Business news for the week of 22 May 2008

U.S., Japan agree to joint methane hydrate study
19 May 2008—Japan is going to pursue joint methane hydrate research and development with the U.S., aiming to commercialize it as an energy source by 2018. By sharing their findings, Japan and the U.S. aim to accelerate research and development efforts and establish a global standard for production technology. The two governments have begun working-level talks, and are expected to reach a final agreement by this summer.

The world's largest methane hydrate reserves are thought to be off Japan's Aichi and Mie prefectures. Estimated at 7.4 trillion cu m, the reserves are equal to about 100 times the amount of gas consumed in Japan every year (OGJ Online, Apr. 28, 2008).

Under the commercialization scheme, methane hydrate will be converted underground into methane gas and water. The gas will then be collected, and transported for production and sale as with natural gas.

As a site for undertaking joint studies, the two countries are considering locations in Japanese waters and off the coasts of Oregon and Alaska. Other sites, yet to be named, also are under consideration.

Acceleware speeds up search for oil & gas with GPUs
13 May 2008—Acceleware,a developer of high-performance computing (HPC) applications, has recently released AxKTM, an application library that enables users of 3D prestack time migration (PSTM) solutions to easily access the multi-fold performance benefits of today’s leading graphic processor units (GPU). This release expands Acceleware's HPC platform to provide commercial software vendors with the solutions needed to rapidly deliver required processing power for the world’s most compute intensive seismic applications.

The AxKTM product allows commercial seismic vendors and software developers to easily integrate with the Acceleware platform for speeding up PSTM data processing solutions. The Acceleware platform provides a direct link for developers to the latest multicore hardware solutions required to process the enormous data sets inherent with migration techniques. When combined with GPU accelerators, AxKTM can deliver a significant increase in computing performance while reducing power consumption, cooling needs and data center footprint, offering a compelling price to performance ratio for customers facing the increasing costs of computing processing power.

More processing performance also reduces workflow congestion and waiting times for seismic analysts struggling to meet deadlines for interpreting seismic information. Datasets that normally take weeks to run on conventional platforms can be shortened to days with Acceleware, making it possible for geophysicists to produce more accurate seismic images faster. To achieve these results, AxKTM uses the award-winning CUDA C- language development environment from NVIDIA to attain maximum performance from the GPU hardware.

DOE awards US$126.6 million for two more large-scale carbon sequestration projects
6 May 2008—The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced awards of more than US$126.6 million to the West Coast Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership (WESTCARB) and the Midwest Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership (MRCSP) for the Department's fifth and sixth large-scale carbon sequestration projects. These industry partnerships, which are part of DOE's Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership, will conduct large volume tests in California and Ohio to demonstrate the ability of a geologic formation to safely, permanently, and economically store more than one million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2). Subject to annual appropriations from Congress, the two projects—including the partnership's cost share—are estimated to cost over US$183 million.

In the first stages of the projects, researchers will characterize the selected sites. Over the first 24 months, researchers and industry partners will complete the modeling, monitoring, and infrastructure improvements needed before CO2 can be injected. These efforts will establish a baseline for future monitoring after CO2 injection begins. Each project will then inject one million tons or more of CO2 into a regionally significant storage formation. After injection, investigators will monitor and model the fate of the CO2 to determine the effectiveness of the storage reservoir.

The DOE's Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnerships are a ten-year initiative, launched in 2003, which form the centerpiece of national efforts to develop the infrastructure and the knowledge base needed to place carbon sequestration technologies on the path to commercialization. The seven regional partnerships include more than 350 state agencies, universities, and private companies within 41 states, two Indian nations, and four Canadian provinces.

Today's awards are the fifth and sixth of seven awards in the third phase of the Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnerships program. In October, DOE announced the first three large volume carbon sequestration projects that total US$318 million for Plains Carbon Dioxide Reduction Partnership, Southeast Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership, and Southwest Regional Partnership for Carbon Sequestration, and in December, DOE announced its fourth award to the Midwest Geological Sequestration Consortium.

DOE launches 30th Annual University Coal Research Competition
19 May 2008—The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has released a funding opportunity announcement calling on U.S. colleges and universities to propose new projects to enhance the long-term use of coal. The announcement launches the 30th year of DOE's University Coal Research (UCR) program, the Department's longest-running student-teacher research grant program.

Since the program's inception in 1979, nearly 1765 students have received hands-on research experience investigating long-term solutions for clean and efficient use of coal. The program supports DOE's continued commitment to improving the environmental performance of our Nation's most abundant energy resource. This year, the program will make available US$2.4 million to fund projects with a maximum of US$300 000 per project. Each project will involve one or two colleges or universities and will extend over 36 months.

NETL aids enhanced oil recovery efforts with release of historic archive
May 2008—The National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) has released two DVDs of historic research information that will aid companies in recovering oil left behind in older oil fields. This bypassed oil was previously too uneconomical to pursue; today, however, the limited availability of new places to drill and the expectation of continued high prices for oil is increasing interest greatly in finding and producing oil that still can be found in mature fields.

The DVDs document over three decades of DOE-funded projects and research in enhanced oil recovery (EOR) and reservoir characterization. Together they include more than 1250 reports, papers, newsletters, and background documents. Their publication is designed to help companies and researchers recover left-behind reserves and avoid duplication of past research and development efforts by making available the data and insights gained in projects over the past 30 years. The new DVDs join a previously released two-DVD set of archived materials related to unconventional gas recovery. The earlier DVD set, entitled “Archive of Unconventional Gas Research Data,” was released in April 2007 and has received an exceptional response from the industry. By making decades of DOE-funded research readily available to a new generation of scientists and engineers, the DVDs will likely save millions of dollars in unnecessary research and development, according to Roy Long, NETL’s Technology Manager for oil and gas exploration and production.

New FAQ site helps readers understand carbon sequestration technology
5 May 2008—NETL is leading efforts to develop technologies to mitigate the emission of CO2, a major greenhouse gas and contributor to global climate change. Being a relatively new scientific area, carbon capture and sequestration is subject to many questions about how each technology works, potential safety concerns, and implications to local and national economies, to name just a few.

NETL is taking serious aim at the global issue of manmade greenhouse gas emissions. Research efforts are focusing on developing technologies in the areas of CO2 Capture; CO2 Storage; Monitoring, Mitigation, and Verification; Non-CO2 Greenhouse Gases; and Breakthrough Concepts. In addition, the Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership Projects are working to determine the most suitable technologies, regulations, and infrastructure needs for carbon capture and sequestration in different regions of the U.S. and Canada.

TGS launches new multi-client 3D survey on the Norwegian Continental Shelf
22 May 2008—TGS-NOPEC Geophysical Company (TGS) has started a 1500-square kilometer multi-client 3D survey in Quadrants 7016 and 7116 in the Troms III area. The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate recently recommended these blocks for the 20th Concession Round. TGS developed the concept for the Troms III 3D survey based upon interpretations of TGS multi-client 2D seismic and controlled source electromagnetic data in the region.

Survey acquisition will be performed by the newly upgraded 3D vessel GeoBarents, utilizing an 8 x 6000 meter streamer configuration. The survey data will be processed by TGS Imaging and will include quick look and final prestack time migrated volumes. Preliminary data for the Troms III 3D will be available for industry use in August 2008 and final data is expected to be available in late Q3 2008.