Exploration News

At the urging of environmental groups, a U.S. judge threew out an assessment by a federal agency governing how endangered and threatened marine species should be protected from oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman in Greenbelt, Maryland, ruled the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Services' so-called "biological opinion" was flawed and did not adequately address risks species face from oil spills and vessel strikes.The assessment was issued…

A landmark lawsuit filed against Guyana's government, arguing that oil production fuels climate change, could bolster legal action as court cases involving energy companies and state authorities surge, according to lawyers and environmentalists.The constitutional claim - the first of its kind in the English-speaking Caribbean - asserts that oil exploration and production led by U.S. oil major ExxonMobil off the South American country's coast is unconstitutional, said the case's lead lawyer Melinda Janki.Filed by two Guyanese citizens in late May before the tiny nation's constitutional court, the lawsuit centers on the duty of the state to protect the environment for present and future generations…

A federal appeals court on Tuesday confirmed bans on offshore oil leasing in most federal Arctic waters and in the Atlantic after the Trump Administration tried to open them up to development.The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said President Joe Biden's reinstatement of Obama-era protections makes moot the previous administration's attempts to allow oil development there.The Trump administration pressed for oil-and-gas development throughout the United States as the nation's crude production surged to a record 13 million barrels per day (bpd) by 2019.

Greece urged the European Union on Wednesday to reconsider its customs union with Turkey in response to Ankara's continued gas exploration in contested Mediterranean areas, deploring what it termed Ankara's "imperial fantasies."After meeting Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades and Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Nicosia, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said they all agreed that Ankara is "blatantly" violating international law."Turkey's leadership has fantasies of imperial behavior with aggressive behavior from Syria to Libya, Somalia to Cyprus, from the Aegean to the Caucus," he said.The EU should also take note of Turkey's 'many violations' of the EU-Turkey customs union accord…

France will increase its military presence in the eastern Mediterranean, President Emmanuel Macron said on Wednesday, calling on Turkey to halt oil and gas exploration in disputed waters that has heightened tensions with Greece.The French leader voiced concern over "unilateral" exploration by Turkey in a call with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Macron's office said in a statement. It added that prospecting should "cease in order to allow a peaceful dialogue" between the neighboring NATO members.The standoff deepened this week with the arrival of Turkish seismic research vessel Oruc Reis in a disputed area of the Mediterranean…

Assessing the health of coral reefs in the Kingdom of TongaHealthy coral reefs provide critical ecosystem services for millions of people globally, but with climate change and anthropogenic stressors, the landscape of these habitats is regularly shifting. The science and conservation community has realized the importance of baseline studies to help track how these precious reef ecosystems are changing. The Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation launched the Global Reef Expedition…

Total has made a hydrocarbon discovery at the Isabella exploration well in the UK Central North Sea, Neptune Energy, Total's partner in the project has informed.Neptune Energy has described Isabella as "an encouraging hydrocarbon discovery" which encountered hydrocarbons in Upper Jurassic and Triassic sandstone reservoirs, with 64 meters net pay encountered, consisting of lean gas and condensate and high-quality light oil."The results of the well will be analyzed to further evaluate the discovery, determine future appraisal activity and recoverable resources estimates.

Russian and Norwegian exploration and production (E&P) operators have been expanding their operations in the Arctic continental shelf, which is estimated to hold vast deposits of hydrocarbons and rare earth minerals.Warming temperatures in the Barents Sea and northern coastline of Russia are giving an added impetus to resource development in this region, according to GlobalData.GlobalData's report, ‘Arctic Exploitation’, discusses how Russia is keen on hydrocarbon appraisal and development from the Arctic region to such a great extent that it even settled its longstanding territorial dispute with Norway.The government is also providing tax incentives to companies that invest in this region.

