Explorer Article

The results are in for the AAPG officer election for the president-elect, vice president – regions, and secretary. Thank you for your voting participation!

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Delegates Voice Article

Steve Brachman, HoD chair, examines the House of Delegates with regard to its expenditures, revenue generated, as well as its functions and benefits to AAPG.     

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer ProTracks

Like many of my age cohort, I often listen to podcasts on my daily commute to work. One of my favorites is Motley Fool’s “Rule Breakers,” a stock market-oriented podcast by David Gardner. One of the common refrains he uses to describe his stock-selecting philosophy is that he looks for “dark clouds I can see through.” The premise is simple: if a company has been beaten down for a good reason, but you have line of sight on that issue being resolved, there exists an opportunity to acquire at a good value and profit from the recovery. Can we see through the dark clouds that hang over the industry today, to a brighter future?

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

How are you doing? I was telling a friend recently that I feel like Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky Balboa in the boxing ring. We’ve reached the final round, and I’m battered and bruised, my sharp jabs and uppercuts replaced by exhausted flailing. The big question – the only question – is whether this is the first fight of the film where I end up face down on the canvas, or whether it’s the second with the referee lifting my gloved hand into the air as Bill Conti’s film score soars. How about you? As the months of this pandemic drag on, how are you doing? It turns out there’s a name for what many of us are feeling these days.

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American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Emphasis Article

The best-case outlook for the future of world energy looks highly positive for the oil and gas industry. In that outlook, energy demand returns to pre-pandemic levels and production increases as the world’s economies recover, giving the industry an opportunity for a strong rebound and years of attractive growth. But other scenarios could put roadblocks in the way of exploration and production, some of them potentially coming from the energy industry itself. OPEC+ definitely holds one key to the future, and the global energy transition appears to have picked up a considerable amount of momentum over the past year and a half.

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American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Emphasis Article

“If you care about the climate, elimination is not the way to go. Innovation is,” said Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W. Va., chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resource Committee, at a forum sponsored by General Electric and hosted by the news website Axios on the eve of President Joe Biden’s global climate summit last month. That the summit was held during Earth Day was not a coincidence. The forum, which also included as guests, Southern Company Chairman, President and CEO Thomas Fanning, and GE Chairman and CEO Larry Culp, was part of the media company’s “Energy Forward” series, which focuses on politics and policies surrounding sustainability, energy efficiency and new technologies in the coming decades.

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American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Emphasis Article

In the quest to reach net-zero emissions of energy-related carbon dioxide by 2050, a longtime goal of the United States, other world governments and energy agencies, no one is even close to achieving it. Despite 2020’s largest decline in emissions as a result of less energy usage during the COVID-19 pandemic, the EIA anticipates “a rapid rebound in energy demand and emissions” this year. Furthermore, they project that by 2050, U.S. energy-related emissions will be 5-percent higher than 2020 levels. Although it looks unlikely, net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 is possible, according to at least one notable expert within AAPG, but not without a strong reliance on nuclear energy.

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American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

When the Biden administration effectively canceled the Keystone XL Pipeline as a first order of business in January, environmentalists all over North America celebrated a major victory. “There was no magic to how we beat the Keystone XL Pipeline – it was grit, shared leadership and never forgetting who and what we were fighting for,” said the chair of the Nebraska Democratic Party. But did they really know what they were fighting for?

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Regions and Sections

The overriding principle of AAPG’s special interest groups is to create an environment in which experienced professionals with like-minded views and concerns can come together to discuss, share, commiserate and become familiar with industry trends and Association events. Further, such groups create an environment in which individual members, including those in academia and service companies, as well as those in non-petroleum-based companies, both contribute to and benefit from programs and events of interest. The geoscience community in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia was no stranger to the concept. For years, there was a SIG for young professionals, but the thinking was that there also needed to be something tailored for the experienced professional.

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

Renewable sources of energy will continue to grow in prominence and availability, and hydrocarbons will help us create that reality, even as many of my friends and neighbors feel wounded by the perceived failure of clean energy during recent extreme weather events.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)

Hot Items

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

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)
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 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 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)

Headquarters Contacts

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