Member Info for adoubleuk

It being a Saturday, I dropped into a cafe a hundred yards from my place for a midday aperitif: the owner and his wife are friends of mine. Each weekend (starting on Friday) he mixes uo a 'house ****tail' in a 5-litre jar which sits on the bar counter. It's rare that there's any left come Monday. In front of the jar is a little notice saying what the particular ****tail on offer is called.

And the current offering is called 'Le Hurricane'. A rum / passion fruit concoction, dating from the 30's as I found out later on google.

This amused me, and I take it as a good sign. Just wish people would buy HUR shares at the speed with which the locals were consuming the drink!

PS Please excuse typos in my 23:20 post. It was written hurriedly and I hit 'send' before checking it.

boracic,

"I seem to remember Transocean were involved in the spillage in the Gulf of Mexico where BP took most if not all of the blame ."

Yes, the DWH was a Transocean rig.

"I think Halliburton were involved as well". Correct. Principally because they were responsible for the (failed) cement job on the 7" production casing, which was a significant contributing factor to the blowout.

However, to echo Chablard's question, what was the point of your post? What has the Macondo blowout got to do with Hurricane and their WoS operations?

Yobbo,

"Or read the official report,"

Which one? There were a number of different 'official reports' published by different groups and bodies, none of which can be considered 100% 'definitive'.

Wellwell,

"There's certainly no one on this board who will be able to provide any info on the Deep Water Horizon disaster, you'll just have to watch the movie."

I suggest you find a copt of the book 'Deepwater Horizon, A Sysrems Analysis of the Macondo Disaster' by Earl Boebert& James Blossom, pub Harvard University Press, 2016, and check out page 280. I'd also submit that watching 'the movie' is absolutly the last way to try and learn anything factual about the event. It's riddled with inaccuracies, mistakes, and downright absurdities.

Beerbull,

"Sorry to put you on the spot, but from the flare pictures are you feeling confident WW will be another producer? & assuming it is how & when do you see HUR getting it into production? "

Assuming the photos of the flare are genuine, and I believe they are, WW is definitely 'go'. As such it'll be left 'suspended' for eventual tieback as a producer for whatever production facility Hurricane / Spirit install over the GWA. Company documentation suggests this'll be another FPSO.

WHEN this'll happen, I don't know.

Lady Sonia,

"I did wonder if a semi-submersible rig could be designed to store oil - guess the ballast/pontoons would not work with oil in them."

The answer is a definite no.

A semisub like the TOL is just a 'floating platform' to support the drilling rig and associated activities. Just the marine equivalent of an onshore 'pad' which a drilling rig might be installed on. But obviously far more complicated, due to the fact that it's 'marine'. But just like its onshore equivalent, it has 'deck space'. For what's going on right now, that 'deck space' is taken up with the DST 'test spread', receiving oil from the well, data-gathering, and then spitting the stuff out and burning it via the flare.

But this is where offshore and offshore differ. You can flare off 10,000 bbl/ day offshore no probs, and without any damage to the environment other than maybe frying any seagul stupid enough to fly that close. But you can't flare even 100 bbl of OIL per day onshore anwhere close to human habitation (like in the UK) without it causing a ruckus, and quite rightly so. So instead, in the onshore UK case, you have to build up storage facilities, and take the stuff in trucks to a refinery instead. Which might bring in some money, for sure, but might only just cover the costs of gathering the data, if that.

Offshore, or in the desert, or in other remote places, you just burn the stuff off. To gather the data. Because if the well's any good, it doesn't matter if 60,000 bbl has gone up in smoke. If you've found a few million bbl that you can produce and sell to the market.

The drilling rig is just the rig. And a place on which to plonk (temporarily) the well-test stuff.

There's obviously more than this than meets the eye, though obviously the players involved with WN will keep it under wraps until some sort of resolution has been reached.

Not saying I agree with other posters' comments regarding what I consider to be a rather sticky financial situation between the partners, but not disagreeing, neither.

So simply holding, to see what transpires.

The only thing which bothers me a bit is that while every day passes, money which was supposedly earmarked to progress operations isn't doing so, lawyers' fees are no doubt mounting, and I'm sure that none of the key people are hitching a ride to go to work.

S&S ought to come clean on what's actually going on pretty soon, otherwise their credibility may be damaged.

bartlebobton,

"AdUK .... I was hoping Judith Chalmers had taken you on a gondola ride.... (ketchup)"

You're really pushing this personal stuff a bit, aren't you? But no, I have not been contacted by Ms Chalmers.

