Issue 6

Vol. 16

This edition of GEO ExPro Magazine focuses on Europe and Frontier Exploration, Modelling and Mapping, and Geochemistry.

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Columns

5 Editorial

6 Regional Update

8 Licensing Update

10 A Minute to Read

18 Hot Spot: Malaysia – Exciting Times Ahead

30 GEO Education: New Life to Old Maps

38 Reservoir Management: New Reservoir Modelling Workflow

48 Recent Advances in Technology: Arrhenius to CO2 Storage – Part V

52 GEO Chemistry: What is Chemostratigraphy?

70 Geology: Improving North Sea Understanding

80 Exploration Update

82 Q&A: Mapping the Future

84 FlowBack: Gas with a Difference

Features

14 Cover Story: Country Profile: Manx Gas for the Isle of Man

20 Seismic Foldout: New Insights and Play Models, North Viking Graben

26 GEO Tourism: Traversing the Southern Sierra Nevada

34 Exploration: All Eyes are on Denmark

42 Seismic Foldout: Caribbean Atlantic Margin Deep Imaging

56 History of Oil: A Pioneer in Petroleum Engineering

60 Giant Fields: Advances in Stratigraphic Trap Exploration

64 Seismic Foldout: Filling in the Blanks

72 GEO Profile: David Houseknecht – Solving the Alaska Puzzle

76 GEO Chemistry: The Origin of Shale Gases

Articles

New Reservoir Modelling Workflow

An innovative new modelling workflow for reservoir characterisation has been developed that is capable of producing an advanced 3D geomodel of any subsurface zone of interest and can identify potential Read More

First independent hydrocarbon discovery in Ghana

In November 2019 Springfield Exploration and Production Limited are reported to have made two hydrocarbon discoveries totalling over 1.2 Bb of oil in offshore deepwater Ghana. In November 2019 Springfield Read More

Mauritania: Year’s largest gas find

The largest gas discovery of 2019 to date, which was made in the BP / Kosmos operated BirAllah area of offshore Mauritania, was announced in late October. The largest gas Read More

Energy Transition and the Community

Why doesn’t the oil industry just stop exploring for and pumping out oil? I recently had a very interesting and, to be honest, nerve-wracking experience, when I was asked to Read More

GEO ExPro Vol. 16, No. 6 Out Now!

Geoscience magazine GEO ExPro Vol. 16, No. 6 is available for download. This edition of GEO ExPro Magazine focuses on Europe and Frontier Exploration, Modelling and Mapping, and Geochemistry. The Read More

Wine Terroir and Petroleum Systems: Correlations and Contrasts

The quality of both wine and oil rely on a series of surrounding environmental factors that determine how distinctive and valuable the final organic product is. Two liquids. Possibly the Read More

Unlocking the underexplored petroleum systems of Alaska

In 1968, the state of Alaska made global headlines when the discovery of Prudhoe Bay confirmed that the frozen, once discounted North Slope was home to the largest oilfield in Read More

Renewing Oil and Gas Exploration in Denmark

Denmark has a rich exploration history with numerous hydrocarbon discoveries totalling over 100 MMboe in recoverable reserves. Recently reprocessed vintage 3D data provides the perfect platform to support any renewed Read More

New Life to Old Maps

Regional maps combining both vintage and modern interpretations are vital tools for both students and professionals. What Do We Need? Exploration geoscientists understand the need for regional comprehension to frame Read More

Exciting Times Ahead for Oil and Gas in Malaysia

Proven oil and gas reserves up for grabs in Malaysia’s next world-class acreage offering. Following on from a successful 2019 bid round, and carrying on the well organised and thorough Read More

Invest in Big Data

The business value to transform subsurface data into a digital format is tremendous, and well worth the investment. In a typical oil and gas digital transformation project, ten terabytes holds Read More

A New Era for Full Tensor Gravity Gradiometry

Full Tensor Gravity GradiometryTM (FTG) has entered a new era with multiclient acquisitions. Bell’s proposed Sri Lanka FTG survey. © Bell Geospace. Full Tensor Gravity GradiometryTM (FTG) has entered a Read More

