Crawford: Brownwood Preparing for Oil Boom Benefits

People are asking when "it" is going to "hit," but based on oilfield activity to the west, it appears "it" has already "hit" — and Brownwood, while not in the middle of the current oil boom, is preparing for the results.

That was the message of Brownwood Economic Development Director Emily Crawford, who gave a brief report to city council members Tuesday about the city's presence at last week's Southwest Energy Summit in Sweetwater.

Crawford and Brownwood Area Chamber of Commerce Marketing Manager Ray Tipton manned a booth at the two-day summit on behalf of Brownwood. The summit included sessions on oil and natural gas, wind energy, nuclear energy, workforce and regional infrastructure, transportation and coal.

Brownwood's message at the summit: the city has land available for development, it is centrally located to most active oil and gas fields in the state and it has existing industries in the energy sectors.

"We recognize although we don't have a lot of wells being drilled or explored, we are actually geographically in the center of the state and we are able to reach most of the active oil and gas fields from about a three- hour proximity," Crawford told council members.

"We want to let suppliers and service companies that would like to service more than one of the clay shales or oil fields that they can do that from Brownwood and be geographically in the center."

Crawford said it was "very good for us to hear fact versus fiction of what's really happening in the Permian Basin and the Cline Shale."

Snyder and Sweetwater have developed new industrial parks within the past year, and Sweetwater is getting a rail extension, Crawford said; Snyder is getting five new hotels and has broken ground on a workforce housing project for 1,000 workers.

"So there really is a tremendous amount of activity happening just to the west of us," Crawford said. "People continue to ask when is 'it' going to 'hit' and I would say that 'it' has already 'hit' because of this activity that's already going on.

"However, we don't know how big it will get and how far it will reach. So we will continue to poise Brownwood for our existing businesses and for new businesses to relocate."

Mayor Stephen Haynes asked if it is believed the Cline Shale will extend into Brown County.

Runnels County has seen some drilling permits, but because the Cline Shale is large and has not been fully explored, "we really don't know how far east it will go," Crawford said.

She said she's been told the shale is not likely to extend to Brown County, but the activity in Runnels County "brings it even closer to Brown County."

There could be an influx of oilfield workers who are looking for housing in Brownwood, Crawford said. "A person driving 90 miles a day to commute is not unheard of," she said. "We are looking at attempting to get more of a housing inventory so that we can be ready if indeed that does happen."

Crawford said a group had done a study on the impact of wages and jobs created in the Eagle Ford Shale, and it is hoped the group will do a similar study on the Cline Shale. 

Copyright 2013 Brownwood Bulletin, American Consolidated Media Distributed by Newsbank, Inc. All Rights Reserved

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For CEOs Like McClendon, Buyout Game Can Be Second Act

As Aubrey McClendon's days as Chesapeake Energy Corp.'s chief executive tick down, he's exploring ways to remain in the energy game.

Less than two months after agreeing to leave Chesapeake under pressure from shareholders over his free-spending ways, Mr. McClendon is meeting with private-equity investors and others to discuss potentially teaming up for new ventures, according to several people familiar with the discussions.

Mr. McClendon also has spoken with energy executives who in the past worked with buyout shops. At this juncture, Mr. McClendon is asking more questions than he is sharing details of future plans. Among his queries: How much autonomy and control would he have if he received financing from a Wall Street firm, according to one person he's spoken with.

Mr. McClendon, 53 years old, has some employees for his next venture, according to a person familiar with the matter, and secured office space in a six-story, glass-and-concrete building in Oklahoma City. His new digs are about a mile east of the sprawling, university-like campus he helped design for Chesapeake, the energy power he co-founded in 1989.

Mr. McClendon declined to comment.

If Mr. McClendon ends up in private equity, he will be following a path trod by other high-profile executives who have landed on their feet in the private-equity world.

Robert Nardelli, the former chief executive of Chrysler Group LLC and Home Depot, in 2009 joined private-equity firm Cerberus Capital Management LP. He left a year ago to focus on his own investment firm, he said at the time. He declined to comment.

Lord John Browne, who resigned as chief executive officer of BP in 2007, joined Riverstone Holdings LLC. He couldn't be reached for comment.

