tcf of gas. The proposed Gorgon project will have two 5-million tonne/year LNG trains and a domestic gas plant on Barrow Island. The project also includes reinjection and sequestration of carbon dioxide on Barrow Island. Gorgon may start shipping LNG in 2013.
Development of the Sunrise and Troubadour projects off East Timor and Australia may again start after being on hold for a number of years. The projects would involve development of about 8 tcf of gas that an expansion of the Bayu Udan LNG plant would process.
Ichthys is a large 9.5-tcf deepwater gas and condensate project off northwest Australia that may include a semisubmesible production facility with a flowline to shore connected to a new gas liquefaction plant.
Others projects in Australia that involve LNG include Wheatstone in the Carnarvon basin, Crux in the Northwest shelf, a fifth train for the North West Shelf LNG plant, and Pluto field in the Burrup Park LNG project.
In Indonesia, several new fields will supply gas to existing and new LNG plants and power stations. The largest new LNG project is Tangguh that will start shipping LNG in 2009 and process gas from new fields in Papua Bintuni Bay.
Indonesia’s largest new oil development is Banyu Urip field in the Cepu block on Java. The field will go onstream in 2010 and the project calls for exporting the oil from a floating storage vessel moored off Tuban in the Java Sea.
ExxonMobil Corp. and the government of Indonesia are still discussing terms for proceeding with the development of Natuna D-Alpha field in the South China Sea. The field, discovered several decades ago, contains about 40 tcf of gas. Delaying and complicating field development is the large presence of carbon dioxide.
India has both onshore oil and gas discoveries. The gas off the eastern coast will be produced through subsea-completed wells brought ashore with long flowlines.
New projects will develop fields off China in both the South China Sea and Bohai Bay.
Development of gas fields in the Southern Highlands of Papua New Guinea includes construction of a gas liquefaction plant. As now proposed, gas from reserves in the PNG Southern and Western Highlands would go to a 6.3 million tonnes/year, two-train LNG liquefaction and storage facility near Port Moresby. The gas would come from Hides, Angore, Juha, Gobe, Moran, and Kutubu fields.
Western Europe
Oil and gas developments continue off the UK and Norway. Many of these developments will tie into the extensive existing infrastructure.
In Italy, the onshore Tempa Rossa project will develop an estimated 200 million bbl of heavy oil reserves.
Eastern Europe, FSU
Phased development of Tengiz field, in Kazakhstan, continues with a $9.5 expansion project that will increase oil production by 260,000 b/d after 2010. Also in Kazakhstan, an expansion of Karachaganak field will increase production by 1.6 bcfd in 2012.
Because of delays, the first phase of the 13-billion bbl Kashagan field, off Kazakhstan, is now slated to start producing not before 2012. With future phases, the field’s production may surpass 1 million b/d.
The largest proposed development in Russia is the 130-tcf Shtockman field in the Barents Sea. The first phase of the Shtockman field may start producing gas in 2011 at a rate 2.1 bcfd. Subsequent phases may increase production to 8.7 bcfd in 2014-19.
Another large field under development is the 70-tcf Kovykta in eastern Russia. Gazprom now operates the field that will require new pipelines for moving the gas to potential users, such as in China.
Middle East
Iran continues to develop light and heavy oil resources, including the phased development of the offshore South Pars gas field, which is an extension of Qatar’s giant North field.
Iraq has been slow in developing its considerable potential. The table lists some of the potential fields that might be developed, possibly with assistance from international oil companies listed.
Kuwait continues to redevelop several fields that will increase its production capacity by 450,000 bo/d in 2012.
In Oman, several enhanced oil recovery projects will improve recovery factors from several fields. The main process includes steam injection and sour-gas injection.
Phased development of 900-tcf North field off Qatar continues with additional LNG trains and a GTL plant. Saudi Arabia is adding production capacity, such as the Khurais expansion with a designed 1.2 million bo/d peak production capacity.
ADCO in Abu Dhabi is expanding production capacity in various fields by 560,000 b/d. Also ExxonMobil is involved in the Upper Zakum redevelopment that will increase production by about 250,000 b/d from the field.
Africa
Redeveloping of fields in Algeria continues, including Rhounde El Baguel field, the largest oil field in Algeria, which went on stream in 1962. Sonatrach expects production from this redevelopment to peak at 100,000 bo/d in 2009.
Deepwater Angola and Nigeria remain very active. Projects mostly involve installation of floating production, storage, and offloading (FPSO) vessels and subsea wells.
Also being built in Angola is a one-train LNG plant that will receive associated as well as nonassociated gas.
Nigeria also has several new LNG projects that will monetize primarily associated gas, some of which is now flared.
Western Hemisphere
Petrobras, besides its phased development of several giant fields in the Campos basin, also has several substantial discoveries particularly in the Santos basin, such as Tupi and Carioca. These new fields will add several billion bbl of reserves and may provide oil production rates greater than 1 million b/d when fully delineated and developed.
Although Petrobras is the main producer in Brazil, new companies with development projects include units of El Paso Corp., Chevron Corp., StatoilHydro ASA, Devon Energy Corp., and the Shell Group.
Phased development of the heavy oil sands in Alberta continues. These phased projects will add about 2 million b/d by 2016 to the current 1.2 million b/d being produced from the oil sands.
Operators and the Canadian government are still negotiating an agreement for the proposed $6-billion (Can.), 760-mile McKenzie Delta pipeline that would allow for producing the large stranded gas resources in the Northwest Territories. First gas may flow after 2014.
Deepwater developments in the Gulf of Mexico will continue to add substantial new production capacity. The largest is the much-delayed Thunder Horse, scheduled to start production in late 2008 with design capacity of 210,000 bo/d and 185 MMscfd of gas.
Operators and the government of Alaska still have not reached agreement on construction of a $20-billion Alaska gas pipeline that would allow producing an estimated 40-tcf of gas currently stranded on the North Slope.
Technological advances as well as higher gas prices have made feasible many tight gas, shale gas, and coalbed gas developments, such as the Piceance tight-gas projects in Colorado, the coalbed methane in the San Juan basin, and the Barnett shales of Texas.
Venezuela has many potential development projects, but its government’s actions have created uncertainty as to their completion.