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The global energy sector from a subsurface perspective

Vol. 22

Issue 5

Equatorial Guinea – that’s what this issue breathes. Three articles about one country in one issue of the magazine, that doesn’t happen often. And the best thing is, it was not planned that way. Yet, the articles complement each other very well. The Searcher team provides an excellent overview of the geodynamic setting and basin formation history of the offshore of Equatorial Guinea, the University of Houston contributors describe how temperature modelling shows that source rocks deposited on oceanic crust could have matured sufficiently to generate oil, and finally, the Meren team discusses the prospectivity of two of their offshore licences. A very well-rounded yet unexpected series of contributions.

Most geologists who want to explore want to do so in frontier and far-flung areas where no one has ever been looking at. And making a transformational discovery. Not so much for Tom Dreyer, who recently retired from Equinor. He has always preferred near-field exploration instead. And he turned out to be very good at it; under his leadership, Equinor had two very successful strings of discoveries in areas where major fields were already producing. It shows what can be achieved using diligent back-to-basics geology.

We also welcome a new series of contributions in this issue. Written by Lukasz Krawczynski and Martin Neumaier, these up-and-coming petroleum systems modellers will shed their lights on recent developments in better understanding hydrocarbon generation and trapping. Combined with all the other articles, 40+ in total, this issue is yet another one not to miss. 

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Columns

FIRSTS

8 – Subsurface noise

9 – Energy matters – by Rodney Garrard

10 – Regional update – by Ian Cross

11 – Striking oil – Bumerangue; what are the implications of drilling into one of the most structurally complex areas of the Santos Basin?

INSIGHTS

90 – A Geologist Ruins Everything – Pasties, piskies, pegmatites… and Pliny – by Juan Cottier

91 – Reservoir models – The human touch in reservoir modelling

92 – HotSpot – Wildcat activity in the Latin American Atlantic Margin – by NVentures

94 – Basin modelling – Porosity in compressional stress regimes – by David Rajmon

95 – Petroleum Systems – Hydrocarbon and seal properties are key – by Lukasz Krawczynski and Martin Neumaier

101 – Faults and fractures – Decoding slip with tension gashes – by Molly Turko

102 – Nothing beats the field – Sponge clasts in calciturbidites  – by Ali Jaffri and Henk Kombrink

104 – Vertical Geology – Dead oil traces in a lonely pebble bed

Features

COVER STORY

14 – Libya – exploration stories

EXPLORATION OPPORTUNITIES

20 – West African deepwater plays Tracking the Cretaceous mega-clastic systems – TGS

38 – Equatorial Guinea: Time to shine…again! – Searcher

56 – Mozambique: Revealing exploration potential of deepwater Zambezi Delta – Viridien

82 – Harnessing AI-driven analytics for subsurface insights in East Coast Peninsular Malaysia

96 – The New Gas Consortium: Angola’s first non-associated gas project

FROM THE INDUSTRY

44 – Leading the wave: Environmental impact assessment for offshore geophysical operations – Energeo Alliance

66 – The tech powering the future of geothermal energy – Seequent

OIL & GAS

26 – Unlocking Egypt’s Western Desert: The next Eagle Ford?

27 – Does oil really stop diagenesis?

28 – Finding the right needle in the haystack

29 – The shrinking pool of large international E&P companies – Carlos Bellorin and Ruaraidh Montgomery

30 – Why P10/P90 prospect ratios are meaningless without involving the geology

FEATURES

32 – Imaging prospective sedimentary strata offshore Equatorial Guinea – Lisa Fullarton, Nick Lee, Chris Johnston, Meren Energy and Alex Clark

36 – New modelling study reveals a petroleum system overlying oceanic crust offshore Equatorial Guinea – José Miguel Gorosabel-Araus, Paul Mann and Andrew Pepper

46 – The value of seismic attributes and the value of having your own business

PORTRAITS

50 – The master of near-field exploration, Tom Dreyer

GEOTHERMAL ENERGY

62 – Fracture connectivity and power laws

63 – Embracing uncertainty in geothermal exploration

64 – Critical look at Fervo Cape Station data raises questions over sustainability – Elliot Yearsley and Henk Kombrink

SUBSURFACE STORAGE

68 – New study on global CO2 storage capacity met with fierce criticism

69 – Using horizontal drilling technology to permanently store radioactive waste

70 – How a sandbox model caused an epiphany

DEEP SEA MINERALS

72 – The ambivalent position some European countries find themselves in when it comes to seabed mineral extraction – Ronny Setså

73 – World’s first deep-sea mineral reserves declared – Ronny Setså

74 – American company eyes seabed mineral opportunities in Norway – Ronny Setså

NEW GAS

76 – Sometimes an old well is better than a fancy new one – Mariël Reitsma

77 – A large natural hydrogen gas accumulation or an aqueous hydrogen seepage with localised gas pockets? – Arnout Everts

78 – Subsurface bio-stimulated hydrogen – Mariël Reitsma

TECHNOLOGY

80 – “FWI has changed the game”

81 – PETRONAS’s digital gambit: Architecting an AI-powered E&P ecosystem – Dan Austin

87 – Quantifying the hydrogen-generation potential of iron-bearing rocks

 

Articles

Subsurface noise #5

MOPANE DOES NOT GIVE AWAY ITS SECRETS Namibia is an exploration hotspot, and for that reason, many people flocked to the presentation that GALP was delivering about the Mopane discovery Read More

“FWI has changed the game”

“I’m a petroleum engineer, but I’ve been in the exploration and seis­mic business since the 1970s,” says Rafael when we meet on Teams a week before the IMAGE Conference in Read More

Subsurface bio-stimulated hydrogen

The quest for affordable, low-carbon hydrogen is far from over. While well-established techniques such as steam reforming and electrolysis exist, they come with significant drawbacks in terms of cost and Read More

Porosity in compressional stress regimes

Porosity prediction sits at the heart of basin models and pros­pect evaluation. It underpins our understanding of reservoir quality, pore pressure, and thermal his­tory. Traditionally, porosity has been modelled as Read More

Does oil really stop diagenesis?

It is all about timing. That is the main conclusion when reading a new paper recently published by Olav Walderhaug and Kristin Por­ten from Equinor. The paper is mostly about Read More

Sponge clasts in calciturbidites

At the recent IMAGE Conference in Houston, somebody told me that the Permian Basin in Texas is not only famous for its hydrocarbon resources, but also because the uplifted areas Read More

Libya – exploration stories

In his book “The prize”, Daniel Yergin describes how Libya’s entry on the global oil stage in the 1950s was spectacular and engineered wisely. Yergin quotes the Libyan pe­troleum minister: Read More

The human touch in reservoir modelling

As our 30-minute conversa­tion took place on a Tuesday morning in early September, three emails arrived in Bas­tian’s inbox. Three separate and unrelated enquiries from customers in Switzerland, Germany, and Read More

Decoding slip with tension gashes

Tenson gashes are fractures in rocks formed under ex­tensional stress, of­ten filled with minerals like quartz or calcite. These fea­tures are key kinematic indi­cators in structural geology, revealing fault slip Read More

The age of snake oil

Keir’s famous poster portrays petroleum as an effective remedy for every conceivable want, highlighting how any product may be marketed with absurd false promises. For hype to be a success­ful Read More