Independent energy consultant Dr Graeme Bethune, CEO EnergyQuest, contributed this article on exploration in the Great Australian Bight It’s ironic SA’s local government is being manipulated to oppose oil exploration in the Great Australian Bight. Councils’ claims, led by Kangaroo Island, include that they express the ‘voice of hundreds of thousands’, drilling threatens tourism, ecosystems will become dysfunctional and regulation will be poor. Local government has fallen under the spell of experienced propagandists, the Wilderness Society, which funded a visit to Norway by KI’s Mayor to protest Bight drilling and lecture Norwegians on the evils of oil exploration.
Dale
Equinor toasts its ‘first’ oil discovery at the Utsira High
Norwegian multinational energy company Equinor, formerly Statoil, and partners Lundin and Spirit Energy have struck oil in the PL 167 licence at the Utsira High in the North Sea with a discovery estimated to contain 15-35 million barrels of recoverable oil equivalents. The wildcat well 16/1-29S is located in the central part of the North Sea and was drilled by the Deepsea Bergen drilling rig, which is now scheduled for appraisal drilling duties at another nearby well operated by Equinor, 15/3-10 in production licence 025.
Polarcus awarded seismic survey projects in Australia and Europe
Melbana Energy has awarded Polarcus the contract to undertake a 3D seismic survey over the Beehive Prospect, which is one of the largest undrilled hydrocarbon structures in Australia. The Beehive 3D Seismic Survey is being operated by Australian energy company Santos pursuant to an operations services agreement and is fully funded by French major Total and Santos. Melbana Energy said the Beehive 3D survey is expected to be commenced in July and completed before the end of August 2018. “The survey is a typical 3D survey using methods and procedures similar to others conducted in Australian waters,” the company said.
CGG Adds Two New Surveys to Anadarko Basin Coverage
CGG has completed acquisition of its Chickasha 3D survey in Grady and Caddo Counties, Oklahoma. CGG has also purchased the rights to the Ft. Reno 3D survey in Canadian County, adding to its continuously growing data library. CGG said the addition of these two surveys, along with the company's Yukon survey, "will provide extensive coverage of the Scoop and Stack play in the Anadarko Basin and will provide our clients with greater insight into the geology of the area.
Searcher Completes 3D Reprocessing Project in PNG
Searcher Seismic has announced the expansion of its modern, high-quality and exploration focused seismic, magnetic and geochemical focused production offerings offshore Papua New Guinea with the completion of the Laurabada UltracubeTM 3D reprocessing project. The Laurabada UltracubeTM project entailed the reprocessing of two open-file 3D datasets with a modern broadband de-ghosting and pre-stack depth migration sequence over what is highly sought-after acreage. The UltracubeTM is split into two cubes: The Eastern cube is near-shore, shallow water whilst the Western cube is deep-water in the Gulf of Papua.
Geoscience study sees below the salt to solve exploration challenges in Southwest Africa
Surmounting the significant challenges of mapping deep structures below salt with seismic data alone, a new non-seismic study which includes the Gabon to Angola margin, encourages further interest in the largely under-explored Southwest Africa offshore region. The newly-released Southwest Africa Margin SEEBASE® multi-client Study and GIS from Frogtech Geoscience focuses on syn-rift basement evolution highlighting the pre-salt petroleum plays that constitute the main target following the recently discovered giant field accumulation in the South Atlantic-conjugate margin of the Santos basin in Brazil.
Jobs setback for Australian geoscientists as 2018 opening quarter cools after improved 2017
The employment recovery amongst Australia’s geoscientists has taken a step backward in the opening quarter of 2018 – cooling by more than four percent after a full year of improved employment outcomes over calendar 2017. This was the result of an Australian Institute of Geoscience survey revealing that unemployment nationally among geoscientists – who are prominent in the mining and exploration sectors - increased from 7.0% in at the end of December 2017 to 11.1% at the end of March 2018. Underemployment remained little changed at 12.9% at the end of March 2018 compared with 12.
New Zealand suspension of new offshore licensing ‘unlikely to have immediate impact on oil or gas sector’
According to data and analytics company GlobalData, the suspension of new offshore licensing in New Zealand is unlikely to have an immediate impact on the oil or gas sector, but does signal the possibility of increased restrictions in the future. Jacinda Ardern, the newly elected Prime Minister of New Zealand, signaled during an interview in October 2017 that the annual licensing process for offshore blocks would be cancelled, after a review of future block offers by the new government.
CGG GeoSoftware Releases PowerLog 9.7.2 Petrophysical Software with Machine Learning Capabilities
CGG GeoSoftware has launched PowerLog 9.7.2, the latest version of its flagship petrophysical analysis software. CGG said the new PowerLog ecosystem “offers access to extensive machine learning and deep learning capabilities and many numerical analysis and visualization libraries. Users can now develop custom interpretation modules and workflows, as an example: to generate permeability models in carbonates, porosity and permeability models in unconventional reservoirs, or model missing log curves and use data clustering for facies classification. Users can easily share their custom-developed tools with co-workers. “The native implementation of Python Extensions in PowerLog 9.7.
Oil and gas industry’s $27 billion boost to Australian business
The Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association has welcomed the release of data that highlights nation-wide benefits flowing from Australia’s oil and gas industry. This follows an APPEA member survey reflecting widespread economic benefits from the sector. “The economic footprint of the oil and gas industry goes far beyond its production wells and eight liquefied natural gas (LNG) plants. Oil and gas is not ‘just’ a resources industry – the industry supports a vast supply chain of businesses in manufacturing, services and construction, said APPEA Chief Executive Dr Malcolm Roberts.