Mapping the future

Why are you fascinated by maps? Francis Cram studied at the universities of Bristol and Manchester before embarking on a career as a petroleum geologist, working on international projects in Read More

Recent Advances in Climate Change Research: Part IV – Challenges and Practical Issues of Carbon Capture & Storage

“If you really could take the CO2, when you burn hydrocarbons – coal, for example – if you could really capture the carbon and sequester it – they call it Read More

Recent Advances in Climate Change Research: Part V – Underground Storage of Carbon Dioxide

By building on knowledge from the petroleum industry and experience of over 23 years of storing CO₂ in deep geological formations, we can make a new value chain and a Read More

Manx gas for the Isle of Man

In line with the UK and Ireland, the Isle of Man, a self-governing British Crown dependency lying in the Irish Sea, has committed to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. Read More

Advances in Stratigraphic Trap Exploration

Analysis of the AAPG giant fields database reveals that there has been a step change in volumes of oil attributed to non-structural traps in the last 20 years. Why is Read More

Norway: new play models for Patch Bank Ridge, East of Utsira High

New Insights into Norwegian North Sea A new regional broadband dataset allows the evaluation of Patch Bank Ridge play elements The application of recent advances in seismic acquisition and Read More

Lifetime Contribution Award

Africa Oil Week this year introduced the Adrian Bligh Memorial Award to give recognition to someone who has made a ‘Lifetime Contribution to Africa’. Pictured, left to right: Paul Sinclair, Read More

Overcoming Seismic Imaging Challenges in Highly Congested Areas

Combining streamer and node technology to provide high resolution seismic in congested areas with a fast turnaround. This year, Polarcus was challenged by Dubai Petroleum to provide a high-resolution, fast-turnaround, Read More

Wildcat Exploration: Unlocking the Frontier

The upstream industry has been reluctant to invest in exploration recently, especially in wildcat wells, yet from 2013-2019, north-west Europe has seen some success through wildcat exploration. Recently, the upstream Read More

First Offshore Licensing Round for Senegal

Senegal has been propelled to the forefront of industry news in recent years after several major oil and gas discoveries in its offshore waters. Senegal has been propelled to the Read More

Sir Thomas Boverton Redwood: A Pioneer in Petroleum Engineering

Sir Thomas Boverton Redwood, arguably the father of petroleum engineering in Britain and a giant in the history of the petroleum industry, died 100 years ago in 1919. We take Read More

What is chemostratigraphy?

The rapid expansion of global oil and gas exploration from the early 1960s was accompanied by the expansion of the areas being examined by explorationists towards more challenging, often frontier, Read More

Giant gas field discovery in Iran

Reports that Orca is the largest gas find this year have a competing claim from Iran, where in mid-October the National Iranian Oil Company announced that it had discovered a Read More

Recent Advances in Climate Change Research: Part III – A Simple Greenhouse Model

What would the temperature of Earth be without the atmosphere? By using simple physical models for solar irradiation and the Stefan-Boltzmans law for blackbody radiation, we can estimate average temperatures Read More

Caribbean Atlantic Margin Deep Seismic Imaging

A new regional study of the South-Eastern Caribbean hydrocarbon exploration opportunities using deep seismic imaging. In March 2019 MCG completed acquisition of 16,433 km of long-offset high resolution 2D seismic Read More

The Origin of Shale Gases

The origin of shale gases has important implications on their ability to provide hydrocarbon reserves. As we all know, the discovery that gas formed and locked in shale source rocks Read More

Traversing the Southern Sierra Nevada

While wandering 240 km across California from Bakersfield to Death Valley, the geotourist can marvel at a range of superlative wonders, from the densest developed oil field to the deepest Read More

Improving Geological Understanding of the North Sea

Why do we need a regional stratigraphical framework for the North Sea? The UK-Norway North Sea is a mature basin both in terms of petroleum exploration, data availability and geological Read More

High-Res Characterisation of Unconventional Reservoirs

GEOLOG has developed an innovative workflow, integrating wellsite activity with laboratory work to define a comprehensive, high-resolution understanding of unconventional reservoir properties. © GEOLOG. Unconventional activities constantly require new technological Read More

The global energy sector from a subsurface perspective