Is the era of Deepwater exploration – which has underpinned global discovery volumes for more than a decade – coming to an end?
Much has already been explored, there is intense competition for remaining acreage, often hosted by governments which are let’s say ‘inhospitable’, and costs are escalating to the point where drilling sufficient wells to demonstrate a commercial development may be prohibitively expensive.
If so, the next exploration frontier appears to involve a return to previously underexplored or unexplored Onshore basins, and this is where we are likely to see the next wave of competition and developments take place. To an extent, this is already happening with the pursuit of unconventional resource plays in North America, especially the USA.
Do we explorers have the skills and technologies available to help us explore successfully onshore? The relevant technologies could include for example remote sensing from satellites; measurement of seeps and micro-seepage; high resolution gravimetry (FTG); wireless 2D and 3D seismic. Whether modern explorers have the skills to integrate these technologies and explore successfully is an open question!
Many in our industry think of geophysics as the preserve, the stomping ground, of explorers.
And indeed, we have seen continuing innovation in the geophysical contribution to exploration, whether in the form of sub-salt depth imaging or Full Tensor Gravimetry, for example.
However, geophysics has an equally significant contribution to make once an oil or gas field has been discovered for example in ‘whole well’ monitoring using fibre optics or reservoir monitoring using 3 component ‘time-lapse’ seismic, cross-well seismic tomography or even micro-seismic; equally ‘time lapse’ electrical methods may well become important for the field setting where there is an independent static and dynamic reservoir model derived from seismic and wells.
In this Forum, we will look across this broad spectrum exploration technologies and of geophysics in particular, for innovation, and we invite presentations from companies at the leading edge of this powerful science!
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David Bamford is 63. He is a non-executive director at Tullow Oil plc and has various roles with Parkmead Group plc, PARAS Ltd and New Eyes Exploration Ltd, and runs his own consultancy. He writes regular articles for OilVoice and ROGTEC and is a co-founder of Finding Petroleum.
He retired from BP in 2003, after a 23 year career spent initially in research & technology, then the geophysics function, business unit leadership, and finally BP's global exploration programme.
Finding Petroleum
Finding Petroleum was established to help the oil and gas industry network, and stay up to date on the latest technological developments. It does this via hosting regular events, distributing their colour magazine - Digital Energy Journal, and with an online social network of nearly 700 members.
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Ivan Sandrea is a senior advisor to the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies and a global consultant.
Ivan’s previously served as President and COO for the Energy Intelligence Group (EIG) in London. Prior to joining EIG, Ivan was Vice President of Global Strategy and Business Development, and Vice President of International E&P Strategy for Statoil (4 yeas). During his career at Statoil he established world class units within the firm covering both business intelligence and strategy development (London and Oslo). Prior to his position at Statoil, he was Head of Oil Supply at the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), and was responsible for the supply and oil balance sections of the OPEC Monthly Report and the supply section in the annual World Oil and Industry Outlook reporting directly to the Secretariat and the Economic Commission Board (Austria). At OPEC, Ivan also acted as the technical liaison with non-OPEC countries and represented OPEC at the UNECE Expert Group on Resource Classification in Geneva. Ivan is also familiar with the financial community and before working at OPEC was Associate Vice President for Oil & Gas Equities at Merrill Lynch. He is trained as a petroleum geologist and began his career at BP Exploration International where he worked in exploration, operations, and commercial positions in Venezuela, Norway and Egypt.
Ivan is currently active as a Senior Research Advisor at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies (UK); member of the Oxford Energy Policy Club; co-founder, Board Member, and lecturer of strategy at the Executive Energy MBA program at Vienna’s Wirtschaftsuniversität (WU) in Austria; member of the UNECE Expert Group on Resource Classification (Geneva);Board Member of KleineHerzen (Austria), a non-profit organisation dedicated to supporting orphans children in Russia and Ukraine. He has published over 16 papers and contributed to a number of books and publications.
