Geoscience Magazine GEO Expro Vol. 18, No. 1
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VOL. 18, NO. 1 – 2021 GEOSCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY EXPLAINED RESERVOIR MANAGEMENT Mature Fields: Retirement or Second Career? GEO TOURISM Auckland’s Geoheritage EXPLORATION Undiscovered Potential in the Basement GEOPHYSICS Sustainable Geophysics ENERGY TRANSITION The Net Zero Transition: An Important Conversation geoexpro.com GEOExPro March 2021 1 Previous issues: www.geoexpro.com Contents Vol. 18 No. 1 This issue of GEO ExPro focuses on Australasia GEOSCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY EXPLAINED and South East Asia; Reservoir Management; Geoscience, Sustainability and the Environment. 14 Spend time in Auckland and you will be rewarded by the amazing and diverse 5 Editorial geoheritage features in and around New Zealand’s ‘volcanic’ city. 6 Regional Update: New Technologies Unlock Value 8 Licensing Update: Brazil Offering 22 Deepwater Blocks A look at how the growth and development in the application of techniques to image 10 A Minute to Read the micro and nano-structure of rocks allow 14 Cover Story: Taste the Geoheritage of us to better predict sub-surface behaviour. Auckland, New Zealand 20 Energy Transition Update: South East Asia, Renewables Moving Centre Stage 48 22 Reservoir Management: What Can Skydive with us into the quantum world and find out how Earth’s IR radiation Multiscale 3D Imaging Do for Energy is transferred in a plane-parallel Geoscience troposphere in the presence of CO2 molecules. 26 Exploration: Undiscovered Potential in the Basement 30 Energy Transition: The Net-Zero Transition: An Important Conversation 34 Hot Spot: The Tide Turns 56 Plate tectonics comprises three inter-linked 36 Seismic Foldout: Gippsland Basin, mega-cycles: The Rock cycle, the Wilson Australia: New Data Reveals Further cycle, and the Supercontinent Cycle, which is explored here. Potential in a Mature Basin 42 Geo Physics: Sustainable Geophysics 44 Reservoir Management: Mature Fields: Easing into Retirement or a Second Career? 62 48 Recent Advances in Technology: From Katerina Garyfalou tells us about Arrhenius to CO Storage her transition from petroleum 2 geoscientist to green pioneer. 52 Exploration: Unlocking Potential in South East Asia 56 GEO Science Explained: The Supercontinent Cycle: Patterns and Impacts 62 GEO Profile: Dr Katerina Garyfalou: 10 70 Geoscientist to Green Pioneer 62 66 Exploration Update 11 68 GEO Media: The Azolla Story 66 6 20 70 Q&A: Completing a Masters in a 52 66 26 Pandemic 8 66 72 FlowBack: Putting a Prize on Carbon Capture 36 14 GEOExPro March 2021 3 Editorial Energy Transition with Security GEOSCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY EXPLAINED In this my fi rst editorial for www.geoexpro.com GEO ExPro, I would like to start by thanking my GeoPublishing Ltd colleague Jane Whaley for her 15 Palace Place Mansion outstanding contribution to Kensington Court London W8 5BB, UK the magazine’s content and + 44 (0) 7909 915513 development over the last 10 years. During this time, GEO Managing Director ExPro has matured into a Tore Karlsson well-respected magazine with Editor in Chief an excellent reputation and Iain Brown I am honoured to be taking [email protected] over the reins from her. Pixabay Editorial enquiries Having spent almost all my career in the upstream business, initially as an exploration GeoPublishing geologist, I have been saddened by the very negative press our industry has been receiving in Iain Brown recent times, particularly in Europe and North America. Th e transition to sustainable energy is +44 (0) 7767 770265 one of the fundamental challenges we face over the coming decades and it is my intention that [email protected] GEO ExPro will continue to report fully on this, whilst championing the genuinely critical role www.geoexpro.com the oil and gas business plays in ensuring security of energy supply. Sales and Marketing Director Extreme winter weather in the United States in February brought arctic cold to extensive Kirsti Karlsson areas of the country and in Texas, a surge in electricity demand led to widespread power cuts. A + 44 (0) 7909 915513 sobering reminder that energy security relies on high density energy sources. [email protected] In this edition we have a GeoProfi le of Katerina Garyfalou who, following a very successful career in hydrocarbon exploration, is now helping lead the way in clean fuel production derived from waste-plastic. Geoscientists have all the skills and inventiveness required to contribute to the energy transition and this is just one example of critical skills transference. Subscription With the crew change well and truly behind us and the recent terrible loss of experienced GeoPublishing Ltd geoscientists from our business, I do fear we will face a skills shortage in the near future. Th is + 44 (0) 7909 915513 situation is compounded by a frighteningly precipitous fall-off in students studying earth 15 Palace Place Mansion science. Post-graduate study in the