EAGE UPDATE
We want to hear from you!
W
hen we put this newsletter together, we often say that it would be great if our readers
contributed with their own stories and opinions. Sharing personal experiences really helps to build a feeling of professional community. If this appeals to you, why don’t you give it a go! We would like to invite you to tell us what’s going on in your local geoscience world, or about something that interests/ concerns you. Could be an event, a development in your company, technology issues, tips on job-seeking, observations about life as a geoscientist, etc. Basically we would
welcome anything you think would be of interest to share with professional colleagues in your region. One idea would be a regular blog, which some of our newsletters now have. Items don’t need to be long, a few paragraphs is plenty, and if there is a photo available, then even better. Please give this opportunity some serious thought, and make this your newsletter. Best way to get started is to contact us via communications@eage.org.
Angola workshop will get into deep water!
E
AGE and ASGA (Angolan Geophysical Association) are joining forces to organize the First EAGE/ASGA Workshop on Petroleum Exploration themed ‘Challenges and Solutions for Deep Water Exploration in Angola’. The event will be held from 2–4 October 2017 in Luanda, Angola. The collaboration follows the initiative in July 2016, when ASGA led by Horacio Domingos Fortunato helped EAGE to establish the EAGE Local Chapter Angola. The signing of the Memorandum of Understanding took place in the presence of Anibal Silva, State Secretary of Oil & Gas, attended by around 100 representatives from the government, oil and gas companies and geophysical service providers.
A golden opportunity for geoscientists to brainstorm over issues related to West African exploration. ASGA, an Associated Society of EAGE since 2011, is providing EAGE with abstracts of papers and proceedings from past and upcoming events so they can be published on EarthDoc. The aim of the workshop will be to address some of the challenges faced by Angolan deep
EAGE NEWSLETTER AFRICA ISSUE-1 2017
water explorers. The event constitutes a golden opportunity for geoscientists to brainstorm over issues related to West African exploration, including but not restricted to: pre-salt imaging, CO2 predictions, operational efficiency, the new frontier Namibe Basin, and the ultra deep water Congo Basin. Also there will be analysis of the recent pre-salt campaign, which provided a different outcome to expectations, with possible technical strategies that could prove helpful in replicating the success of pre-salt exploration in the Santos and Campos Basins in Brazil. The last three decades have played host to Angola’s deep water exploration efforts, which are generally viewed as extremely successful. For the most part, exploration efforts were restricted to the Congo Basin. From the early 1990s to 2014, in excess of 110 discoveries were made yielding over 20 billion barrels of oil equivalent within the basin. By 2010, wildcats had a better than 50% success ratio, however, the size of discoveries declined significantly from those made in the mid 1990s. The exploration of the Congo Basin was followed by the pre-salt exploration of the Kwanza Basin triggered in part by the presalt successes in the Santos and Campos Basins offshore Brazil. Although some presalt exploration within the Kwanza basin took place prior to 2000, a large pre-salt exploration campaign formally started in 2011 with contracts for new exploration acreage within the Angolan deep water Congo and Kwanza/ Benguela Basins. Discoveries by Maersk and
On the water’s edge, Luanda.
then a string of discoveries by Cobalt seemed to suggest that the Kwanza Basin was likely to yield similar results to those of the Santos and Campos Basins. Disappointingly, after the initial successes, the subsequent series of wells were unsuccessful, sub-commercial or encountered gas and condensate rather than oil in large commercial volumes. In addition, a number of wells encountered CO2, sometimes associated with dry gas or even condensate. Keep an eye out for registration to this exciting workshop which opened on 1 June. Please go to events.eage.org for more information.
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