E&P Notes (July 2017)
Authors: Jacobs Trent , Parshall Joel 
Published: July 2017

E&P Notes
First Offshore Drilling Merger: Ensco Buys Atwood Oceanics
Trent Jacobs, JPT Digital Editor
Offshore drilling contractor Ensco is set to buy smaller rival Atwood Oceanics in an all-stock transaction valued at USD 850 million. The deal marks the first such corporate acquisition in the offshore drilling sector since the onset of the oil and gas industry downturn.
The merged enterprise will be the world’s largest owner of a mixed-offshore drilling fleet with 63 rigs—26 deepwater floating rigs and 37 jackups. The breakdown of the additions coming from Atwood Oceanics include four deepwater drillships, two semisubmersibles, and five jackups. Pending regulatory approval, the deal is expected to close later this year.

Wild Well Control Aims To Tame Leaky Wells
Trent Jacobs, JPT Digital Editor
As blowouts become a less frequent event in the US, specialty-outfit Wild Well Control is eyeing the market potential of the less severe, but more common, issue of sustained casing pressure in shut-in wells.
“We used to say that the rule of thumb in the US was one blowout per 1,000 wells drilled,” said Bill Mahler, executive vice president at Wild Well. “Today, it’s more like one blowout for 1,600 wells drilled.”

Permian Production Boom To Continue, Says Laredo CEO
Joel Parshall, JPT Features Editor
Production in the Permian Basin will continue to boom and grow by more than 25% by next year, said Randy Foutch, CEO of Laredo Petroleum, in a talk held by the Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA) and the Texas Independent Producers and Royalty Owners (TIPRO).
Speaking at the IPAA/TIPRO Leaders in Industry luncheon, Foutch said that the 395 drilling rigs operating in the Permian region are as productive as the 641 rigs that were operating there before the collapse in oil prices in late 2014.

These are the Forks in the Road to Drilling Automation
Trent Jacobs, JPT Digital Editor
The low price of crude may have slowed the advance of drilling automation technology, but it clearly has not stopped it. Uptake is rising, chiefly in the US onshore market, where contractors including Nabors and Precision Drilling have recently rolled out their first batch of “closed-loop” automated rigs that take key pieces of the well construction process out of human hands.
Service giant Schlumberger is doing the same after it acquired a number of drilling technology firms in recent years, including one that developed rig control systems for the competition—a factor that has been seen as incentivizing other drilling contractors to accelerate their automated ambitions.

Data and Digital Hold E&P’s Future, Says New Century CEO
Joel Parshall, JPT Features Editor
Phil Martin, CEO of New Century Exploration, urged US E&P companies to leverage data and rapidly adopt digital technology in a talk at the Leaders in Industry luncheon held by the Independent Petroleum Association of America and the Texas Independent Producers and Royalty Owners Association recently in Houston.
Titling his presentation “Hope is not a Strategy,” Martin urged companies to move quickly to take advantage of data-driven opportunities.