Energy sobriety – a moment of clarity in a “dry January”
As we enter a new year it’s always important to ponder what we have learned from the previous year. I discovered that most people think that energy is simple and…
In the News
Subsurface noise, Issue 6, 2024
PREVENTING BLOWOUTS IN GEOTHERMAL WELLS It is not only only oil and gas wells that can experience blowouts. The same can happen when targeting hot water or steam, as a…
Looking into the 2025 subsurface crystal ball
But first, what was the talk of the town in 2024? Namibia stole many of the headlines, as it continues to do today and will probably continue to be doing…
Jevons paradox
The environmental ideology driving the statement, “the sooner hydrocarbons or fossil fuels are gone, the better for the world”, is misguided and misses the fact that to create a positive…
A personal Petex
When I attended Petex for the first time, it must have been around 2010, I took it all for granted: the big booths, the enormous exhibition floor, the large number…
Let’s not play Russian roulette with our energy system
I am not a pessimist, and I don’t like using terms like “energy crisis”, but if we do not start to take our energy system seriously, many industries will leave…
The exploration legacy of Bernard Looney
In a speech delivered to people at Stanford University in March 2002, then bp chief executive Lord John Browne declared that his company needed to reinvent the energy business. “We…
AOW moving out of Cape Town is the talk of the town
It is the first time for me to attend the Africa Oil Week Conference in Cape Town. And it will also be my last. For the time being at least.…
The little big number
“Levelized cost of energy” (LCOE) measures an energy source’s lifetime costs divided by energy output and is a metric often used for comparing the competitiveness of different energy forms to…
What it takes to organize a conference
“As a geoscientist, it is very rewarding and useful to help shape a conference like IMAGE”, says Daniel Sutton when we catch up at the fringe of the exhibition floor.…
A 100% success rate
A little bit of humour is a very effective way to dress up a conversation, and VP Exploration at Petronas Mohd Redhani did just that during today’s opening session at…
The Belgians are coming
Belgium has not been particularly lucky when the North Sea was divided up into sectors belonging to the nations surrounding its coast. No oil or gas has ever been found…