Decommissioning
The final rule amends existing regulations and increases the level of financial assurances that operators must provide in advance.
The Interior Department’s rule raises royalty rates for oil drilling by more than one-third, to 16.67%. The previous rate of 12.5% had remained unchanged for a century.
This paper discusses and evaluates retrofitting abandoned petroleum wells for geothermal applications as a commonly proposed solution to meet the challenge of the capital expenditure required for drilling and completion.
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When done well, planning for closure serves as a foundation for sustained socioeconomic well-being, beneficial reuse of project assets, and accountable decision-making. This ultimately contributes to an operator’s social license.
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The Heerema semisubmersible crane vessels Thialf and Sleipnir were used on the job to remove the 36,000-ton structure.
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The impact of orphan wells, both on the environment and on tightening budgets, is a growing concern in the industry. Boom times result in a vast uptick in wells drilled. In bust times, when companies disappear, the liability outlook for these probes gets murky and federal and state governments start looking for answers.
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The paper explores the biology of the invasive Tubastraea sun coral, aiming to identify methods to eliminate or diminish its spread.
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Expressions of interest released by the operator include everything from abandonment to life extension.
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The paper reviews an operator’s deepwater field project offshore Mauritania, for which several techniques were considered with respect to decommissioning a subsea pipeline system at water depths of 700 to 960 m.
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Phased work to remove Heimdal and Veslefrikk A from the Norwegian North Sea shelf should be completed sometime in 2025.
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One of the last oil facilities in state waters on the path towards full decommissioning slated to begin in 2022.
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The complete paper presents the results of an investigation into the creep behavior of North Sea shales and their ability to form effective annular barriers.