More petroleum holdings US
Petroleum
The UK petroleum industry, also referred to as downstream, consists of over 200 companies involved in the refining, distribution and marketing of petroleum products. They range from large, multinational oil companies, supermarket chains and independent retail groups, through to the independent retailer with a single site.
The main product of the downstream industry is transport fuel. This market is split into commercial and retail. The commercial market includes power generators, industrial, transport and agriculture customers, independent fuel distributors, the government and its agencies, public services and the military. The retail market covers fuels mainly sold from high street filling stations. The downstream petroleum industry employs over 150,000 people directly, and several thousands of contract workers. The workforce is mainly employed in stabilising, refining and manufacturing, and in forecourt retailing activities.
Environmental concerns
Increased public concerns about environmental disasters and the effects of fossil fuels on global warming have sharpened the industry’s focus on environmental and safety issues. As the demand for energy grows so do concerns about the impact on the environment.
The UKOOA Sustainability Strategy Update and Progress Report 2005 details the industry’s progress in developing and implementing a sustainability strategy, and the Offshore Oil and Pollution Prevention and Control Regulations 2005, indicate that protection of the environment is high on the agenda of all oil companies. Environmental management now forms a key part of the decision-making process.
Recent improvements include:
- use of ultrasonic leak detection to reduce gas flare losses;
- introduction of more thermally efficient power plants on platforms;
- installation of simultaneous steam and electricity production facilities in refineries to reduce carbon dioxide emissions;
- work with conservation organisations to preserve habitats that will allow species to flourish;
- investments in new technology to maximise output from existing fields.
The offshore industry produces 80% of the UK’s primary energy. It also generates 3% of the country’s carbon dioxide and methane emissions
US Petroleum Holdings, information about gas, oil and petroleum
The UK now exports quantities of crude oil and is acknowledged for expertise in the area of deep-water technology – using advanced engineering techniques for extracting a higher proportion of oil from each field. This technique was unknown twenty years ago. Consequently, UK specialists are in demand all over the world.
The UK Continental Shelf (UKCS) is facing significant challenges as the province matures. Recovering oil and gas from the North Sea and the Atlantic Margin (the area of water to the west of Shetland and the north of the Hebrides) is a highly technical, complex, dangerous and expensive job. As supplies from larger oil fields run out, smaller, more expensive fields are being exploited. UK oil companies have to be inventive and invest in safe and efficient techniques to remain competitive.
The UK still has substantial recoverable reserves of oil and gas, potentially exceeding the amount already produced. However, many existing, large producing fields are well into decline and discoveries are becoming fewer and smaller or have significant associated technical challenges.
Current trends
As the UK’s oil fields mature, the industry’s focus has shifted from searching for new oil discoveries to continuing the productivity of mature fields, as well as developing smaller fields that were not previously considered commercially viable. This trend has prompted major oil companies to begin selling some of their mature UKCS assets in favour of other regions of the world. Smaller, independent oil companies have been acquiring these UKCS assets.
Natural gas is the UK’s largest source of primary energy, supplying over 40% of the country’s total energy needs. It is used as both a domestic and industrial fuel. It generates electricity to provide heat and power for homes and industries, and is feedstock for chemicals, pharmaceuticals and other products.
The UK is currently the world’s fourth largest producer of natural gas and has more than 200 offshore fields in production around Great Britain. The greatest concentrations of gas are found in the southern sector of the North Sea, but significant volumes are also produced from the central and
Petroleum Holding politics en Venezuela
According to the Oil and Gas Journal (OGJ), Venezuela has 77.2 billion barrels of proven conventional oil reserves, the largest of any country in the Western Hemisphere. In addition it has non-conventional oil deposits similar in size to Canada’s – at 1,200 billion barrels approximately equal to the world’s reserves of conventional oil. About 267 billion barrels of this may be producible at current prices using current technology.[14] Venezuela’s Orinoco tar sands are less viscous than Canada’s Athabasca oil sands – meaning they can be produced by more conventional means, but are buried deeper – meaning they cannot be extracted by surface mining. In an attempt to have these extra heavy oil reserves recognized by the international community, Venezuela has moved to add them to its conventional reserves to give nearly 350 billion barrels of total oil reserves. This would give it the largest oil reserves in the world, even ahead of Saudi Arabia.
