First Break August 2018

VO L U M E 3 6 I I S S U E 8 I A U G U S T 2 018

SPECIAL TOPIC

Near Surface Geoscience INDUSTRY NEWS Who won in Norway’s 24th round?

CROSSTALK What went down in Copenhagen

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FIRST BREAK® An EAGE Publication

CHAIRMAN EDITORIAL BOARD Peter Rowbotham (Peter.Rowbotham@apachecorp.com) EDITOR Damian Arnold (editorfb@eage.org) MEMBERS, EDITORIAL BOARD • Paul Binns, consultant (pebinns@btinternet.com) • Patrick Corbett, Heriot-Watt University (patrick_corbett@pet.hw.ac.uk) • Tom Davis, Colorado School of Mines (tdavis@mines.edu) • Anthony Day, PGS (anthony.day@pgs.com) • Peter Dromgoole, Statoil UK (pdrum@statoil.com) • Rutger Gras, Oranje-Nassau Energy (gras@onebv.com) • Hamidreza Hamdi, University of Calgary (hhamdi@ucalgary.ca) • Ed Kragh, Schlumberger Cambridge Research (edkragh@slb.com) • John Reynolds, Reynolds International (jmr@reynolds-international.co.uk) • James Rickett, Schlumberger (jrickett@slb.com) • Dave Stewart, Dave Stewart Geoconsulting Ltd (djstewart.dave@gmail.com) • Femke Vossepoel, Delft University of Technology (f.c.vossepoel@tudelft.nl) MEDIA PRODUCTION MANAGER Thomas Beentje (tbe@eage.org) ACCOUNT MANAGER ADVERTISING Charles Callaghan (ccn@eage.org) ACCOUNT MANAGER SUBSCRIPTIONS Jack McClean (jmn@eage.org) PRODUCTION Saskia Nota (layout@eage.org) Ivana Geurts (layout@eage.org) EAGE EUROPE OFFICE PO Box 59 3990 DB Houten The Netherlands • +31 88 995 5055 • eage@eage.org • www.eage.org EAGE RUSSIA & CIS OFFICE EAGE Russia & CIS Office EAGE Geomodel LLC Novocheremushkinskaya Str. 65 Build. 1 117418, Moscow, Russia • +7 495 640 2008 • moscow@eage.org • www.eage.ru EAGE MIDDLE EAST OFFICE EAGE Middle East FZ-LLC Dubai Knowledge Village Block 13 Office F-25 PO Box 501711 Dubai, United Arab Emirates • +971 4 369 3897 • middle_east@eage.org • www.eage.org EAGE ASIA PACIFIC OFFICE UOA Centre Office Suite 19-15-3A No. 19, Jalan Pinang 50450 Kuala Lumpur Malaysia • +60 3 272 201 40 • asiapacific@eage.org • www.eage.org EAGE LATIN AMERICA OFFICE Carrera 14 No 97-63 Piso 5 Bogotá, Colombia • +57 1 4232948 • americas@eage.org • www.eage.org

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Recovering TURAM geophysical data towards 3D modelling

Editorial Contents 3

EAGE News

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Crosstalk

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Industry News

Special Topic: N ear Surface Geoscience

39 Fault activity studies in the Lower Tagus valley and Lisbon region using geophysical data João Carvalho et al.

45 An airborne survey in Cabo Delgado, Mozambique, to enhance knowledge of geology and tectonics

Danta Marizane Rosse, Manuel Senos Matias and Elsa Cristina Ramalho 49 TDEM and VES soundings applied to a hydrogeological study in the central region of the Taubaté Basin, Brazil Luiz Rodrigo Hamada et al.

55 Evaluation methodology for obtaining geotechnical parameters using electrical resistivity Laura Vanessa Araque Lavalle et al.

59 Improvement of sonic tests methodology for the characterization of stone masonry

Rachel Martini et al.

65 GPR profiles over plastic drums buried at the IAG/USP geophysical test site-I, São Paulo, Brazil: a controlled experiment applied to environmental studies

Jorge Luís Porsani et al.

71 Geophysical methods to characterize a mass movement event in tropical soils in Campos do Jordão City, Brazil Cassiano Antonio Bortolozo et al.