The Central American and Caribbean specialist exploration company CaribX said that it is increasing its share of the Main Cape Operating contract in Honduras.Following government approval CaribX will hold a 55% interest in the highly prospective licence area.CEO Rory Scott Russell said: "We are pleased to have closed this latest round of funding and delighted to have such a highly qualified and experienced group of explorers and entrepreneurs joining the company. Attracting the team behind Sierra and the giant Zama discovery demonstrates the enormous potential offshore Honduras, and in the region, as well as the subsurface similarities to the super-giant oil fields of Mexico."Rory added: "Combined with Armando Zamora’s experience with regulatory and government affairs…

ION Geophysical Corporation, a provider of geoscience technology, services, and solutions for the oil and gas industry, has entered into a multi-client agreement with Colombia’s National Hydrocarbon Agency (ANH), granting rights to reprocess existing data and acquire new 2D and 3D multi-client programs offshore Colombia’s Caribbean coast.In February, the ANH announced a series of reforms to encourage investment in exploration and production, such as a permanent license round and a more attractive tax regime, to boost declining production and increase reserves.The data is intended to enable better understanding of hydrocarbon potential…

Australia exploration company Karoon Energy has signed an agreement with the drilling contractor Stena Drilling and oil company Tullow Oil to contract the Stena Forth drillship for Karoon’s Marina-1 exploration well located offshore Peru."The Stena Forth has been contracted to drill one well, being the Marina-1 exploration well, in Karoon’s 40% owned and operated Block Z-38 in the Tumbes Basin in Peru with drilling scheduled to commence early in the 1st quarter 2020," said a press release from Karoon.The Marina-1 well sits in water depth of approximately 350 metres and is targeting a gross prospective resource of 256 million barrels (102 million barrels net to Karoon).In the case of success in Marina-1…

American upstream oil company founded and based in Dallas Kosmos Energy made an offshore oil discovery in Equatorial Guinea, Reuters reported quoting the Ministry of Mines and Hydrocarbons.The S-5 well was drilled at a total depth of 4,400 meters and encountered 39 meters of net oil play in the Santonian reservoir, in the offshore Rio Muni Basin, it said. “The discovery is a strong validation of our strategy to replace oil reserves by exploring the highly prospective oil basins like Rio Muni,” the nation’s Minister of Mines, Industry and Energy Gabriel Obiang said in the statement.According to the report, Lima’s ministry said the well was drilled at a depth of 4…

International  exploration & production (E&P) are struggling to make money from offshore investments made during the latest investment upturn, according to a new study by Rystad Energy.Rystad Energy has evaluated all offshore oil fields sanctioned since 2010 and ranked them by estimated value per barrel of oil (boe) under various oil price scenarios. The return on investment (RoI) figures were not up to the mark.The sanctioning activity was record-high during the strong investment cycle from 2010 to 2014, when energy companies reached final investment decisions on offshore oil fields collectively representing close to 40 billion boe of total resources…

On 28 October 2019 oil giant BP announced a major gas discovery, Orca-1, exploration well in the BirAllah area off the coast of Mauritania.“The deepest and largest discovery so far this year, Rystad Energy estimates Orca-1 holds around 1.3 billion barrels of oil equivalent (boe) of recoverable resources,” says Palzor Shenga, a senior analyst on Rystad Energy’s upstream team.Offshore continues to dominate exploration in 2019, both in terms of the number of discoveries and the volume of resources unearthed. Boosted by the find, Mauritania now ties Guyana for the second most discovered volumes this year, trailing closely behind Russia with 1.5 billion boe.“This type of significant discovery…

The third annual meeting between the International Seabed Authority (ISA) Secretariat and the contractors with deep-sea exploration contracts in the international deep-seabed (the Area) concluded in Changsa, China on Sunday.Delegates gathered at the three-day meeting hosted by China Minmetals from October 11-13 to discuss areas of common interest, and the next steps in moving from exploration to the sustainable development of deep-sea mineral resources.In his remarks at the opening ceremony, ISA Secretary-General Michael W. Lodge highlighted the need to advance the development of regulations for deep-sea mineral exploitation (the Mining code).