The relationship can be symbiotic: Private-equity firms crave the expertise and Rolodexes of former top managers, while the executives like working away from public scrutiny and the tyranny of quarterly earnings.

Performance isn't judged on "what happens from quarter to quarter, it's about what happens to the fund over the life of the fund," said David B. Miller, who co-founded private-equity firm EnCap Investments LLC after running an energy company, Maze Exploration Inc.

One challenge, Mr. Miller said, is that institutional investors tend to have lower risk tolerance than shareholders in public stock markets.

Set to step down from Chesapeake by April 1, Mr. McClendon is leaving on a low note. After building Chesapeake into the nation's second-biggest natural-gas producer after Exxon Mobil Corp., his last year at the company was marred by a wrong-way bet on natural gas that left the company exposed to a collapse in prices.

Meanwhile, Mr. McClendon's personal borrowing practices ignited a governance controversy last year. Shareholders soured on his spending amid the stock's recent disappointments, leading to his ouster. Some private-equity investors said the controversy might reduce the enthusiasm of some to work with the Chesapeake co-founder.

Still, Mr. McClendon is regarded by some as a visionary who helped lead a revolution in American energy extraction.

"I think he'll likely have several opportunities to partner with private-equity firms interested in energy," says Scott Sperling, co-president of Thomas H. Lee Partners. "After a few months out of the news, people probably will just remember that he was a guy who did some pretty interesting things" rather than someone who left his company amid negative headlines.

Any foray by Mr. McClendon into energy would be complicated by his contractual restrictions not to compete with Chesapeake.

Mr. McClendon's contract with Chesapeake bars him from using confidential information he acquired there for a year. It also prohibits him from acquiring, or helping someone else acquire, oil and gas interests immediately adjacent to the company's holdings while he continues to receive severance payments. Chesapeake has drilling rights to 15 million acres nationwide, spanning some of the country's most prolific oil-and-gas-producing zones, which could make it difficult for Mr. McClendon to operate in the same regions-even if he weren't directly involved.

"He can't do indirectly what he can't do directly," said Michael P. Maslanka, a partner at Dallas-based Constangy Brooks & Smith LLP who specializes in employment law. "You can wall him off, but the question becomes, 'How effectively did you wall him off?'"

Though Chesapeake said it would pay him a severance of nearly $50 million over four years, Mr. McClendon's next move will likely require other people's money. The executive once owned 33.5 million Chesapeake shares-worth $2.3 billion at their 2008 peak--and pledged them as collateral for loans to buy more shares. When Chesapeake's stock tumbled later that year, the value of his collateral fell below the level required and he was forced to sell most of his shares. Much of his personal fortune, including a 19.2% stake in the Oklahoma City Thunder basketball team, has been pledged as collateral to secure loans.

Through a controversial perk, Mr. McClendon can choose whether to invest in every well Chesapeake drills. The disclosure of his borrowing--he pledged his interests in the wells to secure up to $1.4 billion in loans from a private-equity group that also did business with Chesapeake--triggered shareholder lawsuits. The Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating the arrangement.

Chesapeake's board said in February it found no "intentional misconduct" by Mr. McClendon, who agreed to terminate the perk in June 2014.

T. Boone Pickens, whose own wrong-way bet on natural gas-prices in the 1990s led to his ouster at the energy company he had built, later went on to found a hedge fund. He says he recently met with Mr. McClendon, a fellow Oklahoma native, and that his friend's problem was having more ideas than money to finance them.

"He tried to buy the world," said Mr. Pickens, whose hedge fund sold all of its half-million Chesapeake shares last year.

Still, he said Mr. McClendon won't have any trouble raising money. "I'd invest with him," he said.

Copyright (c) 2012 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.

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XPD8 Clinches Work, Expands Workforce

Aberdeen-based XPD8 Solutions has reported a strong start to 2013 after its condition monitoring team secured work worth more than $3 million (GBP 2 million) and announced plans to expand its workforce.

The company, which specializes in the management of maintenance systems for oil and gas producing assets, has been awarded contracts to deliver further condition monitoring support to CNR, Wood Group PSN and Hess over the next three years.

