據彭博新聞社2020年6月5日報道，日益老化的海上油井曾一度在歐洲、美國墨西哥灣和巴西的石油生產中占據重要地位，但如今這些海上油井卻使越來越多的石油公司賠錢。在油價低迷和全球經濟舉步維艱的情況下，石油公司希望關閉這些老舊海上油井，但石油公司的這種努力將代價不菲。

全球著名能源和礦業研究咨詢機構英國伍德麥肯茲有限公司估計全球關閉這些海上油井的成本在2030年前將達到1045億美元。挪威雷斯塔能源公司今年5月曾報告稱，僅在北海，每年就有至少23個平臺可能被淘汰，而巴西國家石油公司表示，計劃在2025年前斥資60億美元淘汰18個平臺、管道和其他基礎設施。

石油公司不可能放棄日益老化的海上油井。在大多數情況下，批準投產這些海上油井的監管機構都要求提供昂貴的擔保來確保這些海上油井的密封性，而且這些海上油井的維護還涉及到環境保護問題。這可能意味著要使用潛水員或機器人潛水艇封堵海底的油井和管道，這是一項昂貴的任務，而且還需要分別切割和移動重量可達1.7萬噸的鋼鐵平臺。

伍德麥肯茲拉丁美洲上游研究部門主管馬塞洛?德·阿西斯表示：“廢棄成本將在未來幾年困擾整個油氣行業，尤其是如果各國政府對母公司的擔保采取更嚴格的態度，這種危機會使形勢迅速惡化。”

根據伍德麥肯肯茲的最新統計數據，自上世紀90年代達到峰值以來，北海石油產量大幅下降，導致大量設備閑置，到2025年前，石油公司在拆遷多余設備方面的支出將超過開發新油田的支出。

在上世紀80年代和90年代，深水采油是石油行業的新前沿，而現在，許多此類項目正在走近它們的開采壽命的盡頭。

但在推動關閉日益老化海上油井之際，石油行業已經遭受了一些重大打擊。其中包括石油巨頭沙特阿拉伯和俄羅斯之間的石油價格戰，導致全球石油泛濫，新冠肺炎疫情大流行破壞了需求，而投資者希望減少勘探支出和獲得更多回報。

與此同時，與海上油井的價格標簽相比，美國頁巖繁榮大大降低了投產和運營一口陸上井的成本以及關井成本。

盡管最近油價有所上漲，但油價仍過低且波動劇烈，無法吸引買家購買巴西國家石油公司旗下老舊、產量低的油田，其他深水運營商也紛紛退出。那些成本低到足以從枯竭油田中獲利的中小型生產商時下正在設法保護自己的資產負債表，而銀行也不愿提供資金。

伍德麥肯茲的統計數據顯示，勘探商預計在未來5年里，石油產量約占美國總產量15%的美國墨西哥灣的數百口油井每年將花費大約10億美元讓他們退役。

雖然油價暴跌正在對更多的海上油井造成永久性關閉的影響，但墨西哥灣也在推動延長一些老化基礎設施的使用壽命。關鍵在于：在現有海上平臺附近鉆探新油井，這是一種降低成本的方法。

伍德麥肯茲首席分析師賈斯廷·羅斯坦特在接受電話采訪時表示：“石油公司眼下正在盡其所能避免放棄非常昂貴的設施。”“他們只是在能夠延長這些設施使用壽命的地方引進第三方生產。”

羅斯坦特說，在墨西哥灣深水區和淺水區，封堵和放棄一口井的平均成本分別約為1000萬美元和50萬美元。美國墨西哥灣大部分被關閉的油井都來自淺水區，那里的油井是最老的，已經失去了它們賺錢的能力。

英國花費

與此同時，英國將是北海退役的領頭羊，挪威和丹麥緊隨其后。英國預計在2030年前將花費200億英鎊(260億美元)來關閉其在北海地區的鉆井平臺。

拆遷海上平臺可能會引起爭議。荷蘭皇家殼牌公司已尋求允許留住其北海標志性油田布倫特油田的巨型混凝土“支架”，理由是拆除這些“支架”將會帶來更大的環境風險。然而，德國、荷蘭以及環保組織綠色和平組織對殼牌公司把這些建筑物留在北海表示了擔憂。

巴西的目標

巴西國家石油管理局（ANP）負責人拉斐爾·內維斯·莫拉日前在巴西石油學會(一個游說團體)舉行的網絡會議上說，巴西的目標是盡可能將環境恢復到原始狀態。

今年4月，ANP出臺了一項規定，以處理由于來自新冠肺炎疫情大流行后果造成的大量廢棄設備。莫拉說，ANP將在拆遷廢棄油田之前為廢棄油田尋找新的買家。

巴西國家石油公司日前在一份聲明中表示，該公司將繼續尋找買家來接手其注銷的資產。今年7月，巴西國家石油公司計劃拍賣位于坎波斯盆地的3個平臺，這些平臺的建造時間可以追溯到20世紀80年代，現在已經成為廢金屬，因此這3個平臺也不是自疫情爆發以來關閉的62個平臺的一部分。

作為650億雷亞爾（125億美元）資產減值的一部分，巴西國家石油公司在今年第一季度勾銷了62個淺水平臺，約占其擁有的淺水平臺總數的75%。將要關閉的油井每天總共只能生產2.3萬桶原油，不到巴西國家石油公司在所謂鹽下地區高產油井產量的一半。

“壓力測試”