75 Recovering TURAM geophysical data towards 3D modelling of the Caveira-Lousal mining area, southern Portugal Fernando Almeida et al.

83 Drone-borne ground-penetrating radar suitability for specific surveys: a comparative study of feature sizes versus antenna frequency and elevation over the ground Reinaldo Alvarez Cabrera and Goran Bekic 90 Calendar

EAGE MEMBERS CHANGE OF ADDRESS NOTIFICATION Send to: EAGE Membership Dept at EAGE Office (address above) FIRST BREAK ON THE WEB www.firstbreak.org ISSN 0263-5046 (print) / ISSN 1365-2397 (online)

cover: Alleyway in Porto, Portugal. This month’s Special Topic will anticipate some of the major themes for EAGE’s Near Surface Geoscience event in Porto in September.

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European Association of Geoscientists & Engineers

Board 2018-2019 Jean-Jacques Biteau President

Near Surface Geoscience Division George Apostolopoulos Chair Alireza Malehmir Vice-Chair Micki Allen Contact Officer EEGS-NA Riyadh Al-Saad O&G Liaison Xavier Garcia Committee Member Peter Bergmann Technical Programme Representative Albert Casas Membership Officer Ranajit Ghose Editor in Chief Near Surface Geophysics Musa Manzi Committee Member Andreas Kathage Liaison Officer First Break Koya Suto Liaison Asia Pacific Musa Manzi Committee Member Jiangha Xia Liaison China

Oil & Gas Geoscience Division

Peter Lloyd Vice-President-Elect

Michael Pöppelreiter Vi c e-President

Colin MacBeth Education Officer

Caroline Jane Lowrey Chair Michael Peter Suess Vice-Chair Øistein Bøe Resource Evaluation Committee liaison Phil Christie Chief Editor Petroleum Geoscience Rick Donselaar Technical Programme Representative (Geology) Xavier Garcia NSGD liaison Sebastian Geiger Resource Evaluation Committee liaison Olivier Gosselin Technical Programme Representative (Reservoir), Resource Evaluation Committee liaison Juliane Heiland Committee member David Halliday Technical Programme Representative (Geophysics), YP liaison Tijmen Jan Moser Editor-in-Chief Geophysical Prospecting Ann Muggeridge IOR Committee liaison Walter Rietveld Technical Programme Officer Michael Welch Technical Programme Representative (Geology), NSGD liaison Martin Widmaier Technical Programme Representative (Geophysics) Paul Worthington Resource Evaluation Committee liaison Michael Zhdanov NSGD liaison Conor Ryan Resource evaluation committee Francesco Perrone Young professionals liason

SUBSCRIPTIONS First Break is published monthly. It is free to EAGE members. The membership fee of EAGE is € 50.00 a year (including First Break, EarthDoc (EAGE’s geoscience database), Learning Geoscience (EAGE’s Education website) and online access to a scientific journal.

Caroline Le Turdu Membership and Cooperation Officer

Ingrid Magnus Publications Officer

Everhard Muijzert Secretary-Treasurer

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Aart-Jan van Wijngaarden Technical Programme Officer

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George Apostolopoulos Chair Near Surface Geoscience Division

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Caroline Jane Lowrey Chair Oil & Gas Geoscience Division

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HIGHLIGHTS

EAGE MEMBERS

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2019 EAGE Award nominations

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Instant translation conquers language barrier at Annual

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Geology lesson for French students on Oman field trip

Meeting the transition challenge Jean-Jacques Biteau looks forward to his unanticipated second year as president of EAGE. It is under extraordinary circumstances that I am writing this review of the year ahead as your continuing president of the Association having had the honour to serve in the office for 2017-18. Owing to

Jean-Jacques Bisteau: president for another year.

unexpected professional constraints, last year’s vice president Juan Soldo informed the Board that he felt unable to fulfill the demands of the role of president to the extent that members would expect.

I salute the integrity of his decision and personally thank him for his contribution to EAGE in the last two years as a Board member.

