The field started production on July 29, 2001, with gross production expected to increase to 40,000 barrels per day of oil (bopd) and 60 million standard cubic feet (mmscfd) of gas over the coming months, although actual oil and gas production rates will depend on well performance. (BHP Billiton's share is 50%.) The estimated commercial field life is between five to eight years.

The Typhoon project has set a new standard for rapid development of deepwater Gulf of Mexico fields. The project was completed in just over three years, following its discovery in June 1998. The time from project sanction to commissioning was approximately 18 months. Typhoon was also completed safely, under the budgeted expenditure of US$128 million (BHP Billiton share), and on schedule.

The Typhoon project represents BHP Billiton's first commercial development resulting from its decision to focus exploration activities in potential high margin areas in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico. The development delivers early production and revenues, as well as technical expertise that is being used to expedite the commercialization of larger resources in the ultra-deepwater Atwater Foldbelt.

The field is located in 640 meters of water in Green Canyon blocks 236 and 237, 160 kilometers off the coast of Louisiana. This area has been actively explored and has established production and pipeline infrastructure. BHP Billiton's equity share of the Typhoon development is 50 percent with Chevron U.S.A. Production Co. (operator) 50 percent.

President and CEO BHP Billiton Petroleum Philip Aiken said: "This is a tremendous achievement and marks another important step in the delivery of our deepwater exploration strategy. Typhoon fits well into BHP Billiton's broader Gulf of Mexico objectives and the early cash flows generated will supplement longer term, higher value potential activities."

The Typhoon development consists of subsea completion and tieback of the four existing appraisal wells to a local host facility, based on the Atlantia SeaStar(R) mini tension leg platform (TLP). El Paso, through its oil and gas pipeline subsidiaries, will transport the oil and gas to local markets via connections to local infrastructure. The Typhoon field was granted Deepwater Royalty Relief in December 2000 by the U.S. Minerals Management Service, which allows for royalty exemption on the first 87.5 million barrels oil equivalent (mmboe) from the Typhoon field under certain oil pricing market conditions.

The Typhoon facilities offer the potential to act as a production 'hub' for the area. BHP Billiton has in excess of 30 blocks within a 40-kilometer radius and a discovery in any of these blocks could potentially be tied back to the Typhoon facility.

BHP Billiton has interests in existing producing assets in the Gulf of Mexico in Green Canyon/Ewing Bank/West Cameron (FY2000 BHP production share was 4,655 bpd liquid and 40 mmscfd gas). The Company also completed the purchase of 4.95 percent of the Chevron-operated Genesis field in January 2000. Genesis is located in Green Canyon block 205 and is currently producing at rate of approximately 73,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd) gross, with approximately 3,600 boepd net to BHP Billiton.

The Atwater Foldbelt appraisal of the Mad Dog and Atlantis discoveries is continuing as are plans for progressing BHP Billiton's exploration potential in the Atwater Valley, Walker Ridge and Mississippi Canyon lease areas. Mad Dog is on schedule for sanction during calendar year 2001. The Atlantis 3 appraisal well is currently being drilled and a Mad Dog 4 appraisal well is to spud in the third quarter of 2001.

Further information can be found on the Company's Internet site: http://www.bhpbilliton.com (for Gulf of Mexico, click here... )

The Swire Pacific vessel, the Pacific Maple was supplied as the platform for the work scope utilisng Thales’s 100HP Sealion ROV. Thales’s personnel on board the vessel included ROV technicians, engineers and surveyors. The campaign began in April 2001, and was schedule for 2 months with the completion of the inspection on 6th June 2001.

The scope of work included general visual inspection (GVI), close visual inspection (CVI), monitoring of cathodic protection (CP) systems, pipeline stabilisation and mooring chain wear measurements. The results obtained will allow BHPP to identify any damage, threats or potential threats to the integrity of the sub sea Griffin Facility components and assets.

The growing fleet of Thales ROV’s, has enabled Thales GeoSolutions to expand the scope of services available to the oil and gas industry. For more information on Thales ROV fleet, contact Bart van der Groen at Thales GeoSolutions (Australasia) Ltd by email to: bart.vandergroen@thales-geosolutions.com

• Eliminates cross-coupling errors
• Utilizes liquid damping
• Residual imperfection errors greatly reduced and compensated during setup
• Virtually eliminates sensitivity to vibration
• Eliminates the "slope error" prevalent in beam meters. Is expected to operate in rougher sea conditions than beam-type meters
• Utilizes the ZLS GyroPack
• Utilizes the ZLS UltraSys control system

Austin Exploration, Inc. entered the field of geophysical services in April, 1976. The company grew rapidly and by November, 1978 had moved to its' present building. Austin provided land gravity and magnetometer crews until 1979 when operations were expanded to include marine services. Shipboard systems have been employed in offshore South America, Africa, Pacific Rim countries, North Sea and the coastal regions of North America. Austin currently operates 10 stable platform gravity meters all of which are newly updated LaCoste & Romberg and ZLS systems with the most advanced development in gravity meter control and data acquisition.

