New drilling technology to put billions of barrels of oil in reach

HOUSTON, Aug 18 (Reuters): An oil production breakthrough that producers say can safely tap ultra-high pressure fields could put up to 5 billion barrels of previously inaccessible crude into production, analysts said.

Chevron on Monday disclosed it had pumped first oil from a field at 20,000 pounds per square inch pressures, a third greater than any prior well. Its $5.7 billion Anchor project employs specially designed equipment from NOV, Dril-Quip and drillships from Transocean.

The No. 2 US oil firm began pumping from the first Anchor well on Sunday, with the second already drilled and close to being ready to turn on, said Bruce Niemeyer, head of Americas oil exploration and production.

A 2010 blowout at Gulf of Mexico's Macondo prospect killed 11 workers, fouled fisheries and covered area beaches in oil.

Transocean was the operator of the ill-fated Deepwater Horizon vessel and BP was the owner of the Macondo project. Both are involved in the new, higher pressure well developments.

Today, the industry is employing new drillships and equipment that has been created to cope with the extreme pressures that are a third greater than encountered in the Macondo failure.

"The industry has done their bit to safely deliver the barrels, with the new technology," said Mfon Usoro, a principal analyst who focuses on Gulf of Mexico operations at research firm Wood Mackenzie.