Following the Board’s approval and resolution accepted at the June 2018 Annual General Meeting in Copenhagen, I have therefore agreed to continue in office for 2018-19. One of the key factors in this decision was the consensus that presidents of the Association should ideally take over after two preliminary years on the Board. This is to ensure an important level of continuity provided by a period for incoming presidents to familiarize themselves with the workings of the Association as well as the wishes and concerns of members around the world during visits and events representing EAGE. As for my aspirations for the Association, these have of course not changed.

During the coming year I intend to continue working with the Board to best serve the membership in a period of transition.

When we recently met at the successful 2018 Annual Conference & Exhibition in Copenhagen, attended by over 5000 participants, the discussion focused on energy transition, in this case moving from the preoccupation with fossil fuels to alternative forms of energy and the implications for geoscience and engineering.

It was clear from many of the technical sessions, forums and special interest FIRST

group meetings that the professions we serve are aware a watershed moment is approaching in terms of the direction our disciplines may lead in the decades to come. As a small aside, I was very happy to see the continuing emphasis on diversity in the technical programme with increased coverage of geological topics, which is something I have been advocating since I joined the Board in 2015.

The more general refocusing of the Association is reflected in the continuing growth of the Near Surface Division, now up to 29% of the membership from 20% three years ago.

The mission of my colleagues and I on the Board is to ensure that the Association can meet this transition challenge.

It means providing new services and opportunities while continuing to supply professional support for the majority of our membership which for some time to come will continue to be focused on the oil and gas industry.

Our annual Near Surface event, this year in Porto, is a good example of how we are extending our geoscience reach, with an event that includes parallel conferences on shallow marine geophysics and geophysics for mineral exploration and mining. In November this year EAGE will be holding a geothermal workshop in Strasbourg, which I look forward to attending.

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EAGE NEWS

We also continue to support sustainable initiatives like the EAGE/SEG Workshop last August in Trondheim and Fifth CO2 Geological Storage Workshop scheduled for November 2018. With the next generation of geoscientists in mind, we are introducing the Minus CO2 Challenge, which invites students to analyze a dataset and propose a low-carbon field development plan for a discovered hydrocarbon resource or a scheme for other domains, for example, geothermy.

Looking forward to our next Annual Meeting, the Board with some new members is bringing possible fresh ideas and topics for inclusion in the technical programme including areas such as

sustainability, hydrogeology, geothermal issues, etc. I should also pay tribute to the work done by all outgoing Board members, specifically, Walter Rietveld and Roald van Borselen, who completed their six years in office in June and were always ‘pillars’ of support in our decisions.

Your Board is also very conscious that all Association activities must pay due regard to the budget constraints within the organization and outside in many companies and academic/research institutions. One of my chosen themes as president has been to return EAGE to a sustainable positive budget, which will be the case in 2018 thanks to office hard work on cost control and reductions.

Our strategy is to tailor our event, education and publishing services to what we can afford to operate and what the membership can support. It is why we are always open to cooperation with other professional societies such SEG, AAPG and SPE if it avoids unnecessary duplication or widens the scope of an event.

As I begin this second term of office, I look forward to working again with the Board and staff, and to a continuing dialogue with members worldwide on the current and future strategy of the Association. Finally I must also thank my employer Total for extending its support for another presidential year.

EAGE staff to take part in Dam to Dam charity event Twenty-nine members of EAGE staff in the Houten office will be participating in the annual Dam to Dam cycling and running event on 29 September to raise money for the Dutch Cancer Society (KWF) and in support of (former) col-

leagues who have been diagnosed with cancer.

The event will test the endurance limits of the participants with distances ranging from a 10-mile run up to a 105 km cycle between Amsterdam and

Zaandam. To show your support and further motivate the team, you can donate to the event directly at www.acties.kwf. nl. On the website, look for ‘EAGE in Action’.

Good luck to all involved!

Preparations underway in Portland for SAGEEP 2019 with EAGE as co-organizer EAGE is proud to be co-organizing the Symposium on the Application of Geophysics to Engineering and Environmental Problems (SAGEEP), in association with the Environmental and Engineering Geophysical Society (EEGS). SAGEEP 2019 will take place in Portland, Oregon between 17-21 March 2019, and brings together experts in the near surface field from across the world to tackle some of the most pressing issues effecting the industry, the environment and research.