The company has worldwide capabilities and has acquired, compiled and interpreted data from all over the world. With the opening of their office in Singapore, Austin Exploration Asia Pacific Pte Ltd., and with a strategic alliance with ARK Geophysics in Milton Keynes, U.K., they have the ability to conduct and support surveys anywhere in the world. They also have a large library of non-exclusive data available for your review. Please click here for data library. For more information, contact Tom Austin President by email at ctaustin@austinex.com, Phone - USA+ 713.780.7141 or by Fax: USA+ 713.780.3118 or visit their web site at http://www.austinex.com

The contract is valued at approximately $290 million. MODEC International will supply the FPSO vessel, flowlines and risers. The contract includes 13 years of operations that will be managed by MODEC International. FMC Technologies' Energy Systems unit will supply a turret mooring system as well as five subsea manifolds, with a combined value of $56 million.

Additionally, FMC Technologies will receive three-eighths of the profits from the FPSO through its ownership stake in MODEC International. The planned FPSO facility will have an oil processing capacity of 70,000 barrels of oil per day, gas handling of 75 million cubic feet per day, water injection of 92,000 barrels per day and storage capacity of 1.2 million barrels.

The Bijupira and Salema fields are located adjacent to each other in the Campos Basin, some 175 miles from Rio de Janeiro, in water depths ranging from approximately 1,575 to 2,900 feet. Artificial lift will be required to raise the reservoir fluids to the surface for processing, and reservoir pressure will be maintained by the high-pressure injection of seawater to assist oil recovery.

Contact Gena M. Smoot, Marketing Coordinator, FMC SOFEC Floating Systems / MODEC International, LLC, Houston, Texas Tel: US +713-510-6716 Fax: US +713-510-6601 or visit their respective web sites at http://www.fmcsofec.com and http://www.modec-intl.com

The Minerals Management Service proposes to offer for lease those blocks that are beyond the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) in the northern portion of the area formerly known as the Western Gap. Sale 178, Part 2, encompasses 53 whole or partial blocks in the Central Gulf Planning Area that were not offered in Central Gulf Sale 178, Part 1, held on March 28, 2001.

The blocks offered in Sale 178, Part 2 will be subject to the provisions of the Law of the Sea Convention Royalty Payment Stipulation contained in the Sale Notice. This stipulation has been developed as a contingency if the United States Senate agrees that the United States should become a signatory to this Convention.

The Final Notice of Sale will be posted on the MMS Website at http://www.mms.gov. In addition, copies of the document are available from MMS's Gulf of Mexico Regional Office, Public Information Unit, 1201 Elmwood Park Blvd., New Orleans La., 70123. Telephone (504) 736-2591, toll free 1-800-200-GULF.

STATISTICAL INFORMATION Sale 178, Part 2:
SIZE : 53 Unleased blocks; 250,787.51 acres

Each block offered in this sale has the following terms and conditions:

MMS is the federal agency in the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages the nation's oil, natural gas and other mineral resources on the outer continental shelf in federal offshore waters. The agency also collects, accounts for and disburses mineral revenues from federal and Indian leases. These collections totaled nearly $8 billion last year and more than $110 billion since the agency was created in 1982. Annually, nearly $1 billion from those revenues go into the Land and Water Conservation Fund for the acquisition and development of state and Federal park and recreation lands.

For more information, contact one of the following at MMS: Barney Congdon +504-736-2595, Caryl Fagot +504-736-2590, or Debra Winbush +504-736-2597. You can also visit their web site at http://www.mms.gov

In a separate project, PGS recently secured a large proprietary seismic contract consisting of several surveys offshore Canada. The geophysical services contractor also has completed a Keathley Canyon pre-stack depth migration processing project in time for the Gulf of Mexico's Aug. 22 lease sale offshore Texas.

For the complete press release, click here...

