What are we risking and why is it important?
Risk is about the chance of finding producible hydrocarbons; uncertainty is about the volume of hydrocarbons that may be found in the case of success. The geological Probability of Success…
Geology & Geophysics
Your fault stability analysis might be lying to you
The Mohr space represents stress states and, combined with fault strength criteria, is used to assess fault stability. It is simple, elegant, and widely accepted. It is also, when applied…
Tectonics or soft-sediment deformation?
Soft-sediment deformation (SSD) refers to structures that form during or shortly after deposition, while sediments remain unlithified, water-saturated, and mechanically weak. These features develop prior to significant compaction and cementation,…
You may not be thinking about politics…
I lived here for many years. Worked hard. Played harder. Drink and jazz and mountains and surfing and brass-banding and drink. Foundational geoscience and drilling. I made the best friends…
Not too many, not too few
The Shewashan oil field is located in one of the world’s most famous petroleum provinces – the Zagros fold and thrust belt – not far from the major Kirkuk field.…
Greenland’s unconformity
This fantastic example of an unconformity, where steeply dipping Devonian strata meet Permian sediments, is exposed on the north side of Wegener Halvø in East Greenland (71° 44 ‘ north).…
How to generate an oil accumulation in a gas-prone petroleum system?
Australia’s NW Shelf is characterised by a gas-dominated petroleum system, where Middle Jurassic deltaic coals of the Plover Formation make up the main source rocks. That is why oil occurrences…
Recognising structural inversion
In structural geology, inversion describes a situation where a fault or structure is reactivated with the opposite sense of movement from its original displacement. The most common type is positive…
When the lithium cycle bites back
Commodity cycles rarely announce their turning points. They emerge quietly, through inventory data, project pipelines, and subtle shifts in physical markets – long before consensus catches up. The lithium price…
Geomechanical models – not a luxury but a risk management tool
After over a hundred years of research and development, geomechanics modeling is not just a nice-to-have accessory in a drilling campaign, but it is one of the main pillars to…
Love and sex and oil and passion
We also never forget those true loves. We carry them for life. My first time and first love was Beatrice. I consider myself very lucky. I was young, and she…
Looking for a low-risk infill well? You might want to consider areas of weak 4D response
When porosities and fluid contrasts are modest, the acoustic impedance (AI) changes associated with water sweeping oil can be small, even at relatively shallow depths. That is the case in…