We want our magazine to be a place people go to inform themselves of what is happening in the subsurface energy industry. Or, what is not happening…. We talked extensively to Marit Brommer, the CEO of the International Geothermal Association. She thinks that playtime is over, and geothermal should now scale up globally in the way it is doing in China. Here, the government has put out a clear mandate to use geothermal for heating purposes in large cities. Why does it not happen in more places? Read the interview!
For our cover story, we spoke to two world-renowned experts in the field of Direct Hydrocarbon indicators; Henry Pettingill and Rocky Roden. We went back to the basics of Amplitude Versus Offset, and also discussed the most important pitfalls when using the technique that has enabled de-risking of many of the worlds high-impact exploration wells.
Sometimes one needs to look beyond traditional data portals to find a great geological source of information. It happened to the team at CASP, who found a continuously cored section covering a large part of the Triassic in the Southern North Sea. This core proved to be essential for a study on the storage potential of Triassic reservoirs, as well as the sealing properties. A unique dataset that has been a game-changer for creating a better framework.
Producing a source rock and storing it in the subsurface; it’s a relatively new concept that has not had a lot of press, but it offers an attractive model of storing carbon in the subsurface permanently. We talked to Tim Baars from ReCoal, a Switzerland-based company that aims to scale up this technology fast.
And as always, our contributors shine their light on a wide variety of topics, from basin modelling to oil in basement, you will find it in this extensive issue.
FIRSTS
8 – Subsurface noise
10 – Energy matters – by Rodney Garrard
12 – Regional update – by Ian Cross
13 – Striking oil – Steadily, Saudi Arabia keeps finding more hydrocarbons
INSIGHTS
99 – A Geologist Ruins Everything – I talk of dreams – by Juan Cottier
100 – Reservoir models – Some snakes don’t bite
102 – HotSpot – Intense exploration and appraisal in the Norwegian Barents Sea – by NVentures
105 – Basin modelling – Basin modelling in the age of AI: A partnership, not a replacement – by David Rajmon
106 – Faults and fractures – Unlocking fractured basement reservoirs – by Molly Turko
108 – Nothing beats the field – Ripples and plane beds – by Ali Jaffri
110 – Vertical Geology – A lost Libyan core
COVER STORY
20 – How AVO has been and continues to be an essential tool in de-risking the world’s high-impact exploration wells
EXPLORATION OPPORTUNITIES
20 – Discover more in Møre, Norway – Viridien
38 – Geological understanding based on new data is required to unlock potential in the Vøring Basin – TGS
58 – Contourites: When everything going sideways saves the day – Searcher
76 – From data to discovery: Applying AI in offshore geoscience – Earth Science Analytics
FROM THE INDUSTRY
34 – The E&P industry of the future – S&P
50 – The greater Caribbean Basin synthesis: Exploring the bigger picture using modern reprocessed data – Geoex MCG
OIL & GAS
28 – And all the while, hydrocarbons are transitioning away from us
29 – Why traffic light play maps are useless
30 – This may be a reason why Woodside decided not to farm in to PEL 87 in Namibia
32 – Romania – will there finally be a new bid round?
32 – At the start of the next super-cycle or halfway to rock-bottom?
FEATURES
44 – Seismic data on the workbench
48 – Investing in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan – by Tako Koning
53 – How a recently acquired mining core became a new reference section for the Triassic of the North Sea
56 – Crafting a software that is ready for the future
PORTRAITS
64 – Playtime is over – Marit Brommer
GEOTHERMAL ENERGY
70 – Shaving off costs for geothermal exploration and production
72 – Extract and re-inject water, from the same well
73 – The “nugget effect” in geothermal exploration
74 – An exciting drilling campaign in exciting geology
75 – Building a reservoir model for a geothermal field
SUBSURFACE STORAGE
82 – Understanding CO2 flow at Sleipner using stratigraphic continuity – by Basil Onyekayahweh Nwafor and John Castagna, University of Houston, Robert Van Eykenhof and Marianne Rauch Lumina Geophysical
83 – Keeping geoscientists busy
84 – Creating a source rock and storing it for good
DEEP SEA MINERALS
86 – A pragmatic approach to seabed mining – by Ronny Setså
87 – TMC’s bold move – by Ronny Setså
88 – Despite putting the brakes on seabed mineral licensing, the Norwegian government continues to spend ever-increasing amounts on seabed mapping – by Ronny Setså
NEW GAS
90 – If there was a hydrogen market, geological storage would not be the bottleneck – by Mariël Reitsma
91 – A helium reservoir in fractured basement – by Mariël Reitsma
92 – HyTerra hits hydrogen – but will it be like a soda going flat? – by Mariël Reitsma
TECHNOLOGY
94 – Why the pandemic might have left bp drilling a dry well in Canada
95 – Thinking like a geologist in the age of AI – by Dan Austin
96 – How advanced seismic inversion and a sound depositional model led to the successful appraisal of an initially uneconomic discovery
