A New Approach to Decommissioning Cost Estimation Using Settled Liability Data
Cost data in the oil and gas industry are proprietary and obtaining them is challenging; in addition, unless collected across a large and diverse sample, summary statistics are unlikely to be representative of the activity or process it is trying to inform. The purpose of this article is to apply settled liability data to infer private information on the cost of decommissioning in the Gulf of Mexico. The procedure avoids most of the traditional problems associated with cost studies but requires careful normalization and a clear understanding of the limitations of analysis. Using settled liability data from 17 public companies with operations primarily in the Gulf of Mexico, decommissioning cost is evaluated on a regional basis and by operator from 2008 to 2012. The average cost to decommission a structure between 2008 and 2012 is estimated to be $6.4 million in water depth less than 200 ft and $15.6 million in water depth greater than 200 ft. Average cost statistics are suggested as a market index for Gulf of Mexico decommissioning activity.
Trends in plug and abandonment cost in the Gulf of Mexico, 2002?2007
Wells are drilled to explore for, delineate and produce hydrocarbon reservoirs. At the end of their useful life, wellbores are permanently abandoned in a process known as Plugging and Abandonment (P&A). The purpose of P&A is to prevent the migration of fluids from the wellbore and establish a permanent barrier to the existing geologic formation. In this paper, we assess trends in P&A costs in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) over the time period 2002?2007 based on a sample of 1156 wells performed by Tetra Applied Technologies. Descriptive statistics are summarised and the impact of scale economies is investigated. In the aftermath of the widespread hurricane destruction in the GOM in 2005, the cost of P&A dramatically increased with increased demand for support services, but market conditions appear to be reverting, albeit slowly, to prehurricane conditions. Relations that estimate the cost of P&A activities based on the number of wells in a job and the number of days of service is derived.
Struggles for Visibility
This article addresses the ways in which terrorists are rendered visible in the news media. By studying images used in coverage of terrorists, the article focuses on the visual construction of this figure, which symbolizes the public’s notion of the “enemy”, in terms of specific attacks and the general threat thereof as well as terrorist actors, networks, and ideologies. The article takes its point of departure in the assumption that two visual forms are prevalent for representing terrorists in the news media, “surveillance representations” and “self-representations”. Based on this assumption, the article is guided by a principal research question, namely: How are terrorists made visible in the news media through surveillance representations and self-representations and what are the prevalent genres for visually representing terrorist actors? The article draws on a theoretical framework concerning the news media’s propensity to personalize the terrorist and the mediated visibility of terrorists. Empirically, the article is based on a quantitative content analysis of coverage of terrorism by Danish public service broadcasters DR and TV2 in 2016 to provide an overview of the proportions between surveillance representations and self-representations and develop a typology of the most widespread genres: ID photography, surveillance footage, selfies and similar, and private snapshots.