VOL. 14, NO. 5 – 2017 GEOSCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY EXPLAINED geoexpro.com GEOPHYSICS: Liberia: A Fresh Approach EXPLORATION Benin: Low Cost, High Impact Frontier INDUSTRY ISSUES Being Green – Great For Business RECENT ADVANCES IN TECHNOLOGY An Introduction to Deep Learning Q & A BP’s Big Data Plans Offshore Benin Advanced Interpretation Package Discover exciting open block opportunities off shore Benin To learn more about PGS’ MegaSurvey, PreStack data, well data and interpretation products in Benin, please contact: mcafrica @pgs.com. A Clearer Image | www.pgs.com Previous issues: www.geoexpro.com Contents Vol. 14 No. 5 This edition of GEO ExPro magazine focuses on Africa; Data and Analytics; GEOSCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY EXPLAINED and Protecting our Resources. 5 Editorial y Technology and processes 6 Regional Update are changing rapidly, but data remains at the heart of 8 Licensing Update everything we do. 10 A Minute to Read 12 Cover Story Exploration: Benin – The Low Cost, High Impact Frontier v Beautiful Lake Malawi could be 16 Industry Issues: Digitally hiding hydrocarbon riches. Transforming Data Management for Geoscience www.123rf.com/stephanscherhag 20 Seismic Foldout: Côte d’Ivoire – © Completing the Jigsaw ) 26 Industry Issues: When Being “Mauritius was made first and Green is Great for Business then Heaven; and Heaven www.123rf.com/goodolga copied Mauritius.” 30 GEO Physics: © Liberia – A Fresh Approach 32 Technology Explained: A Cleaner Future for Drilling R PGS Several promising play types can be 34 Country Profile: Unexplored Malawi identified on new pre-stack depth migrated seismic. 38 GEO Profile: Cath Norman – New Technologies Lead to Amazing Career ©Alexlmx/Dreamstime 42 Seismic Foldout: Olympus Rising: North Carnarvon Basin Imaging S Once, artificial intelligence was 50 GEO Tourism: science fiction – today, it is part of Mauritius – and Beneath our everyday lives. 54 Exploration: Frontier Exploration 2017 NVIDIA Corporation NVIDIA 2017 in Egypt’s Mediterranean Sea © 56 History of Oil: A Brief History of Booms and Busts II 62 Recent Advances in Technology: q An Introduction to Deep Learning I q 66 Seismic Foldout: V H V Exploration Opportunities in R 0 the Mediterranean 6 N 74 GEO Media: Anomalies ;p w 76 Exploration Update v ) @ 78 Q&A: Big Data in the O&G Industry , 80 Global Resource Management 8 GEOExPro October 2017 3 See the power of the new DAKS TM IQ Innovative developments like DAKS TM IQ With DAKS IQ you can quickly and easily have led to C&C Reservoirs being named discover ways to optimize recovery, one of the most promising technology support your decision-making process, solution providers in oil & gas by CIO and improve your overall financial Review magazine. Contact us to see the performance across the entire E&P life power of DAKS IQ. cycle. Working in DAKS IQ means insights at your fingertips. DAKS IQ is an analogs-based knowledge, reporting, and benchmarking platform To learn more about DAKS IQ, visit us that provides best practices and lessons online at ccreservoirs.com. You will be learned from more than 1,500 of the glad you did. world’s most important fields and reservoirs. Covering over 400 geological and engineering parameters, DAKS IQ unlocks the insights of what has and has not worked, where and why. TM ccreservoirs.com Editorial Just Having Fun! GEOSCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY EXPLAINED While reading Robbie Gries’ www.geoexpro.com excellent book about pioneering female petroleum geologists in the GeoPublishing Ltd AAPG, reviewed on page 74, I was 15 Palace Place Mansion struck by the sense of fun running Kensington Court through so many of the anecdotes. London W8 5BB, UK +44 20 7937 2224 These women had struggled hard to get into the profession Managing Director and were frequently subjected to Tore Karlsson prejudice, disparagement and lack of recognition for their often ground- Editor in Chief Jane Whaley breaking work. Yet their fondest [email protected] memories were of the excitement and good times they had, predominantly in the field but also in more mundane settings. Editorial enquiries I am privileged to meet and interview a lot of people in the industry in the course of GeoPublishing Jane Whaley my work. Some have been in the business for decades and recall their early careers, when +44 7812 137161 computers were in their infancy and they spent a lot of time in the field and had some pretty [email protected] hairy