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Future opportunities
ExxonMobil has a portfolio of significant Arctic opportunities, with ongoing studies spanning the range of exploration, project feasibility assessment and planning, and technology development.
ExxonMobil and Imperial Oil have recently increased their acreage position in the Beaufort Sea by winning exploration rights to license EL 446, also known as Ajurak. Besides Arctic conditions and a short open water season, Ajurak has water depths ranging from 60 to 1,200 meters (200 to 3,940 feet), making exploration conditions challenging. An active exploration program is in progress, with plans to acquire extensive three-dimensional seismic data in 2008 using solid streamers, our preferred method to record sound waves in an environmentally sensitive manner. We are currently working with Inuvialiut communities to conduct whale migration and environmental baseline studies.
In 2007, Esso Exploration Greenland Limited (EEGL), an ExxonMobil affiliate, was awarded the license and operatorship for Block 6 (Orsivik) offshore West Greenland, near Disko Bay. EEGL was also awarded the license for Block 4 (Puilasoq) as a co-venturer.
Key Arctic-related challenges for any future West Greenland project include the development of cost-effective solutions for the protection of offshore pipelines, seabed facilities, gravity-based structures and floating production systems in an extreme iceberg environment, where migrating whales and birds spend critical periods of time feeding, breeding and molting.
EEGL’s 2007 activities included participation in aeromag acquisition—an environmentally non-invasive survey that uses an airplane to acquire geophysical data. In order to more fully interpret the geologic structure, we will integrate the aeromag data with further seismic data planned for acquisition in 2008.
ExxonMobil has interest in four operated and four co-venturer operated deepwater exploration blocks in the Orphan Basin, a frontier basin off the eastern coast of Canada and north of the Grand Banks. To aid in Orphan Basin exploration, we are employing our proprietary Remote Reservoir Resistivity Mapping (R3M) technology, which utilizes electromagnetic energy to identify potential hydrocarbon accumulations prior to drilling a well. The first wildcat well in the Orphan Basin was completed in April 2007, and the results are being evaluated.
The Hebron field, which consists of the Hebron, Ben Nevis and West Ben Nevis reservoirs, is located offshore Newfoundland and Labrador in the Jeanne d’Arc Basin, about 350 kilometers (217 miles) from St. John’s in 90 to 100 meters (295 to 328 feet) of water. In addition to the complexities faced by development of the nearby Hibernia field, the Hebron field also faces challenges associated with the recovery of heavy oil.
The Mackenzie Gas Project includes the potential development of three onshore anchor fields containing approximately 170 million cubic meters (6 trillion cubic feet) of natural gas in the Mackenzie Delta region of northern Canada. In addition to individual field development, the project includes a gathering pipeline system, a gas processing plant, a natural gas liquids pipeline to Norman Wells, and a natural gas pipeline to northwestern Alberta. ExxonMobil has conducted extensive studies on high-pressure, strain-based design pipelines, applicable to both the Mackenzie and Alaska Gas projects, which provide a solid basis for safe and effective design of large export pipelines in permafrost areas, addressing both frost heave and thaw settlement.
ExxonMobil is one of the largest holders of gas resources on the North Slope of Alaska, where known resources are about 990 million cubic meters (35 trillion cubic feet), anchored by Prudhoe Bay. A potential Alaska Gas Pipeline project could transport gas from North Slope fields to Canadian and U.S. gas markets. The project could include a treatment plant on the North Slope and a 3,400-kilometer (2,100 mile) pipeline to central Alberta that could extend as far as Chicago. For the needed economies of scale, the pipeline would be high pressure, large diameter and constructed of high-strength steel. The gas in this buried pipeline would be refrigerated to manage the interactions with both continuous and discontinuous permafrost.
Potential future phases of the Sakhalin-1 project involve development of Chayvo gas, as well as the Odoptu and Arkutun-Dagi fields. Like Chayvo, Odoptu and Arkutun-Dagi are located in 10 to 60 meters (33 to 197 feet) of water in the Sea of Okhotsk. Production of these fields is challenged by the presence of pack ice one to 1.5 meters (three to five feet) thick six to seven months out of the year, and severe wave and earthquake activity year-round.
ExxonMobil has developed novel production platform concepts for Sakhalin-1 and other sub-Arctic areas, including suction-pile structures with minimal offshore facilities, to continue addressing the unique challenges of the sub-Arctic environment. ExxonMobil has also developed two Arctic Mobile Drilling Unit concepts and has demonstrated that these could be designed for year-round drilling in offshore Sakhalin ice conditions.