XPD8 currently has a full order book and to prepare for future growth the company will create 18 positions across all departments during the year.

The contract to provide condition monitoring services to CNR's platforms in the North Sea will see XPD8 maintain its existing links with the operator stretching back more than five years.

Work is also to take place for Wood Group PSN on Dana's Triton Platform in the North Sea and with Hess in Equatorial Guinea.

In supplying condition monitoring services, XPD8 provides oil and gas companies with computerized systems which identify the requirement for maintenance on their assets. This increases the reliability and safety of equipment and highlights where and when repairs need to be made.

The announcement follows a strong 2012 for XPD8's condition monitoring team when the organization acquired another condition monitoring department and expanded by one third. The team now represents a third of XPD8's workforce of 45 people.

Gordon Ellis, director at XPD8, said: "We operate in a very competitive niche but are consistently able to demonstrate high quality delivery and value for our clients. Our service is all about prevention rather than cure and our systems save our clients money by prolonging equipment life and ensuring optimal performance and safety.

"Growth has been a response to customer–led demand. Our products are increasingly being requested as the length of life for platforms and equipment continues to be extended."

Formed in 2003, XPD8 offers efficient and cost-effective asset management and integrity management solutions, using bespoke software and skilled engineers who specialize in asset integrity services.

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Iraqi Oil: Once Seen as US Boon, Now It's Mostly China's

Ten years after the United States invaded and occupied Iraq, the country's oil industry is poised to boom and make the troubled nation the No. 2 oil exporter in the world. But the nation that's moving to take advantage of Iraq's riches isn't the United States. It's China.

America, with its own homegrown energy bonanza, isn't going after the petroleum that lies beneath Iraq's sands nearly as aggressively as is China, a country hungry to fuel its rise as an economic power.

Iraq remains highly unstable in terms of security, infrastructure and politics. Chinese state-owned oil companies appear more willing to put up with that than Americans are.

"The Chinese have a higher tolerance for risk," said Gal Luft, a co-director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, a Washington research center focused on energy.

The International Energy Agency expects China to become the main customer for Iraq's vast oil reserves. Fatih Birol, the agency's chief economist, recently declared "a new trade axis is being formed between Baghdad and Beijing." Birol said that about 80 percent of Iraq's future oil exports were expected to go to Asia, mainly to China.

Iraq's potential for oil production is huge. The International Energy Agency predicts that Iraqi production will more than double in the next eight years and that the country will be by far the largest contributor to growth in the global oil supply over the next two decades. By the 2030s, the agency expects Iraq to become the second-largest global oil exporter, overtaking Russia.

American oil companies, in the meantime, are "barely active" in Iraq, said Robin Mills of Dubai-based Manaar Energy Consulting. There's Exxon Mobil, which is locked in a dispute with the Iraqi government and is looking to sell at least some of its stake in the giant West Qurna-1 oil field, with the state-owned PetroChina discussed as a likely buyer. The other U.S. firm operating in Iraq is Occidental Petroleum Corp., Mills said, a company that has just a minority, non-operating stake in the Zubair oil field.

Iraq hasn't become the bonanza for big Western international oil companies that some might have expected when the U.S. invaded 10 years ago.

It's a different story, though, for the U.S. oil field services and engineering companies that have established dominant positions in Iraq. That includes Halliburton, the company that Iraq War booster Dick Cheney led before he became vice president.

Bush administration officials suggested shortly after the invasion that revenue from Iraq's oil fields could largely pay the cost of rebuilding the country. That turned out to be wrong, and $60 billion in American taxpayer funds ended up going into the reconstruction of Iraq. The war devastated Iraq's oil industry, as kidnappings, sabotage and attacks on infrastructure made it virtually impossible to do business.

While the industry's improvement in Iraq since 2009 has been substantial, according to analysts, the country remains a tough place to work. Huge problems remain with infrastructure, security and logistics.

The contract terms the Iraqi government offers oil companies also aren't attractive, said Trevor Houser, an energy specialist with the New York-based Rhodium Group consulting firm. China is expanding in Iraq because it needs the energy and it doesn't have alternatives that are as good as those of Western oil companies, he said.

