Billion

Shell Exploration & Production said it will spend nearly $1billion to develop three oil and gas discoveries that will add morethan 300 million Boe to the Gulf’s deep-water inventory. Thesethree projects, Angus, Europa and Macaroni, will increase thenumber of Shell working interest deep-water developments to 14, themost in the industry. Each project will be developed with subseasystems tied back to existing platforms.

Tennessee Gas Pipeline’s Express 500 Project, which offers firmtransportation through the bottlenecked Gulf of Mexico supply area,won more than 1 Bcf/d of capacity requests from customers duringthe project’s first open season. “We believe that this level ofparticipation demonstrates the need for incremental capacity fromthe Gulf Coast,” said Tennessee President John Somerhalder II.

In the official launch of the $3 billion Sable Offshore EnergyProject (SOEP) in Halifax earlier this week, project owners raisedexpectations for gas reserves and production. “Our ongoingtechnical studies and interpretation of the 3-D seismic informationgathered in 1996 and 1997 show that the potential exists for morethan the 3.1 Tcf we estimated as the basis for our development planapplication,” said Mobil Oil Canada President Jerry Anderson. “Thegood news is that we might expect to recover more than 3.5 Tcf.This larger potential resource base will enable us to increaseinitial production rates to more than 500 MMcf/d, depending on suchfactors as markets, well performance and operating efficiency.” Theowners originally expected 460 MMcf/d. The additional production,however, will be within the facilities design capacity of 554MMcf/d, they said.