Chevron: Oil, gas output from Jack/St Malo could double

13 Mar 2012, 7.06 pm GMT

New York, 13 March (Argus) — Chevron said its efforts to boost recoveries in the Lower Tertiary trend of the US Gulf of Mexico may double the amount of crude and natural gas extracted from its $7.5bn Jack/St Malo development.

The October 2010 decision to go forward with Jack/St Malo was predicated on recovering less than 10pc of the crude and gas in place, or about 500mn barrels of oil equivalent (boe) over the life of the deepwater development. Technological advances may drive recoveries to more than 20pc, or 1bn boe, Chevron North American upstream president Gary Luquette said today.

“We have effectively added a half billion barrels to Jack/St Malo, and we’re looking to apply what we’ve learned here to other Lower Tertiary developments,” Luquette said.

Deepwater projects will be key in Chevron’s plan to boost upstream production by 20pc, to 3.3mn boe/d, by 2017. The company aims to increase its global deepwater output to 470,000 boe/d from 375,000 boe/d. The Jack/St Malo platform, which will have a tieback to at least one other field, will have capacity to handle 170,000 b/d of oil and 42.5mn cubic feet/day of gas.

Lessons learned from early struggles with the Shell-operated Perdido development, which began production in March 2010, will help with other Lower Tertiary projects in the Gulf, Luquette said. Perdido was slower to ramp up than planned, but now is at more than 90,000 boe/d.

Chevron intervened to make design changes to the Hess-operated Tubular Bells project, also in the Lower Tertiary trend, increasing the major’s confidence that the development will be done on budget and on plan, Luquette said.

Jack/St Malo and Tubular Bells are both scheduled to commence production in 2014, as is the Chevron-operated Big Foot project in the Lower Tertiary.

Lower Tertiary oil deposits are beneath a thick salt canopy, making exploration more difficult, and are characterized by high pressure, high temperature and low porosity.

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USA: BMT to Provide Simulation Services for Production Platforms Towing

Hereema Marine Contractors Nederland B.V Inc. (“HMC”) has awarded a contract to BMT Fluid Mechanics in partnership with BMT ARGOSS, to provide Tow Simulation Services for the inshore tow of Chevron-operated Jack St. Malo and Big Foot Production Platforms to be installed in the Gulf of Mexico.

BMT will be engineering, procuring, installing and commissioning a purpose built simulation facility to be located in Houston, Texas, for the purpose of training tug captains and other marine personnel involved with the inshore towing of the platforms from the Ingleside integration yards. The inshore tows are particularly challenging because of the extremely small hull clearances within the shipping channels leading from the yards out to the gulf. Up to five independently controlled tug boats will be effectively, rigidly coupled to the hull to perform the 15 mile wet-tows.

BMT’s PC Rembrandt real time maneuvering training software will be the basis of the simulator. The simulator will provide a realistic hands-on facility for tug captains to develop safe operating strategies for the tow and develop rational weather and tide operating limits.

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