First Break October 2022- Energy Transition by EAGE

VO L U M E 4 0 I I S S U E 10 I O C T O B E R 2 0 2 2

SPECIAL TOPIC

Energy Transition EAGE NEWS Looking ahead to Vienna Annual TECHNICAL ARTICLE Seismic characterisation of a deepwater turbidite channel CROSSTALK British energy in the second Elizabethan era

OUR PLANET. FROM A NEW PERSPECTIVE.

cgg.com/mining SEE THINGS DIFFERENTLY

FIRST BREAK® An EAGE Publication

CHAIR EDITORIAL BOARD Gwenola Michaud (Gwenola.Michaud@cognite.com) EDITOR Damian Arnold (editorfb@eage.org) MEMBERS, EDITORIAL BOARD • Paul Binns, consultant (pebinns@btinternet.com) • Lodve Berre, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (lodve.berre@ntnu.no) • Satinder Chopra, SamiGeo (satinder.chopra@samigeo.com) • Anthony Day, PGS (anthony.day@pgs.com) • Peter Dromgoole, Retired Geophysicist (peterdromgoole@gmail.com) • Rutger Gras, Consultant (r.gras@gridadvice.nl) • Hamidreza Hamdi, University of Calgary (hhamdi@ucalgary.ca) • Clément Kostov, Freelance Geophysicist (cvkostov@icloud.com) • John Reynolds, Reynolds International (jmr@reynolds-international.co.uk) • James Rickett, Schlumberger (jrickett@slb.com) • Peter Rowbotham, Apache (Peter.Rowbotham@apachecorp.com) • Dave Stewart, Dave Stewart Geoconsulting Ltd (djstewart.dave@gmail.com) • Angelika-Maria Wulff, Consultant (gp.awulff@gmail.com) EAGE EDITOR EMERITUS Andrew McBarnet (andrew@andrewmcbarnet.com) MEDIA PRODUCTION Saskia Nota (firstbreakproduction@eage.org) PRODUCTION ASSISTANT Ivana Geurts (firstbreakproduction@eage.org) ADVERTISING INQUIRIES corporaterelations@eage.org EAGE EUROPE OFFICE Kosterijland 48 3981 AJ Bunnik The Netherlands • +31 88 995 5055 • eage@eage.org • www.eage.org EAGE MIDDLE EAST OFFICE EAGE Middle East FZ-LLC Dubai Knowledge Village Block 13 Office F-25 PO Box 501711 Dubai, United Arab Emirates • +971 4 369 3897 • middle_east@eage.org • www.eage.org EAGE ASIA PACIFIC OFFICE UOA Centre Office Suite 19-15-3A No. 19, Jalan Pinang 50450 Kuala Lumpur Malaysia • +60 3 272 201 40 • asiapacific@eage.org • www.eage.org EAGE AMERICAS SAS Edificio Centro Ejecutivo Santa Barbara Av. Cra. 19 #118-95 - Office: 501 • +57 310 8610709 • americas@eage.org • www.eage.org

How a multidisciplinary, data-driven geoscience approach is required to help achieve the energy transition goals

Editorial Contents 3

EAGE News

Personal Record Interview

Monthly Update

Crosstalk

Industry News

Technical Article 27 Attempts at seismic characterization of a deepwater turbidite channel in Taranaki Basin, New Zealand Satinder Chopra, Ritesh Kumar Sharma, Kurt J. Marfurt, Heather Bedle and Sumit Verma

Special Topic: Energy Transition 41 Accelerating results in carbon storage studies using an integrated and automated approach Aurore Plougoulen 51 How a multidisciplinary, data-driven geoscience approach is required to help achieve the energy transition goals David Gold, Niklas Heinemann, Robert Porjesz, Rebecca Bolton, Greg Rhodes, Pierre Roy, Edward Bunker and Matthew Booth 59 Synergy between industry intelligence and technological innovation to address our climate goal Sougata Halder, James Keay, John Xie, Meridee Fockler, Matt Mayer and Phil Hargreaves 65 Reinventing subsurface operations to progress the energy transition Judith Narváez and Gabriel Narváez 69 Integrated machine learning and physics-based workflows for rapid qualitative and quantitative insights on monitoring carbon capture and sequestration Khushboo Havelia, Surender Manral, Hilde Grude Borgos and Steve Freeman 78 Natural hydrogen: a new source of carbon-free and renewable energy that can compete with hydrocarbons Christophe Rigollet and Alain Prinzhofer 85

Why CCS is not like reverse gas engineering Philip Ringrose, Jamie Andrews, Peter Zweigel, Anne-Kari Furre, Ben Hern and Bamshad Nazarian

EAGE MEMBERS CHANGE OF ADDRESS NOTIFICATION Send to: EAGE Membership Dept at EAGE Office (address above)

92 Required capabilities for assessing depleted and deep saline reservoirs for successful CCS projects H.J. Kloosterman and A.Kirchin

FIRST BREAK ON THE WEB www.firstbreak.org

95 Green technology to help calculate subsurface geothermal zones and temperatures before drilling G. Stove, O. Delgado, D. Limmer and L. Lawrence

ISSN 0263-5046 (print) / ISSN 1365-2397 (online)

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Calendar

cover: Geoscience expertise is increasingly required to assess locations for offshore wind projects.

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European Association of Geoscientists & Engineers

Board 2022-2023

Jean-Marc Rodriguez President

Edward Wiarda Vice-President

Pascal Breton Secretary-Treasurer

Near Surface Geoscience Division Esther Bloem Chair Andreas Aspmo Pfaffhuber Vice-Chair Alireza Malehmir Immediate Past Chair Micki Allen Contact Officer EEGS/North America Adam Booth Committee Member Hongzhu Cai Liaison China Eric Cauquil Liaison Shallow Marine Geophysics Deyan Draganov Technical Programme Officer Wolfram Gödde Liaison First Break Hamdan Ali Hamdan Liaison Middle East Vladimir Ignatev Liaison Russia / CIS Musa Manzi Liaison Africa Myrto Papadopoulou Young Professional Liaison Catherine Truffert Industry Liaison Panagiotis Tsourlos Editor in Chief Near Surface Geophysics Florina Tuluca Committee member

Oil & Gas Geoscience Division

Caroline Le Turdu Membership and Cooperation Officer

Peter Rowbotham Publications Officer

Maren Kleemeyer Education Officer

Lucy Slater Chair Yohaney Gomez Galarza Vice-Chair Michael Peter Suess Immediate Past Chair; TPC Erica Angerer Member Wiebke Athmer Member Juliane Heiland TPC Tijmen Jan Moser Editor-in-Chief Geophysical Prospecting Francesco Perrone Member Matteo Ravasi YP Liaison Jonathan Redfern Editor-in-Chief Petroleum Geoscience Giovanni Sosio DET SIC Liaison Aart-Jan van Wijngaarden Technical Programme Officer

SUBSCRIPTIONS First Break is published monthly. It is free to EAGE members. The membership fee of EAGE is € 80.00 a year including First Break, EarthDoc (EAGE’s geoscience database), Learning Geoscience (EAGE’s Education website) and online access to a scientific journal. Companies can subscribe to First Break via an institutional subscription. Every subscription includes a monthly hard copy and online access to the full First Break archive for the requested number of online users. Aart-Jan van Wijngaarden Technical Programme Officer

Esther Bloem Chair Near Surface Geoscience Division

Lucy Slater Chair Oil & Gas Geoscience Division

Orders for current subscriptions and back issues should be sent to EAGE Publications BV, Journal Subscriptions, PO Box 59, 3990 DB, Houten, The Netherlands. Tel: +31 (0)88 9955055, E-mail: subscriptions@eage.org, www.firstbreak.org. First Break is published by EAGE Publications BV, The Netherlands. However, responsibility for the opinions given and the statements made rests with the authors. COPYRIGHT & PHOTOCOPYING © 2022 EAGE All rights reserved. First Break or any part thereof may not be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transcribed in any form or by any means, electronically or mechanically, including photocopying and recording, without the prior written permission of the publisher. PAPER The publisher’s policy is to use acid-free permanent paper (TCF), to the draft standard ISO/DIS/9706, made from sustainable forests using chlorine-free pulp (Nordic-Swan standard).

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HIGHLIGHTS

Drones in geoscience now a community interest

Transition career coaching is here

Game on for Laurie Dake Challenge

A lot to look forward to at next year’s Annual Meeting in Vienna Greg Rock, chair of the 2023 Local Advisory Committee, and vice-president at OMV Exploration, extends this invitation to members to attend the forthcoming Annual Meeting in Vienna next June. Following an outstanding 83rd EAGE Annual Conference & Exhibition in Madrid it is a pleasure to invite EAGE members and all those with an interest in the future of geoscience and engineering to participate in next year’s annual event, to be held in Vienna at the ‘Messe Wien Exhibition & Congress Center’. The theme of this coming Annual is ‘Securing a sustainable future together’. It recognizes the challenges and turbulence we face in the world today. That’s why our focus will be on the key issues of energy security and independence, a sustainable energy transition and how we all need to adapt our traditional ways of working and cooperation to address this uncertain future. With these topics heading our new Strategic Programme, the conference will as usual showcase how the latest geophysical, geological, and engineering research, ideas and case studies have a vital contribution to make in the quest for solutions. We hope to build on the high-quality Technical Programme delivered in Madrid and continue the discussion on increasingly relevant issues going forward such as decision quality and analysis, digi-

talization, partnerships and stakeholder engagement. Many of the best-attended technical sessions in Madrid covered the low carbon business areas e.g., CCS, CCUS, H2 storage, and geothermal. We intend to explore further these themes to include discussion on transferable skills and re-training/education. As chairman of the Local Advisory Committee (LAC), I am really pleased with the team we have put together to help organise this event with strong representation from industry, academia, IOCs (big and small) and NOCs. In addition, we are hoping we can leverage our location to encourage some of our significant Vienna-based NGOs to participate and share their perspectives. Many of you will already be familiar with our host city of Vienna as a popular venue for a number of past EAGE Annual Meetings. It offers a major cultural experience for visitors based on the many majestic buildings of its imperial past, idyllic landscapes, and its association with the great classical composers of the eighteenth and nineteenth century. All this combined with all the amenities of a modern international city. FIRST

Vienna Local Advisory chair Greg Rock.

The LAC looks forward to welcoming you to Vienna next year to continue the crucial conversation on how we can work together to ensure an equitable and sustainable future.

