Majors Announce Offshore, Tech Advances; Bakken Contrasts Land Focus

Major international operators announced advances in offshore production and digital capabilities on Thursday, underscoring a global industry focus that contrasts with the land-based, manufacturing model dominant in North Dakota's Bakken formation.

BP has raised the production capacity of the Atlantis deepwater field in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico by 10,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, according to Rigzone. The expansion project started up on July 30, 2026.

Separately, Brazil's state-owned Petrobras is producing more than the designed capacities of the mega-platforms deployed at its Buzios and other deepwater fields, Rigzone reported. The company is squeezing additional output from these major offshore assets.

In a move focused on technology, Eni announced it is opening up its supercomputing capabilities to what it calls an "innovation ecosystem," Rigzone noted. This initiative aims to share high-performance computing resources beyond the company's internal research.

For Bakken operators and service companies, these announcements highlight the different capital and technological landscapes between deepwater offshore projects and onshore shale plays. The Bakken's economics are driven by high-density drilling, shorter cycle times, and continuous improvements in drilling and completion efficiency on land.

While supercomputing is used in the Bakken for subsurface modeling and well planning, the scale and application differ from the massive seismic processing often associated with offshore exploration. The news from global majors serves as a reminder of the industry's broad technological spectrum, even as Bakken players focus on optimizing factory-style development in the Williston Basin.