Short-Term Glut, Long-Term Opportunities

Industry Trending to Offshore, Gas

By THOMAS G. DOLAN
EXPLORER Correspondent

DPA Forum Tackles Certification Woes

AAPG, in growing from a primarily U.S.-based to a truly international organization has inadvertently brought in its wake obstacles for non-U.S. AAPG members who wish to be certified -- and even for many non-U.S. geologists who may want to join the organization.

A Division of Professional Affairs' forum, designed to examine those problems and move toward possible solutions, will be held at 3:20 p.m. Wednesday, March 13, in Houston during the annual meeting.

"Improving the DPA Certification Process for International AAPG Members" will be held in room 305 of the George R. Brown Convention Center.

Co-chairing the forum will be Michael Party, division geologist, Wagner & Brown, and Brenda K. Cunningham, president/geologist, West Texas Digital, both based in Midland, Texas.

Invited participants include various AAPG and DPA officials, international service team leads, international representatives to the Advisory Council and others involved in international affairs.

"We are trying to reach the people who are most knowledgeable of the problem and who can be most instrumental in terms of a solution," Cunningham said.

Party said that if AAPG is an international organization, any AAPG geologist anywhere in the world should have the same opportunity for and access to certification that he, as a U.S. citizen, has had.

"By being a part of this organization, you want to be able to demonstrate your level of competency," Party said. "I'm certified, and that shows a degree of acceptance by my peers ... With certification you've achieved a level of respect with your peers, and that carries clout."

What are the obstacles international members face in achieving certification?

"We don't know the full scope of the problems," Party said, "and that's a primary purpose of the session, to encourage people to come forward to say what pitfalls there are for geologists who want to advance in the organization, what needs to be addressed and what AAPG can do to make its policies equally accessible to every geologist, no matter where he lives."

Problems that may be raised, Cunningham said, include geopolitical, financial and regulatory factors.

For example, what seems to be a major problem in many countries is the requirement that the candidate have three active sponsors.

"It is very difficult for geologists isolated in various communities overseas to become acquainted with sponsors who will meet with them enough and get to them and their work thoroughly enough to judge them in terms of character and competency," she said.

Geological time moves slowly. Exploration time moves a bit faster, but is still relatively slow compared to that of, say, dot.com.

But as the new century gains momentum, the industry pace quickens -- and that is due primarily to the sudden arrival of many developing countries onto the global energy stage.

Those changing business conditions in developing countries, and the obstacles and opportunities they pose for exploration companies, is the focus of a session at the AAPG Annual Meeting this month.

A DPA session on "Changing Business Conditions in Developing Countries," will be presented from 8-11:40 a.m. Tuesday, March 12.

The lead paper, co-authored by Philip (Pete) Stark and his colleague, Linda Kinney, is titled "Who Is Doing What and Where?" and will be presented by Stark. Stark is vice president/industry relations, of the Denver-based IHS Energy Group, a provider of worldwide information services and economic consulting.

In his preview comments to AAPG EXPLORER, Stark highlighted three main -- and interrelated -- topics:

• The current global business climate.
• World energy trends.
• The need for greater cooperation between energy companies and developing countries.

The current economic situation for energy, Stark added, can be summed up as short-term glut but long-range opportunity.

"Assuming the current, continuing, healthy trends, the growth in oil demand worldwide is projected to be about a 55 percent growth between now and 2020," Stark said. "That means the current production of 76 million barrels a day will grow up to 115 million, an addition of about 39 million barrels per day.

"That might not be that much per year," he said, "but it represents a big slug of investments between now and 2020."

That's the long view. In the short term, Stark sees "weak global economies, slack demand, excess oil and gas productions, and a tremendous volume of stranded gas reserves.

"This leads to weak and volatile prices," he continued. "Add to that this period of increased business and political risk, and we see the likelihood of repeated cycles of excess capacity and weak demand until world economies rebound."

Global Trends

Stark's second point, global energy trends, flows from the first.

Those trends include:

Technology, which Stark said is one of the main drivers in this area -- and which, in a sense, has become a double-edged sword.

"Technology is increasing exploration's success globally, at a fairly significant rate," he said. "Technology is allowing operators to speed recoveries, so this industry is building capacity with fewer wells and resources than before.

"Without a significant investment, technology is causing a significant increase in production capabilities," he added. "This is tending to add more supply to the market than the market growth can absorb."

By way of example, Stark recalls recent numbers indicating that OPEC is adding about one million barrels of production a day and non-OPEC producers are adding 900,000 barrels per day -- in the face of a shrinking demand.

A shift toward natural gas.

"The trend is not as dominant in the rest of the world as it is in North America, but the shift is clearly there," Stark said. "For about a decade, gas has been showing up as the predominant energy in reserves around the world."

The shift from inland to offshore investments and drilling.

This is, in fact, a worldwide phenomenon. For instance, whereas African reserves in the past have been found in the inland countries such as Angola, Nigeria and the Congo, now there are more and more discoveries along the continental margin of West Africa, and there is also exploration on the East Coast of Africa.

"In the Mediterranean there is exploration off the coast of Spain, as well as off the West Coast of New Zealand," Stark said. "Explorations are planned extending north from Brazil on the East Coast of South America, there is more and more offshore activity in offshore waters of Greenland, and there have been extended discoveries in less explored basins in Southeast Asia."

There are some exceptions to this trend, of course, Stark added, such as the locations in Venezuela and Canada, where there are major reserves and much activity by the major international companies. But the main interest in the majors is toward deep water.

At the same time, he continued, areas such as Saudi Arabia and other Middle East countries with land reserves are tending to minimize risk and focus on those areas where they can optimize their technology and capital.

While the majors have generally moved toward the water, this has left a number of niches that independent operators are filling.

"For instance," Stark said, "over the past five years a large number of independent Latin American and some Canadian and European operators have essentially taken over most of Latin America's onshore explorations and production."

Independents are growing in still another way, Stark said. "We've been seeing a lot of mergers and acquisitions. When that happens, the new company tends to divest itself of operations that are not a part of their core. These divestitures are being picked up by larger and aggressive independents.

"We also see independents initiating geological plays in new and unproven areas, and, in essence, similar to the history of other kinds of wildcatters, are going into areas where others will not," he said.

A central dynamic to all of this is that developing countries -- another way of saying generally impoverished countries around the world -- are suddenly finding themselves if not sitting on top of some oil wells, having them just off their coast.

"A country like Mauritania, which has very little, suddenly finds itself in possession of all this potential wealth," Stark said. "Developing countries desperately need investment capital."

This leads to Stark's third point: the need for energy companies and governments to be much more flexible and cooperative with each other.

Oil is controlled by governments. Energy companies want the oil, and the governments want the investment.

"But for both sides to be successful, there has to be a solid fiscal and legal framework to ensure stability for both sides," Stark said, "and this will also have to encompass a wide range of economic, social and environmental issues."

Along these lines, Stark points out that countries are not only governments, but also people, and energy companies have to learn how to work with the local populations if they are going to succeed.

"Some companies have gone into high risk areas such as Sudan and Colombia, worked with the local people, hired them as workers and supported their communities, and have been successful," he said.

"The question is, how do you go into volatile environments, reduce risk and create a win-win situation for everyone involved?"