Deepwater

In a notice published in theFederal RegisterWednesday, the Transportation Department’s Maritime Administration (MARAD) announced its final authorization of the decommissioning of the Gulf Gateway Energy Bridge Deepwater Port, the first deepwater liquefied natural gas (LNG) import facility of its kind in the world. The Excelerate Energy LP facility is being retired just eight years after it went into service in the Gulf of Mexico.

Long on the defense regarding the historic Macondo well blowout in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico three years ago, BP plc has gone on the offensive to recover some of the settlements it’s paid out for Gulf Coast businesses that may have been inflated or fictitious.

James J. Kleckner has been promoted to executive vice president of Anadarko Petroleum Corp.’s international and deepwater operations and will join the executive committee, replacing Doug Lawler, who is to become CEO of Chesapeake Energy Corp. (see Daily GPI, May 21). Kleckner has been running Anadarko’s Rockies division, and the promotion “is a reflection of his global operational skills,” as well as his “instrumental role in the phenomenal growth of the Wattenberg field in Colorado and the Greater Natural Buttes area in Utah,” said CEO Al Walker. Kleckner, a graduate of the Colorado School of Mines, began his career in 1981 with Sun Oil Co. He is a member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers and the American Petroleum Institute.

Offshore activity continues to grow as development begins on a slate of recent discoveries, a sharp contrast to onshore operators, whose “attitude was rather somber,” according to analysts with Raymond James & Associates Inc., who shared their takeaways from the Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) held earlier this month in Houston.

Tony Hayward, who resigned as BP plc Group CEO following the turbulence that followed the the Macondo well blowout in the Gulf of Mexico’s deepwater, has taken over as chairman of CompactGTL, which has pioneered a modular gas-to-liquids (GTL) system for flared natural gas.

Tony Hayward, who resigned as BP plc Group CEO following the turbulence that followed the the Macondo well blowout in the Gulf of Mexico’s deepwater, has taken over as chairman of UK-based CompactGTL, which has pioneered a modular gas-to-liquids (GTL) system for flared natural gas. Hayward has been running Genel Energy plc, an Anglo-Turkish explorer. He also participated in Vallares plc, an energy fund vehicle backed by a group of investors. Royal Dutch Shell plc is the dominant leader in giant global GTL technology; CompactGTL is on the other end of the spectrum. The smaller plants are designed to harness flared gas from oilfields.

Magnum Hunter Resources Corp.’s Bakken Hunter LLC is buying existing wells and about 20,000 net Williston Basin lease acres in Divide County, ND, from Samson Resources Co. for $30 million in cash.

Williams, whose natural gas midstream and pipeline infrastructure stretches from Canada into the deepwater Gulf of Mexico, is tweaking its earnings forecasts lower for the next two years based on conversations with customers that indicate activity will be slower in the short term.

Williams, whose natural gas midstream and pipeline infrastructure stretches from Canada into the deepwater Gulf of Mexico, is tweaking its earnings forecasts lower for the next two years based on conversations with customers that indicate activity will be slower in the short term.