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EAGE NEWS

New EAGE community formed to focus on drones and their geoscience applications Drones and robots are a hot topic for the Geoscience community, which is why a new special interest community has been launched. The EAGE Uncrewed Aerial Vehicles (UAV) community creates a network of members interested in sharing knowledge and developing skills among geoscientists and engineers exploring and working on drone technology, robotic, drone geosciences and geophysics, terrestrial remote sensing with applications to the fields of natural hazards, geotechnics and site investigations, environmental geosciences, rock outcrop digital imaging and analysis, and resource exploration. Drones and associated sensors have the powerful capability of bridging the gap between ground surveys and uncrewed aircraft and satellite data. Alexey Dobrovolskiy, from SPH Engineering, has been taking the initiative in the formation of this community and has gathered a team of motivated people. He said ‘It is a great honour for SPH Engineering to contribute to the development of UAV applications in geophysics and hydrography. Together with my colleagues from SeisBEE, SINTEF, UAVE, Teyra GeoConsulting, and

Drone geoscience is less intrusive.

Skipper NDT, we are proud to take the lead in establishing a knowledge-sharing network on UAV within EAGE.’ The UAV Community committee gathers a variety of members, from academic, research institutes and industry. All of them are eager to develop and show what drones equipped with different sensors can bring to the geoscience world. Committee member Bastien Dupuy (SINTEF) said ‘Being part of the EAGE UAV Community is a good opportunity to build a varied network of experts in the drone geophysics community, and I am very excited to learn and organise interesting events about these topics.’ Bruno Pagliccia (SeisBEE), another committee member, noted: ‘Robotics and artificial intelligence are the main pillars

for sustainable future exploration projects. EAGE UAV community is a unique opportunity to be involved in a vibrant group of geoscientists pushing drone technology to its limits. Let’s go flying…’ Jon Blickwede (Teyra GeoConsulting) added: ‘What I most hope to gain from being a member of the EAGE UAV Community is to build an international network of other geoscientists who are also involved in using drones to create high-resolution digital twins/models of geological outcrops, and in general to learn about new applications of drone technology to better understand our Earth and other planets.’ All EAGE members are welcome to join the community, whether already working with drones and other types of robots, or simply wanting to discover what you can get out of it. Scan the below QR codes to check out the UAV Community webpage and LinkedIn group to stay updated about upcoming events.

UAV Community webpage

LinkedIn group

Hong Kong workshop to address geophysics and smart cities Workshop chair, Lin Liu, and co-chair, Arthur Cheng from the Chinese University of Hong Kong are inviting those interested to participate in the 2nd EAGE/SEG Workshop on Geophysical Aspects of Smart Cities. To be held from 6-8 December in Hong Kong, the workshop aims to demonstrate and discuss lessons learned and progress in geophysical techniques in smart city applications and methods, with an emphasis on inter-disciplinary efforts with civil engineering and digital technologies. Geophysics has the ability to provide essential knowledge at the planning stage, 4

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real-time performance monitoring, and life cycle management in challenges related to limited land and urban transportation. Geophysics, civil engineering, and digital informatics provide the framework to guide project owners and local authorities to develop specific strategies for building a smart city/smart nation. The highlights of this dynamic workshop will include keynote presentations by Kenichi Soga (UC Berkeley) and Atsushi Yashima (Gifu University, Japan). The event will be led by invited speakers: Cédric Richard (Université Côte d’Azur); Didi Mak (LPC); Tieyuan Zhu (Pennsyl-

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vania State University); Shujuan Mao and Hae Young Noh (Stanford University); and Manman Hu and Louis Wong (University of Hong Kong). There will be an accompanying short course on ‘Introduction to DAS Monitoring of Urban Subsurface and Infrastructure’ by Biondo Biondi (Stanford University) and Li Yunyue Elita (National University Singapore). Registration is open now via https://eage.eventsair. com/2nd-eageseg-workshop-on-geophysical-aspects-of-smart-cities/ and early bird registration will be available until 15 October 2022. For more information, visit www.eage.org.

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EAGE NEWS

Sustainable energy transition technologies provide a lecture series for Pau Chapter EAGE Pau Local Chapter held its general assembly in September, a good time to review its last 12 months activities. It was a year enriched by seven lectures on various topics including the evolution of acoustics tools, seismic monitoring using distributed acoustic sensors and sustainable energy transition. Notable was the set of three lectures presented by Philippe Julien, TotalEnergies senior manager and former EAGE Education Officer, on ‘Innovative technologies for a sustainable energy transition to decarbonize our energy mix and protect our environment’. The subject was particularly appropriate given the proximity to Pole AVENIA, the French

Philippe Julien in session.

competitiveness cluster for subsurface industry, members of which attended. Almost all political, scientific, social and economic players are now convinced that we must not only drastically reduce, and even cancel, our greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions but, more generally, better protect our environment. The elimination of GHG emissions, the quality of water (oceans, rivers, etc.), the fight against various types of pollution (hydrocarbons, plastics, etc.), and the preservation of biodiversity are all examples of the challenges that humanity must take up. During the first lecture, Julien presented innovative technologies that contribute to a sustainable energy transition and protect our environment. Most of

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these technologies have been developed in connection with our oil and gas industry but are generally applicable to other sources of energy such as renewables for example. He showed innovative techniques to better identify and quantify the potential impacts of our industrial activities on our environment like water pollution, changes in biodiversity and GHG emissions. This was illustrated with a few monitoring examples such as valvometry, metagenomics, infra-red hyperspectral cameras and airborne ultralight spectrometers. Julien mentioned some recent approaches to minimise our impacts on land, at sea and in the atmosphere, e.g., artificial intelligence (AI) to predict risk of kicks in advance when drilling E&P wells; hydrocarbons eating bacteria to reduce produced water toxicity; a water desalination breakthrough technology to reduce salinity of produced waters; smouldering for soil remediation; technologies to restore degraded coral systems; and mechanical or chemical plastic recycling. Finally, he showed how recent advances in nature-based solutions, such as robotics, nanotechnology, satellite imagery and AI can reduce the environmental footprint of our energy sector. The second lecture focused on innovative technologies tending to decarbonise our energy mix with the aim of a sustainable energy transition. These new techniques contribute on the one hand to make renewable energies (biomass, solar, etc.) more efficient and more economically profitable and on the other hand to capture and store carbon in the subsurface, e.g., former depleted hydrocarbon reservoirs and saline aquifers. Some innovative technologies to transform the carbon emitted by the production or use of hydrocarbons into value-added products were also presented. Concerning renewable energies, he focused on bio-

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mass innovative technologies related to second and third generation biofuels, and on low carbon electricity (how to improve performance and reduce costs of photovoltaic modules and how to mitigate intermittence of renewables electricity generated from with micro-grids. On carbon capture use and storage (CCUS), Julien focused on lowcost new capture technologies, on new carbon storage modelling software to better assess reservoir storage and longterm containment capacities, and on innovative technologies to use CO2 as a primary material (CO2 EOR, CO2 to plastics, CO2 to cement and concrete). The last lecture was more political, focusing on the way energy transition can be implemented. Fossil energies, gas especially, are still currently very useful not only to meet worldwide energy demand but also to generate financial income to develop new energies. The oil and gas industry, E&P as well as refining and chemicals, have to adapt to this new context. Julien presented innovations related to geosciences (geology and geophysics) in this energy transition context. To meet the recommendations of GIEC (Groupe d’experts intergouvernemental sur l’évolution du climat), humanity must organise an energy revolution, combining both new technologies and moderation. Developed countries will have to help developing countries. Targeting carbon neutrality, an obligation to reduce the dramatic consequences of climate change, is one of the most important challenges that humanity is facing. The EAGE Pau Local Chapter is grateful to Julien for these very interesting ‘hot’ topics lectures and would also like to thank TotalEnergies for their financial support which allows us to continue our activities. Do not hesitate to follow us on LinkedIn https://www. linkedin.com/company/eage-pau-localchapter/ and to join us.

EAGE NEWS

Secure your 2023 EAGE membership now

You are already enjoying the benefits of EAGE membership with this issue of First Break, which is part of your annual subscription. Why not secure your 2023 membership now so you don’t miss out on all the upcoming programmes, activities and networking opportunities? As an EAGE member you will have special discounts on the registration fees of our conferences and workshops, including major events such as the 3rd EAGE Global Energy Transition Conference & Exhibition (The Hague, The Netherlands) and, in

2023, the 84th EAGE Annual Conference & Exhibition in Vienna, Austria. Students can often benefit from specially dedicated fees, giving you even more bang for your buck. Additionally, through our Learning Geoscience platform, we aim to enhance your professional skills and experience by providing online courses and webinars that bring the latest trends in geoscience and engineering. You can update your knowledge by joining our Self-Paced, Extensive, EETs and Interactive Online Short Courses, with discounted fees. As a member, you will also have access to Distinguished Lecturer Webinars, E-Lecture Webinars and ‘how-to’ videos for free! EarthDoc, our online geoscience database, is available with more specialised content, featuring many event proceedings and articles from relevant publications. With your membership, you receive a free online subscription to one of our four technical publications, and reduced fees for additional EAGE journal subscription(s). You can choose from Basin

Research, Geophysical Prospecting, Near Surface Geophysics or Petroleum Geoscience. EarthDoc is a great help when researching methodologies, case studies, or new techniques for both students and professionals alike, so you can make sure to maintain your access by renewing early. As already mentioned, you will also have access to First Break, our monthly flagship publication, and receive a 15% discount on all EAGE book titles, available for purchase in E-Pub format. Renewing your membership early guarantees your uninterrupted engagement with the Association. If you are not an EAGE member yet, you are invited to join our community with a special offer: secure your 2023 membership today and get the remainder of 2022 for free. To begin your application or renew your membership visit:

EAGE Online Education Calendar VELOCITIES, IMAGING, AND WAVEFORM INVERSION - THE EVOLUTION OF CHARACTERIZING THE EARTH’S SUBSURFACE, BY I.F. JONES (ONLINE EET)

SELF PACED COURSE

6 CHAPTERS OF 1 HR

GEOSTATISTICAL RESERVOIR MODELING, BY D. GRANA

SELF PACED COURSE

8 CHAPTERS OF 1 HR

CARBONATE RESERVOIR CHARACTERIZATION, BY L. GALLUCCIO

SELF PACED COURSE

8 CHAPTERS OF 1 HR

3 OCT 3 NOV

NON-SEISMIC DATA ACQUISITION AND PROCESSING: GRAVITY AND MAGNETICS BY JAAP MONDT

EXTENSIVE ONLINE COURSE

14 HOURS (INCL. 7 WEBINARS OF 1-2 HRS EACH)

4 OCT 4 NOV

DATA SCIENCE FOR GEOSCIENCE BY JEF CAERS

EXTENSIVE ONLINE COURSE

14 HOURS (INCL. 4 WEBINARS OF 1-2 HRS. EACH)

5-7 OCT

LAND SEISMIC SURVEY DESIGN BY PAUL RAS

IOSC

4 HOURS/DAY, 10 MODULES

11-14 OCT

SEDIMENTOLOGICAL CHARACTERIZATION OF CARBONATE ROCKS BY CATHERINE BREISLIN AND LAURA GALLUCCIO

IOSC

4 HOURS/DAY, 2 PARTS

18 OCT 27 DEC

GEOLOGICAL CO2 STORAGE BY A. BUSCH, E. MACKAY, F. DOSTER, M. LANDRO, P. RINGROSE

EXTENSIVE ONLINE COURSE

24 HOURS (INCL. 6 WEBINARS OF 1-2 HRS. EACH)

20-21 OCT

NEW TOOLS AND APPROACHES IN RESERVOIR QUALITY PREDICTION BY DAVE CANTREL

IOSC

4 HOURS/DAY, 2 PARTS

26-27 OCT

GEOPHYSICAL DATA ANALYSIS IN JULIA, INCLUDING MACHINE LEARNING BY RAJIV KUMAR

IOSC

4 HOURS/DAY, 5 MODULES

START AT ANY TIME

* EXTENSIVE SELF PACED MATERIALS AND INTERACTIVE SESSIONS WITH THE INSTRUCTORS: CHECK SCHEDULE OF EACH COURSE FOR DATES AND TIMES OF LIVE SESSIONS FOR THE FULL CALENDAR, MORE INFORMATION AND REGISTRATION PLEASE VISIT WWW.EAGE.ORG AND WWW.LEARNINGGEOSCIENCE.ORG.

