Oil & Gas

Contrasting fortunes in Sub Saharan Africa

Exploration is firmly back on the agenda for many oil and gas companies, regulators and NOCs. This is especially clear in Africa, where large tracts of open exploration acreage have been taken up. This is particularly the case in West…

The Faroese offshore is back on the exploration radar

After years of quiet, a bit of exciting news emerged from the Faroe Islands this week: Atlantic Petroleum, through a new company that is currently being set up, applied for an exploration licence in the Faroese offshore sector. The timing…

Chasing mud mounds

Core displays are one of my favourite features of geoscience conferences, and the one at the latest GeoConvention in Calgary in May again proved why. There, I met with Alisha Fridrich, who was already deeply engaged in a conversation about…

The next test for US shale capital

On 4 May, Gas y Petróleo del Neuquén (GyP) and Governor Rolando Figueroa launched Round 1/2026 at the OTC in Houston, opening 15 hydrocarbon blocks to national and international bidders. The round was formally enacted on 29 May through its…

Finding oil when everyone expects gas

“It took us a while before we could accept that we found oil,” says chairman Peter Putnam when we get to talk about the discovery his company Central European Petroleum (CEP) made in 2025. And there is a reason why…

Why USGS Yet-to-Find figures are an overestimation

One of the most common ways to estimate YTF is the extrapolation of discovery rates, as can be calculated from a creaming curve. However, this methodology does not have any guidance on discovery size – is it just a single…

Harmonising public data with ground truth

Public production data is the backbone of natural gas market analysis, yet it arrives with a structural delay that few participants fully appreciate. Across 18 producing sub-regions, encompassing the Marcellus, Utica, Haynesville, Eagle Ford, and Permian basins, analysis reveals a…

Listen to the drill bit

“Our runs are getting shorter and shorter…” That’s what Harrie and Nick from Aurora Drilling Optimisation Services were told by the Shell team that was drilling a deep onshore exploration well in Libya about 15 years ago. They helped design…

Benchmark your geosteering skills

For geosteering geologists, few experiences can replicate the pressure of making critical decisions while a well is being drilled. The 2026 Geosteering World Cup (GWC’26) puts those skills to the test in a global, competitive environment and gives geologists a…

“Oh, look! Oil everywhere…”

What seems like an oil seep on a rock face, especially from a distance, can equally be the result of chemical weathering. When these types of rock coatings, which can be found across a wide range of settings, are misinterpreted…

An imperial testing facility

“It was a $37 M donation from Imperial Oil, the largest to an educational institution in Alberta’s history,” says Gerald Desrochers when we meet for the lab tour he invited me to on a Thursday morning in May. Just over…