company:transocean

Oil’s Biggest Rigs Head to the Junkyard - Bloomberg
▻https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-18/oil-s-biggest-rigs-get-sent-to-junkyard-as-daily-losses-mount

https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/ifCeW0jijxVM/v1/1200x806.jpg

Transocean Ltd. is finally sending Pathfinder to its grave, after two years in a Caribbean purgatory that cost about $15,000 a day.

The move by the world’s biggest offshore-rig operator signals just how bleak the future looks for deepwater drilling. Pathfinder is the most famous of six floating rigs the company is scrapping in burials that will add up to a bruising $1.4 billion write-off. Competitors are going the same route, jettisoning more rigs in the third quarter than have ever been trashed in a 90-day stretch, according to Heikkinen Energy Advisors analyst David Smith.

That’s how bad it is, with predictions crude prices won’t go much higher than $60 a barrel in the next year compared with around $50 recently. “Deepwater is going to be playing a much-reduced role on the global oil-supply stage relative to what the industry expected as recently as three years ago,” said Thomas Curran, an analyst at FBR Capital Markets in New York.

Mothballing the World’s Fanciest Oil Rigs Is a Massive Gamble - Bloomberg
▻http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-19/at-500-million-a-pop-it-s-an-oil-gamble-that-has-no-precedent

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In a far corner of the Caribbean Sea, one of those idyllic spots touched most days by little more than a fisherman chasing blue marlin, billions of dollars worth of the world’s finest oil equipment bobs quietly in the water.

They are high-tech, deepwater drillships — big, hulking things with giant rigs that tower high above the deck. They’re packed tight in a cluster, nine of them in all. The engines are off. The 20-ton anchors are down. The crews are gone. For months now, they’ve been parked here, 12 miles off the coast of Trinidad & Tobago, waiting for the global oil market to recover.

The ships are owned by a company called Transocean Ltd., the biggest offshore-rig operator in the world. And while the decision to idle a chunk of its fleet would seem logical enough given the collapse in oil drilling activity, Transocean is in truth taking an enormous, and unprecedented, risk. No one, it turns out, had ever shut off these ships before. In the two decades since the newest models hit the market, there never had really been a need to. And no one can tell you, with any certainty or precision, what will happen when they flip the switch back on.
[…]
Nearly half of the world’s available floating rigs are out of work today, and most observers expect that number will climb further. Not only are the drillship operators’ customers — the likes of ConocoPhillips and Total SA — slashing spending in high-cost offshore areas and canceling work contracts early, but new rigs that were ordered in recent years keep rolling out of shipyards. Bloomberg Intelligence estimates as much as $56 billion worth of offshore rigs, capable of drilling in everything from shallow water to oceans more than two miles deep, are still under construction.

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#sous_cocon

Transocean Rig Aground in Scotland After Tow Breaks in Heavy Weather - Incident Photos - gCaptain
▻https://gcaptain.com/transocean-rig-aground-in-scotland-after-tow-breaks-in-heavy-weather

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A Transocean semi-submersible drilling rig is hard aground in Scotland’s Western Isles after breaking free from its tow overnight in heavy weather.

The 17,000-tonne drilling rig Transocean Winter was under tow by Alp Forward when they encountered severe weather west of the Isle Of Lewis, Scotland, preventing the pair from making headway. At about 4:20 a.m. Monday the master of the Alp Forward reported that the tow line had parted.

The drilling rig is now grounded on the west side of the Isle of Lewis near Carloway.

#outch !

Chevron staff charged over Brazil oil spill - Americas - Al Jazeera English
►http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2012/03/20123225656977253.html

Federal prosecutors in Brazil have filed criminal charges against 17 Chevron and Transocean company executives over an oil leak in the Atlantic Ocean in November 2011.

Prosecutors on Wednesday accused the executives of environmental crimes, of misleading Brazil’s oil regulator about their safety plans and not providing accurate information in the wake of the spill.

At least 416,000 litres of oil seeped through cracks on the ocean floor near a Chevron appraisal well off the Rio de Janeiro coast.

The federal prosecutors’ office in Rio de Janeiro said in an emailed statement that the two companies and 17 of its executives had been charged with “crimes against the environment.”

If found guilty, the executives could face up to 31 years in prison.

#crime_contre_l'environnement #pétrole #Brésil #pollution

Well Partner to Settle With BP for $4 Billion - NYTimes.com
►http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/18/business/bp-recovers-4-billion-from-anadarko-for-gulf-spill.html

#BP continues to quarrel with its contractors, Transocean, which operated the rig, and Halliburton, which was responsible for cement work, about participating in the compensation payments. BP said Monday that the Anadarko settlement should set an example for the two contractors.

#pétrole #pollution

Final Deepwater disaster report paints bleak picture
►http://blogs.nature.com/news/2011/09/final_deepwater_disaster_repor_1.html

The panel concludes that BP, Transocean and Halliburton all violated a number of federal regulations. (The full list is below the fold.)

►http://blogs.nature.com/news/deeepwater%20final.jpg
#petrole

Transocean report blames BP for Gulf disaster | Houston Chronicle
►http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/energy/7622860.html

A bad cement job and BP’s failure to appreciate the risks of its operations were key to the deadly blowout on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in April 2010, according to a report issued Wednesday by rig owner Transocean.

#pétrole #marée_noire #golfe_du_mexique