Halliburton introduced the Spectrum Real-Time Coiled Tubing Services on 22 March at the 2016 SPE/ICoTA Coiled Tubing & Well Intervention Conference & Exhibition in Houston. This suite of services is designed to deliver more accurate and more complete downhole...

The US Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) announced a final rule to improve protections for workers exposed to respirable silica dust. The rule will curb lung cancer, silicosis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and kidney disease in America’s workers by limiting their exposure to respirable crystalline silica.

As the PPSA looks to the future of pre-salt projects in Brazil, the group realizes that the long-term challenge is not simply to make pre-salt economically feasible. The challenge is to make it competitive against other sources of energy – from shales in North America to deepwater in West Africa and even to renewables. “There was a ten-fold reduction in the cost of solar power in the last 10 years, and more reductions will still come. New technologies are coming, so we are competing against all of those things,” Edson Nakagawa, PPSA Operation Director, said at the 2016 IADC International Deepwater Drilling Conference in Rio de Janeiro on 15 March.

Cost reductions and investment pullbacks have become par for the course in the current low-price environment. For Petrobras, this has meant having to adjust its portfolio in order to “do more with less,” Rudimar Lorenzatto, E&P Executive Manager, said at the 2016 IADC International Deepwater Drilling Conference on 15 March in Rio de Janeiro.

To reduce costs due to NPT related to severe lost circulation and to drill wells with narrow operational windows or reservoir depletion, Petrobras started a project in 2013 to make more deepwater rigs MPD-ready. By the end of 2016, 15 rigs from five different drilling contractors are expected to have completed this conversion...

In June 2015, Petrobras conducted a well capping and containment response exercise in the Santos Basin. The exercise was conducted on an ultra-deepwater and vertical drilling well using a dynamically positioned drillship, said Rubens Ribeiro de Paula Jr, who works in Petrbras’ Well Control...

As more rigs get stacked due to lack of work, rig-based employees can lose focus on everyday duties due to increasing concerns for their professional futures. “They’re all worried about what’s next in terms of work itself, and this is quite a safety concern,” Gagan Singhal, Area Manager...

To ensure uniform safety standards across its contracted rigs, Petronas has developed a set of HSE case guidelines that builds upon the IADC HSE Case Guidelines. The guidelines are meant to complement drilling contractors’ HSE cases and to provide additional technical...

The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) and The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) have announced a five-year agreement allowing BSEE to capitalize on the best risk management approaches from the aeronautics industry to inform stakeholders and further strengthen worker and environmental safety protections on the Outer Continental Shelf.

Later this year, Baker Hughes will launch an enhanced drilling optimization service, which will incorporate the CoPilot 2.5 downhole drilling dynamics sub...