VOL. 8, NO. 6 – 2011 GEOSCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY EXPLAINED geoexpro.com COUNTRY PROFILE Libya: GEO Cities: The Next Chapter The Making of Modern Dubai GEOPHYSICS Emphasizing Vibrations GEOTOURISM The Wonders of Yellowstone GEOLOGY GEOPHYSICS RESERVOIR MANAGEMENT Previous issues: www.geoexpro.com 42 GEOSCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY EXPLAINED CONTENTS This edition of GEO ExPro Magazine focuses on Can crabs hear seismic sources? North and South America and Frontier Exploration COLUMNS FEATURES 5 Editorial 26 Country Profile: Libya – The Next Chapter 6 Market Update 30 Exploration: Persia, Land of Black Gold 8 Update 36 Seismic Foldout 1 : Western Florida 16 A Minute to Read 54 Exploration: Tobago Trough – 20 Cover Story: Brief Biography of a Biogenic Gas Play GEO Tourism: The Wonders of Yellowstone 58 Seismic foldout 2: South West Barents Sea 42 Recent Advances: Effect of Seismic on Crabs 64 Exploration: Namibia: Promising Giant New 46 GEO Profile: Marlan Downey Hydrocarbon Frontier 50 History of Oil: 70 Geophysics: Emphasizing Vibrations Early Textbooks of Petroleum Geology 74 Exploration: SE Asia – Where are the Giants Hiding? 84 GEO Cities: Dubai – From Pirates to Prada 78 GEO Conservation: Does Geology Last Forever? 86 Exploration Update 82 Exploration: Transiting the Northern Sea Route 88 GEO Media: The Power That Be 90 Q&A: The Oil Detectives 30 Iran holds 10% of the world’s proven 92 Hot Spot: Colombia Rediscovered oil reserves of oil and 16% of the gas 94 Global Resource Management – and it started here, at the Masjid Sulaiman oil field. Eshagh Rahdari/nioc 82 58 8 78 20 6 30 10 26 36 84 54 92 74 86 64 87 GEO ExPro DECEMBER 2011 3 Petrel 2011 E&P SOFTWARE PLATFORM Deliver confident prospect selections Petrel and Measurable Impact are marks of Schlumberger. © 2011 Schlumberger. 11-IS-0299 Schlumberger. 2011 © Schlumberger. Measurable Impact marksof Petrel are and Capture prospect uncertainty from the start; assess seal capacity and charge timing as you interpret seismic, make maps, and calculate volumes—in one application. Deliver confident decisions—with Petrel. www.slb.com/petrel2011 Global Expertise | Innovative Technology | Measurable Impact EDITORIAL Time for a Little Education GEOSCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY EXPLAINED Shale gas has been a game changer for www.geoexpro.com the energy industry in the United States – but things look a bit different in Europe. GeoPublishing Ltd Drilling by Cuadrilla Resources at a shale 15 Palace Place Mansion gas well in the north-west of England Kensington Court was stopped when minor earth tremors London W8 5BB, U.K. +44 20 7937 2224 were felt, and an independent report concluded that pressure changes due Managing Director to water injection during the fraccing Tore Karlsson process were to blame. One good thing to come out of this is that the average Editor in Chief person in the UK, at least, is now a lot Jane Whaley more knowledgeable about the process – [email protected] but also a lot more concerned. Headlines Resources Cuadrilla Contributing Editors in the newspapers such as ‘we caused Cuadrilla rig at Preese Hall near Blackpool, north-west England, Thomas Smith 50 tremors in Blackpool – but we’re not where drilling is believed to have caused minor earth tremors. [email protected] going to stop’ do not really help the industry. A group of protesters calling themselves ‘Frack Off’ occupied another Cuadrilla site, causing Halfdan Carstens operations to stop for a day. Questions are also being raised over an increase in seismic activity in an area [email protected] of Oklahoma which has over 100 injection wells. In France the government banned hydraulic fracturing in May this year due to concerns about the technique’s impact on the environment. Rasoul Sorkhabi [email protected] Cuadrilla have said that they estimate that there is more than 200 trillion cubic feet of gas in its license area in north-west England, and that the development could create over 5,000 jobs in the UK. And as Paul Wood European gas prices continue to rise, the development of a European shale gas industry could begin to [email protected] reduce those costs, as it has in the United States. The British Geological Survey, among others, has pointed out the lack of peer-reviewed research into Editorial enquiries fraccing and associated issues like potential water contamination. The French ban on fraccing, and by GeoPublishing default on shale gas exploitation, was made before any serious assessment