Vol. 21

Issue 2

The second issue of this year is a special one yet again, because we publish our first offshore wind foldout! SolidGround from Denmark and GeoSurveys from Portugal tell the story of their approach to map the subsurface of the area in the North Sea where the Danish government has planned an extensive wind development. In addition, we feature a story on global gas exploration, in which we try to answer the question whether there is a global gas shortage or not. Graeme Bagley and Joe Killen from Westwood Energy Global shed an interesting light on this. And whilst we’re at it, Marcos Asensio did a new sketch for the magazine in which he illustrates a new depositional model for the Vaca Muerta shale gas reservoirs! Enjoy your read and enjoy the illustrations!

Columns

FIRSTS

5 – Minute to Read
11 – The globalization of gas – by Dr Carole Nakhle
12 – Regional Update – by Iain Cross
14 – Striking oil

INSIGHTS

90 – Permeability multipliers: allies or foes? – by Raffik Lazar
92 – HotSpot – Activity and opportunities abound across the Africa region- by Peter Elliott
94 – Should you rely on geothermal gradients? – by David Rajmon
95 – Riedel shears, my favorite kinematic indicator – by Molly Turko
96 – Nothing beats the field – A geomechanics approach for natural fracture prediction
84 – Vertical geology – by Marcos Asensio

Features

COVER STORY

16 – The state of global gas exploration

NORTH WEST EUROPE

30 – Are National Oil Companies the answer to addressing security of supply concerns across the North Sea?31 – “ We should have looked at that regional seismic line with more care before signing off on a plan for drilling”
33 – For Vår Energi, the future lies in the north
34 – Making a case for domestic oil and gas production

CONTENT MARKETING

22 – Supporting the search for large scale carbon storage sites
52 – Namibia’s Orange Basin and the holey slope mystery
74 – The Danish Energy Island

FEATURES

36 – The genesis of natural hydrogen exploration
41 – Helium – the birth of a new exploration industry
43 – CNOOC makes largest offshore hydrocarbon discovery in special rock formation. What is that about?
45 – Is the Colombian Basin on its way to become the next big frontier?
47 – In the heart of the global economy
48 – Hydrocarbon shows don’t necessarily mean a significant find
49 – The sequel: The hunt for Buzzard II continues

PORTRAITS

58 – Four decades of rocks – Amanda Barlow

GEOTHERMAL ENERGY

64 – How to explain the low energy output of one of the UK’s flagship geothermal projects?
65 – Shallow geothermal drilling is not without risk
67 – And the winner is…
68 – Brushing up on your geothermal vocabulary

SUBSURFACE STORAGE

70 – Producing shale gas through the injection of CO2
71 – The race for pressure space
72 – Hydrogen storage in a depleted gas reservoir – how easy is that?

TECHNOLOGY

80 – Can map tools find relevant documents?
81 – Answering the 3-billion fossil question
82 – “In this case, we’d rather find the smallest prospect”

DEEP SEA MINERALS

84 – Drilling on the seabed
85 – An accidental discovery of a large mineral deposit
86 – Mineral resource estimates for Nordic waters expose a rift between major Norwegian institutions

Articles

Drilling on the seabed

The deep sea is pitch dark, but the two ROVs provide plenty of “working light” for the drilling machine that is standing on the seabed in the hilly, inhospitable terrain Read More

Much more than an oil country

With 202 Tcf, Venezuela accounts for 73 % of South America’s total natural gas resources, but gas production has been minimal in localized domestic markets due to limited existing infrastructure Read More

Four decades of rocks

“From when I was in primary school, I wanted to become a geologist”, says Amanda Barlow when I speak to her whilst she sits in her kitchen on the Gold Read More

The Danish Energy Island

Bridging the gap between seismic acquisition and geotechnical parameterisation How a Portuguese and Danish consortium took on the challenge to map and characterise the shallow and deep subsurface for the Read More

Answering the 3-billion fossil question

The Norwegian Offshore Directorate (NOD) is undertaking a massive and innovative project to digitalize their comprehensive archive of palynology slides, thereby propelling the field of biostratigraphy into the digital age. Read More

How to explain these rates?

The Jurassic Vaca Muerta unit is a treasure trove with an estimated potential of 308 TCF of gas and 16.2 billion barrels of oil. While there are various types of Read More

The globalization of gas

In 2022, Europe witnessed an energy crisis like no other in modern times. Natural gas prices soared, hitting a historic high of more than €330 per MWh in August 2022. Read More