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| Science & Technology |
| Big BP oil discovery in Gulf of Mexico |
| 2008-10-21 |
| The Freedom well was drilled to a total depth of approximately 29,280 feet (8,927 meters) and encountered greater than 550 net feet of hydrocarbon-bearing sands in Middle and Lower Miocene reservoirs. Appraisal will be required to determine the size and commerciality of the discovery. BP America has announced an oil discovery at its Freedom Prospect in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico. The well, located in Mississippi Canyon Block 948, approximately 70 miles southeast of the Louisiana Coast, is in about 6,100 feet (1,860 meters) of water. |
| Posted by:3dc |
| #7 bigjim, I'm not sure if there are fields producing in 6000' of water yet or not, but there are other discoveries considered commercial in near that depth, and there is production from considerable deeper than divers can go. As far as costs - production structures are probably the better part of $1 billion. Wells cost around $100 million to drill. You might put a dozen or two on a structure, depending on field size. Then there are oil transportation costs - pipeline or tanker. It takes a lot of oil and substantial production rates to make a project like this economic - it won't be at $60/barrel or 30% royalty burden. And hurricane risk is a big deal - we lost one deepwater production structure to Rita. (Also note that BP did not say whether the 550' of hydrocarbon was oil or gas or (most likely) a mix - that also makes a difference in economics. |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2008-10-21 19:10 |
| #6 Meaningless if profits are taken away/taxed the snot out of; oil companies will not have the money to invest in drilling and recovery; as RWV said. |
| Posted by: swksvolFF 2008-10-21 17:24 |
| #5 Current saturation diving technology puts you around 1,600-1,800 ft of water max. You'd have to do all the deep work with Remote Operated Vehicles(ROV's) and that would be complicated maybe even impractical. Are there any fields in 6,100 ft of water? |
| Posted by: bigjim-ky 2008-10-21 15:17 |
| #4 Worse... how long before Pelosi tries shut it down or hand it over to Cuba or China or something? |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2008-10-21 14:42 |
| #3 What is the approximate cost of production? |
| Posted by: Richard of Oregon 2008-10-21 14:25 |
| #2 Drill, baby, drill! |
| Posted by: Mike 2008-10-21 13:44 |
| #1 Good. Although I suspect the "Appraisal (that) will be required to determine the size and commerciality of the discovery" will include the results of the election in November. |
| Posted by: RWV 2008-10-21 13:36 |