Though if I wanted a 'ghostwriter', or just a simple interview, I'd like it to be by Christine Ananpour, though she'd better have lots of memory in her recording-device. She was present in the audience at the Cream Reunion concert at the Albert hall in 2005, so I think we have something in common. But I don't think Judith Calmers was.

TheGuardian,

"According to the link, TL does have a small oil capacity."

Yes. BUT NOT FOR OIL PRODUCED FROM A WELL UNDER TEST.

Doh. I give up. Think I'll just go and hide myself under a flat rock.

Or no, I'll go login for my online poker tournament. There are some right imbeciles to be found there (including myself), but none so ignorant as to think that the Transocean Leader semisub drilling rig somehow acts as a part-time storage unit for oil produced during a DST.

Just one more time, slowly. What you see in the pictures of that flare is oil, gas, pigs on the wing and whatever is coming out of the well, going up in flames, serving no purpose other than to gather data about the field's viability.

You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs.

SotB,

"It’s an oil well. Where’s the gas coming from
—————————————
Below the sea !"

I used to have some respect for you, but it's going to rapidly wane if you carry on with stupid posts like that, similar to the one which Wellwell posted. Things like that just confuse the 'laypeople', whereas those of us communicating on a BB like this and actually DO have technical oilfield knowledge should try to share it in an educational way, not to obfuscate and throw up smoke and mirrors. Because bydoing the latter just makes people even more suspicious of our industry, and thinking we've something to hide.

The plain and simple answer to these peoples' question is that gas, even in an 'oilwell', is held 'in solution' in the oil itself, when under a certain pressure. Ie when it's all kept underground. As the oil rises to the surface, and thus under less pressure, the gas fraction comes out of solution and takes its 'gaseous' form, expanding as such. The liquid fractions of the crude (which remain liquid at atmospheric pressure) can be stored and transported to market. But the gas cannot, due to the volume it takes up, unless there is a gas pipeline, or otherwise it's compressed. Neither of which are 'our case', but which is why a tie-in to WASP is required, to 'export' the gas which increased oil production will generate. Meanwhile, it has to be flared. Because methane and the others are 'greenhouse gasses', which shouldn't just be released to the atmosphere without dire consequenses resulting.

Yes, sometimes one (if one is a thinking person) can stand within a comfortable distance of an oilwell flare, and wonder wistfully about all that energy going to waste. How many homes could it heat if alternative infrastructure were in place? Etc. But this ain't a perfect world.

This is basic 'O level' physics stuff.

But I doubt if Corbyn ever passed that, and Greta Thumbsuck skipped school to avoid it.

Bloobird,

Replying to you, here, because others who ought to know better have responded with silly comments. Follows, an adoubleuk anecdote, anyone fed up with adoubleuk anecdotes please skip this post.

"I wonder if it sounds like 4 jet engines ?"

Accoustically, no. But in general effect, yes.

I think the most impressive DST I was involved with was 2003 in Libya, an exploration well 20km east of an already very productive field. And we hit 'pay' bigtime. A funny thing about that which I remember well was that I'd chosen the bit from a vast 'bitstore' in a 40ft container, because it was an orphan. A freebie from a fledgeling outfit called UKBits, and it looked like a truncated rugby ball. And boy, did it work!

Anyway, we knew the well was a winner, and proceeded to DST. And Wintershall (the operator I was consulting for) decided to do a 'green' DST, and got in an offshore-style 'clean burn' flareboom, so it wouldn't be smokey. First time anyone had been so pernickety in that country. Usually the DST setup is just 300 yards of 5" drillpipe laid downstream from the test-spread to the flarepit, and the heck with the smoke. Whereas we not only had to lay the Dp, but also a waterline alongside to feed to the 'offshore-style' burner, so the water (under pressure) would vaporise with the heat, combine with unburnt carbon, and thus produce no smoke.

Complicated.

Anyway, the well was a whopper.

The line from the test spread to the burner was (as usual) 5" Dp, slightly trenched, but nevertheless pinned in place by laying the rig's drillcollars across to stop any movement, or at least damp it. 'Drillcollars' are heavy tubulars, weighing a few tons apiece.

My wellsite office / sleeper was 100 yards from the rig itself. The test spread just in front of the rig, and the line to the flare heading off in the other direction. So essentially, my bed (when I found the time to sleep, or was inclined to do so) was 400 yards from the flare itself. And my 'sleeper' was heavily soundproofed: Wintershall didn't cut corners on such things.

'Running the show' (other than the crews) were just three people: the company's head petrophysicist, myself, and the test Supervisor. A nice tight show.

