Oil prices ... barreling downward. Natural gas prices ... up in flames. Gasoline prices ... tanking. The year got off to a scary start for the oil and gas industry
According to Juan Carlos Soldo, who just recently led the successful IX Hydrocarbon Exploration and Development Congress in Mendoza, Argentina, “Unconventionals really aren't so unconventional anymore.”
Innumerable geoscientists worldwide are familiar with the AAPG Giant Oil Fields publications. These AAPG members are spearheading the effort to compile “Giant Oil and Gas Fields of the Decade 2000-2010” featuring papers covering fields in areas around the globe.
Typically when runners are on their marks, they know the course ahead of them. However, as industry players anxiously wait for Mexico to open its hydrocarbon-rich fields to foreign investors, the shortest course to the pay zone is not so clear.
Some highlights from international activity in 2014.
In international exploration, the new normal is starting to look like the old normal. And 2014 looked a lot like the year before.
The idea of using lasers for drilling into the earth has long been to the oil and gas industry what flying cars and hoverboards are to the general public – the stuff of science fiction and futuristic fantasy. As 2015 fast approaches (contrary to what we were promised in the “Back to the Future” movies) we haven’t quite cracked the code yet on flying cars and hoverboards, but there might be a consolation prize in the works: Laser drilling may actually become a reality.
Stimulating. Inspirational. Fantastic. Unforgettable. Those were the words used to describe the Latin America Region Student Chapter Leadership Summit (LAR-SCLS) held in early November at the Peruvian Geological Society in Lima, Peru.
In order to create political influence among countries in the Central American and Caribbean region, Hugo Chavez, the late President of Venezuela, created an energy alliance called Petrocaribe in 2005.
The relatively recent, very large discoveries offshore Brazil have put pre-salt exploration in the South Atlantic back in the foreground. Pre-salt exploration history, however, is far more ancient and marked with some major successes – but also many failures. Here’s a brief overview of this exploration in West Africa until the M’Boundi discovery, which will be described in detail as it brings some lessons that readers can discover for themselves.
This volume is an ultimate resource for reading the story and history of fractures in rocks from core. It is a “must-have” volume for all who have, or wish to have, an intimate knowledge of the rocks they work with from a fracture point of view. (Product #1300. Member price $150 / List price $150.)
This 18-chapter volume is small enough to focus on the interplay among tectonics, sedimentation, and petroleum systems. Yet it is big enough to cover the diversity of structural styles in important petroliferous sedimentary basins around the globe. Product #1174. Price: Member $174 / List $174.
This Memoir is critical for exploration geoscientists in the petroleum industry, research institutions, and academia in order to understand the diverse petroleum systems, the tectonic and geologic evolution of sedimentary basins, and the development of hydrocarbon fields in these regions of South America. Product #1303. Price: Member $131 / List $262.
A collection of both qualitative and quantitative data on deep-water outcrops from around the world, this volume contains 154 chapters, and includes papers on all seven continents and 21 countries. Product #736. Price: Member $189/List $239.