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EAGE NEWS

Latin America puts accent on energy transition events

Operation offshore Brazil.

Coming next month on 21-22 November in Rio de Janeiro is the first EAGE/SBGf workshop on Reservoir Monitoring and its role in the Energy Transition. The event will feature the discussion of topics such as measurement, monitoring and verification (MMV) in the reservoir; carbon sequestration in offshore/deep offshore reservoirs; energy transition, by working on advanced field monitoring technol-

ogies; plus CCUS, gas exploitation and hydrogen storage. Particpants will have the chance to learn from outstanding industry leaders and academic authorities, including Jonathan Brain, Dan Clarke and Jorge Lopez (Shell); Mona Hanekne Andersen (Equinor); William Burnett (ExxonMobil); Adeoye Adeyemi (TotalEnergies); Marcos Grochau (Petrobras); Denis Schiozer (University of Campinas); Florian Doster, Babak Jafarizadeh and Gustavo Côrte (Heriot-Watt University). The workshop calls for experts from reservoir monitoring, field management and associated technologies to present and discuss the value of the information provided by monitoring, current practices in operating companies, success and failures stories, as well as economic and practical blockers. Register today at: https://eage.eventsair.com/first-eagesbgf-workshop-on-res-

ervoir-monitoring/registration- or at https:// bit.ly/RegistrationWorkshopOnReservoirMonitoring. In 2023, Latin America will further its focus on the latest trends in energy transition with the Second EAGE Workshop on Geothermal in Latin America. The occasion will include a visit to one of the most important geothermal fields in the region, located in Guanacaste, Costa Rica. CCUS and hydrogen potential will be addressed in two additional regional events. Stay tuned for more information!

Rock formation in South America.

ADDITIONS THIS MONTH Two events are taking place in Cape Town (South Africa) and online in October: the 6th EAGE Eastern Arica Petroleum Geoscience Forum on 10-12 October and the 1st EAGE Western Africa Exploration & Production Workshop on 12-14 October. Each event’s proceedings are expected to include approximately 20 abstracts. These will become available on EarthDoc two weeks in advance. Two new events are planned in the LATAM region: • The 2nd EAGE Workshop on EOR on 12-14 October in Bogotá (Colombia). Proceedings will include 20 abstracts and will become available on EarthDoc two weeks before the event. • The 1st EAGE Guyana-Suriname Basin Conference in Georgetown (Guyana) and online on 26-28 October. The proceedings will include 23 abstracts. The 2nd EAGE Subsurface Intelligence Workshop will be hosted in Manama (Bahrain) on 28-31 October. The proceedings will consist of 21 abstracts. Lastly, new issues of Geophysical Prospecting, Basin Research and Near Surface Geophysics will be published in October.

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EAGE NEWS

Coaching programme on how to meet the energy transition challenge Esther Bloem, Lucia Levato, and Gwenola Michaud introduce a proposed coaching programme on how geoscientists and engineers can deal with the evolving world of energy transition. Our world community faces unprecedented challenges of which the most talked about are probably the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources, the redistribution of energy supply, global warming and the associated dire environmental consequences. Nor can we ignore the war in Ukraine. In all these scenarios the energy industry is heavily involved which means geoscientists and engineers need to develop new competencies and practices to navigate this unanticipated environment. As a community, we need to identify and develop technical and non-technical skills to help us address these formidable societal issues. We believe that the short course we are introducing can help to develop understanding and, in an era of great uncertainty, bring some clarity to where our future careers may lead. At the 2022 EAGE Annual Conference and Exhibition in Madrid Joseba Murillas, chair of the Local Advisory Committee and executive director, exploration and business development at Repsol said that, as one of the largest subsurface professional associations in the world, EAGE ‘can and should play a role in outlining and promoting some of these new competencies and practices that will make geoscientists and engineers more competitive in accessing

the opportunities that this new environment will provide.’ EAGE is taking the initiative in exploring a proposed short course to assist geoscientists and engineers in navigating the challenges and opportunities inherent in decarbonisation and energy transition activities. The course, designed as a coaching programme, has the support of the EAGE’s Decarbonisation & Energy Transition community. It includes five online webinars over five weeks supplemented by exercises and weekly group coaching sessions. The aim is to provide a cross-learning environment to face the uncertainties associated with career transitions. The idea is that participants can share experiences, compare viewpoints and cooperate to establish a positive and supportive atmosphere. The collaborative environment is intended to nurture soft-skills development and the emergence of a peer-learning community among EAGE members. The coaching approach encourages each person to maximise their personal and professional potential. Upon completion of the course, individuals can identify their strengths and attitudes under stress and recognise typical situations that may trigger problems. Improved self-awareness, confidence, and ability to rely on the core strengths they have identified, should enable participants

to approach their next career goal with confidence. Coming from diverse backgrounds and experiences, the progamme leaders Esther Bloem, Lucia Levato, and Gwenola Michaud - strongly believe that we learn and adapt faster and better within a positive and supportive environment. They are also convinced that there is no time to lose: helping each other in our career transitions is a way to speed up the necessary change within our community and industry. If you are interested or curious to learn more about this coaching programme, please get in touch via communities@eage.org. You can also provide your feedback by filling in this survey.

Ghana students open chapter

Founding chapter members.

The newly established EAGE University of Ghana Student Chapter has set out to create a space in which both academia and industry can belong. The Chapter is starting with eleven mainly undergraduate students who are willing to dedicate and promote geoscience. Students have already engaged in a week-long field trip last December to various sites of interest - Western Quarrys Oterkpalu in the Yilo-Krobo Osudoku district of Ghana, East QuarFIRST

rys, Shai Hills Greater Accra Region, Jamestown Beach, and Petrochem Ghana. Participants then had to write a report to Chapter advisor Prof Amponsah Prince. The next field trip to the Takoradi district of Ghana is planned for this month. Students belong to the Department of Earth Science, founded as the Department of Geology in 1948, as the only university department which trains professionals in the core geology disciplines.

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EAGE NEWS

Top-rated CO2 storage online course is back for third time

OUR JOURNALS

THIS MONTH

Geophysical Prospecting (GP) publishes primary research on the science of geophysics as it applies to the exploration, evaluation and extraction of earth resources. Drawing heavily on contributions from researchers in the oil and mineral exploration industries, the journal has a very practical slant. A new edition (Volume 70, Issue 8) will be published in October, featuring eleven articles. Editor’s Choice articles: • Viscoelastic and viscoacoustic modelling using the Lie product formula — Reynam da Cruz Pestana and Edvaldo S. Araujo • Coherency analysis of polarity reversed diffracted wavefields using local semblance — Hamid Reza Siahkoohi et al. Near Surface Geophysics (NSG) is an international journal for the publication of research and developments in geophysics applied to the near surface. The emphasis lies on shallow land and marine geophysical investigations addressing challenges in various geoscientific fields. A new edition (Volume 20, Issue 5) will be published in October, featuring seven articles. Editor’s Choice articles: • Surface deployment of DAS systems: Coupling strategies and comparisons to geophone data — Nicholas Harmon et al. • Full-waveform inversion of surface waves based on instantaneous-phase coherency — Jianhuan Liu et al. Basin Research (BR) is an international journal which aims to publish original, high impact research papers on sedimentary basin systems. A new edition (Volume 34, Issue 5) will be published in October, featuring twelve articles. Editor’s Choice article: • Late Quaternary mud-dominated, basin-floor sedimentation of the Gulf of Corinth, Greece: Implications for deepwater depositional processes and controls on syn-rift sedimentation — Robert L. Gawthorpe et al.

CHECK OUT THE LATEST JOURNALS

Our most popular online course is back next month. Starting on 18 October to 27 December, the third edition of the Extensive Online Short Course (EOSC) on Geological CO2 Storage will be running. It reflects EAGE’s mission as the leading multi-disciplinary association to provide a wide range of opportunities for geoscientists and engineers to gain knowledge and expertise about the energy transition. As the world becomes more aware of the effects of climate change and the issues eventually leading to sustainable practices, energy transition has been one of the biggest challenges that geoscientists and engineers have had to face now and in the coming years. The world agrees that the only way towards sustainability is to have a multi-disciplinary approach and combine technologies and different energy sources to continuously provide for future energy needs. The EOSC programme is composed of self-paced modules, each comprising video lectures and quizzes that participants can complete in their own time. This is complemented with regular live webinars with the instructors. Having the self-paced component, combined with the opportunity to ask questions and discuss with the instructors, remains one of the major reasons why academics and practitioners have been encouraged to enroll in the course. The course is being handled and taught by a team of experts in their respective fields. Philip Ringrose of Equinor and adjunct professor of Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) handles the Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) introduction modules that include introduction to saline aquifer storage and CO2 storage project design. Andreas Busch and Erick Mackay of Heriot-Watt University both handle modules on Reservoir concepts and storage requirements, Storage risks: Seal Assessment, Geomechanics and Geochemistry, and Public perception, policy and emerging/niche CO2 storage options. Florian Doster, also from Heriot-Watt University, teaches the module on Flow Mechanics. Finally, Martin Landrø of NTNU teams up with Busch and Mackay for the CCS monitoring and risk assessment module. EAGE believes that its members can play a crucial role in achieving net-zero emissions. In this regard, we work hard to provide venues and opportunities for members to take part in this initiative. We have also created a dedicated energy transition hub where you can find all the opportunities EAGE has to offer, from courses, workshops, publications, learning resources, communities, conferences, and more. Register now!