Under test, we never went to 'full open' (one inch!) choke, but decided 3/4" was enough, with the well running at 8500 bbl/day. Because it wasn't the noise, but the ground shaking which worried us. And the possibility of the flare-line (despite the DC's holding it down getting loose and whipping around like an out-of control garden hose. And we didn't want things like the derrick-lights getting rattled-loose and breaking on the rig.

Google 'Nafoora oilfield'. A major FB producer. Ours was Nafoora West.

Happy days.

wellwell,

stop being stupid.

Biffa,

Incorrect. During DST they're flaring the whole nine yards. The drilling rig has no 'oil storage' incorporated. They'll just keep a few barrel's worth as samples for lab analysis.

tiggerman,

" I would like to see an upward moving SP to reflect this success.'

...And so say all of us!!!!

(For he's a jolly good fellow, etc...)

Your 'layman's appraisal' of things to date is correct, though it's quite possible that the Lincoln well could produce at more than 10,000 bpd.

"Will HUR roll in Aoki Misu 2 and connect up L.Crestal and WWW to produce a further £40 / 50,000 million per month?"

Seemingly the plan is to tie back LC to the AM on Lancaster. Though (see company documents) a further FPSO over the GWA is planned, and with the seeming current success on WW, it may become fast-tracked, though such things take time.

"Then what happens to TO Leader. Back to the garage, or on to drill further wells?"

The TOL seems to have done some good work. But there were some balls-ups on WD, though they may not have been attributable to the rig nor the crew. I don't know. But the rig is just a drilling rig, and the crews move on. These things change, and hopefully DO. One of the major contibutors to the GoM Macondo disaster of 2010 was the 'pet' status of the Deepwater Horizon.

I have no answer to the state of the SP. Everyone would like to see it higher, and the reason why it isn't is beyond me.

"Bizarre that we have a DST still underway this afternoon, yes still underway - and some want to try and tell us what they think about politics, environment issues, EV's etc. "

Hey Cebo, don't 'go quiet' yet! Please? At least answer one question. Are you saying that they've been flaring constantly since opening up? That's interesting.

Daltry,

Your post @ 12:49 is one of the truest things I've ever seen here, and even though it's completely off the topic of Hurricane Energy, anyone with any sense should take note.

I've been 'domiciled' in France for over 40 years. Legally, though have never sought official 'resident' status nor dual nationality, because my constant worldwide travel when working didn't oblige me to, and such a status allowed me to remain below certain radars of my choice.

That continues, even if I'm no longer jetting around, and having moved into a large town. I pay my local taxes, am known (positively) by the police force, have no debts (much to the distress of my bank manager), and am on handshake terms with the Mayor on the rare occasions he and his entourage drop into my local cafe. And this isn't a one-horse town I live in. Amazingly, Paris discounted, Niort is the Fourth economic centre of France, due to all the major insurance companies being based here. Marseilles eat yer heart out. Our 14th July firework show is bigger and more expensive than yours!

But there are only six Rangerovers in town. I know 'em. One being mine, the beaten-up L322, on a par with the beaten-up old 'classic' but that one is rally-prepared and participates in those things. Mine is parked in a municipal underground carpark (safe and sound, and with superb security-surveillance) 400 yards from where I live. Because I don't have a garage in my town-centre place. For which I have a 'resident's badge'. To keep possession of which I have to present a copy of my local tax-form. Which this year reads zero on the bottom line, because no longer being in paid employment, I no longer have to pay it! Even though I'm 'above the radar' on that!

No, whichever way this Brexit thing goes, nobody's going to chuck adoubleuk out of the country.

Despite all that, I remain English (with some Scottish roots from a couple of generations back), my 'identity card' is my British passport, and I'm NOT 'a european'.

Btw, I can return from the casino at two in the morning, park up, maybe have a beer in the latenight bar in the square before wandering home, with maybe a couple of thousand euros cash in my wallet. No worries. (though at such times I do have my little teargas spray in my pocket, just in case, and it's legal here). Whereas there's no way I'd dare doing that in the UK.

haggis,

"Right now the EU (free movement) is what allows you to live in Spain.
Post Brexit it will be up to the Spanish government if they let you in.
Most likely it will be a visa system with short stays limited to 3 months."

I reckon Daltry might stand a chance of claiming political asylum!

Oh, I meant to say, I'll be watching the TV for the election results on the 12th.

Jeez. This BB is worse than being on an oil rig. The DST is in progress, so for a lot of the personel it's slack time' (though everything's relative), and there's more opportunity to sit in the coffee shop yacking on about nowt in particular. And here, the debate has descended to politics.

I must admit I'll be staying up late a while with the TV on, just to see which way the wind seems to be blowing. But I'd do that anyway, playing online poker. The only difference being that the telly will be tuned to Sky News instead of the Discovery channel...