在巴西，在大西洋更深處獲得的更大的質量更高的發現使得坎波斯盆地黯然失色，而位于里約熱內盧的巴西國家石油公司正將投資重點放在那里。因此，這些油田的產量大幅下降，而巴西國家石油公司正在對其剩余的項目進行“壓力測試”，以淘汰其它無法生存的項目。

雷斯塔能源公司預計，低服務成本將鼓勵全球運營商清理老舊設備，因為低油價削弱了運營商延長老舊設備使用年限的積極性。

伍德麥肯茲的阿西斯表示，無論數百萬噸的鋼鐵平臺和管道如何被拆除，政府都很有可能插手干預，以確保納稅人不是在為此買單。

他說，“由于監管機構也在推動，金融擔保將面臨更多的壓力。”

李峻 編譯自 彭博社

原文如下：

Offshore Oil's $105B Hangover Compounds Industry Woes

Aging offshore oil wells that once brought market prominence to Europe, the U.S. Gulf and Brazil are increasingly money losers that companies want shut down amid low oil prices and a struggling global economy. But the effort won’t be cheap.

The cost worldwide: An estimated $104.5 billion by 2030, according to Wood Mackenzie Ltd. At least 23 platforms a year could be retired in the North Sea alone, Rystad Energy Inc. reported in May, while the national oil company in Brazil has said it’s planning to spend $6 billion to retire 18 platforms, pipelines and other infrastructure by 2025.

Companies can’t just abandon aging offshore wells. In most cases, regulators who approved them required pricey guarantees to make sure they’re properly sealed, and there are environmental issues involved in their upkeep. That can mean the use of divers or robot submarines to plug wells and pipelines on the ocean floor, an expensive proposition, as well as cutting apart and moving steel platforms that can weigh as much as 17,000 tons.

“Abandonment costs will haunt the industry in the years to come, especially if governments get tougher with parent company guarantees,” said Marcelo de Assis, the head of Latin American upstream research at Wood Mackenzie Ltd. “The crisis fast forwarded the situation.”

The spectacular decline in North Sea production since it peaked in the 1990s has left so much equipment unused that, by 2025, oil companies will spend more on removing redundant equipment than developing new fields, according to Wood Mackenzie.

Deepwater production was a new frontier for the oil industry in the 1980s and 1990s, and many of these projects are now reaching the end of their lives.

But the push to close offshore wells comes as the oil industry has suffered some major blows. They include a price war between oil giants Saudi Arabia and Russia that flooded the world with oil, a pandemic that destroyed demand and skepticism from investors who want less money spent on exploration and more returned to them.

At the same time, the U.S. shale boom has drastically lowered the cost of opening and operating a well on land, as well as closing one, compared with the price tag tied to wells offshore.

Despite a recent uptick in oil prices, they remain too low and volatile to lure buyers to the aging and small-producing fields Brazil’s Petroleo Brasileiro SA. and other deep-water operators are walking away from. The small- to mid-sized producers with low enough costs to turn a profit from exhausted oil fields are protecting their balance sheets, and banks are reluctant to provide funding.

“Companies are doing everything they can to avoid abandoning facilities because that’s very expensive,” Justin Rostant, principal analyst at Wood Mackenzie, said in a phone interview. “They’re just bringing in third-party production wherever they can to extend the life of these facilities.”

It costs an average of $10 million per well in deepwater and about $500,000 a well in shallow waters to plug and abandon a well in the Gulf of Mexico, Rostant said. Most wells shut down in the U.S. Gulf are coming from shallow waters, where the wells are the oldest and have lost their ability to make money.

U.K. Payout

Meanwhile, the U.K. will be the leader in North Sea decommissioning, followed by Norway and Denmark. The U.K. is forecast to pay out more than 20 billion pounds ($26 billion) to close its platforms in the region by 2030.

Removing offshore platforms can be controversial. Royal Dutch Shell Plc has sought permission to leave the giant concrete “legs” of its iconic Brent field in the North Sea because it says removing them would pose a greater environmental risk. However, Germany and the Netherlands, as well as environmental group Greenpeace, have raised concerns over leaving the structures in the sea.

Brazil’s Goal

The goal in Brazil is to restore the environment as close to its original state as possible, Raphael Neves Moura, a superintendent at ANP, Brazil’s national petroleum agency, said during a web conference held by the Brazilian Petroleum Institute, a lobby group.

ANP introduced regulation in April to handle the influx of deserted equipment due to fallout from the pandemic. The agency will seek to find buyers for discarded fields before moving to abandonment, Moura said.

In a statement, Petrobras said it continues to seek buyers to take on assets it’s written off. Petrobras is planning to auction three Campos Basin platforms that date back to the 1980s for scrap metal in July. These platforms have been off line since 2015 or so, so weren’t part of the 62 shut since the pandemic.

In the first quarter, Petrobras wrote off 62 shallow water platforms, or about 75% of its fleet, as part of a 65 billion real ($12.5 billion) impairment. The wells to be closed only produced a combined 23,000 barrels a day, less than half of Petrobras’s top wells in the so-called pre-salt region.

‘Stress Tests’

In Brazil, the Campos basin has been eclipsed by larger discoveries with higher-quality oil even deeper in the Atlantic, where Rio de Janeiro-based Petrobras is focusing its investments. As a result production has plummeted at these fields, and Petrobras is carrying out “stress tests” at its remaining projects to weed out others that can’t survive.

Rystad expects low service costs to encourage operators worldwide to clear out old equipment now that low oil prices have undermined incentives to extend them.

No matter how the millions of tons of steel and pipes are removed, governments are likely to step in to make sure tax payers aren’t the ones paying, said Wood Mackenzie’s Assis.

“There is a push from regulators. There will be more pressure for financial guarantees,” he said.