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Energy transition hub

EAGE NEWS

How the Laurie Dake Challenge can change your perspective

University of Miskolc team receiving the Laurie Dake Challenge Prize 2022.

This year a five-student team from the EAGE University of Miskolc Student Chapter (Hungary) were awarded the Gold Prize at the Opening Ceremony of the EAGE Annual Conference & Exhibition held in Madrid as winners of the Laurie Dake Challenge 2022. The triumphant team composed of Agra Adipta (Indonesia), Abd Almajeed Alrawi (Syria), Idris Olabisi Omogbolahan (Ghana), Richard Ayisi Mensah (Ghana) and Rafael Valadez Vergara (Mexico), presented the panel of expert judges their winning development plan for an offshore field in the Gulf of Cadiz – ‘Poseidon Field Optimisation and CCS Conversion’. Alrawi said later that as soon as the Laurie Dake Challenge was announced, his university decided to give it a go by orchestrating a team to take advantage of the opportunity. ‘It was the greatest achievement of my life. I felt fulfillment and accomplishment when we raised the trophy. This journey taught me that impos-

sible is just another word in the dictionary, and that hard work always pays off. Lots of hopes and ambitions fuelled our path to win this challenge providing us with more knowledge and experience needed in professional life.’ Team member Mensah explained that ‘it allowed us to work on an industry-level project that required an integration of our talents as geoscientists. I personally garnered experience in project assessment and commercialisation, data analysis, and interpretation for informing decision-making and building sufficient technical knowledge in carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) projects. Overall, it was an opportunity that taught me to collaborate on projects with colleagues with different competencies and to adapt to difficult challenges, all while proposing bold new ideas on alternative energy technologies that reduce emissions.’ Adipta said after the event ‘As the leader who initiated the team, this was my first experience assembling a group

with multiple disciplines who are very proficient in their skills. I am honoured to have worked as a team and made it to the top. Working in this integrated group feels like a real-time industrial simulation; we analysed, communicated, as well as coordinated and had weekly meetings and reviews with our supervisors. I gained a lot from four months of working on this project and it has impacted my development as an individual. For me personally, the experience is the highlight of my resume and recently, I got an offer from a multinational oil company!’ For students reading this, why not challenge your creativity and problem-solving skills like the Miskolc Student Chapter did, and consider forming a team to enter the 2023 Laurie Dake Challenge which will be focused on geothermal energy. Why geothermal energy? It is not only a very important part of the transition to low-carbon solutions but also a key component to securing a sustainable energy future. This makes geothermal a critical energy source to fully understand. The fundamental challenge of geothermal energy centres on locations of production in relation to surface population levels, and the associated economics. The optimisation of geothermal methods for energy production and storage is an ongoing mission for the future and will need continuous study and updating of methods to become the stable energy source we require. That’s why the Laurie Dake Challenge will be focused on this topic. Applications for the 2023 edition will open soon, so stay tuned for more information.

EAGE Student Calendar 20 OCT

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EAGE NEWS

Explore the transition opportunities at GET2022 After two successful online editions, EAGE’s third edition of its highly successful Global Energy Transition (GET) conference will take place in-person for the first time, accompanied by a cutting-edge exhibition, on 7-9 November 2022 at The Hague Conference Centre, The Netherlands. GET2022 continues to showcase work on the established uses of the subsurface for energy transition, e.g., offshore wind, CCUS, energy storage, and geothermal. The scope of the debate will be broadened by looking at the role of the subsurface disciplines for other energy sources and

the synergies between one industry or application to another. The meeting will also reflect on underlying associated societal aspects, including financing, governance and policies, as well as the overall environmental impact and sustainability of the solutions being proposed. Last but not least, GET2022 will feature a new approach to future georesources, including nuclear energy and the quest for the final storage of nuclear waste, sustainable mining to enable energy transition, and methane emissions. The Exhibition at GET2022 is set to be a specialised marketplace for key

players in our industry to showcase their latest technologies, innovative services, and geophysical monitoring and data management solutions. Students pursuing studies in sustainable energy development, together with geoscience and engineering professionals working in the energy industry, in research institutions and academia, and within public authorities and social stakeholders, are all invited to join the meeting and discussions. Discounted registration fee is available until 31 October 2022. For all the latest details on GET2022, please visit www.eageget.org.

Bogotá student chapter makes up for lost time EAGE SC UNAL, Bogotá, the student chapter of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia was reactivated in 2020 by four students and has achieved a lot in the last couple of years. The Chapter has around 30 active members, being one of the more than 20 student groups of the Department of Geosciences. Students say their mission is to promote links between academia and industry by approaching geosciences as a multi-disciplinary area through webinars, conferences, workshops, field trips and other types of academic activities in which students can interact with young and experienced professionals. To promote inter-disciplinarity in the earth sciences, three student seedbeds have been established representing the main interests of the members: volcanology and geothermal, geophysics and seismology, and paleoclimatology and glaciology.

The Chapter’s last event was the ‘Geoquiz: Ocean and Climate 2022’ the knowledge and ability of geology students to analyse and interpret graphs related to these two topics were tested. The quiz consisted of four rounds with ten questions each (five for each category) and the prizes for the four finalists were: a thematic puzzle, an autographed book about fossil reptiles from Colombia, a hooded sweatshirt from the UNAL store and COP100,000 for the first place. A first field trip took place in September in the Sierra Nevada El Cocuy o Güicán, known as the largest glacial area in Colombia. This revolved around the project Glaciar Cocuy UN, a geoscience workshop with the community surrounding Sierra Nevada and a documentary about the glaciology and geomorphology of this place. Work in progress includes a Geohackathon, our programming train-

ing courses where we seek continuous improvement of the student’s programming skills. Visits to schools are planned to talk about the volcanoes of Colombia, the study of the snow-capped mountains and the importance of understanding earthquakes. The total isolation caused by Covid-19 and the impossibility of interacting with each other in 2020 has been a great challenge. The members of the Chapter say it was an opportunity to explore new ways of communication through digital platforms, connecting them to other EAGE Student Chapters and enabling participation in the “First ECE EAGE LATAM” meeting remotely. If you want to take part or learn more about the student chapter, email eagechapter_bog@unal.edu.co or on social networks @eage_unal.

The EAGE Student Fund supports student activities that help students bridge the gap between university and professional environments. This is only possible with the support from the EAGE community. If you want to support the next generation of geoscientists and engineers, go to donate.eagestudentfund.org or simply scan the QR code. Many thanks for your donation in advance!

D O N AT E T O DAY ! 12

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PERSONAL RECORD INTERVIEW

Doug Crice

Personal Record Interview

A career made up of invention Occasional commentator on land seismic in First Break, Doug Crice has a long and distinguished career as a technology innovator in near surface geoscience, early winner of the SEG Hal Mooney Award for seismographic design in 1998. Perhaps best known for his pioneering introduction of wireless seismic, he was instrumental in developing key product lines, notably for Geometrics in the 1970s and 80s. Through his company Geostuff, he continues to invent … ‘

What did you build as a kid? Even before high school, I was wiring together gadgets with parts salvaged from neighbourhood junk yards and the dump. Projects got more sophisticated and I eventually got a job as a TV repairman. I built a pretty good stereo from scratch. When transistors became available, I built things with them. University drop-out? I was the smartest kid in my high school class, at least in science and math, and went to the University of California at Berkeley - got in some honours classes. From engineering to seismic? I joined the State Department of Water Resources and got introduced to earthquake seismology. I did surveys on the San Andreas Fault and developed some more electronics skills while going back to school part time. What inspired your first company? In 1971, I got my BSEE degree and got laid off. That was one of those periods when electrical engineers were walking the streets looking for work, kind of like geophysicists in the oil and gas business do from time to time. When there are no jobs, it’s easy to start a company. It was called Nimbus Instru-

ments. We grew from very small to small and in 1978, Nimbus was acquired by Geometrics. Highlights of Geometrics years? Geometrics brought a lot of resources to the party: worldwide agents, manufacturing, and money. One of our seismographs evolved into new design capable of shallow reflection surveys. Besides the engineering seismic business, there was a boom in the oil and gas crew count. Refraction surveys were done with our gear for weathering corrections and business was good. Geostuff is a family affair? As more people started doing shallow reflection surveys, there developed a need for a rollalong switch. I said to myself ‘I can build a rollalong switch’, and I went home and built one in my garage. I named the company Geostuff because it wasn’t a serious business and all the good ‘Geo’ names were taken. The company has continued to invent and build small volume products as a service to the industry. My son-in-law Paul Flood was working as a music pastor at a church in Portland. He was smart and mechanically inclined and I signed him up to do assembly. He eventually took over manufacturing and routine customer contact. My daughter Julie does the accounting and ordering the components. I have ended up up just handling the occasional technical enquiries, and doing the vision thing. FIRST

Wireless seismic brainwave? Technology became available to build a seismic system without cables. It quickly became obvious that the oil and gas community could benefit, but to enter that market would take real money. I went on the venture capital circuit but It wasn’t until I went to a meeting in Houston that I found people who understood my value proposition. We got some funding from Chesapeake Energy and later Energy Ventures and Total. About that time, the industry started making autonomous nodes. The customers were nervous about not seeing their data for a month, but the nodes turned out to be really reliable, easier to use, and cheaper to build. We missed the market window. A funny side note. When I was seeking funding, I tried to recruit Jim Hollis from Input/Output as CEO. He passed on the chance, but now he is CEO of Wireless Seismic. Invention(s) most proud of? It’s hard to pick one of my children. The ES-1210F was a pretty good instrument that some said was the best seismograph ever built. My name is on about 10 wireless seismic patents. Working on now? Geostuff is building a new wall-lock, borehole geophone which can be strung together in an array of multiple units with digitization in the tool. People will be able to do shear-wave tomography.