The most profitable places in the world to work as an oil company are the North American unconventional fields _ such as shale deposits in the Eastern U.S. _ and the deepwater fields in West Africa or the Gulf of Mexico, Houser said. China has limited opportunities in those places, he said, with the state-owned oil company PetroChina lacking the technological sophistication needed for deepwater production.

"The fact that (PetroChina) is expanding in Iraq is not to me a sign of their strength, it's a sign of their relative weakness," Houser said.

Birol, the chief economist at the International Energy Agency, said that nearly a third of the future oil production in Iraq was expected to come from fields that either were directly owned or co-led by Chinese companies.

Oil companies from the U.S. and other Western nations have been more interested in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, a largely autonomous area that doesn't take orders from Baghdad. Kurdistan offers more stability and better contract terms to the international oil companies, to the fury of the Baghdad government, which is charged with handling international affairs and calls the contracts illegal.

Western oil companies generally have more attractive global investment opportunities than Iraq, said Luft, who's an adviser to the U.S. Energy Security Council, a nonprofit group that works to lessen dependence on fossil fuels.

They also need to answer to their shareholders, and they see the world differently from the way state-owned Chinese companies do, he said.

"The Chinese oil companies are more in tune with the geopolitical agenda of their government and respond less to shareholders," Luft said. "If Exxon operates somewhere and has to close down operations for a month, that would have an impact on investors. When the Chinese go into one of those places and something bad happens, there is not the consequence in terms of stock."

Luft said he didn't see Chinese development of Iraq's oil as a case of China enjoying the spoils of a war for which the U.S. had paid dearly both in lives and taxpayer dollars.

It's a myth that U.S. energy security relies on Middle Eastern imports, he said. Oil from the region makes up just a small percentage of what America uses. The U.S. will benefit if China or anyone else can get Iraqi's huge reserves developed and onto the market, he said. Since oil is a global commodity, he said, more oil on the market brings down prices.

"Energy security is about not only the availability of the resource but also about the cost," Luft said. "Anything that brings down global oil prices is positive for U.S. energy security."

Copyright 2013 McClatchy Washington Bureau

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XPD8 Clinches Work, Expands Workforce

Aberdeen-based XPD8 Solutions has reported a strong start to 2013 after its condition monitoring team secured work worth more than $3 million (GBP 2 million) and announced plans to expand its workforce.

The company, which specializes in the management of maintenance systems for oil and gas producing assets, has been awarded contracts to deliver further condition monitoring support to CNR, Wood Group PSN and Hess over the next three years.

XPD8 currently has a full order book and to prepare for future growth the company will create 18 positions across all departments during the year.

The contract to provide condition monitoring services to CNR's platforms in the North Sea will see XPD8 maintain its existing links with the operator stretching back more than five years.

Work is also to take place for Wood Group PSN on Dana's Triton Platform in the North Sea and with Hess in Equatorial Guinea.

In supplying condition monitoring services, XPD8 provides oil and gas companies with computerized systems which identify the requirement for maintenance on their assets. This increases the reliability and safety of equipment and highlights where and when repairs need to be made.

The announcement follows a strong 2012 for XPD8's condition monitoring team when the organization acquired another condition monitoring department and expanded by one third. The team now represents a third of XPD8's workforce of 45 people.

Gordon Ellis, director at XPD8, said: "We operate in a very competitive niche but are consistently able to demonstrate high quality delivery and value for our clients. Our service is all about prevention rather than cure and our systems save our clients money by prolonging equipment life and ensuring optimal performance and safety.

"Growth has been a response to customer–led demand. Our products are increasingly being requested as the length of life for platforms and equipment continues to be extended."

Formed in 2003, XPD8 offers efficient and cost-effective asset management and integrity management solutions, using bespoke software and skilled engineers who specialize in asset integrity services.

View the original article here

Valiant Farms out Handcross Prospect

North Sea-focused Valiant Petroleum announced Thursday that it is farming out 20-percent of its Handcross project to Germany's RWE Dea.

