The world trend of deepwater exploration and a challenging program in Japan

Abstract

The world offshore operation is moving to the deeper and deeper water recently. Japan also has its first deepwater program of drilling two MITI wells offshore Japan in 1999. One well is targeting the natural hydrate, which is very new even in the world. This lecture outlines the world trend of deepwater exploration first, then introduces the forthcoming domesticdeepwater program with discussion of technology and safety consideration for this challenging project.