Geosciences was particularly diffi cult in 2020 with project- Kensington Court London W8 5BB, UK based thesis work severely impacted. It is heartening to see how resilient and inventive both [email protected] the academic community and the students have been in successfully navigating these challenges. Kirsty Lewis, a recent Masters graduate from GEO ExPro is pub lished bimonthly Aberdeen University, describes in our Q&A article how she tackled an for a base subscrip tion rate of GBP 60 a year (6 issues). MSc in the pandemic and successfully landed a job with a major energy We encourage readers to alert us company. to news for possible publication To attract these geoscientists of the future, we all have a responsibility and to submit articles for publication. to ensure we do whatever we can to promote the science and the awareness of its current, and future importance to the global economy. Perhaps Cover Photograph: Main Image: Bruce Hayward Iain Brown that starts with communicating a far more positive message about the Inset: ©Nexstep Editor in Chief important contribution petroleum geoscientists make to society. Layout: Mach 3 Solutions Ltd Print: Stephens & George, UK TASTE THE GEOHERITAGE OF AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND issn 1744-8743 In the cliff s above Maukatia/Maori Bay is one of New Zealand’s most treasured geoheritage features, the spectacular columnar fans and pillows of a basaltic andesite fl ow that was erupted in deep water on the lower slopes of the Waitakere Volcano about 17 million years ago. Inset: Oil and gas fi elds can have much longer lives than initially envisioned if organisational and regulatory barriers, as well as capital, technology and other factors can be resolved. Repurposing depleted hydrocarbon reservoirs and production facilities can be an attractive option in the energy transition. © 2021 GeoPublishing Limited. Copyright or similar rights in all material in this publication, including graphics and other media, is owned by GeoPublishing Limited, unless otherwise stated. You are allowed to print extracts for your personal use only. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photographic, recorded or otherwise without the prior written permission of GeoPublishing Limited. Requests to republish material from this publication for distribution should be sent to the Editor in Chief. GeoPublishing Limited does not guarantee the accuracy of the information contained in this publication nor does it accept responsibility for errors or omissions or their consequences. Opinions expressed by contributors to this publication are not necessarily those of GeoPublishing Limited. GEOExPro March 2021 5 Regional Update New Technologies Unlock Value ABBREVIATIONS With an increased focus on remote operations, productivity, and cost effi ciency by operators in the wake of Covid-19, oilfi eld service providers are turning to new technologies based on Numbers (US and scientifi c community) digitalisation and automation. With remote drilling operations having gained traction and M: thousand = 1 x 103 becoming the new normal, innovation within the drilling and well services segments has also MM: million = 1 x 106 gained momentum as both major well service companies and smaller players develop new B: billion = 1 x 109 technologies and niche product lines to fi ll the gaps to capture market share. T: trillion = 1 x 1012 Th e fi gure below shows the expenditure for each of these segments in Asia Pacifi c from 2018 to 2020, with the signifi cant impact of the pandemic evident in 2020. We can see that even though these segments were hit hard in 2020, they are expected to experience a Liquids marginal average growth of 4% each year until 2026. Th e drilling and completion segments barrel = bbl = 159 litre account for 26% of the total cost of the well on average, providing ample incentives for service boe: barrels of oil equivalent providers to develop technologies and solutions. bopd: barrels (bbls) of oil per day bcpd: bbls of condensate per day Th e global pandemic has accelerated remote work, but in the context of the oilfi eld service bwpd: bbls of water per day industry, this presents a number of challenges. Remote working in the oilfi eld industry can be hindered by hardware and software resource constraints. Th is is amplifi ed within reservoir engineering in particular as it requires vast computing resources to run computer intensive Gas reservoir simulations. Some operators have sought to minimise hardware and software capex, MMscfg: million ft3 gas and have rolled out Schlumberger’s DELFI (cognitive E&P environment), a high-performance MMscmg: million m3 gas cloud computing system that enables complex and diff erent systems to talk to each other and Tcfg: trillion cubic feet of gas promotes more collaboration between multiple disciplines. Woodside Australia, for example, has managed to shorten the duration of running more than a thousand simulations, which Ma: Million years ago would otherwise typically take six months, to only one week using the DELFI system.