Explorer Article

Management with the Dynamic Group of Houston are convinced after four years of study that they have identified significant new play potential deep on the west Louisiana shelf, a province largely regarded by industry as mature for exploration. “Most of our industry thinks the U.S. shelf is in late life, and the only remaining opportunities are for low-risk, low volume exploitation targets,” said Rob Pascoe, managing director and chief geologist. “We believe that may not be the whole story. Our studies describe a large-scale new play, with the potential to be liquids rich and high value.” He said new technology and geological insights are the key.

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

I was watching some old movies during a recent snowstorm in Tulsa. One of them was “Back to the Future.” In this case, “the future” was 2015. The movie “Rollerball” was set in 2018, and “Terminator” was supposed to be from 2020-30. Have you ever noticed that the future is not that far away? As you could see from my last column, I’ve had “the future” on my mind. So, in thinking again about the future, I want to discuss governance. This will not be my most exciting column, but it is important.

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American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Historical Highlights

People in the oil and gas industry often speak of, and always seek to find, the “sweet spot” of a given play, field or reservoir. Ask anyone in the oil patch, “What is a sweet spot?”, and you will often get an answer long on colorful recollections and short on hard details. Ask a follow-up question about the history of sweet spots and you will probably receive only a baffled look.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

Last year started with promise for the Colombian offshore industry. Shell EP Offshore Ventures Limited and Ecopetrol, S.A. signed an agreement for Shell to acquire an interest in and operate the Fuerte Sur, Purple Angel and Col-5 blocks located in the southern Colombian Caribbean basin. Noble Energy opened an office in Barranquilla and announced plans to drill a prospect at 8,500 feet on the Col-3 block in the Guajira Basin in northern Colombia. Ecopetrol and Petrobras prepared to mature the 2014 Orca discovery on the Tayrona block, also in Guajira. Then COVID-19 came to the Americas in March 2020, and everything changed.

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American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

University geoscience programs face a challenging future as the world emerges from the coronavirus pandemic – one that could have significant and even dire implications for oil and gas. Educators, mostly outside the United States, are already sounding an alarm.

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

First there was Peak Oil, the Malthusian fear that the world was running out of oil. This idea has been around for a long time but had its most recent renaissance in the mid- 2000s with a host of books warning that global demand was going to overwhelm the industry’s ability to supply. The expansion of unconventional oil and natural gas production quieted concerns about supply constraints. The world is not running out of hydrocarbons.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Historical Highlights

In February 2011, the court in the small Ecuadorian town of Lago Agrio sentenced Chevron Corporation to pay $9.3 billion to a group of about 30,000 Ecuadorian residents of the Amazonian region where Texaco, later acquired by Chevron, had been producing oil for 26 years. The trial was the stuff of which Hollywood movies are made. This legal saga combined fundamental environmental issues, political intrigue, judicial corruption, corporate greed and cliff-hanging courtroom drama. Above all it unveiled the tragedy of a young and brilliant U.S. lawyer who felt he could obtain big money from a giant oil corporation while becoming a hero for the underdogs of this world.

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American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

AAPG members throughout the world are proving that geologists can be highly beneficial to the oil and gas companies that employ them in areas beyond just exploration alone. Two of them are Karyna Rodriguez, vice president of global new ventures at Searcher in London, and Eduardo Vallejo, program lead of technologies and subsurface knowledge at YPF Tecnología in Buenos Aires. In interviews with the EXPLORER, both shared stories about their careers and provided advice to the next generation of professionals.

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

I went to a talk years ago by a speaker who was introduced as a “futurist” for his ability to predict. I’ve always wanted the title of “futurist,” but I’ve not earned it. I’ve been reading a lot of predictions for 2021 from various magazines, papers and blogs. Now I’m as close to a futurist as I will ever get, so here are a few predictions from the experts (I agree with) and how they may impact AAPG.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

Not surprisingly, that idea met with an abundance of caution, and even skepticism, from an industry that experienced the severe downturn of 2014-16 followed by the worldwide COVID pandemic of 2020. Still, “I think there’s plenty to be excited about, especially given the recent upsurge in oil prices,” says one analyst.

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 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 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)

Headquarters Contacts

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