Venezuela nationalized its oil industry in 1975-1976, creating Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. (PdVSA), the country’s state-run oil and natural gas company. Along with being Venezuela’s largest employer, PdVSA accounts for about one-third of the country’s GDP, 50 percent of the government’s revenue and 80 percent of Venezuela’s exports earnings. In recent years, under the influence of President Chavez, the Venezuelan government has reduced PdVSA’s previous autonomy and amended the rules regulating the country’s hydrocarbons sector.[15]
In the 1990s, Venezuela opened its upstream oil sector to private investment. This collection of policies, called apertura, facilitated the creation of 32 operating service agreements (OSA) with 22 separate foreign oil companies, including international oil majors like Chevron, BP, Total, and Repsol-YPF.
Estimates of Venezuelan oil production vary. Venezuela claims its oil production is over 3 million barrels per day, but oil industry analysts and the U.S. Energy Information Administration believe it to be much lower. In addition to other reporting irregularities, much of its production is extra-heavy oil, which may or may not be included with conventional oil in the various production estimates. The U.S. Energy Information Agency estimated Venezuela’s oil production in December 2006 was only 2.5 million barrels per day, a 24% decline from its peak of 3.3 million in 1997.[16]
Hugo Chávez, the President of Venezuela sharply diverged from previous administrations’ economic policies, terminating their practice of extensively privatizing Venezuela’s state-owned holdings, such as the oil sector.[17] Chávez also worked to reduce Venezuelan oil extraction in the hopes of garnering elevated oil prices and, at least theoretically, elevated total oil revenues, thereby boosting Venezuela’s severely deflated foreign exchange reserves. He extensively lobbied other OPEC countries to cut their production rates as well. As a result of these actions, Chávez became known as a “price hawk” in his dealings with the oil industry and OPEC. Chávez also attempted a comprehensive renegotiation of 60-year-old royalty payment agreements with oil giants Philips Petroleum and ExxonMobil.[18] These agreements had allowed the corporations to pay in taxes as little as 1% of the tens of billions of dollars in revenues they were earning from the Venezuelan oil they were extracting. Afterwards, a frustrated Chávez stated his intention to complete the nationalization of Venezuela’s oil resources. Although unsuccessful in his attempts to renegotiate with the oil corporations, Chávez succeeded in improving both the fairness and efficiency of Venezuela’s formerly lax tax collection and auditing system, especially for major corporations and landholders.
Recently, Venezuela has pushed the creation of regional oil initiatives for the Caribbean (Petrocaribe), the Andean region (Petroandino), and South America (Petrosur), and Latin America (Petroamerica). The initiatives include assistance for oil developments, investments in refining capacity, and preferential oil pricing. The most developed of these three is the Petrocaribe initiative, with 13 nations signing a preliminary agreement in 2005. Under Petrocaribe, Venezuela will offer crude oil and petroleum products to Caribbean nations under preferential terms and prices, with Jamaica as the first nation to sign on in August 2005.
Petroleum positics holdings US
In 1956, a Shell geophysicist named M. King Hubbert accurately predicted that U.S. oil production would peak in 1970.[1]
Matthew Simmons, an energy investment banker and a former adviser to US president George W. Bush believes that oil production in Saudi Arabia will soon peak, meaning it will not be able to supply the world’s growing energy needs.
In June of 2006, former U.S. president Bill Clinton said in a speech,[2]
“We may be at a point of peak oil production. You may see $100 a barrel oil in the next two or three years, but what still is driving this globalization is the idea that is you cannot possibly get rich, stay rich and get richer if you don’t release more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. That was true in the industrial era; it is simply factually not true. What is true is that the old energy economy is well organized, financed and connected politically.”
In a 1999 speech, Dick Cheney, the US Vice President and former CEO of Halliburton (one of the world’s largest energy services corporations), said,
“By some estimates there will be an average of two per cent annual growth in global oil demand over the years ahead along with conservatively a three per cent natural decline in production from existing reserves. That means by 2010 we will need on the order of an additional fifty million barrels a day. So where is the oil going to come from?….While many regions of the world offer great oil opportunities, the Middle East with two thirds of the world’s oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies, even though companies are anxious for greater access there, progress continues to be slow.”[3]
Cheney went on to argue that the oil industry should become more active in politics:
” Oil is the only large industry whose leverage has not been all that effective in the political arena. Textiles, electronics, agriculture all seem often to be more influential. Our constituency is not only oilmen from Louisiana and Texas, but software writers in Massachusetts and specially steel producers in Pennsylvania. I am struck that this industry is so strong technically and financially yet not as politically successful or influential as are often smaller industries. We need to earn credibility to have our views heard.”
