Hydrocarbon production is the process of extracting oil and gas reserves from the earth, and then treating, processing, and transporting the oil and gas to market. Production costs are those costs required to operate and maintain wells and related equipment and facilities. Production costs are...

The objective in drilling a hydrocarbon well is to make hole as quickly as possible subject to the technological, operational, quality, and safety constraints associated with the process. These objectives are frequently conflicting and depend on factors that are subject to significant private...

Weather delay is a common risk in offshore energy production, and in the Gulf of Mexico, the occurrence of tropical storms and hurricanes regularly force operators to shut-down production, cease drilling and construction activities, and evacuate personnel. In physical terms, shutting-in a well...

In 2007, the federal waters of the Gulf of Mexico averaged daily production of 1.3 million barrels of oil and 7.6 billion cubic feet of natural gas. The majority of oil is produced from deepwater fields in water depth greater than 1000ft, while most gas production is extracted from the shelf....

Hurricanes Ivan, Katrina, and Rita passed through the Gulf of Mexico during 2004 and 2005 and resulted in the largest number of destroyed and damaged offshore oil and gas structures in the history of Gulf operations. In the final official government assessment, a total of 126 platforms were...

When the operating cost of a well is equal to its income from production, the well is no longer considered an asset and is said to have reached its economic limit. The purpose of this paper is to quantify the economic limit of hydrocarbon field production in Louisiana. We classify 690 fields...

Throughout the world wherever oil and gas is discovered, a support industry will develop and evolve with the needs of industry and government regulation. In the Gulf of Mexico, a large variety of marine vessels transport goods and provide services to exploration, development and production...

The Haynesville shale is an unconventional resource play in Louisiana that requires significant capital expenditures to develop. To produce at commercial rates, shale gas wells are drilled horizontally and fractured to release their gas, and since 1994, a severance tax exemption on horizontal...

The economic and system measures associated with hydrocarbon development are subject to various levels of private and market uncertainty. The purpose of this paper is to develop an analytic framework to quantify the influence of private and market uncertainty under a concessionary fiscal system....

The Haynesville shale in Louisiana is one of several unconventional gas plays that have been discovered in the U.S. in the past decade and promise to dramatically change the course of future energy development given its enormous resource potential. Unconventional gas resources are abundant, but...