Strategy: Grow profitably in core areas and build new legacy positions.
Over the past two years, we have grown our crude oil and natural gas production by a cumulative 9 percent. This has been accomplished by the excellent performance of our existing producing fields as well as by the successful execution of our major capital projects.
Core Areas
In 2010, our existing producing fields operated at the safest, most efficient and reliable levels ever. We successfully deployed technology to manage reservoirs, slow production declines and produce more from existing assets. Our i-field™ program has been particularly effective in enhancing production from mature fields. By integrating multiple capabilities in information technology and engineering, we are managing production and reservoir performance in real time and achieving new levels of productivity.
Major New Projects
Over the past two years, production has benefited from the startup of several new capital projects and the ramp up of their production rates. These include Agbami offshore Nigeria, Tahiti in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, Frade offshore Brazil and Tombua-Landana offshore Angola. Additionally, we continued to ramp up production at our giant Tengizchevroil Sour Gas Injection/Second Generation Plant project in Kazakhstan.
Over the next two years, we have six multibillion-dollar projects that are expected to come online and expand production even further. Three of them are in Africa. In Nigeria, we are moving forward with Agbami 2, which is projected to extend production from this giant deepwater field by an expected six years, and we are developing the nearby Usan Field, which is expected to produce first oil in 2012. In Angola, we have a liquefied natural gas project that is expected to start up in 2012.
Our Tahiti Field in the deepwater U.S. Gulf of Mexico continues to perform well. We are now moving forward with Tahiti 2, a project to drill water-injection wells in order to extend peak production and increase recovery. Additional producing wells are planned.
In Asia, we are developing Chuandongbei, a large and complex sour gas project in China. It is the largest project not operated by a Chinese government oil company. We were selected largely because of our expertise with safe and reliable sour natural gas production, especially our pioneering efforts at the giant Tengiz Field in Kazakhstan. In the Gulf of Thailand, we are moving forward with the Platong Gas II project, which could deliver almost 15 percent of the natural gas demand for power generation in Thailand.
Further out, we are continuing the development of other major capital projects. These include additional investments to enhance production from the Tengiz Field and to develop three deepwater projects — Papa-Terra offshore Brazil and Jack/St. Malo and Big Foot in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico.
Exploration
Since 2002, our exploration efforts have added more than 9.5 billion barrels of oil-equivalent to our resource base. In 2010, we made a number of important discoveries and obtained new exploration acreage.
In 2010, we made seven successful natural gas discoveries in the deepwater Carnarvon Basin offshore Western Australia. The discoveries are expected to contribute to the long-term growth potential of our giant Gorgon and Wheatstone liquefied natural gas projects.
Posted: April 2011