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CROSSTALK BY AN D R E W M c BAR N E T

•

Energy in the second Elizabethan era During Queen Elizabeth II’s long reign, which came to a close 51% stake in APOC (later British Petroluem), only relinquished with her death in September, we can reflect that some of the by the Thatcher administration in the 1980s. key events that determined Britain’s destiny during this 70-year Stephen Kinzer, author of All the Shah’s men: An American period stemmed from the politics and production of energy, Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror, probably overstates notably oil and gas. the case in claiming ‘the standard of living that people in England enjoyed all during the 1920s and ‘30s and ‘40s was due to Iranian The young queen, who succeeded her father George VI in 1952, could scarcely have anticipated the impact of the 1973 oil.’ Nonetheless, such a strategic asset had to be defended when energy crisis and aftermath, the advent of North Sea oil and Mossadegh’s nationalist party was overwhelmingly elected in gas or how Britain today is struggling to provide affordable 1951 with a pledge to nationalise the country’s oil assets. After electricity to heat people’s homes this winter. Mossadegh was replaced in 1953 by a prime minister friendly to Although little remarked upon, one of the most pivotal the West under a complicit Shah, the oil spoils would be shared series of events implicating British oil interests, with senout between APOC (BP) 40%, five US oil companies 40% and sitivities that continue to reverberate today, took place just Shell and Total 20% until the advent of the Ayatollahs. as Queen Elizabeth came to the throne. In 1953 American The Iranian scare was the first obvious postwar loss of and British intelligence agencies combined in an operation Britain’s storied influence in the Middle East and relationship with oil producing nations. Worse was to come: the 1956 Suez codenamed Operation AJAX (US) and Operation Boot (British) to overthrow the nationalist government crisis. The short version would be that Egypof Dr Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran and tian President Gamal Abdel Nasser retaliated ‘A back story lost in when some western countries reneged on reinstate the authority of Shah Mohammed colonial aphasia …’ their promise to finance the building of the Riza Pahlevi, who would continue to rule in controversial circumstances until 1979 Aswan High Dam. Egypt’s growing ties when deposed by Ayatollah Khomeini, first supreme leader with the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia were apparently one of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Preservation of oil access concern. In July 1956 Nasser announced the nationalisation and, in the US case, fear of Russian influence were the of the Suez Canal Company controlled by French and British motivators. interests with the stated intention of using the tolls on marine The back story lost in colonial aphasia is that thanks to traffic to pay for the dam’s construction. The move caused an agreement in 1902 between the Iranian government and a understandable consternation and fear of disruption, at that time London financier William Knox D’Arcy, known as the D’Arcy two-thirds of Europe’s oil flowed through the canal (built under Concession, the newly created Anglo-Persian Oil Company Frenchman Ferdinand de Lesseps in 1869). (APOC) acquired for a song the exclusive rights to the country’s French and British forces joined Israel’s army in an invasion natural oil and gas. Soon Britain was the recipient of significant of the Sinai Peninsula unstoppable by the Egyptian military but quantities of Iranian oil, the APOC refinery on Abadan Island greeted with international outrage. The US joined in the UN was the largest in the world. Winston Churchill, when First call for a withdrawal, evidently annoyed at being given no prior Lord of the Admiralty (1911-14), recognised the potential for notice and worried about escalation of the hostilities. The episupplying Royal Navy ships undergoing conversion from coal, sode resulted in a humiliating withdrawal highlighting Britain’s a godsend during World War I. He had the government buy a waning status in the Middle East and inflaming Arab nationalist

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CROSSTALK

feeling in Gulf oil supplying states allied to Britain. In January Sea oil. No one at the time really asked about investment for the 1957 the Queen had to accept the resignation of her then prime future. Indeed, it has often been remarked that the astonishing industrial effort offshore Britain was never accorded the recogminister Sir Anthony Eden, responsible for the Suez fiasco. In February 1974 the Queen received another prime minnition it deserved. For a start it was not visible on the landscape isterial resignation from Edward Heath in which UK energy but more to the point politicians were probably reluctant to concede that good economic performance was effectively a resources and politics were a major factor. The country had already been weathering the impact of a stock market crash and stroke of luck on tap so to speak. high inflation when in 1973 Saudi Arabia followed by other On 3 November 1975 the Queen had formally inaugurated the Forties field operation including UK’s first oil pipeline from OPEC nations invoked the ‘oil weapon’ imposing an oil supply Cruden Bay to the BP Grangemouth refinery (first oil had landembargo on the US and countries including Britain which had ed from the Argyll Field earlier in the year). A security concern supported Israel during the Yom Kippur Arab-Israeli conflict. at the time was possible sabotage by the ‘Tartan Army’ drawing In the UK, still dependent on coal power, the impact on attention to the nationalist sentiment stirring since the 1960s but the cost of petrol and inflation at the time was compounded by inflamed by the perceived appropriation of ‘Scotland’s oil’ by a mine workers overtime ban (following a six-week strike the the London government. The previous year the Scottish Nationprevious year) and a pay dispute with railway workers. Heath alist Party had won a record 11 seats in the House of Commons brought in a three-day week for industrial users of electricity indicating a resurgence in calls for Scottish independence. and calls for household restraint to combat the shortage of In retrospect the handling of the development of the UK’s generating capacity. Motorists were invited to limit weekend offshore oil and gas is easily faulted, giving away too much to driving to mitigate petrol supply shortages and queues at the foreign interests, not capitalising on the revenue opportunity, pumps, and petrol rationing coupons were issued in November failing to employ or establish enough local business and ser1973 but in the end were not required. vices and of course making no investment In February 1974 Heath called a general election gambling on the slogan ‘Who ‘UK government found or saving for the future. But, unlike Norway with a population of just under four million Governs Britain’ appealing for support to itself in unchartered in 1973, Britain with 56 million people had defeat what he and many in the country saw huge incentive to develop these oil and gas as blackmail by the miners’ union. He lost territory’ resources as rapidly as possible to reduce narrowly to Harold Wilson who formed a dependence on foreign, especially Middle East oil imports, and minority government and immediately met the miners’ wage of course to phase out coal. demands. The episode is said to have been a major driver in With little experience in operations in hostile waters such Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s determination in the 1980s as the North Sea, the industry was on a learning curve. Along to end Britain’s reliance on coal, ordering the closure of many with some extraordinary technology innovation, viz., the early pits and facing down the miners’ union during a prolonged but concrete production platforms, there were accidents – the Sea ultimately unsuccessful strike in protest in 1984-85. Gem rig collapse in the Southern North Sea in 1965 with 13 Thatcher’s win in the 1979 general election proved to be fatalities while drilling for BP, the Occidental Piper Alpha perfect timing as her government was the main benefactor of an calamity in 1988 killing 176 workers plus a number of oil rig extraordinary and unexpected windfall for the British economy helicopter crashes. from taxable revenues arising from the discovery and production The UK government found itself in unchartered territory of North Sea oil and gas. The energy bonanza also allowed her to when devising the offshore licensing and fiscal regime to entice take an aggressive line against the mining community. The jury is the international oil industry and also ensure a fair share for the still out on whether the impact of her economic policies ultimatecountry. A special government department based in Glasgow, ly benefited Britain and indeed this has been brought into sharp the Offshore Supplies Office, was supposed to build local indusfocus by the critical energy situation facing the country now. try content but that turned out to be a herculean task given the Thatcher’s radical conservative approach included belief lack of existing skills and capacity in the UK and the pressure in free market concepts such as privatisation including stateto bring oil ashore. run energy entities, deregulation, reducing the power of trade On the positive side, Britain for a period achieved oil unions, encouraging home ownership, and cutting high rates exporting status and at least 80% of households came to be of marginal tax. Those who lived through the Thatcher years heated by North Sea gas. from 1979 to 1993 will testify to the resulting good times. The In the Queen’s final days, energy issues were once again average household income by 1985 was 10% higher than in the ordaining Britain’s fate with new Prime Minister Liz Truss final year of the previous government, aided by tax cuts, welfare grappling with out-of-control electricity prices and no easy fix. benefits and the 10% of Treasury revenues coming from North

Views expressed in Crosstalk are solely those of the author, who can be contacted at andrew@andrewmcbarnet.com.

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HIGHLIGHTS

INDUSTRY NEWS

UK data used for renewables schemes

Shearwater reports busy UK season

Searcher wins 3D survey offshore Tobago

High impact oil and gas discoveries soar in 2022, Rystad reports Drilling of high-impact oil and gas prospects is set to rebound this year after a disappointing 2021, when success rates plunged towards record lows, Rystad Energy research shows. These wells have found hydrocarbons 47% of the time so far this year, up from 28% for 2021. So far in 2022 discovered volumes from high-impact wells have nearly quadrupled to more than 1.7 billion barrels of oil equivalent (boe). A total of 33 high-impact wells are set to be drilled this year, the largest annual number since Rystad Energy started tracking the sector in 2015. This is only slightly more than last year’s 29 high-impact probes, which only yielded 450 million boe because of the low success rate. Bucking recent trends, discovered liquids have accounted for 1.2 billion boe or almost 70% of the volumes this year, while gas discoveries total about 550 million boe. In previous years, gas discoveries have vastly outnumbered liquids volumes. This year’s reversal is mainly due to two significant oil offshore discoveries in Namibia: TotalEnergies’ Venus and Shell’s Graff. ‘Last year was disappointing for discovering gas and liquid volumes from high-impact wells, but 2022 is on track to make up for that slump. If the success

rate seen in the first half of 2022 holds for the full year, we could be in for one of the most productive annual volumes total on record,’ said Rystad Energy senior analyst Taiyab Zain Shariff. Of the 33 expected high-impact wells this year, 19 have already been completed, four are in progress, and 10 are scheduled to be completed before next year. The global oil majors and other exploration and production companies account for more than 60% of the high-impact wells completed this year. Majors have drilled eight high-impact wells, of which four resulted in commercial discoveries: TotalEnergies’ Venus and Shell’s Graff oil discoveries in Namibia, ExxonMobil’s Fangtooth oil find in Guyana, and Eni’s XG-002 gas discovery in the UAE. More than 45% of wells completed so far in 2022 are in South America and Africa, followed by Australia and Europe. By individual country, Australia accounted for the most completed high-impact wells with three, followed by Guyana and Namibia with two wells each. Of the 19 high-impact wells completed this year, 47% resulted in a commercial discovery, with the rest either dry or uncommercial and one still awaiting results. Only one find was a pure oil discovery, while the rest were either gas FIRST

or liquids with associated gas. This year’s success rate is almost equivalent to 2020, which was one of the most successful years in volumes from high-impact wells. Rystad expects 14 high-impact wells to be completed or spudded for the rest of this year, six of them by majors. Eni operates two of the four high-impact wells currently being drilled. The first is the Cronos-1 well in Block 6 off Cyprus, which is being drilled at a water depth of around 2350 m targeting a Cretaceous play. The other is the Dan Tranh-1X well in Block 115/09 off Indonesia, targeting a newly identified Miocene play in the emerging Song Hong Basin. The other two in-progress wells are the play-opening Rencong well operated by Repsol in the Andaman-III block off Indonesia, and Shell’s Jaca-1 well in Block 6 in the frontier Rio Muni basin of Sao Tome and Principe in Equatorial Guinea. The rest of the wells planned for this year are distributed throughout Africa and the Americas, with ‘some exciting wildcats’ in Southeast Asia. Frontier wildcat wells include Kuwait’s first offshore probe in 32 years, where Halliburton has a contract to drill six high-pressure, high-temperature (HP/ HT) exploration wells for Kuwait Petroleum Corporation. This campaign could help to restart Kuwait’s offshore fields after a long hiatus.

