Issue 6

Vol. 12

This edition of GEO ExPro focuses on North-West Europe, the Middle East and Mature Fields.

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Columns

5 Editorial

6 Market Update

8 Regional Update

10 Update

14 A Minute to Read

18 Licensing Opportunities

30 Recent Advances in Technology: Supercomputing for Beginners II

38 GEO Profile: Mahmoud Abdulbaqi – Dedicated to the Industry

48 History of Oil: The Petroleum Gulf

78 GEO Tourism: The Ross Sea, Antarctica

82 GEO Education: Back to Source Rocks

86 Exploration Update

88 GEO Media: An Education in Oil

90 Hot Spot: Texas

92 Global Resource Management

Features

20 Seismic Foldout: Croatia’s 2016 Licence Round

26 Cover Story: Iraqi Kurdistan – It’s All in the Timing

34 Geology: Black and Blue

42 Seismic Foldout: The East Shetland Platform

54 Exploration: The Triassic Margin Play

60 Reservoir Management: Avoiding Reservoir Souring

64 Seismic Foldout: UK Continental Shelf

70 Exploration: Lebanon – The New Levantine Exploration Opportunity

74 Mature Fields: Teamwork at Rangely

Articles

UK Continental Shelf: Raising the Bar for Regional 3D Seismic in the Central North Sea

Well known for its challenging seismic imaging, the Central North Sea still harbours a wide range of exploration opportunities. High-quality and well-positioned seismic data are key requirements of the decision-making Read More

The East Shetland Platform – A Clearer Image: Unlocking the Platform Potential

With significant advancements in seismic acquisition technology, it is time to re-visit the East Shetland Platform. PGS dual-sensor broadband GeoStreamer® data has revealed significant Palaeozoic to Eocene potential on the East Read More

Croatia’s 2016 Licence Round. A second bite at the Big Apple.

Integration of seismic, well and potential field data has led to a better understanding of the petroleum system of the Adriatic Basin. Croatia’s first licence round ran through 2014 with Read More

Devastating Results

With few discoveries of note in 2015, we continue to use more hydrocarbons than we find. 2015 was a big disappointment for explorationists. Only two decent discoveries and, even worse, exploration Read More

Lebanon. The New Levantine Exploration Opportunity.

Lebanon lies at the centre of known regional hydrocarbon systems, but it is poorly explored and understood, possibly due to topographic challenges to terrestrial geophysical acquisition. A recently acquired suite Read More

The Petroleum Gulf

Oil Discoveries off the Arabian Shore In that gulf, there was no continental shelf; its waters were not very deep and nowhere exceeded 75 fathoms. The geologists had ascertained that Read More

Teamwork at Rangely

Colorado’s Rangely oil field, with over 900 MMb of oil produced, has been viable and economic for more than seven decades thanks to an innovative and flexible approach. One of Read More

An Overlooked Petroleum System

Is it possible to generate hydrocarbons over the oceanic crust? In petroleum exploration, the concept of hydrocarbon generation on the continental crust is completely accepted. However, modelling exercises demonstrate that, Read More

Supercomputers for Beginners – Part II

Energy companies need ever larger computers. This article is the second of three articles giving an introduction to supercomputers . Here, we look at the design of parallel software. Beta: Read More

Markets Behaving Differently

The Middle East – one of the most stable E&P markets The Middle East is the largest producing area within the E&P industry, with a total production of around 41 MMboepd Read More

Back to Source Rocks: Part I

The science and analytical techniques to investigate petroleum source rocks have been developed over the past four decades. Understanding the geology and geochemistry of source rocks is crucial to petroleum Read More

The Triassic Margin Play

The Triassic margin is a significant but underexplored frontier play in the Levant region, particularly in Jordan. The Levant covers a large onshore area in the East Mediterranean region including Read More

The Ross Sea, Antarctica

Remoteness and extreme weather, coupled with increasing environmental concerns, mean that only about 200 visitors reach the Ross Sea each year – but once there they are rewarded with spectacular Read More

Avoiding Reservoir Souring

Determining the source of hydrogen sulphide on an offshore oil production platform is an important part of preventing or controlling this unwanted gas. Hydrogen sulphide (H2S) is a corrosive and Read More

Oil Production Surges in Texas

In spite of the recent decline in oil price, rig count, drilling permits and well completions, with an estimated 1.284 Bb of production in 2015, Texas is expected to break Read More

Iraqi Kurdistan: It’s All in the Timing

The Zagros fold and thrust belt of Iraqi Kurdistan is a prolific petroleum province with several large-scale producing oil and gas fields. The region is under active exploration and hence Read More

The Lifeblood of the Industry

There is a lot of depressing news out there. Shell, Marathon, Anadarko, Husky Energy, Chesapeake… just a few of the O&G companies which posted poor third quarter results. Virtually every day an exploration or service company announces layoffs, and Read More

The global energy sector from a subsurface perspective