Explorer Article

The huge crowd of attendees from 110 countries, along with the more than 2,000 exhibitors at this year’s Offshore Technology Conference in Houston appears to make it official: the industry has segued from boomlet to boom.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Emphasis Article

An oil executive talking in the heart of the Gulf Coast pointed to an unexpected locale in forecasting the “it” place for future gas production. His pick to be the soon-to-be-crowned king of natural gas: the Rocky Mountains.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Emphasis Article

The Rocky Mountain region is poised to become the center of U.S. onshore gas production. The reserves are there, Rutt Bridges told a gathering in Denver earlier this year, but the big question hovers: Is the price right?

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Emphasis Article

Environmental concerns are a major factor in all U.S. exploration, but it is especially true in the West. That includes Wyoming’s Pinedale Field, a tight gas sand giant in the northwest part of the Greater Green River Basin.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Emphasis Article

Success stories often include words like “fun” and “wonderful.” When Roy Roux talks about his company’s success in Utah’s remote and rugged Southwest Uinta Basin, different words are used. Words like hard. Frustrating. Challenging.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Emphasis Article

Dick Findley has two pieces of advice for working petroleum geologists. You’ll want to pay attention. Findley opened up a Bakken formation play that led to development of the giant Elm Coulee oil field in eastern Montana. The field now produces almost 50,000 barrels a day of high-quality crude.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Policy Watch

By all accounts, Congressional Visits Day (CVD) was a success -- not only in the overall number of participants in the events, but in the responses from the many visits that AAPG representatives made to the offices of the Congressmen and Senators.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Division Column EMD

The recent increases in petroleum prices have spurred renewed interest in the development of oil shale resources worldwide, including the vast deposits of the Green River Formation in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Director’s Corner

We sometime find ourselves suddenly in complicated conditions. AAPG is experiencing a set of complicated business conditions and we are constantly evaluating the risk of operations. In the past century, surrounding basic business conditions for our Association were sound and “not so slippery.” Now, due to dynamic world events and litigious trends we see major changes -- especially in areas of insurance, safety, security, legality and world politics.

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American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer President’s Column

This column follows up on a pivotal event at the 2006 Annual Convention in Houston, namely the approval by AAPG’s House of Delegates of Bylaws amendments creating two vice presidents -- one for U.S. Sections, one for International Regions. The amendments passed by an overwhelming margin.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)

Hot Items

Explorer Geophysical Corner

Advancements in processing and imaging techniques have continued over the last several decades, which have gradually improved the quality of the processed surface seismic data. When the quality of the existing seismic data is not adequate to perform an interpretation task reasonably, then the interpreter looks for other options. Is it feasible to acquire a new survey? In the absence of an improved survey, will reprocessing of seismic data be a good option?

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American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Director’s Corner

Perhaps you did a double take pulling the April issue of EXPLORER from the mailbox. What is this? If you joined AAPG in the last 40 years, you’ve only known EXPLORER in its long-standing tabloid format. It worked well for many years as our advertisers – particularly seismic companies – loved the large format and the ability to display their data on a sweeping canvas. For readers, it was a little more awkward.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Historical Highlights

The Casablanca oil field, discovered in 1975 and located on the Mediterranean shelf edge, has been greatly significant in the world’s offshore oil industry activity, besides being by far the biggest oil field in Spain.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

A new type of buoyancy model can be used to understand the source of residual oil zones, both thick and thin, to help determine the likelihood that economically viable recoverable oil resides in transition zones of imbibition reservoirs. Application of a buoyancy and breech model will fill a void in reservoir characterization. It will help distinguish between TZs and ROZs, the first of which allows application of primary and secondary (waterflooding) oil recovery methods and the second of which requires more difficult CO2-enhanced oil recovery projects.

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American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

It isn’t news to anyone that prediction is difficult, especially when it’s the future (as a great man once said). Uncertainty and unpredictability are just a part of the job of tracking and predicting the future supply and demand of energy. That being the case, when energy analysts say that the current level of uncertainty is particularly high, it might be easy to dismiss it as a “dog bites man” story. It isn’t.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)

Headquarters Contacts

Susan Nash
Susan Nash Director, Innovation and Emerging Science and Technology, AAPG +1 405 314 7730