EAGE is excited to be partnering with EEGS on their flagship event, where for the first time, SAGEEP will incorpo4

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rate two additional ‘sister’ conferences running concurrently: Geohazards and Shallow Marine/Coastal Geophysics. A single registration will enable attendees to visit all three subject conferences during that week. With the classic environmental and engineering topics coupled to specific, focused subjects like Geohazards and Shallow Marine issues, there will be plenty to discuss at this state-of-the-art defining event.

The conferences will, as always, be complemented by an exhibition of around 40 companies in the field, who will take the opportunity to show off

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their latest products and services. In addition to exploring opportunities at the exhibition, participants will have the opportunity to see field demonstrations of the latest technology offered by our exhibitors at a location near the venue, the Portland Marriott Downtown Waterfront Hotel.

Portland is a vibrant, environmentally-conscious port city located at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia Rivers with a historic downtown and waterfront restaurants and shops making it an ideal venue for the meeting.

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EAGE NEWS 

Copenhagen 2018

Opening day debate.

3D perspective.

Busy exhibition.

Laurie Dake Challenge winners.

Welcome from Danish royalty.

EAGE Award winners.

E-poster session.

Senior Exploration Managers lunch.

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Time to celebrate.

EAGE NEWS

was an anniversary occasion

Special location for President’s Evening.

Executive director Marcel van Loon with SEG president Nancy Jo House.

EAGE president Jean-Jacques Biteau at President’s Evening.

Book launch for Michael Poppelreiter.

Geo-Quiz maestro Mahmoud Abdul-Baqi.

Student Chapter winners from Universiti Teknologi Petronas with Gerard Wieggerink.

Heat of competition for students.

Scenes (left to right) from Student Evening.

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EAGE NEWS

Getting down to business ...

Networking Cafe.

Talk at Women’s Special Interest Group meeting.

Young Professionals meeting.

EAGE Copenhagen Advisory Committee.

Women’s forum.

Team from Smart Exploration project.

Meeting with delegation from Turkey.

Meeting of EAGE Board.

EAGE welcomes AAPG representatives.

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EAGE and SEG presidents agree!

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EAGE meets SEG.

EAGE NEWS

Party time at Conference Evening

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2019 EAGE Award nominations: a chance to recognize deserving colleagues Prof Anton Ziolkowski, chair of the Awards Committee, introduces the nomination procedure for awards to be presented at the 2019 Annual Meeting in Copenhagen.

The Awards Committee invites you, the members of EAGE, to nominate geoscientists for the prestigious EAGE Awards 2019. The Committee only considers nominations from you. We do not make nominations ourselves. If we do not receive nominations for a particular award there can be no award.

This year there were no nominations for the Desiderius Erasmus Award, EAGE’s highest award, so no one received this award in Copenhagen, and a great opportunity for recognition was lost. We sincerely hope this does not happen again. We will campaign to encourage more nominations by writing to past awardees, presidents of EAGE Local Chapters, Special Interest Communities, Regional Offices and Divisions.

The Awards Committee operates within the constitution of EAGE and within a set of by-laws. The function of the Awards Committee is to make recommendations on the awards to the Board of EAGE. All voting members of the Awards Committee are independent of the Board but Board has the final decision on the recommendations.

However, the Board may not make counter proposals or new proposals.

The Awards Committee has a chair, a vice-chair and a team of about 16 voting 10

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members who cover the geoscientific and related engineering disciplines. There is an annual turnover that is always difficult: experienced members leave and new blood joins. In June 2017 the Committee lost Phil Christie, Bill Symes, Jean Virieux, Len Srnka, Johannes Wendebourg and Philip Ringrose as they came to the end of their terms. We are very grateful that, in June 2017, Chris Ward, outgoing president, Martin Blunt, Erasmus award-winner, and Sebastian Geiger, Wegener award-winner, all agreed to join the current Awards Committee. We are very grateful to the Board for approving the nominations of three new members, Andrew Curtis, Lucy McGregor and René-Éduard Plessix, to the Committee in November 2017, bringing it to full strength and allowing us to consider the best paper awards with a full complement of excellent scientists.