He was recently appointed as a trustee to the Energy Policy Research Foundation, Inc. (Washington, D.C.). EPRINC, a non-profit think tank established in 1944, provides research and analysis of contemporary petroleum issues.
Ivanholds a BSc. in geology from Baylor University, a MSc. and MBA from Edinburgh University and attended the BerkleyExecutive Leadership Program. He is married and has one son.
Oxford Institute for Energy Studies
The Oxford Institute for Energy Studies was founded in 1982 as an autonomous centre for advanced research into the social science areas of energy issues. The Institute is committed to the idea of dialogue - between consumers and producers, government and industry and academics and decision makers. This is reflected in the membership of the Institute and in the composition of its research team, which is drawn from different national, academic and professional backgrounds. Our aim is that co-operation between researchers from these varied backgrounds, will lead to a more informed and balanced understanding of the behaviour, motivations and objectives of the various economic forces, agents and policy makers that operate in or influence the performance of international energy markets.
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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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David has over 26 years experience in oil and gas exploration and production, and is a specialist in the integration of geology, geophysics and reservoir engineering. He has previously held roles at BP and Chevron. At Chevron, he worked on one of the world's supergiant oilfields, Greater Burgan-Kuwait, where he was part of Chevron's efforts to help the Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) increase production following the Iraq War of the early 1990's.
ARKeX
ARKeX provides airborne and marine geophysical surveys for the oil & gas exploration industry. It specialises in Full Tensor Gravity Gradiometry (FTG), which measures variations in the earth''s gravitational field to help image subsurface structures. FTG has a much higher bandwidth and delivers a high resolution image than conventional gravity.
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Wireless Seismic, Inc. was founded in 2006 with a single purpose: to design and develop a wireless recording system that collects and transmits seismic data in real time. Today, Wireless seismic's second generation system - the RT System 2 - is a reality. In the seismic data acquisition system marketplace of conventional cable systems and new nodal cable-less systems, it is the only wireless system capable of scaling to 10,000 + channels that can make that claim.
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Ian is a physicist who strayed into geophysics by attending a job interview with GSI for interview practice, and was unable subsequently to say no to the unexpected job offer. That was in 1968 and he worked as a field engineer, then in data processing and software development before joining BP 10 years later. During his time in BP he ran the seismic field operations team, the subsurface R&D program, served as an SEG vice president, and inaugurated the SEG's "Distinguished Instructor" program with a 1-day 4D course taught worldwide. BP awarded him their “distinguished advisor” title in 2000, and in this role he initiated the first at-scale “Life of Field” seismic monitoring system which was subsequently installed in the Valhall field. He also initiated developments in land seismic technology which are coming to fruition at the present time. Although now "mostly retired" and quite undistinguished, he consults, does some teaching, and hikes around any convenient mountain range.
Ian Jack
Ian is a physicist who strayed into geophysics by attending a job interview with GSI for interview practice, and was unable subsequently to say no to the unexpected job offer. That was in 1968 and he worked as a field engineer, then in data processing and software development before joining BP 10 years later. During his time in BP he ran the seismic field operations team, the subsurface R&D program, served as an SEG vice president, and inaugurated the SEG's "Distinguished Instructor" program with a 1-day 4D course taught worldwide. BP awarded him their “distinguished advisor” title in 2000, and in this role he initiated the first at-scale “Life of Field” seismic monitoring system which was subsequently installed in the Valhall field. He also initiated developments in land seismic technology which are coming to fruition at the present time. Although now "mostly retired" and quite undistinguished, he consults, does some teaching, and hikes around any convenient mountain range.
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Talk Description.
Our presenters will form a panel to discuss topics such as what they see as the most promising technologies for onshore exploration and exploitation, what barriers exist for successful deployment, the opportunity for small, entrepreunerial, companies in a world dominated by service 'behemoths', and so on.
This discussion will be led by David Bamford and will feature an audience Q&A session. |
Used for panel discussions
Panel Discussion
This is part of our agenda where Finding Petroleum has a panel discussion.
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