Alternative methods petroleum extraction
Alternative methods
During the oil price increases of 2004-2008, alternatives methods of producing oil gained importance. The most widely known alternatives involve extracting oil from sources such as oil shale or tar sands. These resources exist in large quantities; however, extracting the oil at low cost without excessively harming the environment remains a challenge.
It is also possible to chemically transform methane or coal into the various hydrocarbons found in oil. The best-known such method is the Fischer-Tropsch process. It was a concept pioneered in Nazi Germany when imports of petroleum were restricted due to war and Germany found a method to extract oil from coal. It was known as Ersatz (English:”substitute”) oil, and accounted for nearly half the total oil used in WWII by Germany. However, the process was used only as a last resort as naturally occurring oil was much cheaper. As crude oil prices increase, the cost of coal to oil conversion becomes comparatively cheaper. The method involves converting high ash coal into synthetic oil in a multi-stage process. Ideally, a ton of coal produces nearly 200 liters (1.25 bbl, 52 US gallons) of crude, with by-products including tar.[citation needed]
Currently, two companies have commercialised their Fischer-Tropsch technology. Shell in Bintulu, Malaysia, uses natural gas as a feedstock, and produces primarily low-sulfur diesel fuels. [8] Sasol [9] in South Africa uses coal as a feedstock, and produces a variety of synthetic petroleum products.
The process is today used in South Africa to produce most of the country’s diesel fuel from coal by the company Sasol. The process was used in South Africa to meet its energy needs during its isolation under Apartheid. This process produces low sulfur diesel fuel ; it also is an increased threat to environment, as it produces large amounts of greenhouse gases.
An alternative method of converting coal into petroleum is the Karrick process, which was pioneered in the 1930s in the United States. It uses high temperatures in the absence of ambient air, to distill the short-chain hydrocarbons of petroleum out of coal.
More recently explored is thermal depolymerization (TDP), a process for the reduction of complex organic materials into light crude oil. Using pressure and heat, long chain polymers of hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon decompose into short-chain petroleum hydrocarbons. This mimics the natural geological processes thought to be involved in the production of fossil fuels. In theory, TDP can convert any organic waste into petroleum.
Us petroleum holdings quimics
Petroleum is a mixture of a very large number of different hydrocarbons ; the most commonly found molecules are alkanes (linear or branched), cycloalkanes, aromatic hydrocarbons, or more complicated chemicals like asphaltenes. Each petroleum variety has a unique mix of molecules, which define its physical and chemical properties, like color and viscosity.
The alkanes, also known as paraffins, are saturated hydrocarbons with straight or branched chains which contain only carbon and hydrogen and have the general formula CnH2n+2 They generally have from 5 to 40 carbon atoms per molecule, although trace amounts of shorter or longer molecules may be present in the mixture.
The alkanes from pentane (C5H12) to octane (C8H18) are refined into gasoline (petrol), the ones from nonane (C9H20) to hexadecane (C16H34) into diesel fuel and jet fuel, and the ones from hexadecane upwards into fuel oil and lubricating oil. At the heavier end of the range, paraffin wax is an alkane with approximately 25 carbon atoms, while asphalt has 35 and up, although these are usually cracked by modern refineries into more valuable products. Any shorter hydrocarbons are considered natural gas or natural gas liquids.
The cycloalkanes, also known as napthenes, are saturated hydrocarbons which have one or more carbon rings to which hydrogen atoms are attached according to the formula CnH2n. Cycloalkanes have similar properties to alkanes but have higher boiling points.
The aromatic hydrocarbons are unsaturated hydrocarbons which have one or more planar six-carbon rings called benzene rings, to which hydrogen atoms are attached with the formula CnHn. They tend to burn with a sooty flame, and many have a sweet aroma. Some are carcinogenic.
