Oilfield Equipment & Services Report 2013 - Clearwater Corporate ...

EuropeEurope is beginning to excite the industry on the back of a number of significant natural gas finds in the Levantine basin, an area thatruns from Egypt north to Turkey. According to the US Geological Survey the basin contains 1.7bn barrels of oil and 122tn cubic feet ofgas. Since 2009 around 35tn cubic feet of gas has been discovered in waters off Israel and Cyprus.Israel's Leviathan field, discovered in 2010, was the world's largest deepwater gas find in a decade, and in December 2012 theAustralian Woodside Petroleum group signed an agreement with the Leviathan Joint Venture to acquire a 30% participating interestin the Leviathan field for £435m.Located at a depth of 5,550 feet, the Leviathan field contains about 17 trillion cubic feet of recoverable natural gas. Other companiesparticipating in the project include Noble Energy Mediterranean, Delek Drilling, Avner Oil Exploration and Ratio Oil Exploration.While Noble Energy will continue as the upstream operator, Woodside will develop any liquefied natural gas (LNG) in the fields.Woodside will also be allowed to participate in further exploration opportunities in the Leviathan licences.In other recent developments, in 2012 Genel Energy acquired a 75% interest in Mediterranean Oil and Gas's licence interests inoffshore Malta. The blocks, which lie to the south of Malta, are within the Medina Bank area. An initial exploration well is planned forlate 2013/early 2014. Meantime Cairn also has plans to drill in the Valencia Basin off the eastern coast of Spain in 2014.BrazilIn terms of new oil discoveries few parts of the world have created as muchexcitement in recent years as Brazil. The rush of interest was sparked afterstate-owned Petrobas made significant discoveries in Brazil’s pre-salt layerwhich lies beneath a layer of salt up to 2km thick on the seabed off thecountry’s south-east coast. It is thought the reserves may contain as much as80 billion barrels of oil.However interest has waned since the initial euphoria as Brazil mulls new lawsthat would give the state a larger stake in oil and gas production from pre-saltareas. Although Petrobras has still been able to buy new exploration rights,independent oil and gas producers have been forced into M&A activity to gaina share of existing blocks.However some companies have found a way into the market. For instancePetrobras and oilfield services giant Schlumberger have signed a cooperationagreement for pre-salt research and development.Yet despite the regulatory concerns, longer term Brazil remains an attractiveproposition for OFS players given its huge untapped reserves and widereconomic stability.Page 14