adventures; many are younger, and although they tend to be in the office more than their www.geoexpro.com predecessors, they still say what an exciting industry it is to be in. Yes, there are lows as well as Marketing Director highs, not just in oil prices and employment, but in the search for oil – bearing in mind that, Kirsti Karlsson despite all our high-tech capability, still less than 25% of wildcat wells are successful – the risk +44 79 0991 5513 element seems to add to the excitement for many. [email protected] It has often been noted that geologists are a strange bunch, delighting in being outside whatever the weather in the search for that elusive outcrop and roughing it in some of the wilder corners of the earth. It was the same even in those early days, when the AAPG pioneers can be seen in photos clambering over rocks, geological hammer in one hand, long skirts gathered in the other – and broad grins on their faces. And I suppose it is the smile that sums it up – they’re having fun with like-minded people. As Cath Norman, profiled in this edition, puts it: “I get to use the most advanced technologies outside the space race; to travel the world and hang out with very intelligent – and also wacky – people. What’s not to like?” See the power of the It is good to sometimes remember that, despite the inevitable trials and tribulations of working life, we are all very lucky. We have rewarding careers in an exciting industry – and get TM to have fun! Subscription GeoPublishing Ltd new DAKS IQ +44 20 7937 2224 15 Palace Place Mansion Innovative developments like DAKS TM IQ With DAKS IQ you can quickly and easily Kensington Court London W8 5BB, UK have led to C&C Reservoirs being named discover ways to optimize recovery, [email protected] one of the most promising technology support your decision-making process, VOL. 14, NO. 5 – 2017 solution providers in oil & gas by CIO and improve your overall financial GEO EXPro is pub lished bimonthly Review magazine. Contact us to see the performance across the entire E&P life GEOSCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY EXPLAINED Jane Whaley geoexpro.com for a base subscrip tion rate of GBP GEOPHYSICS: EXPLORATION power of DAKS IQ. cycle. Working in DAKS IQ means Editor in Chief Liberia: A Fresh Approach 60 a year (6 issues). Benin: Low Cost, insights at your fingertips. We encourage readers to alert us DAKS IQ is an analogs-based knowledge, High Impact Frontier to news for possible publication reporting, and benchmarking platform To learn more about DAKS IQ, visit us and to submit articles for publication. that provides best practices and lessons online at ccreservoirs.com. You will be learned from more than 1,500 of the glad you did. Cover Photograph: world’s most important fields and reservoirs. INDUSTRY ISSUES Main: peeterv/istock BENIN: LOW COST, HIGH IMPACT FRONTIER Being Green Covering over 400 geological and – Great For Business Inset: TGS Exploration for oil and gas still has a long road to travel in much of Africa, RECENT ADVANCES engineering parameters, DAKS IQ unlocks IN TECHNOLOGY including Benin, where there is overlooked potential in the shallow An Introduction to the insights of what has and has not offshore, and Malawi, virtually unexplored. Deep Learning Layout: Winslade Graphics Q & A worked, where and why. BP’s Big Data Plans Print: Stephens & George, UK Inset: New thinking inspired by innovative modelling could open new TM plays in West Africa. issn 1744-8743 © 2017 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. ccreservoirs.com GEOExPro October 2017 5 Regional Update North West Africa ABBREVIATIONS Leads Exploration Numbers (US and scientific community) Over the last two years companies exploring North West Africa M: thousand = 1 x 103 have seen a high value of return. MM: million = 1 x 106 B: billion = 1 x 109 Conventionally, African exploration has been focused in Nigeria, Egypt and Libya; T: trillion = 1 x 1012 most other frontiers were either underexplored or not explored at all. However, in recent times Africa has been the hot spot for exploration activity, mostly Liquids concentrated in West Africa, offshore Mozambique and Tanzania, and the East barrel = bbl = 159 litre African rift system in Kenya and Uganda, as well as the opening of new carbonate boe: barrels of oil equivalent plays in the Nile Delta. The slump in oil markets has had a huge impact on bopd: barrels (bbls) of oil per day exploration activity, with a decline of about 60% in the African continent since 2015.