Issue 5

Vol. 12

This edition of GEO ExPro magazine focuses on Africa, South America and Geophysics.

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Columns

5 Editorial

6 Market Update

8 Regional Update

10 Update

16 Licensing Opportunities

18 A Minute to Read

50 Recent Advances in Technology: Supercomputers for Beginners I

54 GEO Profile: Susan Cunningham – The Psychology of Exploration

98 GEO Cities: Vibrant, Exciting New Orleans

100 Exploration Update

102 GEO Media: Fracking – Nailing the Truth 104 Q&A: Geophysics

106 Hot Spot: Mauritania

108 Global Resource Management

Features

22 Cover Story GEO Tourism: Chile’s Ring of Fire

28 Exploration: Deepwater Tano Basin

32 Exploration: New Global Sediment Thickness Map

36 Seismic Foldout: Western Australia – A New Offshore Oil Province

42 Country Profile: Uruguay – Small Country, Big Opportunities

46 Industry Issues: Ghana – From African Star to IMF Bail-out

58 Seismic Foldout: Deepwater Kwanza Basin

64 Exploration: That’s Not a Very Prospective Basin…

68 GEO Physics: A Simple Guide to Seismic Detuning

74 Geology: Gas Blowouts in Northern Russia

80 Seismic Foldout: Exploration in the Transform Margin

86 Reservoir Management: Water Matters!

90 Industry Issues: Building Africa’s Future

94 Technology Explained: Cognitive Interpretation

Articles

Ivory Coast exploration in the transform margin

Offshore Ivory Coast: reducing exploration risk In 1996 PGS acquired a 1,600 sq.km 3D survey over blocks CI-104, 515, 115 and 116. This survey has now been through reprocessing using Read More

Building Africa’s Oil and Gas Future

Commercial and organisational reforms together with sound advice and networks are needed to move Africa forward in the present challenging environment. Africa’s continental oil and gas game flourished on long-term trend Read More

Ghana – from African Star to IMF Bail-out.

Despite the government’s protestations that oil revenues would be managed transparently, corruption, debt and economic mismanagement are now creating tension, as Ghana succumbs to the resource curse. In 2007 Kosmos Read More

Deepwater Kwanza Basin

Comparing the Brazilian and Angolan Conjugate Margin Comparisons with Brazilian analogues can help with pre-salt exploration in the Kwanza Basin. Brazilian pre-salt exploration success prompted enthusiasm for the conjugate Kwanza Read More

Uruguay. Small Country, Big Opportunities.

Uruguay welcomes you with new opportunities offshore. Uruguay is located in South America between Brazil and Argentina and on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean. It is the second-smallest nation Read More

Supercomputers for Beginners – Part I

Supercomputers analyse vast amounts of data, faster and more accurately. By 2020 they will be doing a quintillion calculations per second. This article provides a simple guide to supercomputers. ‘f Read More

Water Matters!

Water occurs virtually everywhere in oil and gas fields – yet it is often ignored. But the composition of today´s formation water is the result of multiple hydrogeochemical processes, and Read More

Gas Blowouts on the Yamal and Gydan Peninsulas

Last year a giant crater was discovered on the Yamal Peninsula south of the Kara Sea in the Russian Arctic, just 30 km south of the giant Bovanenkovo oil and Read More

Western Australia: North Carnarvon-Roebuck Basins

A New Oil Province Offshore the North West Shelf The Australian North West Shelf is comprised of four areas, namely the Carnarvon, Roebuck/Offshore Canning, Browse and Bonaparte Basins. These are filled with a thick Read More

Southern Chile’s Ring of Fire

Southern Chile is the setting for the dramatic snow-covered volcanoes of the Pacific Ring of Fire. This stunning volcanic range is the surface expression of the subduction of the Pacific Read More

A New Global Sediment Thickness Map of the World

Experts from Getech have been addressing the challenge of deriving a globally consistent depth-to-basement map and have devised an approach which accounts for the obstacles of variable data resolution and Read More

Bountiful Continents

Africa and South America together contributed ~20% of the world’s total oil production in 2013 but in the current industry downturn investment dollars may move away from ‘difficult’ countries to Read More

Just Like the Real Thing

3D printing offers a novel non-destructive method of petrophysical rock analysis. Understanding the petrophysics of a reservoir rock, defined as the study of the physical and chemical properties of rocks Read More

Geophysics: A Simple Guide to Seismic Amplitudes and Detuning

Seismic amplitude changes may tell us something about reservoir lithology, porosity, and/or fluids. However, seismic tuning effects are potentially much larger than amplitude variations due to geological changes. Understanding this Read More

Patience in the Time of Collaboration

Lessons from history. With apologies to Gabriel Garcia Marquez. ‘Wisdom comes to us when it can no longer do any good.’ Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera As I Read More

What Lies Beneath the Deepwater Tano Basin?

Hunting for Jubilee-like prospects in Côte d’Ivoire Boosted by recent discoveries, Côte d’Ivoire has seen renewed interest in its deepwater offshore basin over the last few years. Up until 2011, Read More

Cognitive Interpretation

Human vision and cognition have evolved over millions of years into an incredibly powerful system that enables us to actively seek the information we need to make sense of and Read More

Nailing the Truth

Shale Gas and Fracking: The Science Behind The Controversy Michael Stevenson. Elsevier, 2015 Published in 2015, this 150-page book is an up-to-date review of this new energy source from a Read More

Vibrant, Exciting New Orleans

Unique New Orleans, one of the oldest cities in the United States. Renowned for music, architecture, street parades and cuisine, the city also had its time in the oil industry Read More

Psychology of Exploration

Setting out to explore for hydrocarbons, Noble Energy’s Susan Cunningham found herself on a journey of self-exploration, which led to a host of discoveries beyond her wildest imagination. She has Read More

That’s Not a Very Prospective Basin…

Time was when industry interest in the MSGBC Basin was lukewarm to say the least: not any more. The recent world-class oil discoveries by Cairn-FAR-Conoco-Phillips offshore Senegal and by Kosmos Read More

The global energy sector from a subsurface perspective