Oil News and Information
Insight: The silent majority!
My observation remains that the last big innovation or disruptive breakthrough in subsurface interpretation was almost 20 years ago when Geoquest and Landmark ‘invented’ the 3D seismic interpretation workstation.
My ‘silent majority’ are the folk who actually do the innovative work in oil & gas companies who are not only ignored, but hamstrung, by the technology and the purchasing policies of their companies!
17 Jun 2013
Review: Kuwait - A Mature Industry Stands At A Juncture
The Gulf state of Kuwait has a history in the oil industry which dates back to 1938, when oil was first discovered in the country’s Burgan field. Since then, a lot has changed – except for the fact that ‘Burgan No.1’, the well which witnessed the birth of the industry in Kuwait, is still producing to this day. Over the years, Kuwait has established itself as a permanent fixture near the top of the oil industry rankings in term of both reserves, production, and exports. Indeed, the country is home to the world’s sixth largest quantity of proven oil reserves (fourth in OPEC) and it is one of the ten largest exporters of total oil product. These factors combined help to make it a global heavyweight in the oil industry- albeit one which sits at a juncture in its future outlook.
13 Jun 2013
Insight: Transformative subsurface technologies
‘Disruptive’ technologies
I was struck by reading a commentary on Steve Jobs as CEO of Apple to the effect that he invented new things – the iPod, the iPhone, the iPad – before any of us realised we needed them. This seems to me to be a really good definition of innovation, of leadership in innovation, and it set me wondering where this exists in our industry?
31 May 2013
Insight: Future onshore global hotspots
We have several reasons for believing that onshore exploration will see a resurgence, globally, and we can identify specific plays, basins and countries which will prove attractive.
23 May 2013
Review: The Bight Basin: From Regional Context to Licence Block Evaluation
Shared Earth Models provide the foundations for the continuous capture of data and knowledge within exploration and production workflows.
The delivery of 3D plate-scale geological models developed as part of the Neftex Earth Model unlocks limitless potential for integrating proprietary industry data into regional geological frameworks and the rapid analytical basin screening and assessment of play opportunities in the subsurface environment.
10 May 2013
Insight: The Challenger!
Did any of you watch the film about Richard Feynman's work on the Shuttle "Challenger" disaster of the 1980's, starring William Hurt? It was on TV recently; I knew before about his demonstration of the brittleness of the O-ring seals at low temperatures by dropping them into a jug of iced water (simulating the overnight conditions at the launch site) but I had forgotten the fact he had dug out of NASA the fact that when all the risks to shuttle launches and missions were considered, the 'chance of success' was thought to be somewhere just over 96%, in contrast to the 99.several 9's% that was NASA's official position.
This moved the chances of a Challenger-type disaster from one every few thousand years to more like one every few years, considering the number of missions that were planned per year.
06 May 2013
Review: Microbial Enhanced Oil Recovery
...perhaps that it can help us go beyond the ~10% of discovered oil that has been produced so far!
Daniel Yergin, a well known and recognized expert in the oil industry often states that most of the problems involved in producing more oil today are “above ground and not below ground”. To a great extent he is right, but I am sure that he would also agree that there is a lot of oil trapped in global oil fields and today’s oil recovery technology has not been successful in recovering a significant portion of remaining original-oil-in-place. A significant percentage (an average of 65%) of discovered oil resources remain trapped and cannot be recovered using conventional methods and processes - until now.
01 Sep 2012
Insight: Give us a break....
....and I'm not talking about the tax man!
With future, major, investment, the UKCS sector of the North Sea has a fantastic future.
What contribution can oil field service companies make to making sure it is delivered?
14 Jul 2012
Insight: Tilting at windmills...
....before 'they' plaster the countryside with them!
As I have remarked before, one intriguing aspect of media commentary on the hoped for ‘turnaround’ in global economic fortunes is a perception that the energy industry may play a key role, by dramatic increases in supply, thereby dragging prices, especially oil prices, down.
08 Jul 2012
Insight: Finding more UKCS oil.....
....let's get off our butts!
Now diving into the website of the Bank of England is not a normal activity for me, you understand, but I was searching for a copy of their latest Quarterly Bulletin in which, according to the Times this week, they attribute part of the UK’s drop in productivity to the decline in output from the North Sea; and sure enough I read:
“Norway is similar to the United Kingdom; both have seen falls in energy and utilities productivity over both the recession and recovery periods. This is not a surprise as they extract oil from common waters — the North Sea. The absolute fall at the aggregate level is larger in Norway, as extraction and utilities are a larger share of GDP ( Table A ).(4) As the decrease in oil production from the North Sea is likely to be structural rather than cyclical in nature, this evidence points to a fall in the level and growth rate of aggregate underlying labour productivity
( Chart 8 ).”
22 Jun 2012
Review: Don't steal from us, Argentina - the Repsol/YPF saga!
The dust is no closer to settling on Argentina’s highly-controversial decision expropriate one the country’s largest oil and gas firm, YPF. Six weeks have passed since the Argentine Senate approved the bill to renationalise the industry giant on April 26, yet the fallout from the move continues to make headlines.
While President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s restoration of 51% of the company’s ownership to the state may have won plaudits at home with its appeal to nationalist sentiment, outside the South American nation the story is very different.
15 Jun 2012
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