North America

Chasing more subtle changes

“Reservoirs are getting tighter and dirtier, and on the back of that, the role of quantitative interpretation (QI) is evolving too,” says Raúl Cova when we meet on Teams. “In other words, the signals are becoming more subtle, and a…

Injecting gas in a geothermal well can double its net energy output

Increasing production from geothermal reservoirs is often done through the use of an electric submersible pump (ESP). Especially in regions where no significant overpressure exists, such as the German Molasse Basin, the use of an ESP is routine from day…

MAX Power’s hydrogen appraisal campaign

In December 2025 MAX Power drilled its first well targeting the Lawson structure, a Precambrian basement high draped by Cambrian clastics. Similar “buried hill” plays elsewhere in Saskatchewan and neighbouring Alberta and Montana, are known helium reservoirs. Lawson-1 recorded hydrogen…

Drilling a well to produce nuclear energy

The first time I heard about the company Deep Fission was through a conversation with an operations geologist. He had been working on the first well dedicated to the company’s project in Kansas, USA. It all sounded a bit odd…

Harmonising public data with ground truth

Public production data is the backbone of natural gas market analysis, yet it arrives with a structural delay that few participants fully appreciate. Across 18 producing sub-regions, encompassing the Marcellus, Utica, Haynesville, Eagle Ford, and Permian basins, analysis reveals a…

Oil fault traps in California’s San Joaquin Basin

The San Joaquin Basin (SJB) is one of the world’s most prolific petroleum provinces and contains numerous oil accumulations that owe much of their trapping mechanism to faults. Unlike many light-oil and gas-prone basins where faults commonly degrade trap integrity,…

Investment opportunity: Drill-ready Tethys Prospect – onshore California

The Tethys Prospect is a drill-ready conventional oil exploration and development opportunity located along the oil-prolific west side of the San Joaquin Basin in Kern County, California, with an estimated 20 million barrels of oil recoverable potential (P50). The prospect…

An imperial testing facility

“It was a $37 M donation from Imperial Oil, the largest to an educational institution in Alberta’s history,” says Gerald Desrochers when we meet for the lab tour he invited me to on a Thursday morning in May. Just over…

Spindletop spin-off: Helium storage

Qatar, generally responsible for a third of global helium supply, has had to halt production because the Iran war prohibits export. Storing liquified helium gas at surface is not cost-effective; highly specialised, insulated tanks are needed, and even then, the…

Exploring deep-seated hydrogen fluxes in Nova Scotia

QIMC’s hydrogen exploration campaign focuses on the Cobequid-Chedabucto fault system in Nova Scotia, a crustal-scale fault zone approximately 250 km long and 25 km wide that separates two ancient tectonic landmasses: The Avalon Terrane to the north and the Meguma…

Response to feedback from Mark McClure

Last week, we published the latest contribution from Elliot Yearsley, in which he discusses the lack of published well test data to support the claims made by Fervo about their flagship Cape Station geothermal project. We received feedback on the…