Offshore Engineer Reports
October 2001

and another thing ... Oil price heads for a war footing
There seem to be at least two truisms attached to modern war: each is different in some very basic way from the one before it and no war is ever the last. Though because of their proximity in time and repeating participants, they often appear quite similar in nature, the two great global conflicts of the 20th century were played out quite differently as a result of technological refinements made to the machines of war.

Closing Pandora’s box opens home front for Statoil
With remaining recoverable oil and gas reserves on the Norwegian continental shelf calculated by some to stand at 86 billion barrels of oil equivalent, Statoil’s head of E&P Norway, Henrik Carlsen, is leaving talk of ‘mature’ continental shelves to offshore operators on the other side of the North Sea. Darius Snieckus reports on what the Norwegian oil and gas company believes the future holds for its home patch.

Consolidation claims two more drillers
Two of the industry's drilling oracles, Global Marine’s Bob Rose and Santa Fe International’s Sted Garber, debated the pros and cons of speculative rig building in OE's pages this May. The two agreed to differ on that issue but nonetheless found common cause last month in a $6 billion 'merger of equals'. Marshall DeLuca reports.

Rocky road to recognition
There’s only so much that you can do with seismic data in reservoir characterisation. To make the next leap, you need rock physics. Andrew McBarnet reports on the progress of Rock Solid Images in its bid to integrate well and seismic-based data into a powerful reservoir model for the prediction of hydrocarbons.

TLP success extends to Africa
West Africa is to have its first tension leg platform (TLP) courtesy of Angola’s high-profile Kizomba A deepwater development off Angola. Marshall DeLuca and Terry Knott examine the thinking behind ExxonMobil’s recent decision to deploy the region’s first such unit.