Eni Strikes Again Offshore Angola

Eni has made its ninth oil discovery in Block 15/06, in deep water offshore Angola, increasing the resource base of the West Hub project. The discovery was made through the Vandumbu 1 well, located approximately 93 miles (150 kilometers) from the coast. The well was drilled at a water depth of 3,202 feet (976 meters) and reached a total depth of 13,474 feet (4,107 meters).

Additional drilling has been carried out from the Vandumbu 1 well in different direction (side track), Vandumbu 1 ST, that reached a depth of 11,417 feet (3,480 meters), finding a net oil (34 degree API) pay of 374 feet (114 meters), contained in Lower Miocene high quality sand. As suggested by data acquired, Eni estimates that Vandumbu 1 ST has a production capacity in excess of 5,000 barrel of oil per day.

Eni is operator of Block 15/06 with 35%. The other partners of the joint venture are SSI Fifteen Limited (25%), Sonangol (15%), Total (15%), Falcon Oil Holding Angola SA (5%) and Statoil Angola Block 15/06 (5%).

This discovery confirms Angola as one of the core countries in Eni's organic growth strategy. Eni has been present in the country since 1980 with a net production of 102,000 barrels per day in 2011.

Generated by readers, the comments included herein do not reflect the views and opinions of Rigzone. All comments are subject to editorial review. Off-topic, inappropriate or insulting comments will be removed.

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Gas discharge noise startles neighbors - again

By Robert L. Baker (Staff Writer) Published: November 24, 2012
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ROBERT BAKER / TIMES-SHAMROCKA gas dehydration plant in Monroe Township, Wyoming County, just off Route 309 near the Luzerne County line sent material 50 to 100 feet into the atmosphere Friday morning with a noise level that alarmed neighbors of the facility.

MONROE TWP. - Elizabeth Ide said her husband, Mark, rousted her out of bed around 3 a.m. Friday, but not to go after post-Thanksgiving sales.

There was a loud noise that apparently came from a nearby gas dehydration facility, and it went on and on, she said, for more than 30 minutes.

"He tried to get us dressed and out the door, but we weren't even sure if we were better off staying indoors," Ide said. "There were no warnings and no one ever explained anything."

Friday's incident marked the second time since September that a deafening sound from the dehydration facility startled neighbors.

Kunkle Fire Chief Jack Dodson said he had tankers and an ambulance near the Chapin Dehydration Plant's driveway entrance to Hildebrandt Road within minutes, "but our protocol is not to enter a gas site until the plant operator arrives."

Dodson acknowledged he heard the loud noise, saying it was akin to a freight train going by or a large plane landing, and it was emanating from something being spewed in the air 50 to 100 feet.

People five miles away near Frances Slocum State Park apparently heard it and numerous residents from Dallas Township, Luzerne County, and Monroe Township, Wyoming County were alarmed, Dodson said.

The tone went out over Luzerne County 911 at 2:57 a.m. and Kunkle responded at 2:59, Dodson said. PVR Partners plant operator John Stoner was on scene 20 minutes later and the gas flow was shut down at 3:32. Kunkle emergency responders were back at the station by 4:30.

Ed Senavaitis, safety and regulatory compliance manager for PVR Partners, based in Williamsport, said a safety device at the Chapin facility operated as intended. As of early Friday afternoon, there was still an ongoing investigation as to what set it off.

Senavaitis said there was no overcompression of the line, but something malfunctioned, "and we'll conduct an investigation until we figure it out."

He said he had no idea about the volume of material that evaporated or dissipated into the atmosphere.

"The safety device is designed to relieve gas as needed and when our manager arrived, he closed a valve and put everything back into normal operations mode," Senavaitis said.

Dodson said before the valve was closed, people were contacted at the Transco line, where the gas is fed, and at Chesapeake, a major supplier of gas being moved from the Baker-Hirkey Compressor Station in Washington Township - another PVR Partners facility - southward through the Chapin facility.

Dodson and Senavaitis confirmed that at no time was any individual in danger.

