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.
Feature Articles
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.
Brazilian regulator approves Karoon’s Santos basin development plans
Karoon Gas has stepped into the development and production phase for the Echidna and Kangaroo light oil fields off Brazil, as a direct result of approval from the country’s regulator for the fields’ Declaration of Commerciality. The Kangaroo and Echidna discoveries are located in the Santos Basin for which Karoon has received ANP approval of the Final Discovery Evaluation Report (RFAD) for wholly owned Santos Blocks S-M-1037, S-M-1101, S-M-1102, S-M-1165 and S-M-1166 along with a Declaration of Commerciality (DoC).
Safehouse Habitats acquires ESPRAT group of companies
Perth-based Safehouse Habitats and its UK-based parent, Starn Group, have successfully completed the acquisition of the ESPRAT group of companies based in Australia and Malaysia. Safehouse said this latest expansion would extend the existing Starn footprint in these territories and strengthens its position in the region by providing a platform to further develop the Malaysian market for Safehouse habitats, and to provide the gas detection and related services of another Starn business, Sabre Safety Services.
Osaka Gas signs Taiwan LNG receiving terminal deals
OSAKA, Japan - Osaka Gas Engineering Co., Ltd. (OGE), a subsidiary of Osaka Gas Co., Ltd. (Osaka Gas) has entered into an agreement to provide consulting services for the construction of LNG receiving terminals on behalf of CPC Corporation, Taiwan (CPC) and Taiwan Power Co., Ltd. (TPC) respectively.
CGG GeoConsulting Launches Robertson New Ventures Suite to Accelerate Exploration Efforts
CGG GeoConsulting has launched the Robertson New Ventures Suite, an integrated and digitally transformed family of exploration-focused geoscience tools and databases that the company says will offer clients a “competitive edge in global new ventures screening and frontier exploration”. The six core products of the Robertson New Ventures Suite are Basins & Plays, Geochemistry, Plate Kinematics, Predictions, Provenance and Analogues.
East coast gas prices could rise 30 percent in five years
Wood Mackenzie forecasts Australia's East Coast gas prices to rise up to 30 percent to between A$10 and A$13 /per gigajoule by the mid-2020s. The company concluded from a recent study that it was no surprise gas prices in the East Coast have jumped up over the last three years, a situation driven primarily by declining cheap gas supply from the Cooper Basin and offshore Victoria. New gas supply sources are also proving far more expensive to develop than the cheap legacy supply sources that have maintained Australian gas supply for decades.
Dr Fraser Bransby appointed Fugro geotechnics chair at UWA
Dr Fraser Bransby has been appointed Fugro chair in geotechnics at the University of Western Australia’s Oceans Graduate School. Dr Bransby has worked across academia and industry, most recently at Fugro AG Pty Ltd. After obtaining his PhD in soil mechanics from the University of Cambridge, he spent time in university geotechnical research and in industrial consultancy before joining Fugro. Having established the Fugro chair in geotechnics in 2014, UWA and Fugro developed a sustainable research group that is significant to Fugro’s activities worldwide.