Deepwater

A leaner and more cost competitive industry in the deepwater has emerged as the energy industry gets back to work, with the most compelling projects worldwide closer to competing with U.S. tight oil plays, according to Wood Mackenzie.

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Maritime Administration (MARAD) recently issued a deepwater port license for what is expected to be the first offshore floating natural gas liquefaction project in the United States.

Anadarko Petroleum Corp. is hiking its capital spending by more than one-third this year as it works to raise Permian Basin resources by 50% and Denver-Julesburg (DJ) resources by 33%.

Mexico is open for business and looking for partners to develop deepwater and onshore oil and natural gas, the director general of state-owned Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) said Tuesday.

Anadarko Petroleum Corp.’s ability to synchronize its upstream spending with midstream solutions, thereby avoiding bottlenecks and gaining the best prices, proved a winning method in the Denver-Julesburg (DJ) Basin, and it’s now being duplicated in the Permian Basin.

BP plc said Monday the Thunder Horse South Expansion project in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico has begun operations early, one year ahead of schedule and $150 million under budget, boosting output from the main platform by 50,000 boe/d gross.

Anadarko Petroleum Corp.’s advantages in the Gulf of Mexico are stacking up, providing cash flow to fund a plethora of U.S. onshore opportunities, as the super independent eyes a stronger production growth rate over the next five years.

A unit of Japanese trading house Mitsui & Co. Ltd. is buying into some potential powerhouse deepwater Gulf of Mexico assets within the Mars-Ursa Basin owned by Royal Dutch Shell plc that could capture at least 100 million boe in recoverable reserves.

Australia’s BHP Billiton on Monday was named the first deepwater partner ever for Mexico’s state-owned Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex), winning the right to jointly explore two blocks in the prolific Perdido Fold Belt. Mexico also awarded the rights to explore other Perdido and Salina del Istmo Basin blocks, which all together may hold total reserves of 10.6 billion boe.