全球关闭海上油井成本2030年前将达到1045亿美元

据彭博新闻社2020年6月5日报道，日益老化的海上油井曾一度在欧洲、美国墨西哥湾和巴西的石油生产中占据重要地位，但如今这些海上油井却使越来越多的石油公司赔钱。在油价低迷和全球经济举步维艰的情况下，石油公司希望关闭这些老旧海上油井，但石油公司的这种努力将代价不菲。

全球著名能源和矿业研究咨询机构英国伍德麦肯兹有限公司估计全球关闭这些海上油井的成本在2030年前将达到1045亿美元。挪威雷斯塔能源公司今年5月曾报告称，仅在北海，每年就有至少23个平台可能被淘汰，而巴西国家石油公司表示，计划在2025年前斥资60亿美元淘汰18个平台、管道和其他基础设施。

石油公司不可能放弃日益老化的海上油井。在大多数情况下，批准投产这些海上油井的监管机构都要求提供昂贵的担保来确保这些海上油井的密封性，而且这些海上油井的维护还涉及到环境保护问题。这可能意味着要使用潜水员或机器人潜水艇封堵海底的油井和管道，这是一项昂贵的任务，而且还需要分别切割和移动重量可达1.7万吨的钢铁平台。

伍德麦肯兹拉丁美洲上游研究部门主管马塞洛?德·阿西斯表示：“废弃成本将在未来几年困扰整个油气行业，尤其是如果各国政府对母公司的担保采取更严格的态度，这种危机会使形势迅速恶化。”

根据伍德麦肯肯兹的最新统计数据，自上世纪90年代达到峰值以来，北海石油产量大幅下降，导致大量设备闲置，到2025年前，石油公司在拆迁多余设备方面的支出将超过开发新油田的支出。

在上世纪80年代和90年代，深水采油是石油行业的新前沿，而现在，许多此类项目正在走近它们的开采寿命的尽头。

但在推动关闭日益老化海上油井之际，石油行业已经遭受了一些重大打击。其中包括石油巨头沙特阿拉伯和俄罗斯之间的石油价格战，导致全球石油泛滥，新冠肺炎疫情大流行破坏了需求，而投资者希望减少勘探支出和获得更多回报。

与此同时，与海上油井的价格标签相比，美国页岩繁荣大大降低了投产和运营一口陆上井的成本以及关井成本。

尽管最近油价有所上涨，但油价仍过低且波动剧烈，无法吸引买家购买巴西国家石油公司旗下老旧、产量低的油田，其他深水运营商也纷纷退出。那些成本低到足以从枯竭油田中获利的中小型生产商时下正在设法保护自己的资产负债表，而银行也不愿提供资金。

伍德麦肯兹的统计数据显示，勘探商预计在未来5年里，石油产量约占美国总产量15%的美国墨西哥湾的数百口油井每年将花费大约10亿美元让他们退役。

虽然油价暴跌正在对更多的海上油井造成永久性关闭的影响，但墨西哥湾也在推动延长一些老化基础设施的使用寿命。关键在于：在现有海上平台附近钻探新油井，这是一种降低成本的方法。

伍德麦肯兹首席分析师贾斯廷·罗斯坦特在接受电话采访时表示：“石油公司眼下正在尽其所能避免放弃非常昂贵的设施。”“他们只是在能够延长这些设施使用寿命的地方引进第三方生产。”

罗斯坦特说，在墨西哥湾深水区和浅水区，封堵和放弃一口井的平均成本分别约为1000万美元和50万美元。美国墨西哥湾大部分被关闭的油井都来自浅水区，那里的油井是最老的，已经失去了它们赚钱的能力。

英国花费

与此同时，英国将是北海退役的领头羊，挪威和丹麦紧随其后。英国预计在2030年前将花费200亿英镑(260亿美元)来关闭其在北海地区的钻井平台。

拆迁海上平台可能会引起争议。荷兰皇家壳牌公司已寻求允许留住其北海标志性油田布伦特油田的巨型混凝土“支架”，理由是拆除这些“支架”将会带来更大的环境风险。然而，德国、荷兰以及环保组织绿色和平组织对壳牌公司把这些建筑物留在北海表示了担忧。

巴西的目标

巴西国家石油管理局（ANP）负责人拉斐尔·内维斯·莫拉日前在巴西石油学会(一个游说团体)举行的网络会议上说，巴西的目标是尽可能将环境恢复到原始状态。

今年4月，ANP出台了一项规定，以处理由于来自新冠肺炎疫情大流行后果造成的大量废弃设备。莫拉说，ANP将在拆迁废弃油田之前为废弃油田寻找新的买家。

巴西国家石油公司日前在一份声明中表示，该公司将继续寻找买家来接手其注销的资产。今年7月，巴西国家石油公司计划拍卖位于坎波斯盆地的3个平台，这些平台的建造时间可以追溯到20世纪80年代，现在已经成为废金属，因此这3个平台也不是自疫情爆发以来关闭的62个平台的一部分。

作为650亿雷亚尔（125亿美元）资产减值的一部分，巴西国家石油公司在今年第一季度勾销了62个浅水平台，约占其拥有的浅水平台总数的75%。将要关闭的油井每天总共只能生产2.3万桶原油，不到巴西国家石油公司在所谓盐下地区高产油井产量的一半。

“压力测试”

在巴西，在大西洋更深处获得的更大的质量更高的发现使得坎波斯盆地黯然失色，而位于里约热内卢的巴西国家石油公司正将投资重点放在那里。因此，这些油田的产量大幅下降，而巴西国家石油公司正在对其剩余的项目进行“压力测试”，以淘汰其它无法生存的项目。

雷斯塔能源公司预计，低服务成本将鼓励全球运营商清理老旧设备，因为低油价削弱了运营商延长老旧设备使用年限的积极性。

伍德麦肯兹的阿西斯表示，无论数百万吨的钢铁平台和管道如何被拆除，政府都很有可能插手干预，以确保纳税人不是在为此买单。

他说，“由于监管机构也在推动，金融担保将面临更多的压力。”

李峻 编译自 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.