South America – Licensing Slows
South America and the Caribbean is currently seeing less licensing activity, at least partially because of the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on frontier exploration, which has prompted international oil…
North America
Mexico: Onshore to Offshore
From the 16th-century Spanish conquistadors to modern times, Mexico has been bound to oil. Although no longer in the top ten of the world’s leading producers, shale gas may change…
Global Wildcatting – Going with the Flow
The extended impact of uncertain oil prices, combined with the Covid-19 pandemic and dwindling investor sentiment for hydrocarbons, have resulted in further delays, and in some cases cancellations, of already…
Graff-1: On the Cusp of Hydrocarbon Success in Namibia
Shell has made a ‘significant oil and gas discovery’ at the Graff-1 well offshore Namibia. Shell has made a ‘significant oil and gas discovery’ at the Graff-1 well offshore Namibia. It is unclear…
An oil prone frontier basin
A multitude of geological data suggests that the petroleum system is in place. Rich, voluminous source rocks, likely migration paths, good reservoir rocks and huge traps all make the Seychelles…
Market Update
2008: Planet Earth, Sound of Geology; International Workshop in Bergen, 26.-28. April 2006, Software for the Asset Team, Will there be a Saudi oil shock to shake the World economy?,…
Episodic Global Tectonics: Sequence Stratigraphy Meets Plate Tectonics
Based on recent advances in plate tectonics, sedimentology and sequence stratigraphy, I suggest that the Earth is affected by relatively short-lived episodes of increased tectonic activity separated by longer intervals…
Contributing to a Greater Good
Dr. Lee T. Billingsley is presently President-Elect, and from July 1 he will be President of AAPG for one year. We have talked with Dr. Billingsley about his views on…
Storming the Ivory Tower
The oil shock of 1973 transformed the global energy picture. As lines of automobiles snaked down the street awaiting their turn at the pumps,the realization dawned that plentiful, cheap energy…
Cretaceous Park
Glacial meltwater and subaerial erosion after the ice age has sculptured a badlands landscape within Upper Cretaceous clastic sedimentary rocks. Abundant dinosaur fossil bones and skeletons have been exposed making…
Barrels for the future
Canada’s oil sands are the world’s largest single hydrocarbon resource. The huge volumes of thick, sticky crude oil – bitumen – are now being exploited at an increased pace. Thanks…
Multi-client seismic spurs interest
The Northeast Sakhalin Shelf, with several giant fields already discovered and put on production, is recognised as a world-class petroleum province. New seismic acquired in the rest of the Sea…