Fairfield Industries is a Houston based firm providing shallow water non-exclusive 3D seismic data acquisition and processing to the oil and gas exploration industry. Fairfield manufactures and uses the BOX^® seismic data acquisition system, capable of recording 8,000 channels of seismic data via radio telemetry, cable, a combination of the two or in a stored data mode. The Data Processing Division provides 2D/3D seismic processing services utilizing internally developed super cluster technology computing. Our computing capacity is currently in excess of 1.2 teraflops. These services are provided to clients on a global basis, as well as ongoing processing of Fairfield's 3D non-exclusive database.

Contact Debra M. Dryer, Marketing Coordinator at Phone US +281 275 7619, Fax US +281 275 7550 or by Email to: ddryer@fairfield.com or visit their web site at: http://www.fairfield.com

Horizon President and Chief Executive Officer, Bill J. Lam stated, "We are extremely pleased with the intent of Noble to award this project to Horizon Offshore. We have assembled a very talented management team for international construction activities for projects of this nature and will continue to expand our operations in selected international markets."

Horizon Offshore provides marine construction services to the offshore oil and gas industry, primarily in the Gulf of Mexico. The company's fleet is used to perform a wide range of marine construction activities, including installation of marine pipelines to transport oil and gas from newly installed production platforms and other subsea production systems, and the installation and abandonment of production platforms.

This press release contains certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, which involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors. Among the factors that could cause actual results to differ materially are: industry conditions and volatility; prices of oil and gas; the company's ability to obtain and the timing of new projects; changes in competitive factors and other material factors that are described from time to time in the company's filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Actual events, circumstances, effects and results may be materially different from the results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Consequently, the forward-looking statements contained herein should not be regarded as representations by Horizon or any other person that the projected outcomes can or will be achieved. For the complete press release, click here...

The Nanuq accumulation was discovered in April 2000 with the Nanuq #2 exploration well, which encountered 50 feet of vertical oil-bearing sandstone in a Cretaceous-age reservoir and nine feet in the Kuparuk reservoir. A combined zone production test recorded a production rate of 1,750 barrels per day of 40-degree API gravity oil and 1.2 million standard cubic feet of gas per day.

A delineation well was drilled from the Alpine CD1 drill site during the 2001 winter drilling season. The Nanuq CD1-229 well encountered 19 feet of vertical oil-bearing sand in the Cretaceous-age Nanuq reservoir. The initial production test from the Nanuq interval recorded a production rate of 460 barrels per day of 41-degree API gravity oil and 6.5 million standard cubic feet of gas per day from a horizontal completion. The Nanuq CD1-229 well was placed on long-term test production through the Alpine facilities during the 2000-2001 winter season. Production has since been suspended. Plans for further delineation and development of the Nanuq field are under evaluation.

The Nanuq accumulation is the second satellite field to be discovered near Alpine. The previously announced Fiord satellite accumulation is estimated to contain more than 50 million barrels of gross recoverable reserves. Phillips is operator of and holds a 78 percent interest in the Alpine field and its satellites, while Anadarko holds a 22 percent interest.

Anadarko Petroleum Corporation has proved reserves of more than 2 billion barrels of oil equivalent and reported daily production of 522,000 barrels equivalent in the first quarter of 2001. Domestically, it has operations in Texas, Louisiana, the Mid-Continent and Rocky Mountain regions, Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico. Internationally, it is active in Canada, Algeria, Tunisia, West Africa, Venezuela, Georgia and the North Atlantic.

Phillips Petroleum Company is an integrated oil company with interests around the world. Headquartered in Bartlesville, Okla., the company had 12,200 employees, $20.7 billion of assets and $19.6 billion of annualized revenues as of March 31, 2001. For the complete press release, click here...

The Oil Ministry said in statement that in the first year Iran would export 3 billion cubic meters (105 billion cubic feet) to its northwestern neighbor. In 2007, the amount will increase to 10 billion cubic meters (350 billion cubic feet) a year, IRNA reported.

"The export of Iranian natural gas to Turkey is the biggest and most important contract between Iran and Turkey," the ministry statement said. Turkey's state-run pipeline company, BOTAS, said Thursday it had completed the construction of a pipeline designed to import dlrs 20 billion worth of natural gas from Iran over 25 years.

Turkey's close ally, the United States, has strongly opposed the gas deal with Iran. But Turkey needs natural gas and sees Iran as a reliable source. Major Turkish cities such as Ankara sometimes suffer from severe shortages of gas during winter. For the complete press relase, click here...