Offshore Production

The 2022 hurricane season is off to a quiet start, but the tropics seem to have awakened in recent days and are likely to ramp up in September — the peak month for tropical storm activity. Forecasters are still predicting an above-average season, calling for as many as 10 hurricanes and up to five major ones. That would mean greater volatility for energy markets in any year, but the stakes are arguably higher this year than any time in recent memory — especially for natural gas. That’s because prices are already at the highest level in over a decade and flirting with the $10/MMBtu mark. The gas market is tight domestically and globally, particularly in Europe. Lower 48 storage remains near the five-year low. European gas storage, after lagging far behind, has caught up to the five-year average this month, but the continent is still dependent on a consistent stream of U.S. LNG cargoes, particularly as it works to wean itself off Russian gas supplies. What happens when you add to that the prospect of hurricane-related disruptions to Lower 48 production or LNG exports, or both? Much of that will come down to the timing, path and strength of any impending storms. That’s a lot of unknowns, and where there is that much uncertainty, volatility is sure to follow. With the National Hurricane Center (NHC) predicting high chances of potential cyclone development as early as later this week, today’s RBN blog considers the possible implications for the U.S. gas market balance.

It may be easy to forget in these days of Permian this and Permian that, but crude oil production in the offshore Gulf of Mexico (GOM) set a number of new, all-time records in the past couple of years. Better yet, with a handful of key producers in the Gulf planning low-cost, subsea tiebacks to existing platforms — and still discovering more oil — it’s a good bet that offshore production will continue its upward trajectory into the early 2020s. And, unlike U.S. shale wells, whose production peaks early then trails off, wells in the GOM typically maintain high levels of production for years and years. Where do offshore production and drilling activity stand in the Shale Era, and where are they headed? Today, we review recent production gains in the Gulf and examine why the GOM remains the oil sector’s Energizer Bunny.

Deepwater and ultra-deepwater crude oil production projects in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) are complex and take years to complete, so the several GOM projects on which exploration and production companies made final investment decisions in 2012-14 are only now coming online—just in time, it turns out, for the lowest oil prices in a dozen years.  So there’s this irony: Crude is selling for little more than $30/Bbl, but the new projects coming online in 2016 and beyond are likely to bring GOM production to record highs. Today, we continue our examination of still-rising production in the GOM with a review of more projects increasing the Gulf’s output.

Work continues on several major deep- and shallow-water crude oil production projects in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico (GOM), despite the fact that oil prices are far lower than they were when the commitments to develop these projects were made. U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude for prompt delivery closed yesterday on the CME/NYMEX futures market at $26.55/Bbl – its lowest level since May 2003 – threatening to strangle resilient domestic onshore shale production. Yet GOM production levels will rise again this year--and likely for at least another couple of years—offsetting some of the expected decline in onshore U.S. crude output.  Today, we continue our examination of steadily rising crude output in the GOM with a look at projects coming online in 2016 and beyond.

The recent end to U.S. crude export prohibitions opens up a number of coastal infrastructure development opportunities. One of the best placed assets is Louisiana’s Offshore Oil Port (LOOP) – the largest U.S. waterborne crude receipt terminal. LOOP could become a Gulf Coast crude blending and trading hub if its infrastructure is upgraded to facilitate exports. Today we look at the existing LOOP operation and future opportunities for exports.

Natural gas production in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) has been falling for 15 years, hurt first by hurricane-related rig damage, then more recently by the side effects of the BP/Macondo disaster, the on-shore sale boom, and the resulting sag in gas prices. But GOM gas production is about to uptick, due largely to two big, long-planned oil and gas projects finally coming online. Is the upcoming increase in gas production in the Gulf the first sign of resurgence, or is it the energy-sector equivalent of a “dead cat bounce.” In this blog, we consider what is ahead for gas production in the GOM.