Issue 2

Vol. 18

This issue of GEO ExPro focuses on North America; New Technologies; the Future for Geoscientists

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Columns

5 Editorial

6 Regional Update: The Third Growth Phase of the Haynesville Play

8 Licencing Update: PETRONAS Launches Malaysia Bid Round, 2021

10 A Minute to Read

26 Energy Transition: Critical Minerals from Petroleum Fields

30 GEO Tourism: Big Bend Country

36 Hot Spot: North America

48 Exploration: Behind the Hybrid Curtain

60 Recent Advances in Technology: From Arrhenius to CO₂ Storage – Part XII

70 GEO Profile: Volcanoes to Venture Capitalists

74 GEO Physics: Know Before you Go!

78 Exploration Update

80 GEO Media: Breakthroughs in Geology

82 Q&A: Iman Hill: Championing Secure Energy Supply

84 FlowBack: ESG and Those Burning Issues

Features

14 Cover Story: Gas Flaring

20 Seismic Foldout: The Greater Orphan Basin

34 Energy Transition Update: Increasing Energy While Decreasing Carbon

38 GEO Education: Geoscientists for the Energy Transition

42 Seismic Foldout: Ultra-Long Offsets Signal a Bright Future for OBN

52 GEO Physics: Nimble Nodes

56 Exploration: Alaska Anxiously Awaits its Fate

64 Seismic Foldout: Revealing the Intra-Zechstein Prospectivity on the UK Mid North Sea High

Articles

Increasing Energy While Decreasing Carbon

Supermajors are moving from IOCs to IECs but in different ways across the Atlantic. The ‘supermajor’ oil and gas companies are changing; in different ways and at different speeds, they Read More

ESG and Those Burning Issues

For an O&G sector piloting transition, the issue of how an organization manages environmental, social and governance (ESG) seems to be more important than ever. What does ESG look like Read More

Tiny seismic nodes making high density land seismic accessible to all industries. Seismic acquisition has seldom seen such challenging times, especially onshore, where we are seeing tighter budgets and tougher Read More

Big Bend Country

Join us for a geological tour of Big Bend National Park, Texas. West Texas! Land of longhorn cattle, mesquite, and fiercely independent ranchers. It’s also the location of an out-of-the-way Read More

US Energy Refocus?

President Biden’s new administration has a very different view of climate change from the Trump Government. Early indicators are that there will be a significant focus on renewables. The UN Read More

GEO ExPro Vol. 18, No. 3 Out Now!

Geoscience magazine GEO ExPro Vol. 18, No. 3 is now available for download. This issue of GEO ExPro focuses on Europe; Robotics and Automation; Unconventional Resources and the Energy Transition. Read More

Championing Secure Energy Supply

Iman Hill, the new Executive Director of the International Association of Oil & Gas Producers (IOGP) talks to GEO ExPro Editor in Chief, Iain Brown, about her new leadership role Read More

The Greater Orphan Basin: unraveling Newfoundland’s emerging energy plays

Open running room in an emerging basin Three divergent plate tectonic systems control the offshore Grand Banks shelf platform. To the south, the Newfoundland–Gibraltar fracture zone limits the Triassic to Read More

Hydrocarbon Hot Spot: North America

Last year, the North American E&P community saw a symbolic negative oil price blink, rig counts and production rates plummeting, a new US administration slapping moratoriums on federal land and Read More

Geoscientists for the Energy Transition

The importance of geoscience research and training and how it will help us to decarbonize. The industrial revolution was initially fueled by coal and the subsequent development of modern society Read More

Critical Minerals From Sedimentary Basins

Exploration for critical minerals in sedimentary rocks and basins is rapidly growing in the US as the country seeks to decrease its dependency on China, which has been the dominant Read More

Vietnam: Drilling Campaign in the Song Hong Basin

Eni appraise gas and condensate at Ken Bau in their 2021 drilling campaign in Block 114 of the offshore Song Hong Basin, Vietnam. Map showing location of Eni’s Block 114 Read More

GEO ExPro Vol. 18, No. 2 Available for Download

Geoscience magazine GEO ExPro Vol. 18, No. 2 is now available for download. This issue of GEO ExPro focuses on North America; New Technologies; the Future for Geoscientists. The latest Read More

Are Friends Electric?

Automation is an area of rapid development in many industries, and it is becoming increasingly popular in the exploration and exploitation of resources and the broader geosciences. Upstream exploration requires Read More

Alaska Anxiously Awaits its Verdict on its Oil and Gas Future

Largely dependent on the oil and gas industry, the state awaits a new administration’s decision on drilling on federal land. On the North Slope’s National Petroleum Reserve – Alaska, or Read More

Ultra-long offsets signal a bright future for OBN

Gulf of Mexico, a proving ground for OBN technology Survey sesign and capture It has been well understood for decades that Full Waveform Inversion (FWI) techniques can recover velocity information Read More

Hybrid Sedimentary Systems in Hydrocarbon Exploration

The rise of mixed turbidite–contourite hybrid sedimentary systems in hydrocarbon exploration. Hybrid sedimentary systems develop where drift or coast parallel bottom currents interact with turbiditic or gravity-driven flow. There will Read More

Suriname: Offshore Cretaceous Trend Falters

Tullow’s Block 47 GVN-1 has reached TD at 5,060m, encountering good quality reservoir but only minor oil shows. Map showing location of the GVN-1 well in Tullow’s Block 47, offshore Read More

Breakthroughs in Geology

In his new book, Breakthroughs in Geology, Graham Park, Emeritus Professor of Tectonic Geology at the University of Keele, UK, describes the ideas that he believes have transformed earth science. Read More

PETRONAS Launches Malaysia Bid Round, 2021

At, a virtual event held on 26 February 2021, with over 250 potential and existing investors, PETRONAS successfully launched the annual Malaysia Bid Round (MBR) 2021, with a total of Read More

Ray-Based Seismic Modeling

Ray-based seismic modeling has come a long way and the motivation for this is simple enough: performing a modeling study is significantly cheaper than failing in the field! Field managers Read More

Gas Flaring

Gas flaring is a significant source of economic and environmental waste, but it is also a quick win decarbonization lever! Gas flaring, the deliberate combustion of natural gas at oil Read More

Oman: Offshore Shows More Hydrocarbon Potential

Masirah Oil Ltd, an 86.37% owned subsidiary of Rex International Holding Ltd, has had exciting results from its three well campaign on the Yumna Field, Block 50, offshore Oman. However Read More

The Third Growth Phase of the Haynesville Shale Play

Structural cost efficiencies help extend the Haynesville’s core. The Third Growth Phase of the Haynesville Shale Play The Haynesville Shale’s small ‘consortium’ of dedicated operators has credited the optimization of Read More

The global energy sector from a subsurface perspective