Issue 6

Vol. 10

This edition of GEO ExPro Magazine focuses on North West Europe and New Technologies

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Columns

5 Editorial

6 Update

12 Licensing Opportunities

14 Market Update

16 A Minute to Read

30 Recent Advances in Technology: Towards a Ghost-Free Solution

42 GEO ExPro Profile: Derek Fairhead – Mapping Out a Career

54 Giant Fields: Wytch Farm Ploughs Ahead

80 GEO Tourism: The Salt Mountain, Romania

86 History of Oil: Unlocking the Earth

92 GEO Cities: Aberdeen – The Granite City

94 Exploration Update

96 GEO Media: Wegener’s Jigsaw

98 Q&A

100 Hot Spot: Cooper Basin, Australia

102 Global Resource Management

Features

20 Cover story: Norway – Small is Also Beautiful

26 Technology: Solutions for Monitoring Gas

36 Seismic Foldout: Croatia: A New Oil Province

46 Exploration: Oil and Gas Potential of Greece

50 Technology: Pressure Prediction in Exhumed Basins

58 Exploration: Exploration Trends on the UKCS

62 Technology: Using Gravity for Enhanced Recovery

66 Reservoir Management: Applying Analogues for Success

70 Technology: The Digital Oilfield

74 Seismic Foldout: Sub-Salt Plays, Ultra-Deep Water Kwanza Basin

Articles

Broadband Seismic Technology and Beyond PART VI: Towards a Ghost-Free Solution

PGS launched the ‘ghost-free’ GeoStreamer GeoSource solution in 2011: a time- and depth-distributed source using sub-sources operated at specific depths and time delays, attacking the source-ghost effect in seismic data. Read More

Oil in Demand

Despite the accepted need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, oil production is set to increase for the next 30 years, according to the US EIA . Worldwide consumption of petroleum Read More

Mapping Out a Career

For almost 50 years, Derek Fairhead, founder and President of Getech, has studied the earth’s gravity and magnetic data. Now, close to retirement from the rapidly expanding AIM-listed company he Read More

Angola, Kwanza Basin: Sub-salt plays of the ultra-deep water

Exploring further and Deeper Acquisition of marine seismic data using CGG’s broadband solution, BroadSeis™, has greatly improved the imaging and interpretation of subsurface oil and gas reservoirs. Pre-salt reservoir targets Read More

Licence Opportunities That Could Shape 2014.

Egypt According to an official source from the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC), the company will invite the first tender for tight oil exploration in the country early in 2014. Read More

Into His Mind: Wegener’s Jigsaw

Author Clare Dudman uses diaries, letters and published papers to create a novel that takes the reader into the thoughts and life of the revolutionary German scientist, Alfred Wegener. Dr. Read More

A Fresh Look at the Oil and Gas Potential of Greece

With a working petroleum system in place, proven by the Katakolon discovery and a number of oil shows, seeps and gas leaks, Western Greece is ready to be explored. Greece Read More

Wytch Farm Ploughs Ahead

Celebrated as the largest onshore oilfield in Western Europe (~500 MM bo), the Wytch Farm field in Dorset, southern England, is an iconic field to the thousands of geoscientists and Read More

Unlocking the Earth – A Short History of Hydraulic Fracturing

The recent shale gas boom is a reminder that the effective use of hydraulic fracturing in shale formations is a relatively new phenomenon. However, this ‘fracking’ (also called ‘fracing’ or Read More

Small is also beautiful

While one giant and several major discoveries have stolen the media headlines, the future bread and butter for the Norwegian continental shelf will to a large extent be the discovery Read More

Pressure Prediction in Exhumed Basins

Predicting pressure in basins that are exhumed or contain rich source rocks is difficult. We look at a case study from the Barents Sea region. The dominance of gas over Read More

Solutions for Monitoring Gas

In the face of widespread fears in the public about potential pollution as a result of fracking, we take a look at standards and best practices for environmental monitoring of Read More

Exploration Trends on the UKCS

With most of the ‘easy’ oil discovered, where are companies looking to find oil and gas reserves in the mature UK continental shelf? Forty-eight years (and over 3,000 exploration wells) Read More

Just How Good Are We at the Digital Oilfield?

We live in an age where phrases like ‘Integrated Operations’ and ‘Digital Oilfield’ have become part of our everyday parlance. But what do they really mean? Do these phrases mean Read More

If Iran Strikes a Deal…?

After years of frustration and stalemate in the negotiations on Iran’s nuclear programme between Iran and the six world powers (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Read More

Imperial College Petroleum Geology Course Centenary

Petroleum Geoscience has been taught at Imperial College in London for 100 years. Professor Richard Selley, who has spent much of his career at IC, tells us about the course Read More

Australia’s New Oil Heavyweight

Australia has a surprising new heavyweight in oil production – the western flank of the Cooper-Eromanga Basin. il production from this arid and remote region 800 km north of Adelaide Read More

A Minute to Read

Paradise Arrives Geophysical Insights, the Houston-based geosciences company, chose SEG 2013 in September to announce the commercial launch of Paradise™, a geosciences analytic software platform. Paradise executes and manages workflows based Read More

The global energy sector from a subsurface perspective