Page 30: of Offshore Engineer Magazine (Mar/Apr 2020)

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FEATURE Deepwater

Deepwater;

Deep Focus

The offshore industry is about the half the size it was. Its spending on exploration is also about half of what it was at the 2014 highs. But, the reduced scale hasn’t reduced focus. If anything, it’s sharpened it and deepwater remains high on the target list. Elaine Maslin found out more from Wood Mackenzie’s Andrew Latham.

Source: John, Flickr, CC BY 2.0 he reduced scale of the industry hasn’t reduced in- Looking back – 2019 results terest in exploration, including in deepwater and These wells will follow what was a year of valuable deepwa- new basins – provided that there’s a sensible route ter discoveries in 2019. Last year saw Guyana’s offshore con- to market for any reserves discovered. These are tinue to hold the limelight, with ExxonMobil, which has led

T themes that have been playing out since 2017 and continues, exploration there, announcing a 2 billion barrel upgrade in says Andrew Latham, vice president of global exploration at reserves in January (2020), mostly from the four discoveries it industry analysts Wood Mackenzie, in his annual catch up completed in 2019, says Latham. with us here at OE. It’s not all been about Guyana either. Apache’s Maka Cen-

This year, those themes will continue and deepwater is tral-1 well, drilled with the Noble Sam Croft drillship, found again very much in the mix with wells in deepwater offshore light oil and gas condensate in Block 58 off Suriname, es-

Algeria and Lebanon expected and the industry’s deepest wa- timated at more than 500 million boe. Total also made the ter well yet (deferred from last year). gas condensate Brulpadda discovery in Block 11B/12B in the

Image above: The Stena Forth drillship. 30 OFFSHORE ENGINEER OEDIGITAL.COM