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INDUSTRY NEWS

Hundreds of energy companies access UK data repository for renewable schemes Nearly 100TB of data have been downloaded in the 12 months since the UK launched the National Data Repository of 60 years’ worth of seismic data in North Sea. Much of the data is being used to assess carbon capture, hydrogen and wind energy projects, said the North Sea Transition Authority. The National Data Repository (NDR) was relaunched in 2021 as a cloudbased system, which now comprises 230 terabytes of data online with more than 4000 users in more than 250 organisations. Improved functionality includes the option for users of being able to preview seismic data to assess its value to projects before deciding to download it, and moving the data into cloud storage has simultaneously eliminated limits on storage capacity and made the data itself more accessible to users. More than 7000 well data files and documents have been released this year and more than 100 terabytes of seismic data have been uploaded recently. Prof John Underhill, interdisciplinary director for energy transition at the University of Aberdeen, and executive director of the UK’s Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) GeoNetZero, said: ‘The National Data Repository (NDR) is a rich and extremely valuable source of

scientific data that forms the bedrock of numerous world-leading academic research studies. Access to high fidelity seismic, well log, pressure and core data acquired in the pursuit of oil and gas has enabled a new understanding of the sedimentary basins on the UK’s continental shelf. ‘The subsurface characterization that has been enabled by the NDR is crucial in determining the best use of offshore areas for carbon storage, hydrogen production, wind energy and geothermal as the UK seeks to decarbonize to meet its net zero emissions targets. As such, the NDR is playing a pivotal role in

extending the life of the North Sea in the energy transition.’ Steve Murphy, Storegga chief commercial officer, said: ‘The NDR has been invaluable to us for several years as we navigate the complex and changing landscape around carbon capture and storage. The NDR allows us to harness the 78GT potential of the North Sea as a site for a nascent CO2 storage industry in the most cost-effective way.’ The NDR – which can be accessed at ndr.nstauthority.co.uk - is available free, with organisations able to download as much as three terabytes per calendar month without charge.

Shell signs long-term agreement for access to PGS data libary

Nathan Oliver, executive vice-president of sales and services at PGS.

PGS and Shell have entered into a multi-year agreement for access to a significant part of PGS’ multi-client data library.

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‘Rapid and easy access at scale to the PGS multi-client library will play an important part in supporting Shell’s near-term exploration strategy. It will drive workflow efficiencies, enabling the Shell exploration teams to spend more time focusing on the data and making rapid informed decisions in a fast-changing exploration landscape,’ said PGS in a statement. Nathan Oliver, executive vice-president of sales and services at PGS said: ‘We

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are delighted that PGS’ data library has attracted this commitment from an active supermajor. This contract recognizes the value of PGS’ breadth and depth of subsurface data in key basins to our client base. This innovative model enables Shell to capitalize on a friction-free data access and delivery model.’ Over the last two years, PGS has invested in a strategic cloud-based solution architecture for multi-client data.

INDUSTRY NEWS

TGS launches 3D survey onshore Canada TGS has launched the Swanson onshore multi-client 3D seismic survey within the Montney Basin of northeast British Columbia, Canada. The project will add more than 100 km2 of seismic data, complementing the extensive 3D seismic coverage within the core area of the Montney Basin. ‘Phase IV of TGS’ low-impact source testing will be applied throughout the

ModelVision Magnetic & Gravity Interpretation System

project, reinforcing our commitment to dramatically lowering environmental footprints throughout seismic acquisition projects,’ said TGS. ‘Fuel emissions recording, reduced line widths, no-cut areas and low-impact source methods will be prevalent throughout the project.’ Acquisition will commence in Q4 2022, with data delivery expected in May 2023.

All sensors Processing 3D modelling 3D inversion Visualisation Analysis Utilities

Minerals Petroleum Near Surface Government Contracting Consulting Education

Shearwater reports contract wins in busy UK season Shearwater GeoServices has started a onemonth contract from North Sea Natural Resources (NSNR) for a 3D survey of the Devil’s Hole Horst prospect in the UK North Sea. The towed-streamer survey covers approx. 1586 km2 and will be carried out by the vessel SW Bly. Irene Waage Basili, CEO of Shearwater said: ‘We are glad to welcome NSNR as a new Shearwater client. The award is a continuation of the strong seasonal activity we are experiencing in UK waters.’ Niels Christian Arveschoug, CEO and founder of North Sea Natural Resources, said: ‘We are delighted to be working with Shearwater on this which is our first proprietary 3D seismic survey to be acquired over the complete seven blocks

of UK Licence P2321 which will be instrumental for us to define high-quality drilling locations.’ Meanwhile, Shearwater has won a contract from an established customer for a large ‘nodes-on-a-rope’ ocean bottom project in Europe. The three-month multi-vessel project will utilise more than 7000 nodes.

SW Bly is busy in the North Sea.

BGP creates world’s biggest seabed seismic project BGP is believed to be operating the biggest seabed seismic exploration project in the world after Sercel sold it a batch of 12,000 GPR300 nodes to add to an earlier order of 18,000 GPR300 nodes in 2021. This represents a significant increase in the seismic survey equipment currently being deployed on a project in the Middle East, said Sercel.

Liu HaiBo, BGP offshore president, said: ‘First results have clearly shown the GPR300’s efficiency in the shallow water environment and its added value for high-precision subsurface imaging. For these reasons, it seemed obvious to continue and widen our collaborative work with Sercel to provide essential support to our client for its upcoming challenging projects.’ FIRST

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Tensor Research support@tensor-research.com.au www.tensor-research.com.au

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INDUSTRY NEWS

Schlumberger joins unified multi-client data ecosystem

Dechun Lin, EVP, earth data at CGG.

Schlumberger has become part of the Versal multi-client data portal, adding its library to those of CGG, PGS and TGS. Versal was launched by CGG, PGS and TGS in 2021 to provide a single point of access to the largest multi-client data libraries. It is an independent, cloud-based multi-client seismic data ecosystem where energy companies can easily access all their data and entitlements in one place via a single log-in. Versal allows E&P teams to capitalize on their interpretation and analysis workflows for subsurface projects by leveraging a seamless licensed data experience that takes minutes. ‘Versal now represents the overwhelming majority of the seismic data available on the market today — all within a single user-friendly platform. Now oil and gas operators have even more data at their fingertips to make better-informed decisions during their critical exploration and development operations,’ said Dechun Lin, EVP, earth data at CGG. ‘Schlumberger has a significant multi-client data library, and combining it with the seismic multi-client libraries of PGS, TGS and CGG makes Versal an even more important vendor-neutral cloudbased common ecosystem for multi-client data,’ said Nathan Oliver, EVP sales and services at PGS. 22

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Magseis Fairfield reports Q2 revenues of $100 million Magseis Fairfield has reported a second quarter net loss of $4 million on revenue of $103.3 million (up from $75 million in Q1). EBITDA was $13 million, up 4%, and operating profit £0.5 million. Backlog amounts to $400 million ($170 million in 2022) with a record high acquisition backlog, an increase of more than 30% year to date. The company predicts a 25% overall market growth in 2022 and another 20% growth in 2023, with the total market exceeding $1 billion in 2023. ‘All crews were in operation during the quarter, reflecting an improving market. The results are driven by a significant sequential improvement in margins from the acquisition activity, although year-over-year this is offset by lower high-margin equipment sales. With the current tightening market conditions, we see further growth and improvements in pricing and terms and conditions,’ said Magseis Fairfield CEO Carel Hooijkaas. The company which was recently acquired by TGS, continues to execute its renewables strategy, with a CCS pilot being executed in the third quarter and the Greensand CCS project

scheduled for execution in Q4. Further opportunities are being pursued in North America, Europe, and Asia. Meanwhile, Magseis Fairfield has signed an agreement with Esso Exploration and Production Guyana Limited for a large ocean bottom node project offshore Guyana. It is the largest contract ever awarded to Magseis Fairfield. The project will use the company’s ZXPLR technology and last for a minimum 14 months. ‘This large OBN project potentially sets the stage for other projects in this region.’ said Hooijkaas. Finally, Magseis Fairfield has completed a high-resolution 3D seismic data acquisition offshore Norway over a carbon storage area. The project utilized the company’s Extended High-Resolution (XHR) acquisition technology combined with ocean bottom nodes, to provide detailed imaging of the targeted carbon storage reservoir and the overburden. The nodes were deployed using Magseis Fairfield’s proprietary node drop and self-recovery technique, which removes the need for an ROV vessel. The project secured funding through industry partners and Gassnova through the CLIMIT programme.

PetroTrace signs reprocessing deal in Gabon PetroTrace has extended its collaboration with Perenco and Maurel et Prom (M&P) in Gabon for the reprocessing of vintage seismic datasets. Both geologically challenging seismic reprocessing programmes, offshore in Malembe for Perenco and onshore in Ezanga for M&P, focus on CRAM PreSDM. Among the Kirchhoff migrations, CRAM provides the best subsur-

2022

face illumination for any given acquisition geometry, along with richer angle-fold at shallow depths for an improved yet interactive PreSDM velocity modelling, said PetroTrace. The company will also image ultra-shallow karsts/caverns, onshore FWI for M&P. PetroTrace has completed seven reprocessing projects in Gabon to date, onshore and offshore, 2D and 3D.

INDUSTRY NEWS

Shearwater donates software to Malaysian university Shearwater Geosciences has donated ‘a significant number of licences’ for its Reveal seismic processing and imaging software to Universiti Teknologi Petronas (UTP) in Perak, Malaysia. The Reveal licences, with a value in excess of $1 million, have been provided for use on UTP postgraduate (MSc and PhD) dissertation and research projects. UTP also plans to introduce the software as a teaching tool on its MSc petroleum geoscience course later in the year. Professor Ts. Dr Mohamed Ibrahim Abdul Mutalib, vice-chancellor of UTP, said: ‘The donation of this software will be of great benefit to students focused on sub-surface geophysics, both at grad-

Universiti Teknologi Petronas.

