Woodside, is aiming to commercialise Senegal’s first ever oilfield by 2022, Mr Jamie Stewart, Woodside’s Business Integration Manager for the Senegal Field Development, told the Paydirt 2018 Africa Down Under mining conference in Perth last week. In an update on the SNE Development – Phase 1, Mr Stewart said a number of important items have already been ticked off in the lead-up to a Final Investment Decision (FID) in 2019 for the world-scale project, with a number of key decisions on the horizon.
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CGG Develops a Centre for Advanced Imaging for PETRONAS Carigali Sdn Bhd
CGG and PETRONAS Carigali, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Petroliam Nasional Berhad (PETRONAS), have agreed on collaboration to provide access to CGG’s latest technology and expertise in high-end seismic and multi-physics imaging and reservoir characterization, the Paris-based geoscience company announced. CGG said it had received a five-year contract by PETRONAS Carigali to develop a Centre for Advanced Imaging (CAI) to be operated by PETRONAS Carigali at its headquarters in the landmark PETRONAS Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Teen girl bags gold medal for Australia at Earth Science world games
Rebecca Whittle, a Year 11 student from Abbotsleigh high school in Sydney, has won a gold medal at the International Earth Science Olympiad in Thailand, securing Australia’s best gold medal performance at the UNESCO-sanctioned International Science Olympiads since 2009. Rebecca competed against more than 140 students from 38 countries to win gold, finishing in the top 10 per cent of Earth Science students in the world. Her medal is the second gold for Australia at this year’s International Science Olympiads, following a gold-medal performance by Sydney Grammar School student Hugo McCahon-Boersma at the International Physics Olympiad in July.
FAR finalises well location for exploration program in Gambia
FAR Limited has selected its final well location for the upcoming Samo-1 well in its Gambian exploration programme. This follows reprocessing and interpretation of 3D seismic data, detailed mapping of the Samo Prospect and detailed well engineering, FAR announced recently. The Samo Prospect lies immediately to the south and along trend from the giant SNE oil field in Senegal – a trend which has so far seen nine successful exploration and appraisal wells (at 100% success rate). The Samo-1 well will be located in approximately 1,017m water depth and 112km offshore Gambia in the highly prospective Mauritania-SenegalGuinea-Bissau-Conakry Basin.
APPEA: New Ministers but same energy policy mountains to climb
The Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association (APPEA) has congratulated Australia’s new Minister for Energy, the Hon Angus Taylor and also welcomed the reappointment of Senator Matt Canavan as Minister for Resources and Northern Australia. “APPEA looks forward to working with Mr Taylor. He has been given a huge policy challenge,” APPEA Chief Executive Dr Malcolm Roberts said. “Mr Taylor’s extensive commercial understanding will be critical in finding solutions to the competing arms of containing prices, maintaining reliable supply and attracting new investment to the energy sector. Australia’s oil and gas industry welcomes the opportunity to work with the Minister.
Gazprom will be the big spenders on global oil and gas projects to 2025
Gazprom, China Petrochemical Corp (Sinopec) and Royal Dutch Shell are predicted to be the big global spenders on planned and announced projects among oil and gas companies. That is according to data and analytics company, GlobalData, which revealed that Gazprom tops the list with estimated capital expenditure of US$160bn expected to be spent on 84 oil and gas projects globally to 2025. Sinopec and Royal Dutch Shell follow with US$87bn (74 projects) and US$86bn (91 projects) respectively.
Dorado oil well discovery is right off the top Shelf
Carnarvon Petroleum has announced that 171 million barrels of oil discovered at the Dorado well represented “one of the largest oil resources ever found on the North West Shelf”. The Perth-based explorer said oil fields of this scale were not often found, with the last large field discovery on the North West Shelf occurring about 30 years ago. “It is common for additional resources to be discovered in the surrounding area after a large discovery.
Bass says steady oil prices piqued production in July
Melbourne-based oil and gas producer Bass Oil says continued high monthly average oil prices of US$68.52 had piqued performance at its 55%-owned Tangai-Sukananti oil field onshore Sumatra, Indonesia, in July. The company said during July production volumes had totalled 11,350 barrels of oil (6,243 barrels net to Bass) and sales volumes 11,628 barrels of oil. However, production and sales had been impacted by scale problems at production wells. Bass said a remediation program underway was expected to restore daily production levels to those achieved in May, “with a strong full year (31 December 18) of oil production still expected”.
Physicist appointed as CSIRO Chief Scientist
Australia’s national science agency has appointed Dr Cathy Foley to the position of CSIRO Chief Scientist – a unique role which will help champion science, its impact and contribution to the world. Dr Foley is a world-renowned physicist and science leader most noted for her work developing superconducting devices and systems which have assisted in unearthing over $6 billion in minerals worldwide. Dr Foley will start in the role at the end of September. She said her priority will be promoting science, STEM and women in science. “Australia’s future prosperity will be fuelled by science,” Dr Foley said.
MGPalaeo and Petrosys to expand GPinfo’s Capabilities
MGPalaeo, Australian biostratigraphic experts, and Petrosys, an industry leader in mapping, surface-modeling and data-management software solutions, have signed an agreement that will allow data from MGPaleo’s AUSTRALIS™ geological database to be made available within the GPinfo data visualisation and manipulation package. In a media release, MGPalaeo announced that from August 2018, GPinfo subscribers will be able to view a high-level summary of all available geological data (biostratigraphy, lithostratigraphy, and sequence stratigraphic picks, plus wireline logs, checkshot surveys, deviation data, and more) within MGPalaeo’s AUSTRALIS database.