of the potential of the resource Jane Whaley +44 7812 137161 in the country had been undertaken. If the petroleum industry thinks this is a key resource for the future, [email protected] it is time to start spreading the word by encouraging research and educating the general public so they www.geoexpro.com can be informed by all sides of the debate. Marketing Manager JANE WHALEY Kirsti Karlsson Editor in Chief +44 79 0991 5513 [email protected] Subscription GeoPublishing Ltd +44 20 7937 2224 15 Palace Place Mansion Kensington Court London W8 5BB, U.K. [email protected] VOL. 8, NO. 6 – 2011 GEOSCIENCE & TE CHNOLOGY EXPLA INED GEO EXPro is pub lished bimonthly geoexpro.com COUNTRY for a base subscrip tion rate of GBP PROFILE Libya: 60 a year (6 issues). The YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK Next Chapter GEO Cities: We encourage readers to alert us The Making of Modern Dubai At morning’s first light, views across steam rising from the West Thumb to news for possible publication Geyser Basin located on the west shore of Yellowstone Lake can take you and to submit articles for back to when the earth was in a more primordial state. “The Wonders publication. of Yellowstone” in this issue will introduce the reader to the world’s first national park, which started a new trend in protecting special places for Cover Illustrations: future generations. Cover picture: Thomas Smith GEOPHYSICS Emphasizing Vibrations Inset: Phil Magor Inset: From Pirates to Prada: As the United Arab Emirates celebrates its 40th GEOTOURISM The Wonders of Yellowstone anniversary, we take a look at the making of the modern Dubai. Layout: Bookcraft Ltd. GEOLOGY GEOPHYSICS Print: NXT Oslo Reklamebyrå RESERVOIR MANAGEMENT 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 necessarily those of GeoPublishing Limited. GEO ExPro DECEMBER 2011 5 MARKET UPDATE Paradigm Shift for Quaternary US Oil Production 1.8 Neogene Tertiary The last time that the oil weapon was 23 used was during the oil crisis in 1973. THINA Cenozoic The US no longer had an oil buffer for the MARGARETHE West to lean on and was thus unable to SALTVELT, PH.D Paleogene 65* defend itself against OPEC’s oil supply cut. Does shale oil mean the US could once again become self- Cretaceous sufficient in oil? A technological breakthrough has made shale gas production South Atlantic starts opening South Atlantic Alpine orogeny profitable and transformed the US gas market. At today’s production level the total gas reserves of the US are now large enough to cover 145 consumption for the next ten years. The same technique can be used orogeny Laramide to extract oil from shale, so we could therefore be facing a paradigm Jurassic shift also in the oil market. Mesozoic Ever since the oil crisis in 1973, the US has had an ambition to become Pangaea breakup Pangaea self-sufficient in oil again. New extraction methods and high oil prices have made production of oil from shale formations lucrative. There is still 199* Norwegian-Greenland Sea starts opening little available information on the overall size of extractable oil reserves. Triassic According to the United States Geological Survey, the extractable shale North Sea rifting oil reserves of the US could be more than 24 Bbo. The US is assumed to have about half of the world’s known reserves. Shale oil production is 251* expected to increase six-fold over the coming ten years from the current Permian level of around 400,000 bopd. Together with increased NGL production (natural gas liquids) and larger extraction from existing fields, shale oil Central Atlantic starts opening Atlantic Central 299 could take the US one step closer to oil self-sufficiency. Until the early 1970s the US rather than the Arab countries was seen Phanerozoic Carboniferous as the oil industry’s last resort. Oil producers in Texas, Louisiana and Oklahoma could always swiftly turn on the taps and transport more oil rifting Gulf of Mexico The Big Five Extinction Events Big Five The to the global market if the need arose. But US oil production peaked as * early as 1970 and has since fallen by over 30%. During the same period 359* overall oil consumption rose by a hefty 41%. This has made the US Devonian very dependent on oil imports from politically unstable countries such OF PANGAEA FORMATION as Nigeria, Venezuela and Iraq. The growing dependency of the US on imported oil has made the country more economically and politically Paleozoic vulnerable. Oil-exporting countries have on a number of occasions used oil to exert political power.