The benefits of being a second mover
“I was in oil and gas for most of my career,” says James Deckelman, the CEO of Deep Sea Minerals, when we meet online. “And the opportunities I have had…
Worldwide
Drilling problems? Ask your CEO
Henrik Tingström didn’t need much time in the industry to see how much unstructured data was being left on the table. It was during internships at oil majors that he…
Until now, hydrogen exploration wells were drilled half-blind
There is often an element of coincidence associated with how companies form. That also applies to how Viacheslav Zgonnik and Jonathan Allard from French tech start-up HyReveal came together two…
The mood music of the E&P geoscience job market
When I was doing an internship at NAM (Shell/Exxon joint venture) in the Netherlands in 2003, an experienced geologist took me aside and said, “Henk, be aware, China is coming,…
What are we risking and why is it important?
Risk is about the chance of finding producible hydrocarbons; uncertainty is about the volume of hydrocarbons that may be found in the case of success. The geological Probability of Success…
“It is quite a risk hiring you”
Yes, some people will break out of the shackles of their former role and flourish in a completely different career. But let’s not forget that for others, there is a…
Subsurface noise #7
CORING MUDSTONES A wellsite geologist told me the other day that he was on one of the major oil platforms in the North Sea some years ago, drilling yet another…
Your fault stability analysis might be lying to you
The Mohr space represents stress states and, combined with fault strength criteria, is used to assess fault stability. It is simple, elegant, and widely accepted. It is also, when applied…
Mistaking speed for progress
Much of the AI we see today is very domain-specific and, in my mind, one-dimensional. People continue to operate in their own realms, developing algorithms that produce results at great…
Diverting the flow: The hidden power of overburden barriers
Since Mark Lakos joined Rock Flow Dynamics (RFD) from Wintershall Dea a bit more than a year ago – a job that brought him to Russia and Egypt – he has…
Europe versus US oil majors
European oil majors face a structural dilemma: How to balance near-term hydrocarbon revenue with long-term renewable ambitions under relentless shareholder and public scrutiny. While USA peers largely doubled down on…
The story behind Mexico’s biggest discovery in decades
What does it take to make the biggest discovery a country has seen in decades? How do you do that as a newcomer? You do that because you see things…