Issue 6

Vol. 9

This edition of GEO ExPro Magazine focuses on the Americas

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Columns

5 Editorial

6 Update

12 Market Update

14 A Minute to Read

30 Recent Advances in Technology: Gas Hydrates IV

54 GEO ExPro Profile: Intisaar Al Kindy – Thriving on Challenges

66 GEO Tourism: Back-Reef to Basin Depths – Guadalupe National Park, USA

72 GEO Education: Know Your Faults II

86 Exploration Update

88 Geomedia: Historical Oil Documentary Films

90 Hot Spot: Brazil’s Sub-Salt Discoveries

92 Q&A: Stimulating Exploration Growth

94 Global Resource Management

Features

18 Cover Story: Geology – The Miocene Monterey Formation

24 Exploration: Polar Pioneers

36 Seismic Foldout: Western Margin of UK Central Graben

42 Exploration: Heavy Oil from an Ancient Reef

48 Exploration: Tectonostratigraphy and Petroleum in the Zagros

58 Seismic Foldout: The North East Greenland Danmarkshavn Basin

64 Exploration: The Permian Basin – A Brief Overview

78 Technology: Making the Impossible, Possible

80 Exploration: The Power of the Portfolio

Articles

Stimulating Exploration Growth

How can oil companies be encouraged to continue exploring in a mature area like the UK Continental Shelf? John Austin, Managing Director of OMV in the UK and Chairman of Read More

Brazil’s Sub-Salt Discoveries Extend North

Recently announced deepwater, sub-salt discoveries in the Sergipe-Alagoas Basin extend that trend into Brazil’s north-eastern continental margin, over 2,000 km north of the Santos Basin discoveries. The smaller onshore portion Read More

Western margin of UK Central Graben

New and proven plays The recent successful Blakeney discovery in UK Q21 improves the potential for more successful discoveries on the West Central Shelf. As the recent 27th UK licensing Read More

Heavy Oil from an Ancient Reef

New data from the northern terminus of the Leduc reef trend in western Canada shows a karsted carbonate reservoir with exceptionally high porosities and permeabilities and, in places, bitumen-filled caves. Read More

Record Response to UK License Round

Towards the end of October 2012 the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) announced the winners of what was a record-breaking 27th Licensing Round and declared that UK Read More

Gas Hydrates Part IV: Where Are Gas Hydrates Found?

The need for energy is driving much of the current natural gas hydrate research. “While research on methane hydrates is still in the early stages, these research efforts… could potentially Read More

Know Your Faults! Part II

Part II: In the first part of this feature, we looked at the geometric representation and identification of faults. In this concluding article, we review the slip classification, stress orientations Read More

Exploration Update

Saudi Arabia: Red Sea Gas, Norway: More Barents Sea Gas, USA: Nevada ‘Game Changer’ Saudi Arabia: Red Sea Gas An offshore platform in the Karan gas field, a key discovery Read More

The Power of the Portfolio

Successful exploration begins, of course, with the talented geologists, geophysicists, and engineers who develop leads and prospects, secure funding, and then see their ideas tested. However, another important ingredient of Read More

The Permian Basin – A Brief Overview

The Permian Basin region is 400 km wide and 480 km long and has produced over 35 billion barrels of oil since 1921, currently accounting for 17% of total US Read More

Thriving on Challenges

Intisaar Al Kindy, the first Omani Exploration Director of Petroleum Development Oman (PDO) for forty years, drifted into geology almost by accident – but it proved to be a lucky Read More

What’s the Future for LNG in Australia?

Barely a year ago, Australia was predicted to become the biggest global producer of LNG – but things have changed. According to a study published by GBI Research, Australia’s offshore Read More

Historical Oil Documentary Films

A chronicle of historical documentary films on oil: your parents and grandparents may have watched these on their old TV sets, but you can now see them on YouTube! Although Read More

The North East Greenland Danmarkshavn Basin

The sky above, the ice floes, and the Earth below See GEO ExPro v9i6 for full size Seismic Line The main tectonic elements of the line shown here, Line 5150, Read More

Understanding the Zagros

The Zagros fold-thrustbelt is one of the oldest studied and exploited petroleum provinces of the world, yet for mostly political reasons it has not been fully developed and its exploration Read More

Back-Reef to Basin Depths

Situated adjacent to the very prolific Permian Basin is one of the earth’s greatest and most studied carbonate depositional systems, the Permian Reef Complex of New Mexico and west Texas. Read More

An Imprecise Science

In October this year, six geoscientists were jailed for not predicting the imminence and severity of the earthquake which hit the Italian town of L’Aquila in April 2009, killing 309 Read More

Polar Pioneers

Another day in Arctic paradise for the crew of Polarcus Asima, as she ventures into uncharted territory to uncover the secrets of the Arctic – the final frontier for oil Read More

The Miocene Monterey Formation

The Los Angeles Basin is the most productive basin by area in the world – and the Miocene Monterey Formation, which is exposed along the coast and in the hills Read More

Making the Impossible, Possible!

A new paradigm in understanding the geology of the subsurface. As we discussed in a previous article (GEO ExPro Vol.9, No. 3), at ffA we call the data-driven/interpreter-guided approach for Read More

The global energy sector from a subsurface perspective