ENERGY TRANSITION BRIEFS Equinor and Wintershall Dea have agreed to develop an extensive carbon capture and storage (CCS) value chain connecting Germany and Norway. A 900 km pipeline is planned to connect the CO2 collection hub in Northern Germany and the storage sites in Norway. It is expected to have a capacity of 20 to 40 million tonnes of CO2 per year. Wintershall Dea and Equinor also plan to jointly apply for offshore CO2 storage licences, aiming to store between 15 to 20 million tonnes per year on the Norwegian Continental Shelf.

uate and undergraduate level. By having software that is widely used by major international energy companies, yet easy to learn and customise, students will be well prepared for conducting advanced geophysical work into the future.’ Irene Waage Basili, CEO of Shearwater, said of the company’s donation: ‘Shearwater is delighted to welcome Universiti Teknologi Petronas to the Reveal academic community. With a manufacturing centre and seismic processing centre in Malaysia, Shearwater has a strong shared interest with UTP in the advancement of the next generation of Malaysian geoscientists. UTP will join more than 60 other universities globally using our industry-leading seismic processing software and be part of a worldwide community of Reveal users.’ Reveal software enables time and depth processing and imaging for marine towed-streamer, OBS and land environments within a single user interface. ‘This highly intuitive, interactive and adaptable platform has the flexibility to be scaled to run on a laptop in the field through to the largest data centre and in cloud,’ said Shearwater. UTP was founded in 1997 by Petronas, the national oil and gas company of Malaysia. The university offers engineering, science and technology programmes and conducts research activities in collaboration with Petronas and other institutions and industries.

Horisont Energi and Neptune Energy have agreed to develop the Errai carbon capture and storage (CCS) project in Norway. Errai could store 4-8 million tonnes of CO2 annually, with the potential to store more in later phases. The project includes an onshore terminal for intermediate CO2 storage, with the intention to permanently store the CO2 in an offshore reservoir. Northern Lights, a JV owned by Equinor, Shell and TotalEnergies, has signed the world’s first commercial agreement on cross-border CO2 transportation and storage with Yara. CO2 captured from Yara Sluiskil, an ammonia and fertiliser plant in the Netherlands, will be permanently stored under the seabed off the coast of Norway. From early 2025, 800,000 tonnes of CO2 will be captured, compressed and liquefied in the Netherlands, and then transported by ship to the terminal for storage 2600 m under the seabed on the Norwegian Continental Shelf.

Australia launches oil and gas licensing round Australia has launched its 2022 offshore oil and gas licensing round with approx. 46,758 km2 of new acreage available for exploration. The release in Commonwealth offshore waters comprises 10 areas across the Bonaparte, Browse, Carnarvon, and Gippsland basins off the coasts of the Northern Territory, Western Australia, Victoria, and the Ashmore and Cartier Islands.

Orsted has announced that the world’s largest installed windfarm, Hornsea 2, is fully operational. The 1.3 GW offshore wind farm comprises 165 wind turbines, and is located 89 km off the Yorkshire coast, northeastern UK.

‘The 2022 Offshore Petroleum Exploration Acreage Release focuses on known oil and gas provinces with accessible infrastructure. This will ensure major projects maintain steady supplies into the future and will lower costs of development in a capital constrained world,’ said the Australian government in a statement. Bidding will close on Thursday 2 March, 2023. FIRST

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Santos has won permits to evaluate the potential storage of CO2 at permits G-9-AP and G-11-AP in the Carnarvon and Bonaparte basins, offshore Western Australia.

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INDUSTRY NEWS

Searcher wins 3D seismic survey offshore Trinidad and Tobago

Trinidad and Tobago has approved Searcher Seismic’s 6500 km2 Tobago Trough 3D acquisition project. Searcher’s acquisition is planned as a 6500 km2 wide-tow long streamer acquisition and processed through to Pre Stack Depth Migration. The acquisition will commence as soon as an environmental

impact assessment is complete and is currently scheduled for Q1 2023. Data will be available in Q4 2023 in time for the next deepwater licensing round. The Tobago Trough off the north coast of Tobago is a tertiary basin where high-quality shallow marine sandstones have been found to hold giant gas reserves.

Exploration and appraisal in the late 1990s brought the North Coast Marine Area (NCMA) gas fields (Hibiscus, Poincettia and Chaconia) into production, with gas being exported via Trinidad and Tobago’s Atlantic LNG infrastructure. Subsequent development of the shore-face sand reservoirs has been successful, however very little exploration in the Tobago Trough has been undertaken to back-fill these now produced reserves, said Searcher. Existing 2D seismic acquisition in the basin indicates that additional sequence stratigraphically controlled shoreface, channels and pro-delta fans lie in stratigraphic and structural stacked traps in the Tobago Trough. However, 3D data is required to delineate and explore for these targets. Alan Hopping, Searcher’s GM of business development, said: ‘Modern 3D seismic data acquired in the Tobago Trough will offer such a security of assessment that the exploration of the prospectivity can be undertaken in a planned and considered manner. This will maximize investment efficiency and ensure production is optimized within the LNG export-infrastructure.’

TGS launches cloud platform for multidimensional data TGS is launching an open-source solution for multi-dimensional input/output (MDIO) energy data using cloud-friendly formats. MDIO quickly accesses and disseminates data on the cloud to support storing and manipulating multidimensional datasets, including seismic, wind, and other energy data. Open-source software is software with source code released under a licence granting users the rights to use, study, change, and distribute the software and its source code to anyone and for any purpose. Jan Schoolmeesters, executive vice-president of digital energy solutions at TGS, said: ‘The revolutionary format is used to store data in the cloud saving at least 20-30% in costs and is highly

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performant in consuming seismic data. In addition, MDIO sets the stage to accomplish seismic and AI/ML workflows on the cloud cost-effectively and with vastly improved latency. We realize this is very important for the energy data community, which is why we want to open source the MDIO core code so that everyone can benefit from it and contribute back. Our goal is a rapid adoption of MDIO as an industry standard and to enable developers and operators to roll out and operate MDIO with agility, complete visibility of the underlying code, and security in all environments.’ MDIO was built to easily access any multidimensional data that is highly performant structured or random I/O, with fast

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de-coupled metadata access, said TGS. The solution fits well in the cloud, on-prem or hybrid environments, and it is cloud native (object store) and portable, the company added.

Jan Schoolmeesters, executive vice-president of digital energy solutions at TGS.

INDUSTRY NEWS

Rosebank oil field will add £24 billion to UK economy The Equinor-operated Rosebank oil and gas field west of Shetland will create £8.1 billion of direct investment in the UK, says a report by Wood Mackenzie and Voar Energy. Over the lifetime of the project, Rosebank will generate £24.1 billion of overall economic impacts, it added. In 2021, the UK only produced 57% of the volumes required to meet oil demand and 41% of national gas demand, but from first production in 2026 through to 2030 Rosebank could account for ~8% of the UK’s oil production. Rosebank is projected to produce an average of 21 MMSCF of natural gas every day. The field was discovered in 2004 and Equinor acquired operatorship of Rosebank in 2019. Working with partners Suncor and Ithaca Energy, Equinor plans to reuse an existing FPSO, which will avoid 250,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions. Equinor will invest around £80 million up front to ensure that Rosebank becomes one of the first oil and gas developments on the UK Continental Shelf to be powered by electricity. The new British prime minister Liz Truss is expected to approve the project in 2023 with drilling set to start in 2025. Meanwhile, Truss will approve other oil and gas drilling licences in the North Sea to improve Britain’s energy security.

She is expected to invite applications for as many as 130 oil and gas licences. The UK North Sea still contains gas and oil equivalent of about 15 billion barrels, according to figures from the North Sea Transition Authority. Britain consumes about a billion barrels of oil a year. North Sea oil and gas production peaked in the early 2000s when just under three million barrels of oil were extracted each day. That figure has fallen to under a million, although in the first six months of the year British oil and gas production increased by 26%, according to Offshore Energies UK. The London Times recently reported that the UK government has held talks with Perenco, an Anglo-French company, which is planning five new boreholes for next year and is repairing existing wells. BP will remediate 29 wells next year to improve performance. An application from Shell to extract gas from the Jackdaw field in the North Sea has been approved but is being legally challenged by Greenpeace. Finally, Liz Truss has lifted the UK moratorium on fracking in one of her first acts since becoming prime minster in September. The moratorium had been in place since 2019. Energy companies, including Ineos and iGas, will renew their applications to drill for shale in the UK.

Shearwater wins imaging project offshore Australia Shearwater has won a contract from Chevron for a large time-lapse seismic imaging project over the Wheatstone field, offshore Australia, under an existing master contract. This project award marks Shearwater’s continuing growth in the Asia Pacific region with 4D seismic processing of one of Australia’s largest producing gas fields. Shearwater’s Perth Processing Centre will combine geophysical expertise and Reveal software, for the process-

ing of existing data, followed by timelapse processing with newly acquired data. ‘Shearwater has developed a strong 4D geophysical toolbox and expertise to deliver time-lapse seismic imaging,’ said Simon Telfer, Shearwater’s SVP software, processing, and imaging. ‘We opened our seismic processing centre in Perth in 2020, quickly establishing a strong technical team to deliver services and software in Australia.’ FIRST

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INDUSTRY NEWS

Shearwater wins repeat surveys offshore India Shearwater Geoservices has won multiple contracts from a repeat customer for seismic surveys offshore India. The contracts represent a total of approx. 21 vessel months of activity. They comprise three 2D projects representing 13 vessel months of backlog, and two 3D projects for a further eight vessel months. Shearwater will deploy several vessels for the surveys which are

Irene Waage Basili, CEO of Shearwater. © Marit Hommedal.

scheduled to commence in October 2022 with completion by June 2023. Irene Waage Basili, CEO of Shearwater, said: ‘The scale of these awards and a strong pipeline of additional contract opportunities reflect the improving marine seismic market and increased demand from clients seeking to secure seismic vessels and crews for this winter.’

EMGS reports Q2 revenues of $7 million EMGS has reported revenues of $6.9 million, down from $9.4 million in the second quarter of 2021 and up from $6.2 million in the first quarter of 2022. Adjusted EBITDA of $2.8 million is down from $4.6 million in the second quarter of 2021.Free cash increased

with $3.4 million during the quarter, to $11.6 million. After the end of the quarter EMGS secured $3.8 million in uplifts related to the multi-client library in Norway. The company has also secured $2 million in prefunding for a multi-client survey in eastern Canada as well as an acquisi-

tion contract with a maximum value of $11 million. Meanwhile, it has extended the charter of the vessel Atlantic Guardian to 20 October 2023. The vessel is currently acquiring a proof-of-concept survey in the Mid-Atlantic Ridge related to marine mineral exploration.

