South America Archives

South America

Improving the signal-to-noise ratio in Venezuela’s oil and gas industry revival

Katya Casey - U3 Explore

May 26, 2026

One of the dominant themes in the petroleum industry in 2026 remains Venezuela and the rapid evolution of the country’s investment landscape. The year began with significant political changes and…

“Seeking the Sweet Spot in offshore Ecuador’s Sweet Shop”

Neil Hodgson, Karyna Rodriguez and Lauren Found, Searcher

April 22, 2026

Searcher use of modern processing algorithms to unleash the hidden sweetness in Ecuador’s legacy offshore seismic Setting the scene Figure 1: Offshore Ecuador Main Tectonic Elements. The destructive margin setting…

bp and Brazil

Ian Cross, Moyes & Co

April 8, 2026

In August 2025, bp announced the much-needed news that its exploration well designated 1-BP-13-SPS in the Bumerangue Production Sharing Contract block, located in the prolific Santos Basin, was a significant…

Grand plans, challenging geology

Henk Kombrink

March 31, 2026

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…

Long-distance up-flank oil migration offshore Brazil

Sharon Cornelius, Kenneth Shipper, Paul Mann, CBTH Project, University of Houston and Andrew Pepper, This is Petroleum Systems

March 26, 2026

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

Henk Kombrink

March 12, 2026

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

Henk Kombrink

January 12, 2026

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

Andres Mesa, NVentures

November 11, 2025

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

Mike Powney, Geoex MCG, Julian Sherriff and Stephen Doyle, DUG Technology

August 19, 2025

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?

Henk Kombrink

August 8, 2025

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

Andres Mesa, NVentures

July 25, 2025

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

Neil Hodgson, Karyna Rodriguez and Lauren Found, Searcher

June 10, 2025

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 global energy sector from a subsurface perspective

South America

Improving the signal-to-noise ratio in Venezuela’s oil and gas industry revival

“Seeking the Sweet Spot in offshore Ecuador’s Sweet Shop”

bp and Brazil

Grand plans, challenging geology

Long-distance up-flank oil migration offshore Brazil

How Bolivia’s search for additional petroleum resources relates to Devonian paleogeography and paleolatitude

Before the collapse in oil production, Venezuela saw another collapse – the mass firing of most of PDVSA’s technical staff

Wildcat activity in the Latin American Atlantic Margin

Self-similar structures and DHI indicators in the Greater Caribbean

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

Petronas ambitious 2025 drilling campaign offshore Suriname

The future has arrived

Subscribe