The Handcross prospect is located west of Shetland on licenses P1631 (Block 204/18b) and P1832 (Blocks 204/14c and 204/19c). It is a large Palaeocene, channelized fan prospect that is close to the Suilven and Tornado discoveries and around 13 miles from BP's Quad 204 redevelopment.

The Handcross exploration well is scheduled to be drilled during the fourth quarter of this year by the Stena Carron drillship.

Following the completion of the transaction the Handcross partners will be: Valiant, as operator with a 70-percent stake; RWE Dea, with 20 percent; and Sussex Energy, with 10 percent.

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Crawford: Brownwood Preparing for Oil Boom Benefits

People are asking when "it" is going to "hit," but based on oilfield activity to the west, it appears "it" has already "hit" — and Brownwood, while not in the middle of the current oil boom, is preparing for the results.

That was the message of Brownwood Economic Development Director Emily Crawford, who gave a brief report to city council members Tuesday about the city's presence at last week's Southwest Energy Summit in Sweetwater.

Crawford and Brownwood Area Chamber of Commerce Marketing Manager Ray Tipton manned a booth at the two-day summit on behalf of Brownwood. The summit included sessions on oil and natural gas, wind energy, nuclear energy, workforce and regional infrastructure, transportation and coal.

Brownwood's message at the summit: the city has land available for development, it is centrally located to most active oil and gas fields in the state and it has existing industries in the energy sectors.

"We recognize although we don't have a lot of wells being drilled or explored, we are actually geographically in the center of the state and we are able to reach most of the active oil and gas fields from about a three- hour proximity," Crawford told council members.

"We want to let suppliers and service companies that would like to service more than one of the clay shales or oil fields that they can do that from Brownwood and be geographically in the center."

Crawford said it was "very good for us to hear fact versus fiction of what's really happening in the Permian Basin and the Cline Shale."

Snyder and Sweetwater have developed new industrial parks within the past year, and Sweetwater is getting a rail extension, Crawford said; Snyder is getting five new hotels and has broken ground on a workforce housing project for 1,000 workers.

"So there really is a tremendous amount of activity happening just to the west of us," Crawford said. "People continue to ask when is 'it' going to 'hit' and I would say that 'it' has already 'hit' because of this activity that's already going on.

"However, we don't know how big it will get and how far it will reach. So we will continue to poise Brownwood for our existing businesses and for new businesses to relocate."

Mayor Stephen Haynes asked if it is believed the Cline Shale will extend into Brown County.

Runnels County has seen some drilling permits, but because the Cline Shale is large and has not been fully explored, "we really don't know how far east it will go," Crawford said.

She said she's been told the shale is not likely to extend to Brown County, but the activity in Runnels County "brings it even closer to Brown County."

There could be an influx of oilfield workers who are looking for housing in Brownwood, Crawford said. "A person driving 90 miles a day to commute is not unheard of," she said. "We are looking at attempting to get more of a housing inventory so that we can be ready if indeed that does happen."

Crawford said a group had done a study on the impact of wages and jobs created in the Eagle Ford Shale, and it is hoped the group will do a similar study on the Cline Shale. 

Copyright 2013 Brownwood Bulletin, American Consolidated Media Distributed by Newsbank, Inc. All Rights Reserved

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Pacific Rubiales Farms-In to Bilby Well Offshore Brazil

Pacific Rubiales Energy has exercised its option to acquire a 35-percent interest in Block S-M-1166 located in the Santos Basin offshore Brazil. The block is held by Karoon Gas Australia Ltd. (Karoon) and Pacific will exercise its right to acquire a stake through the funding and participation in the Bilby-1 exploration well.

This marks the third exploration well within the Karoon blocks that Pacific has participated in, following the Kangaroo-1 and Emu-1 wells.

As for the Bilby-1 well, Pacific will complete the minimum work commitments required to retain a stake in all five blocks (S-M-1037, -1101, -1102, -1165 and -1166) and request operatorship of the project. The transaction is subject to regulatory approval.

"Although we are in early exploration stages, we are pleased with the results to date and our partnership with Karoon," said Ronald Pantin, CEO of Pacific Rubiales, in a statement. "Our first well, Kangaroo-1, discovered oil in an Eocene structure and we are looking forward to following up with an appraisal well as soon as a suitable drilling rig can be sourced and mobilized to the Kangaroo-2 location."