Still, Elizabeth Ide said she wanted answers.

"I thought there wasn't supposed to be any noise, and here we've had two incidents," she said.

Dodson said the whole incident was a wake-up call that some emergency protocols obviously still have to be worked out.

Looking at a spill prevention, control, and countermeasure plan that Chief Energy established when the Chapin plant was built, Dodson said he had two very serious questions for PVR Partners after a similar incident of a shorter duration occurred on Sept. 30.

In that incident, neither the fire company nor Wyoming County 911 was notified.

In Friday's incident, Luzerne County 911, which notified Kunkle Fire Company, did not in turn notify 911 in Wyoming County, where the plant is actually located.

So Dodson wants to know first, why PVR Partners did not rewrite the Chapin plan after they took over Chief Gathering's Marcellus assets earlier this year?

Secondly, he wants to know why the established protocol that seems very clear - including contact of Wyoming County EMA - as established by Chief was not followed.

He said late Friday afternoon he was getting answers, even if a little late, and he anticipated a new SPCC plan would be forthcoming this week by PVR Partners.

As soon as that arrives, Dodson said he is working out a timetable about how to better keep the public informed as to what's going on.

While Dodson does not want to downplay the fear factor that the loud noises created in both incidents, he wants to see some mechanism in place that lets the public know if they are actually in danger.

He said the siren at the Kunkle fire hall will go off at 11 a.m. Dec. 15 as a test drill so the public can hear and know when it goes off after that date that they might be in real danger.

Ide said that given the noise of Friday's incident, she's not even sure they'd be able to hear the siren.

Still, Dodson wants to work something out.

"We were lucky this time, and not a few people were very nervous," he said. "We all deserve better than that."

bbaker@wcexaminer.com

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There He Goes Again…

There has been a lot of good analysis of the president’s latest pursuit of alleged manipulation in the oil trading markets. The Council on Foreign Relations’ Blake Clayton makes a number of good points here, and energy blogger Robert Rapier notes the two-way risk inherent in commodities trading, here.

What’s clear is that the president’s concern isn’t new (see 2008, 2009 and 2011), and that White House officials had trouble connecting today’s announcement with anything substantive, as can be seen in a succession of tweets by Yahoo! News’ White House correspondent, Olivier Knox:

“White House punts on whether today's Pres Obama announcement re: oil speculation would have any impact on gas prices. (cont’d)”

“(cont'd) "We would leave that to outside analysts to disentangle,” senior administration officials tells reporters on conference call.”

“White House also refused to describe impact/extent of enforcement of laws re: oil speculation over past year."

“In short: White House won't describe extent of the problem of oil speculation, won't predict impact of today's announcement.”

But we digress. What caught our ear was the president plowing some familiar rhetorical turf, with a couple of demonstrably misleading riffs. Presidential Riff 1:

“The problem is we use more than 20 percent of the world’s oil and we only have 2 percent of the world’s proven oil reserves.”

This is a favorite of the president’s but it’s simply misleading, using a technical classification of one kind of oil reserve to camouflage the fact that the United States is sitting on approximately 200 billion barrels of oil, which the president never mentions, discussed here and here. This line earned “two Pinocchios” from the Washington Post Fact Checker back in March and probably deserves three Pinocchios now, because the White House keeps using it.

Presidential Riff 2:

“Even if we drilled every square inch of this country right now, we’d still have to rely disproportionately on other countries for their oil.”

False. According to the Wood Mackenzie energy consulting firm, if the United States pursued a pro-development strategy that included more domestic drilling – offshore, in remote Alaska and other places – as well as a stronger partnership with Canada (including the Keystone XL pipeline), we could see 100 percent of our liquid fuel needs supplied here and from Canada by 2024.

The real problem here is an administration that continues talking as if the United States is energy poor when in fact we’re energy rich. The president talks about an all-of-the-above approach to energy but has done little to support and enhance oil and natural gas, which supply more than 60 percent of our energy now and will continue to supply about 55 percent of it in 2035.

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