VOL. 8, NO. 2 – 2011 GEOSCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY EXPLAINED geoexpro.com EXPLORATION New Zealand’s Ida Tarbell and the Standard Underexplored Oil Company Story Potential HISTORY OF OIL Alaska: The Start of Something Big TECHNOLOGY Is Onshore Exploration Lagging Behind? GEOLOGY GEOPHYSICS RESERVOIR MANAGEMENT Explore the Arctic Seismic database Airborne database Studies and reports Well data Contact TGS for your Arctic needs TGS continues to invest in geoscientific data in the Arctic region. For more information, contact TGS at: [email protected] Geophysical Geological Imaging Products Products Services www.tgsnopec.com Previous issues: www.geoexpro.com Thomas Smith Thomas GEOSCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY EXPLAINED COLUMNS 5 Editorial 30 6 ExPro Update 14 Market Update The Canadian Atlantic basins extend over 3,000 km from southern Nova 16 A Minute to Read Scotia, around Newfoundland to northern Labrador and contain major oil 44 GEO ExPro Profile: Eldad Weiss and gas fields, but remain a true exploration frontier. 52 History of Oil: The Start of Something Big 64 Recent Advances in Technology: Fish are Big Talkers! FEATURES 74 GeoTourism: The Earth’s Oldest Fossils 78 GeoCities: Denver, USA 20 Cover Story: The Submerged Continent of New 80 Exploration Update New Zealand 82 Q&A: Peter Duncan 26 The Standard Oil Story: Part 1 84 Hot Spot: Australian Shale Gas Ida Tarbell, Pioneering Journalist 86 Global Resource Management 30 Newfoundland: The Other North Atlantic 36 SEISMIC FOLDOUT: Gulf of Mexico: The Complete Regional Perspective 42 Geoscientists Without Borders: Making a Humanitarian Difference 48 Indonesia: The Eastern Frontier Eldad Weiss has grown his 58 SEISMIC FOLDOUT: Exploration Opportunities in business from a niche provider the Bonaparte Basin of graphical imaging software to a global provider of E&P 68 Are Onshore Exploration Technologies data management solutions. Lagging Behind? Paradigm 44 10 52 30 80 78 36 80 6 80 48 58 74 84 20 Petrel 2010 SEISMIC-TO-SIMULATION SOFTWARE Exploration creativity I can test all my creative play and prospect ideas— who says work can’t be fun? With Petrel 2010, I’ve got it all. www.slb.com/petrel2010 Global Expertise Innovative Technology Measurable Impact Petrel and Measurable Impact are marks of Schlumberger. © 2011 Schlumberger. 11-IS-0071 Schlumberger. 2011 © Schlumberger. Measurable Impact marks Petrel of and are EDITORIAL Looking for Opportunities GEOSCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY EXPLAINED The price of oil is soaring relentlessly upwards, in the wake of upheaval in the Middle East and worry about the www.geoexpro.com security of oil supplies. At the centre of the upheavals is Libya, possessing the highest reserve volumes in Africa, GeoPublishing Ltd although only producing about 1.65 million barrels of oil a day, well below the output of Nigeria and Angola.* 15 Palace Place Mansion Saudi Arabia has promised to meet any shortfall, but is also trying to satisfy OPEC while ensuring that domestic Kensington Court dissatisfaction in the Kingdom is minimised. And the opinion of experts is that this disturbance is not a short term London W8 5BB, U.K. phenomenon, but that the effects will be felt for a number of years to come. Some analysts have predicted that +44 20 7937 2224 oil could rise as high as US $220 a barrel, which would have a huge impact throughout the world, but particu- larly in developing countries not blessed with large reserves Managing Director of hydrocarbons. Tore Karlsson But, as with most things, one man’s misfortune is anoth- Editor in Chief er’s opportunity. The knock-on effect of the global turmoil Jane Whaley on the upstream oil and gas industry should mean greater [email protected] concentration on finding new resources. Companies will have to ‘think outside the box’ and consider fresh frontier Contributing Editors areas, deeper waters and yet more inhospitable terrain in Thomas Smith order to keep the resource numbers up. Shale gas – a revo- [email protected] lutionary idea to many only a few years ago – is now almost mainstream, at least in the USA and Canada. More and more Jane Whaley Halfdan Carstens [email protected] countries are searching for that resource, with the first Asian shale gas discovery announced recently. Maybe price in- Rasoul Sorkhabi creases could result in opportunities for further research into [email protected] the extraction of shale oil, or perhaps some of the frontier Fuel prices are expected to continue rising areas discussed in this edition of GeoExpro, like the ‘under- Paul