Grand plans, challenging geology
Two things came together for bp in the late 1980s and the early 1990s. First, there were significant oil discoveries in Colombia. Then came the Apertura in Venezuela in the…
South America
Long-distance up-flank oil migration offshore Brazil
This article discusses the results of a four-year 3D Earth modelling project that included detailed seismic mapping of 17 surfaces between the seafloor and the top of the Moho, using…
How Bolivia’s search for additional petroleum resources relates to Devonian paleogeography and paleolatitude
Oil and mostly gas exploration in Bolivia has always focused on structural traps in the Andes fold and thrust-belt. Not that it was easy to drill there; overpressure, hard-to-interpret land…
Before the collapse in oil production, Venezuela saw another collapse – the mass firing of most of PDVSA’s technical staff
Many people on LinkedIn wrote about the dramatic decline in oil production from Venezuela from 3 million barrels a day in 1998 to only a third of that twenty years…
Wildcat activity in the Latin American Atlantic Margin
All eyes are on the Stabroek Block, where ExxonMobil and its partners have embarked on a significant three-well drilling program. The campaign, which commenced in April 2025, includes the Hamlet-1,…
Self-similar structures and DHI indicators in the Greater Caribbean
Bridging proven plays and frontier potential The offshore of the Caribbean has experienced a dramatic and enduring tectonic history full of movement and continuous accommodation. Forming in the Late Cretaceous…
Bumerangue; what are the implications of drilling into one of the most structurally complex areas of the Santos Basin?
This week, bp announced what was hailed as its biggest discovery in 25 years – Bumerangue, located in Brazil’s Santos Basin. The pre-salt discovery certainly looks promising when taking into…
Petronas ambitious 2025 drilling campaign offshore Suriname
Petronas has reinforced its position in Suriname’s prolific offshore Block 52 with a series of successful discoveries since 2020 – Sloanea-1, Roystonea-1, and Fusaea-1-along the Upper Cretaceous Golden Lane trend.…
The future has arrived
Figure 1: Location of the 3D seismic datasets acquired between 2022 and 2024 in the Orange and Pelotas Basins. Contourites: When everything going sideways saves the day Though complex in…
The Equatorial Margin of Brazil is open for business
Figure 1: TGS data library map, basins, 2025 OPC Blocks, exploration wells and fields for the Equatorial Margin of Brazil. Key and recent discoveries marked with a green dot. The…
Hydrogen exploration potential in Uruguay
Uruguay has completed the first phase of its energy transition; most electricity is now generated from renewable sources. For the second phase, the country has identified green hydrogen and its…
Deepwater exploration: It’s the hope that keeps us here
New technologies for deepwater So, where do you look for billions of barrels of oil and gas equivalent, after really smart and determined humans built a civilization out of looking…