Karoon spud the Kangaroo well in December 2012 using the Blackford Dolphin (mid-water semisub). Currently, the rig is drilling the Emu-1 well and it is expected that Karoon will use the same rig to drill the Bilby-1 well.

The Emu-1 well in the Santos Basin reached total depth with initial wireline results showing the main objective to be water bearing, said Tudor Pickering & Holt in a March 28 analyst report.

"It does not change our view on geological chance of success in the basin."

It is estimated that Bilby, situated in a water depth of 1,320 feet, contains a potentially significant sized Eocene accumulation with multiple targets at several geological levels, including the Santonian, Campanian, Maestrichtian, Eocene and Miocene. The well is expected to reach total depth in 2Q.

Karoon currently holds 100 percent interest in the Santos Basin Blocks.

With more than 10 years of journalism experience, Robin Dupre specializes in the offshore sector of the oil and gas industry. Email Robin at rdupre@rigzone.com.

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Women Respond to Genuine Commitment in the Resources Workforce

The traditionally male dominated resources sector is a tough nut to crack in terms of gender diversity, according to those at the forefront of changing the industry. It takes a lot more than just a policy of employing more women or token gestures to get lasting results.

"At the root of gender diversity is inclusion - and a genuine desire to provide a safe and caring workplace" says Milano Pellegrini, who heads up Human Resources at Caltex Australia's Refining & Supply business.

"By providing this type of safe and caring environment, employees have further incentive to stay with the organization and contribute to its long term success."

Mr. Pellegrini will give industry peers the inside track on how to turn talk into results in the workforce at the upcoming HR Leaders Resources Summit. He will draw on the successful experience of Caltex Australia, which is one of the few resources sector organizations to have a female chair in Elizabeth Bryan.

Caltex Australia, which employs about 3,500 people around Australia, is making progress in its efforts to improve workforce diversity. About 34 percent of Caltex's employees are women, up from 30 percent the previous year. It sets regular goals to bridge the gender gap. Last year its aim was to increase the number of women managers in its "pipeline critical successor talent pool" from 16 percent to a minimum of 20 percent - they achieved 25 percent. The company also achieved an ongoing reduction in voluntary turnover rates for women - as opposed to a decade ago when women were twice as likely to leave Caltex than their male counterparts.

Its success is the result of a comprehensive package of measures to achieve change. Caltex has provided external mentoring to most of its female "middle managers" to support career development. The company also holds regular networking events. All senior staff has undertaken training to recognize unconscious bias.

Caltex has also introduced more family friendly work practices. The company's paid parental leave scheme is amongst the most generous in Australia, and last year Caltex introduced bonuses for parents returning to work after having children. Under its "BabyCare" scheme, Caltex is paying primary care-giver employees a quarterly bonus amounting to 3 percent of their base salary until the child's second birthday, as well as offering up to $1,500 of emergency child care. It will also introduce nursing mothers' facilities at major Caltex workplaces this year.

Mr Pellegrini said Caltex had recognized a need for a multi-faceted approach, providing employees with the support and flexibility that they needed as well as career advancement opportunities.

"The results to date are very encouraging - managers have shifted their attitudes and employees feel more engaged." he said.
But Caltex's efforts to bring about change weren't without complications.

"People see through token or non-genuine attempts to satisfy perceptions in this space.

Our endeavors have not gone without questions from our employees - both men and women - but our diversity strategy is gaining momentum and we are starting to derive the benefits."

The need to recruit more women in the sector has been flagged by the Minerals Council of Australia and the Federal government's recent Women in Leadership Census. Additional analysis by PWC last year found that, of the top 50 ASX-listed mining and minerals companies:

only 6.3 percent of key management positions were occupied by womenonly 32 directors were femalenearly half of those companies (48 percent) did not have a woman on the board.

The lack of diversity isn't just seen in management. Women represented only 15.5 percent of the mining industry's total workforce compared with 45.5 percent across all industries according to Australian Workforce and Productivity Agency's 2012 report.

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