Worldwide Archives

Worldwide

Can cement integrity be predicted before it becomes a containment risk?

Once a depleted oil or gas field is selected as a candidate for a possible CO₂ storage project, a first-pass well integrity study is often carried out to assess and rank wells according to the containment risks they may pose…

Henk Kombrink

October 1, 2026

A conversation about contourites

“Even in the chaos, there is an order,” says Sara Morgado Rodrigues when we have a call whilst she is working on a project in Buenos Aires, at one of YPF’s offices. Sara is a postdoctoral researcher at the Andalusian…

Henk Kombrink

September 30, 2026

Subsurface Evangelising – Preaching to the Choir

The Hanged Man card from the Tarot’s Major Arcana. Illustration: GiftedMG via Pixabay. I was a board member of a small oil company, and we were sent on public relations training. My assessment included the following: “Under no circumstance should…

Juan Cottier, MMbbls Subsurface Consulting

September 17, 2026

Finding hidden faults

Found in 1975 with the drilling of well 210/25-1, the Tern Field was one of the major Brent discoveries in the UK Northern North Sea. Over the decades, a total of 77 wells were drilled in the field – four…

Henk Kombrink

September 15, 2026

Why USGS Yet-to-Find figures are an overestimation

One of the most common ways to estimate YTF is the extrapolation of discovery rates, as can be calculated from a creaming curve. However, this methodology does not have any guidance on discovery size – is it just a single…

Henk Kombrink

September 11, 2026

Field trips and software don’t mix very well – or do they?

“It was a new thing to us,” says Lilly Walker from RFD when we meet on what is her Wednesday afternoon in Perth, Australia. Lilly is a geologist and joined RFD’s Australia team a little more than a year ago.…

Henk Kombrink

September 4, 2026

Benchmark your geosteering skills

For geosteering geologists, few experiences can replicate the pressure of making critical decisions while a well is being drilled. The 2026 Geosteering World Cup (GWC’26) puts those skills to the test in a global, competitive environment and gives geologists a…

Kristina Fortunato

September 3, 2026

“Oh, look! Oil everywhere…”

What seems like an oil seep on a rock face, especially from a distance, can equally be the result of chemical weathering. When these types of rock coatings, which can be found across a wide range of settings, are misinterpreted…

Ayberk Uyanik

August 30, 2026

Subsurface noise #9

THE REALITY BEHIND PRESS RELEASES Talking to people is still the best way to find out what really happened when a well has been completed. “We drilled hundreds of meters of shale,” an exploration geologist recently told me about an…

Henk Kombrink

August 21, 2026

Why geology still calls the plays in every energy system

The Earth is not a suggestion box. It doesn’t negotiate. It doesn’t adjust to aspirations. Its rules were written long before we arrived, and they remain in force no matter how many times “crisis” is mentioned in the media. This…

Rodney Garrard

August 19, 2026

Do we need seabed minerals?

The debate on this topic is fierce. The Metals Company, who are gearing up to harvest polymetallic nodules from the abyssal plain, argue that even though terrestrial deposits can meet demand, the economics of extracting them are less favourable. Seabed…

Mariël Reitsma

August 11, 2026

Many CCS projects may falter quietly without the promised benefits

In a recent special issue of EAGE’s journal First Break, dedicated to underground storage, one finds the usual articles that one would expect for such a publication. But there happened to be one little outlier. Or maybe a slightly larger…

Henk Kombrink

August 5, 2026

The global energy sector from a subsurface perspective

Worldwide

Can cement integrity be predicted before it becomes a containment risk?

A conversation about contourites

Subsurface Evangelising – Preaching to the Choir

Finding hidden faults

Why USGS Yet-to-Find figures are an overestimation

Field trips and software don’t mix very well – or do they?

Benchmark your geosteering skills

“Oh, look! Oil everywhere…”

Subsurface noise #9

Why geology still calls the plays in every energy system

Do we need seabed minerals?

Many CCS projects may falter quietly without the promised benefits

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