Gulf boost: Shell eyes bigger plans offshore US.
Shell eyes Gulf of Mexico boost
Supermajor Shell is planning to expand exploration in the US Gulf of Mexico and Kazakhstan as Europe’s largest oil company seeks to maintain output.
The company is designing a development plan for its West Boreas discovery in the Gulf of Mexico, which may hold 100 million barrels of resources, said Malcolm Brinded, Shell’s executive director for international production and exploration.
Plans for a second platform at the deepwater Mars field in the Gulf, which may add 100,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day of output, are also being evaluated, Brinded said in a Bloomberg report.
In January, The Hague-based company postponed an investment decision on upgrading the Mars platform because of high industry costs and lower oil prices.
In Kazakhstan, Shell and its partners in the Pearls project in the Caspian Sea may make a final investment decision in 2011, Brinded said in a presentation posted today on Shell’s website.
“The potential here runs to the hundreds of millions of barrels,” Brinded said, referring to “significant” oil discoveries at Khazar-1 in 2007 and Auezov-1 last year.
Shell plans to drill a third exploration well into the nearby Tulpar structure next year, he said.