These different molecules are separated by fractional distillation at an oil refinery to produce gasoline, jet fuel, kerosene, and other hydrocarbons. For example 2,2,4-trimethylpentane (isooctane), widely used in gasoline, has a chemical formula of C8H18 and it reacts with oxygen exothermically:[6]
Incomplete combustion of petroleum or gasoline results in production of potentially toxic byproducts. Too little oxygen results in carbon monoxide. Combustion in air (which contains mostly nitrogen) results in nitric oxides. For example:
US Petroleum Holdings: Business Model
Our Business Model & Strategy:
There is no doubt that the trend in the Oil and Natural Gas market is toward higher and higher prices. The contributing factors for this are many and extremely diverse, running from political uncertainty to increased global consumption. We believe, US Petroleum Holdings, as most analysts do, that this trend will continue throughout the decade and through the next. Suffice it to say that we are in the right business, which under current circumstances will remain resilient to many of the dangerous economic forces that may arise.
Houston Farm Project
History
The Houston Farms #1 well was drilled by Midwest Oil Company US Petroleum Holdings in 1960 to a total depth of 16,085 ft. The Lower Frio, the main objective at 16,000 ft. was wet and non-productive, so the well was considered a dry hole. While drilling the well, core sample of various Upper Frio sands between 10,000 – 12,000 ft. were taken and indicated condensate (gas) pay. Prior to plugging and abandonment, several of these Upper Frio sands were tested and they showed to be productive. The well was never completed, most likely due to nominal gas prices and/or the lack of a gas market. With Natural Gas prices at the time only a few pennies per MCF of gas, it was not economical to set several miles of pipeline to transport for just one well. Consequently, the well was plugged and abandoned. US Petroleum Holdings
The Frio Deep-Seated Salt Dome Fields lie south and southeast of Houston in Brazoria, Ford Bend, Harris, Galveston and Chambers counties along the Texas coast, US Petroleum Holdings.
Collectively, the Frio Deep-seated Salt Dome Fields are significant because their cumulative yields exceed those of any other producing formation in Southeast Texas. From the early 1930’s through 1982, the fields reported a combined cumulative production in excess of 2.3 billion barrels of oil, and at the end of 1993, the figure surpassed 2.4 billion barrels.
Although the most prolific fields were found in the 1930’s (15 major discoveries), development of the play continued into the 1940’s and 1950’s, and centered in Chambers and Brazoria counties, US Petroleum Holdings, because of the proximity to the Danbury Dome, Hoskins Mound and the apparent deeper seated salt diaper over the Chocolate Bayou field.
By 1982, engineers set recoverable reserves for Frio reservoirs of the deep-domes play at nearly 4 billion barrels of oil. By the end of 1993 the fields had yielded more than 2.4 billion barrels.
In the 1950’s three new areas became productive and were called Chocolate Bayou Upper Frio (Brazoria County, 1950), Trinity Bay Frio 12 (Chambers County, 1951), and Chocolate Bayou Alibel (Brazoria County, 1952).
During the last half of the 20th century, the Chocolate Bayou Field has increased in aerial extent and multiple sand packages stacked all the way down to the 15,000 ft. Lower Frio Marker. Several major oil companies and numerous independent exploration companies have discovered over 55 different horizons (pay zones) within the Chocolate Bayou Field. The cumulative production of both gas and oil within this field is ENORMOUS!
Multiple Oligocene Frio Gas Sands have been identified in the well by log and core analysis. Sands are located within the existing casing between 10,000 and 12,200 ft. The primary objective is to complete the 12,000 ft. series of sands. A future plugback would complete the 10,000 ft. series of sands.
A second well on the property will be drilled to the Miocene Gas Sands between 5,100 and 7,000 ft. These sands show as productive as in the Houston Farms #1 well. The well will “twin” the Houston Farms #1 location for the shallower objectives.
Geological estimation of total reserves: 350,000 barrels of oil and 15 Billion cubic feet of Natural Gas.
Estimated Payout: somewhere between 100 – 120 barrels of crude oil per day.
Bissonet Humble Petroleum
Bissonet Lease at Humble Salt Dome Field
History
Humble Salt Dome Field was discovered in the early 1900’s. Bubbles of oil were first observed seeping from the ground near the San Jacinto river in 1887. Humble became an oil boomtown in the early 1900’s when oil was first produced here. The first oil was produced a couple years earlier after the famous Spindletop discovery in Beaumont Texas.
