A big new discovery or a confirmation of what was already known
The Chinese are quite good at issuing press releases at interesting moments, and the one announcing the discovery of 100 M t (around 720 MMbbl) of oil in the Bohai…
Oil & Gas
A key testing ground for exploration strategies
The Atlantic Margin is one of the most consistently successful exploration provinces globally, delivering material discoveries across multiple basins and exploration cycles. Since 2010, more than 70 Bnboe has been…
An impression of the state of the industry in Russia
Following the onset of the war in Ukraine, news about the E&P business in Russia seems to have become even more scarce than it already was. For this article, I…
The Black Sea is back
The region took a huge leap forward in 2020 when the Turkish state energy company Türkiye Petrolleri Anonim Ortaklığı (TPAO) announced the giant Tuna-1 gas discovery in the western basin…
KOC continues its exploration success in what could be described as a syncline
A bit more than a year ago, KOC announced the discovery of oil and gas in the Al-Nokhatha structure offshore Kuwait. Based on regional data and the location of the…
Renaissance ramps up exploration activity in Nigeria
“To meet the economic demands of the Nation and mandates given by the Federal Government, we need to increase production,” says Johnbosco Uche, “that is one of our main targets…
An unconventional unconventional gas project
When I visited the MEOS GEO Conference in Bahrain last in 2025 and spoke to some people about projects currently ongoing in the region, it slowly dawned on me that…
Karabash – West Siberia’s new frontier?
The region of Karabash sits in the southern part of Khanty-Mansiysk and Tyumen. Historically, oil and gas developments have been more limited in this part of West Siberia, as the…
When perforating below the Free Water level makes sense
“It may be the last oil field development in the Dutch sector,” upstream analyst Bert Manders told me the other day. The IJssel field development in the northern part of…
US Permian Basin – the largest injection experiment
If you look at the volume of water versus hydrocarbons produced from the Permian Basin per day, the basin would surely qualify as being predominantly a water production exercise: 20…
One block, one basin
The Thailand Department of Mineral Fuels has just announced a licence round in the Mergui Basin, Andaman Sea. Interestingly, they have decided to license the area as a single massive…
Understanding the “Minimum Economic Field Size” concept and aggregating targets
Applying a “Minimum Economic Field Size” (MEFS) to your prospect assessment is a key process in quantifying the probability of finding hydrocarbon accumulations of a volume large enough to develop…