Novatek said that its wholly-owned subsidiary Arctic LNG 1 has won an auction for a geological survey, exploration and production license for the subsoil area including the Soletsko-Khanaveyskoye gas field.The license is located on the Gydan peninsula in Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Region, said the natural gas producer in Russia.The license area has estimated hydrocarbon resources of 2,183 billion cubic meters of gas and 212 million tons of liquids, or 16 billion barrels of oil equivalent according to the Russian resource classification system.The license term is 27 years and the auction resulted in one-time payment for the subsoil use in the amount of RR 2…

For the next month, Jan Stenløkk will trade his office in Stavanger for the vessel "M/V Seabed Constructor" in the Norwegian Sea.On this voyage, the geologist will continue the task of mapping seabed minerals for the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate on behalf of the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy – which is responsible for managing the minerals."The voyage will go to the volcanic Mohns Ridge between Jan Mayen and Bjørnøya, a sea area that is still virtually unexplored. It’s exciting that the NPD has been given the task of exploring the geology and the deposits, as well as performing the mapping. We are now at the very beginning of work that could have a significant impact on Norwegian resources and industry in the future…

Italian shipyard Dynamiq has introduced new G300 model designed to cruise the world. The Dynamiq Global 300 is a bit more compact and comes with a low profile design like other vessels by Dynamiq Yachts, said a press note from the builder.The yacht is designed to reach a top speed of 19 knots and an oceanic range of 4,000 nautical miles. The new G300 has a volume of 200GT, making her a fantastic compact version of sea explorers.The Global 300 is a fully-aluminum vessel built on a 30-metre EPIQ platform, where EPIQ stands for Efficiency, Performance, Innovation, Quality."She is designed with a comfortable fast displacement round bilge hull…

Rystad Energy sees investments both in offshore and onshore exploration drilling doubling in the next five years, compared to the last five years. Conventional onshore demand will be driven by Asia, Africa and South America.Europe on the other hand, will be a hot spot for offshore exploration, led by investments on the Norwegian Continental Shelf, the energy research and business intelligence company said.In the past few years conventional exploration drilling has been on a rocky road, dropping from 3000 exploration wells drilled in 2012 down to just 900 wells in 2016 – a whopping 70% decrease.Exploration has been constrained not only by lower oil prices…

Neptune Energy East Sepinggan, subsidiary of the European exploration and production company Neptune Energy has agreed to acquire interests from the Eni East Sepinggan Limited, a unit of Eni in the Kutei basin production sharing contracts (PSC) offshore Indonesia.According to a press release from the Italian multinational oil and gas company, it  will continue to be the Operator of the area which is located in the East Sepinggan area, offshore East Kalimantan in Indonesia, and includes Merakes development and Merakes East discovery. The agreement is subject to the necessary authorizations from Indonesia’s authorities.The release pointed out that Eni and Neptune Energy are already partners in the Muara Bakau area…

Blue Water Ventures International  (BWVI) and project partner Endurance Exploration Group (EXPL), are well into the 2019 recovery season on the SB Pulaski. The SB Pulaski sank in 1838 while in route from Savannah, Georgia to Baltimore, Maryland. She carried some of the South’s wealthiest families. The shipwreck was considered the “Titanic” of its’ day. The Blue Water Rose has been based out of Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina since mid June. As weather permits, on site excavations have continued with the recovery of more silver and copper coins; most from US origins, a small gold pocket watch, silver ware and wreck material. A more detailed survey of bottom conditions has shown Hurricane Florence (September 2018) had a bigger impact on the seabed than was earlier believed.

Japan's largest oil and gas exploration and production company Inpex Corporation has submitted a revised plan of development (POD) for the Abadi  LNG Project, a gas field on the remote Masela Block in the Arafura Sea off Indonesia. The revised POD is based on an onshore LNG development scheme with an annual LNG production capacity of 9.5 million tons. The Project involves developing the Abadi gas field in the Masela Block located in the Arafura Sea in Indonesia.The submission of the revised POD follows a series of dialogues between the authorities and Inpex, as the operator of the project on behalf of the Joint Venture (Inpex Masela and Shell Upstream Overseas) to secure the Project’s competitiveness through a Heads of Agreement (HOA) signed with authorities on June 16…

Ireland's offshore Oil and gas company Providence Resources has again pushed back a deadline to receive $9mln of funding from Apec, its farm-in partner in the key Barryroe site off the south west coast.The loan from Barryroe's Chinese backer was due by June 14. It is now due to be received in July 5, the company said."Due to delays associated with internal transaction processing with their investors, APEC have formally requested a further extension of time for the payment of the initial US$ 9 million loan. EXOLA and Lansdowne have agreed to this further extension of the backstop date to no later than July 5, 2019," it said.Subject to receipt of all regulatory consents and required financing, the well-site survey operations are expected to commence Q3 2019.