Oil and gas round-up Shell (80%) and Petronas Carigali (20%) have taken a final investment decision to develop the Rosmari-Marjoram gas project, offshore Malaysia. The Rosmari-Marjoram fields are situated 220 km off the coast of Bintulu, Sarawak. Block Energy has started drilling the JSR-01DEEP well targeting an undrained part of the Middle Eocene reservoir in Georgia, with placement of the well path guided by 3D seismic data attributes that indicate a zone of fractured corridors. Resources are estimated at more than 200 MMbbls. Drilling involves extending the existing JSR-01 well in the Patardzeuli oil field in Block XIB, which penetrated only the upper 55 m of the reservoir. The reservoir is more than 600 m thick in the Patardzeuli field and has produced over 100 MMbbls of oil. Equinor has been granted a drilling permit for well 6605/1-2 S and 6605/1-2 A in production licence PL 1128 in the Norwegian Sea. Planned spud date is November 2022. 26

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Neptune Energy has discovered oil at the Ofelia exploration well (PL 929), close to the Gjøa field in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea. The well encountered oil in the Agat formation. Recoverable volume is estimated at 2.56.2 million MSm3 or 16-39 mmboe. North of the well there is an estimated 10 mmboe recoverable gas in the shallower Kyrre formation. APA Corporation has discovered oil offshore Suriname at Baja-1 in Block 53 and provided an update on recent drilling operations at Dikkop-1 in Block 58. Baja-1 was drilled to a depth of 5290 m and encountered 34 m of net oil pay in a single interval within the Campanian. Aker BP has drilled wildcat well 6507/3-15 about 14 km northeast of the Skarv field in the Norwegian Sea and 220 km west of Sandnessjøen in Norway. Primary exploration target for the well was to prove petroleum in reservoir rocks from the Middle Jurassic (the Fangst Group). The secondary exploration target was to prove petroleum in reservoir rocks from the Lower Jurassic (the Båt

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Group).Well 6507/3-15 encountered an oil and gas column totalling 115 m in the Fangst and Båt groups. Estimates place the size of the discovery between 1.7 and 5.7 million standard cubic metres (Sm3) of recoverable oil equivalent. PGNiG Norway has been granted a drilling permit for well 6608/1-1 S in production licence PL 1017 in the Norwegian Sea. Licensees are: PGNiG Upstream Norway 50%; Equinor 40%; and Longboat Energy 10%. Brazil has added 218 blocks from the Brazilian Equatorial Margin (MEQ) to its Permanent Concession Offer (OPC). The decision adds 90,321.65 km2 to the area on offer at the OPC from the Foz do Amazonas, Pará-Maranhão, Barreirinhas, Ceará and Potiguar basins, much of it in deep waters. ONGC has signed six contracts for Discovered Small Fields (DSF) in India’s DSF-III bid round, with three fields in the Arabian Sea three in the Bay of Bengal. The company also signed contracts for blocks in Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh.

Special Topic

ENERGY TRANSITION Geoscientists are already demonstrating that their expertise is crucial to the success of emerging capture capture, storage and utilization schemes as well as projects for hydrogen, geothermal, wind and other renewable energies. Aurore Plougoulen presents an advanced technology and workflow for carbon storage that provides an efficient approach to generating 3D models of the storage complex at all stages of the project. Nick Tranter et al present seismic acquisition technology for geothermal exploration within a challenging and restrictive urban environment. David Gold et al summarise multi-disciplinary projects that demonstrate the valuable role geoscience can play in the energy transition. Sougata Halder et al demonstrate why access to expansive subsurface well and seismic data give the geoscience industry a unique advantage in developing CCS solutions. Judith Narváez et al present a strategy for transforming the way of working of the subsurface teams to thrive in the energy transition. Khushboo Havelia et al discuss the integrated machine learning and physics-based CCS subsurface monitoring workflows applied on the Sleipner Field in the North Sea. Christophe Rigollet et al provide an inventory of knowledge of the hydrogen produced naturally by the Earth and present exploratory guidelines. Philip Ringrose et al explain why there can be significant differences when applying hydrocarbon subsurface industry experience to CO2 capture and storage projects. H.J. Kloosterman et al demonstrate why successful long-term CO2 storage projects will employ a combination of depleted and deep saline reservoirs. G. Stove et al outline research and development for subsurface geothermal heat identification in various sites onshore UK.

Submit an article

Special Topic overview January

Land Seismic

First Break Special Topics are covered by a mix of original articles dealing with case studies and the latest technology. Contributions to a Special Topic in First Break can be sent directly to the editorial office (firstbreak@eage.org). Submissions will be considered for publication by the editor.

February

Digitalization / Machine Learning

March

Reservoir Monitoring

April

Unconventionals and Passive Seismic

May

Global Exploration Hotspots

June

Leading Geosciences in a New Era

It is also possible to submit a Technical Article to First Break. Technical Articles are subject to a peer review process and should be submitted via EAGE’s ScholarOne website: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/fb

July

Modelling / Interpretation

August

Near Surface Geo & Mining

September

Reservoir Engineering & Geoscience

October

Energy Transition

November

Marine Acquisition

December

Data Management and Processing

You can find the First Break author guidelines online at www.firstbreak.org/guidelines.

More Special Topics may be added during the course of the year.

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Proven 4D Seismic Processing & Imaging you can trust. With experienced Geophysicists, implementing a full 4D toolbox within Reveal, Shearwater is the trusted partner for your time-lapse seismic. Scan the QR code to reveal a Shearwater 4D case study.

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CALENDAR

CALENDAR OF EVENTS 7-9 NOVEMBER 2022

EAGE GET 2022 3rd EAGE Global Energy Transition Conference & Exhibition

The Hague, Netherlands www.eageget.org

October 2022 3-7 Oct

Africa Oil Week https://africa-oilweek.com/Home

Cape Town

South Africa

4-6 Oct

IX Simpósio Brasileiro de Geofísica

Curitiba

Brazil

6-7 Oct

16th Workshop of the International Lithosphere Program Task Force Sedimentary Basins & 7 th Geoscience Symposium Romanian Society of Applied Geophysics (SGAR) and International Lithosphere Program Task Force Sedimentary Basins: ILP-GEOSCIENCE 2022 https://geosymposium.org/

Bucharest

Romania

10-12 Oct

Sixth EAGE Eastern Africa Petroleum Geoscience Forum The future of petroleum geoscience in the Eastern African energy mix www.eage.org

Cape Town

South Africa

12-14 Oct

First EAGE Western Africa Exploration & Production Workshop Collaboration in frontier and emerging exploration in Western Africa www.eage.org

Cape Town

South Africa

12-14 Oct

Second EAGE Workshop on EOR in the Americas www.eage.org

Bogota

Colombia

14-16 Oct

Baku 2022 Fourth international conference on Geology of the Caspian Sea and Adjacent Areas www.eage.org

Baku

Azerbaijan

26-28 Oct

First EAGE Guyana-Suriname Basin Conference Discoveries and Opportunities to Harness the Potential of a New Oil Patch www.eage.org

Georgetown

Guyana

28-31 Oct

Second EAGE Subsurface Intelligence Workshop www.eage.org

Manama

Bahrain

November 2022 3-4 Nov

Second EAGE Conference on Near Surface & Mineral Exploration in Latin America www.eage.org

Bogota

Colombia

7-9 Nov

EAGE GET 2022 3 rd EAGE Global Energy Transition Conference & Exhibition www.eageget.org

The Hague

Netherlands

14-15 Nov

Second EAGE Workshop on East Canada Offshore Exploration www.eage.org

St John’s

Canada

15-17 Nov

Sixth EAGE Rock Physics Workshop Impacts & Trends of the Digital Transformation www.eage.org

Riyadh

Saudi Arabia

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CALENDAR

21-22 Nov

First EAGE/SBGf Workshop on Reservoir Monitoring and its Role in the Energy Transition www.eage.org

Rio de Janeiro

Brazil

23-25 Nov

Third EAGE Conference on Pre Salt Reservoir www.eage.org

Rio de Janeiro

Brazil

28-29 Nov

Asia Petroleum Geoscience Conference & Exhibition (APGCE) www.eage.org

Kuala Lumpur

Malaysia

28-30 Nov

Eighth EAGE Arabian Plate Core Workshop: From Play Concepts to Reservoir Heterogeneity www.eage.org

Dhahran

Saudi Arabia

28 Nov 1 Dec

South African Geophysical Association’s 17th Biennial Conference & Exhibition www.sagaconference.co.za

Sun City

South Africa

December 2022 1-2 Dec

Fourth EAGE Workshop on Unconventional Resources www.eage.org

Bogota

Colombia

5-7 Dec

2 nd EAGE Workshop on Fiber Optic Sensing for Energy Applications in Asia Pacific www.eage.org

Kuala Lumpur

Malaysia

6-8 Dec

2 nd EAGE/SEG Workshop on Geophysical Aspects of Smart Cities www.eage.org

Hong Kong

China

February 2023 15-17 Feb

Fifth EAGE Naturally Fractured Reservoirs Workshop www.eage.org

Aix-en-Provence

France

21-23 Feb

2 nd AAPG/EAGE Papua New Guinea Petroleum Conference & Exhibition www.eage.org

Port Moresby

Papua New Guinea

1-3 Mar

International Petroleum Technology Conference (IPTC) 2023 2023.iptcnet.org

Bangkok

Thailand

6-9 Mar

5 th Asia Pacific Meeting on Near Surface Geoscience & Engineering www.eage.org

Taipei

Taiwan

7-9 Mar

Middle East Oil, Gas and Geosciences Show 2023 www.meos-expo.com

Sanabis

Bahrain

20-22 Mar

Third EAGE Digitalization Conference and Exhibition www.eagedigital.org

London

United Kingdom

Energy Geoscience Conference 2023 https://www.energygeoscienceconf.org/

Aberdeen

United Kingdom

84th EAGE Annual Conference & Exhibition www.eageannual.org

Vienna

Austria

Canberra

Australia

March 2023

May 2023 16-18 May June 2023 5-8 Jun

August 2023 15-16 Aug

2 nd EAGE Conference on Faults in Groundwater, CO2 and Hydrocarbons in Asia Pacific www.eage.org

September 2023 September

Near Surface Geoscience Conference & Exhibition 2023 www.eagensg.org

Edinburgh

United Kingdom

3-7 Sep

Fifth EAGE Conference on Petroleum Geostatistics www.eage.org

Porto

Portugal

10-15 Sep

IMOG 2023 31st International Meeting on Organic Geochemistry www.imogconference.org

Montpellier

France

Tsukuba

Japan

November 2023 14-16 Nov

6th Asia Pacific Meeting on Near Surface Geoscience and Engineering www.eage.org

EAGE Events

Non-EAGE Events

FIRST

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OCTOBER

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