Our industry has developed the technical capacity to move away from conventional reservoirs – whether sandstone or carbonate – with good porosity/permeability characteristics, and extract petroleum wherever it is ‘reservoired’ – whether still in the source rock, in ‘tight’ sands, in fractured basement and so on. The North American industry is leading this charge.
So if ‘conventional resources’ are defined as light oil or ‘clean’ gas in good poroperm sandstone or carbonate reservoirs, what do we refer to as ‘unconventional resources’ at the moment?
We can think about ‘unconventional hydrocarbons’: examples would include ‘heavy’ oil, ‘sour’ gas, ‘waxy’ crude, or about ‘unconventional reservoirs’: examples would include fractured ‘basement’, ‘tight’ sandstones, shales, coal beds, hydrates – in fact anything other than good poroperm sandstones or carbonates.
The only one of these resources for which the development technology is not yet proven is gas hydrates. The rest – whether shale gas, shale oil, ‘heavy’ oil, ‘waxy’ crude, coal bed methane, ‘tight’ gas – are all amenable to known, proven technologies, available in a competitive market.
What varies at the moment are the economics of exploitation. Thus, and for example, much shale gas in the USA is non-commercial at current prices; indeed, one could take the view that the best cash flow from shale gas has in fact come to oil field service companies that supply Fracturing/Stimulation, Horizontal Drilling or 3D/4D Seismic and to the US ‘resource play’ companies that have sold or farmed-down their shale gas assets.
Thus many ‘resource players’ are switching to shale oil, or are looking internationally for gas opportunities.
Putting North America to one side, the critical question is: where are the best international opportunities for investments in ‘unconventionals’?
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David Bamford is a geophysicist by background and an explorer by recent history, and is well known as both around the oil & gas industry. In addition to acting as a director or advisor to several small companies, including his own consultancy, he writes regularly for journals such as OilVoice, ROGTEC etc, and has recently co-founded OilVoice Forums as a vehicle for on-line communication in the oil & gas industry.
He is a non executive Director of Tullow Oil (since 2004, and is a member of the Audit, Nominations and Remuneration Committees).
With a PhD in Geological Sciences from the University of Birmingham, he has had over 23 years exploration experience with BP where he was Chief Geophysicist from 1990 to 1995, General Manager for West Africa from 1995 to 1998, and acted as Vice President, Exploration, directing BP's global exploration programme, from 2001 to 2003.
New Eyes Exploration
New Eyes Exploration, founded by David Bamford, explores new ways to discover Oil and Gas.
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Helping you build and preserve your wealth through the decades with investment research, financial planning, and wealth management services.
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Kimmeridge Energy is an alternative asset investment manager focused exclusively on the energy sector. The company was founded in 2012 with the aim of leveraging the team's unique investment and operating experience to deliver superior returns to our investors.
Kimmeridge Energy's ambition is to be a top alternative asset manager as measured by risk adjusted returns, portfolio quality and client service. We also aim to be a preferred operating partner to those investing directly in the energy sector.
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Schlumberger is the leading oilfield services provider, trusted to deliver superior results and improved E&P performance for oil and gas companies around the world. Through our well site operations and in our research and engineering facilities, we are working to develop products, services and solutions that optimize customer performance in a safe and environmentally sound manner.
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Per Magnus joined Rystad Energy in 2004 and is leading the analysis team. He has particular expertise as an upstream portfolio and transaction advisor as well as wide experience with financial and fiscal regimes globally. He is also responsible for evaluation analysis of unconventional activities and is in charge of the North American Shale Quarterly Report. Per Magnus has developed comprehensive models for production profile estimations and financial modeling for oil and gas fields. He has 20 years of experience within risk management and financial analysis, primarily from DNV. In addition, he was responsible for risk assessment of the European Space Program, residing eight years in France and three years in South America. At DNV, Per Magnus had a pivotal role in various projects assessing offshore project risks and petroleum portfolios. He holds an M.Sc. degree from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology and an MBA from INSEAD in France.
Rystad Energy
Rystad Energy's Vision
"Transparency in the oil and gas business"
Who we are
Rystad Energy is an independent oil and gas consulting services and business intelligence data firm offering global databases, strategy consulting, and research products. Rystad Energy's headquarters are located in Oslo, Norway.
What we do
Rystad Energy provides services and products to E&P and oilfield service companies, investors, investment banks, and governments.
•Global databases - interactive, bottom-up, and up-to-date databases covering the industry
•Consulting services - providing support on strategy, transactions, market assessments, macro trends, etc.
•Research products - multi-client reports provided as strategy tools or market deep dives
•IT systems - transforming a third party's proprietary data to be accessed using Rystad Energy's deployment platform
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David Bamford is a geophysicist by background and an explorer by recent history, and is well known as both around the oil & gas industry. In addition to acting as a director or advisor to several small companies, including his own consultancy, he writes regularly for journals such as OilVoice, ROGTEC etc, and has recently co-founded OilVoice Forums as a vehicle for on-line communication in the oil & gas industry.
He is a non executive Director of Tullow Oil (since 2004, and is a member of the Audit, Nominations and Remuneration Committees).
With a PhD in Geological Sciences from the University of Birmingham, he has had over 23 years exploration experience with BP where he was Chief Geophysicist from 1990 to 1995, General Manager for West Africa from 1995 to 1998, and acted as Vice President, Exploration, directing BP's global exploration programme, from 2001 to 2003.
New Eyes Exploration
New Eyes Exploration, founded by David Bamford, explores new ways to discover Oil and Gas.
More...
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