In the fall of 1902, George Hart spudded a well in the field on evidence of escaping gas in the area. His operation was halted by a blowout, an unexpected volume of gas under pressure, that forced the drilling equipment out of the hole. Blowouts were encountered in several wells in the part of the field later called “the hill” and drilled in the summer of 1904 by C.E. Barrett of Houston. Despite the menace of blowouts, some success was found in the early field when Higgins Oil and Fuel Company brought in a large-volume gas well half a mile Southeast of Barrett wells in October 1904. By the end of the year, Humble field reported two sporadically-producing oil wells that had yielded 2,000 barrels of oil. Since none of the crude had been sold, it was stored in earthen tanks for use in the field. Even though blowouts hampered field development, their threat was minimized by the invention of a blowout preventer in 1905. D.R. Beatty used the blowout preventer on the #2 Fee Well which gave up the first gusher with a potential of 8,500 barrels of oil a day from a depth of 1,012 feet.
From 1905 through 1913, development of the field concentrated on the caprock of the salt dome, producing at depths of 1,100 – 1,200 ft. When deep production was found on the dome flanks at Sour Lake Field, operators in Humble field drilled into zones below 2,500 ft., hoping to emulate the success at Sour Lake. In November 1913 the effort was rewarded when Producers Oil #11 Carroll cam in with a potential 10,000 barrels of oil per day at a total depth of 2,700 ft. Forty-six wells were completed before the end of the year, and production reached nearly 2.8 million barrels of oil. In 1935 the Wilson Oil House Well #1 came in at 1500 bopd from the 2,500 ft. sand on the north flank of the field.
Geological estimation of total reserves: 50,000,000 barrels of oil.
Estimated Payout: somewhere between 100 – 300 barrels of crude oil per day.
West Side Proyect, Holdings Petroleum
West Speaks Field – 2 well Re-Drill
History
Shallow production of oil was driving the exploration of the West Speaks Field in the early oil boom years. Many wells were drilled in the 1960’s and early 1970’s with oil production as the main objective, not gas. The wells were drilled and logged, showing that the intervals of our present day interest were “hydrocarbon bearing”, but the technology was not there to get it out of the ground. Adding to this problem was typically a lack of gas pipelines to take this gas production to market and the prices that were being paid for this production was far less than $.30 per Thousand Cubic Feet of Gas (MCFG). These factors killed the effort towards gas production and the exploration effort was usually short-lived. Due to increases in gas pricing over the last few years, many independent oil and gas companies have re-focused their efforts in these types of areas that were drilled during earlier times in search of oil reserves.
The West Speaks Field has been commercially productive from shallow Yegua, Frio and Miocene are oil bearing sands and the Upper Wilcox gas bearing sections, but no real commercial production existed with the deeper Middle and Lower Wilcox series until recently. This area of prolific Wilcox production has seen substantial development in the last few years with “Roeder” (Middle Wilcox) and “Migura” (Lower Wilcox) discoveries. These sections of the Middle to Lower Wilcox intervals have generated substantial commercial gas production from the field after new fracture stimulation technology was implemented during the completion operations. Larger independent companies such as El Paso Natural Gas and Dominion Exploration and Production are actively developing the Roeder & Migura Wilcox sections in the area with some new wells generating gas flows in excess of 5 Million Cubic Feet of Gas per Day.
We have identified many plugged well bores in the West Speaks Field that were drilled during the 1960’s and early 1970’s that were logged showing gas pay. Core samples were taken and determined to yield considerable hydrocarbons. Several of these wells had casing installed and were cemented. While a handful of wells were tested in the Roeder Wilcox series, they flowed a nominal amount of gas at a non-commercial rate. Many of the wells were deemed as dry holes and some of the wells were re-completed in the shallower zones. The idea of “re-entering” a plugged well bore is not new, however recent prices of oil and natural gas has brought old thinking back into the light. The wells of this program will be re-entered, in some instances deepened, and then the zones of our interest will be fracture stimulated with modern technology. This type of project is typically less expensive than drilling a new well and the geologics are heavily in favor as the site has been logged.
Henderson – Muniza #1 Re Entry Well Read more »