Wood water continent’ of New Zealand, may yield results. [email protected] Technology will also need to keep pace, as exploring in Editorial enquiries these challenging environments for hard-to-win hydrocarbons will require all the ingenuity and inventiveness of GeoPublishing our finest geophysicists, technologists and engineers. Jane Whaley However, according to the latest Barclays Capital Original spending survey, there should be more money avail- +44 7812 137161 able to follow these ideas, as budgets for global E&P expenditure are forecast to increase by nearly 11% in 2011. In [email protected] fact spending by some of the supermajors is anticipated to increase by 17% per annum, having remained almost www.geoexpro.com unchanged since 2009. So maybe not all gloom and doom – at least not for everyone. Marketing Manager * BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2010 Kirsti Karlsson JANE WHALEY +44 79 0991 5513 Editor-in-Chief [email protected] Subscription GeoPublishing Ltd +44 20 7937 2224 15 Palace Place Mansion Kensington Court London W8 5BB, U.K. t [email protected] s VOL. 8, NO. 2 – 2011 GEOSCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY EXPLA GEO EXPRO VOL. 8, NO. 2 – 2011 – 2 NO. 8, VOL. EXPRO GEO INED GEO EXPro is pub lished bi- geoexpro.com EXPLORATION monthly for a base subscrip tion New Zealand’s rate of GBP 60 a year (6 issues). Underexplored Ida Tarbell and the Standard Potential Oil Company Story We encourage readers to alert UNDEVELOPED POTENTIAL us to news for possible publica- The vast offshore Canterbury Basin of New Zealand extends onshore tion and to submit articles for publication. beneath the Canterbury Plains to the foothills of the Southern Alps. The HISTORY OF OIL large braided systems of the Rakaia River, South Island, New Zealand are Alaska: The Start of Something Big Cover Illustration: modern day analogues for many of the world’s largest oil and gas fields. TECHNOLOGY Lloyd Homer, GNS Science Is Onshore Exploration Inset: J.E. Purdy Co., Boston Lagging Behind? (Wikipedia) Inset: Ida Tarbell was a revolutionary investigative journalist, responsible GEOLOGY Layout: GEOPHYSICS Bookcraft Ltd. in no small part for the legal break-up 100 years ago of the Standard Oil RESERVOIR Company’s hold on the US oil industry. MANAGEMENT Print: NXT Oslo Reklamebyrå issn 1744-8743 © 2011 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 GEO ExPro MARCH 2011 5 necessarily those of GeoPublishing Limited. EXPRO UPDATE Southern Gulf of Mexico ABBREVIATIONS Can exploration in the Southern Gulf reverse Mexico’s declining oil revenues? Numbers (U.S. and scientific community) M: thousand = 1 x 103 The Mexican oil industry is now in its seventh found more gas, close to the 2006 Lakach MM: million = 1 x 106 consecutive year of decline. To energize the gas discovery. Antonio Escalera, exploration B: billion = 1 x 109 industry there, in 2008 the Mexican Congress manager for Pemex, said “We have identified T: trillion = 1 x 1012 approved reforms that will eventually allow 2.4 Tcf of gas reserves and we believe the po- some participation by private international firms tential of the area could be as high as 15 Tcf of Liquids for the first time since nationalization of the oil natural gas.” A second well is planned at the barrel = bbl = 159 litre industry in 1935. The measures included several Lakach find to evaluate the size of the field. boe: barrels of oil equivalent administrative changes, with the creation of a However, finding more gas will not fix bopd: barrels (bbls) of oil per day new advisory board to provide independent Mexico’s falling oil revenues and, thus far, the bcpd: bbls of condensate per day coordination of long-term energy strategy, deepwater oil exploration has not paid off. bwpd: bbls of water per day and the establishment of a new hydrocarbons Drilled in 831m water depth, the Leek well dis- Gas agency to regulate the sector. Pemex was covered condensate and gas in 2009 and has MMscfg: million ft3 gas allowed more autonomy, so it can form service been the only bright spot in the search for oil. MMscmg: million m3 gas contracts with private companies and be more However, with the new deepwater rig, much Tcfg: trillion cubic feet of gas flexible in its procurement mechanisms. more exploration of the area is planned. The first Since the 2008 reforms, Petroleos Mexicanos use will be on the Tulipau-1 prospect in 700m Ma: Million years ago (Pemex) has expanded exploration programs in water depth and it will subsequently drill the the Gulf of Mexico offshore Campeche, in the Maximino prospect at a 2,900m water depth.