Artificial lift is a method of increasing pressure within an oil and gas reservoir to maximize hydrocarbon recovery. Historically, artificial lift was primarily used on wells with insufficient pressure but now in an effort to improve flow rates its use on naturally flowing wells has increased. In total there are ~1 million wells utilizing artificial […]
Cost-Cutting Measures to Improve Offshore Projects
The cost of extracting a barrel of crude oil quadrupled from 1996 to 2014. There are many reasons for this although at least three that have played a major role. First, higher safety standards, excessive documentation, internal processes (we have previously written about how BP was able to cut $10 million by standardizing specifications), and […]
Solar energy’s growth pangs
First Solar, the Arizona-based world’s largest maker of solar cells, breaks into the difficult Chinese market with a $5-6-billion deal to build a two gigawatt plant and a stock analyst downgrades the company’s stock from “hold” to “sell” and halves the target price. Why? In the analyst’s words: Even the best thin-film manufacturer in the […]