This Month's Explorer Articles

Can the oil and gas industry ever speak with one voice on climate action? Can majors, national oil companies, leading independents and energy trade associations ever get on the same page when it comes to climate change? And critically, is climate policy turning into a no-win exercise for the oil industry? The American Petroleum Institute and other industry associations are now adopting a revised climate policy approach, partly based on growing public pressure in support of climate action.

For the past 20 years, the International Pavilion has been a standard fixture in AAPG’s annual convention and flagship international conferences. Visitors to the IP expect to see maps and flags and hear a variety of languages spoken in the area dedicated to connecting countries with hydrocarbon and mineral resources with companies seeking to explore and produce them. At the 2021 AAPG/Society of Exploration Geophysicists’ International Meeting for Applied Geoscience and Energy taking place in Denver this month, the traditional rows of white exhibitor stands will be replaced by a 60-square-meter IP Theatre showcasing energy opportunities around the world.

“Geologists and geophysicists work well together.” That’s Stephen A. Sonnenberg on why AAPG and the Society of Exploration Geophysicists will be coming together for the International Meeting for Applied Geoscience and Energy at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver and online, Sept. 26 through Oct. 1. This year’s inaugural hybrid event will include nearly 200 technical presentations, 14 workshops, 10 special sessions, five field trips, numerous networking opportunities and a joint exhibition showcasing the latest geoscience products and technologies will be on hand.

“I really do not know a lot about leadership models.” That might seem a strange sentiment coming from a Michel T. Halbouty Outstanding Leadership Award winner, but Mahmoud Abdulbaqi, this year’s honored recipient – who has spent his career in leadership positions in the oil and gas industry, its corporations and associations – is not your typical Halbouty medalist. Through his career, he found opportunities to lead, as all good leaders do, but equally important, opportunities needing leadership found him.

The AAPG Discovery Thinking program will celebrate a milestone this year with its 24th and 25th forums, which will be hosted at the IMAGE 2021 conference in Denver. Since Discovery Thinking began in 2008, more than 180 speakers worldwide have been invited to share their stories of exploration that have led to large, challenging and surprising discoveries. Over the years, more than 12,000 have attended and been inspired by the forums. This year, Discovery Thinking will host two forums specifically dedicated to giants.

Initially in charge of funding energy research and resource assessments, Houseknecht received a fateful telephone call in 1995 from former USGS Research Geologist Don Gautier, who asked him to participate in a field session in Alaska. Now, 26 years later, David Houseknecht has been awarded the Wallace E. Pratt Memorial Award for the best AAPG Bulletin article in 2019, which outlines a detailed geological framework of the North Slope to explain the geology of recent discoveries and delineate the potential for future discoveries.

It started in 2001, it featured the late astronomer Carolyn Shoemaker and it offered a talk that was, no pun intended, out of this world. “It” is the AAPG Michel T. Halbouty Lecture Program, a popular and scientifically important part of the annual convention, sponsored by the AAPG Foundation. Each year at a special, non-competitive time slot, this lecture series throws a spotlight on global experts discussing wildcat exploration – especially in areas where major discoveries have been made – as well as astrogeological developments and achievements that increase our knowledge and ability to develop resources on Earth. Charles A. Sternbach, a past AAPG president who originated AAPG’s Super Basin program, will be this year’s Halbouty lecturer, presenting a talk titled “Super Basin Thinking: Methods to Explore and Revitalize the World’s Greatest Petroleum Basins.”

"The geobody tool provides a means for an interpreter to rapidly visualize the extent and orientation of anomalous geologic features of interest. However, the last decade has seen an exponential growth in both the number and size of 3-D seismic surveys. Augmented by multiple attribute volumes for each survey, these large data volumes provide both an aid and a burden on the interpreter, whose goal is to wade through all these data with the goal of extracting patterns that correlate to a geologic model, which can then be used for oil and gas exploration and development. As many of the world’s oil and gas resources lie beneath the oceans, the advances in exploration, drilling and production technologies have also focused in those areas. "

An historic book is being reopened, and the next chapter in AAPG’s ongoing efforts to recognize, offer and promote geoscience excellence around the world is about to be written. Six diverse and internationally acclaimed geoscientists have been announced for the 2021-22 AAPG-AAPG Foundation Distinguished Lecture season – speaking on a spectacular range of subjects that vary from understanding integrated hydrocarbon systems to utilizing machine learning to recognizing the importance of choices in today’s energy transition."

The moment is almost here – the time for all applied geoscientists to converge on Denver for the inaugural International Meeting for Applied Geoscience and Energy. More about this great new event in a minute. Yes, we’re still in the age of COVID and the delta variant is giving all of us pause as we consider how best to interact personally and professionally. But I’m pleased to share that I’m writing this column having just returned from my third in-person industry event in a four-week time period.

A few years ago, our work team was tasked to create the company’s very first annual Sustainability Report. At that moment in time, we were not sure what that meant, what it would include and what its impact would be. Of course, the first questions we asked ourselves were: “What is sustainability?”, “What is ESG?”, “What are the United Nations Sustainable Development goals?” and “How does this pertain to the company, our industry, our technologies?”

Listening to “Togetherness (K’a jo se)” as I write prompted me to think about community. AAPG has been a pillar of the scientific community for more than 100 years, with a lengthy history of collaboration and rewarding relationships that extend beyond the Association. Like the rise to international success of Nigerian musician King Sunny Adé, AAPG has grown beyond its American roots to serve a global community of energy geoscientists as well as professionals working in adjacent functions like data science, carbon capture, use and sequestration, and various engineering disciplines.