In June 2018 Horst Rüter and Ran Bachrach left, each after six years of very valuable service to the committee. Tiziana Vanorio has agreed to join us as 2018 Wegener award-winner. Biographies of the Award Committee members can be found at www. eage.org > About EAGE > Awards.

The Committee works on the nominations you make to determine the strongest candidate for each award. Occasionally an award is not made for lack of a strong enough candidate.

The Committee also seeks the advice of the EAGE publication editors to determine the best paper awards for the EAGE journals Geophysical Prospecting (Loŕand Eötvös), Near Surface Geophysics (Ludger Mintrop), First Break (Nigel Anstey), Petroleum Geoscience (Norman Falcon) and Basin Research (Robert Mitchum). For the Louis Cagniard Best Poster Award and Guido Bonarelli Best Oral Presentation Award, the Committee is assisted by advice from the conference chairmen and the results of your votes.

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Nomination procedure If you have a colleague whom you would like to nominate for the Erasmus, Honorary Membership, Schlumberger, Wegener or Van Weelden Awards, these are the steps to follow: 1. Compose a nomination package including your candidate’s CV (and list of publications, if appropriate), a nominating letter and at least one letter of support. The requirements are described in detail on the EAGE website and guidelines for preparing nomination packages are available too.

2. Submit your nomination through the EAGE website. When this is received, the EAGE Office will check membership and age eligibility requirements, as appropriate for the award you selected. If needed, you will be asked to provide additional information and if you have any questions you can always contact awards@eage.org The deadline to submit nominations for the 2019 award cycle is 31 October 2018. However, you are encouraged to start composing your nomination package well in advance since this will allow you enough time to submit a truly strong nomination.

Please remember, most awards are limited to one candidate. The award selection process is carried out by the EAGE Awards Committee on a confidential basis, with final approval of all recommendations by the EAGE Board. Obviously, it is crucial that your candidate should not be aware that he or she has been nominated.

Only EAGE members are eligible for Honorary Membership, Schlumberger, Wegener or Van Weelden Awards.

EAGE NEWS

Abu Dhabi workshop to study 4D seismic issues on land and offshore An EAGE Workshop on 4D Seismic and Reservoir Monitoring is being planned for 18-20 November in Abu Dhabi to enable participants to share achievements and challenges, with the accent on attract diverse speakers from industry and academia and encouraging discussion.

For the past two decades time-lapse (4D) seismic monitoring has been a key technology to track fluid movements between wells. Most 4D projects have taken place in offshore on clastic reservoirs and have been widely used to identify bypassed oil, aid well placement and optimize water or gas sweep. Twenty years of 4D monitoring has highlighted that reservoir models can often be too simplistic and inaccurate to describe actual fluid movements.

Meantime the IEA estimates that by 2030 more than 60% of daily production will come from onshore fields, which are dominated by carbonate reservoirs. In addition, the role of unconventional reservoirs is of increasing importance. While optimizing recovery remains a critical task for any operator in carbonates, 4D seismic has not been considered routinely for res-

ervoir monitoring. This is due to numerous technical and economic challenges, especially onshore. Low acoustic contrast and demanding acquisition requirements, and lack of processing algorithms able to efficiently deal with shallow overburden heterogeneities and internal multiples are amongst the key technical challenges.

With these issues in mind, the forthcoming workshop will be opened by a keynote on best practices learned from the study of clastics and industry successes.

A session on applications based on steam injection monitoring and high pressure high temperature will be followed by a paper on facies-based 4D inversion. A 4D processing session will then help participants focus on land processing challenges and migration.

The second day will explore emerging new territories with a keynote on the status of 4D seismic for carbonates presented by Christian Hubans (Total). Time-lapse data acquired with standard land acquisitions will be presented in parallel to more innovative designs for onshore carbonate environments where repeatability is degraded and 4D differences are extremely weak. A

session on 4D borehole seismic will follow with a paper on crosswell seismic and papers about VSP acquisitions completed through classical receivers or fibre-optic distributed acoustic systems. Borehole seismic is often a smart cost-efficient solution suitable for congested fields with surface infrastructure.

The final day presentations will investigate non-seismic monitoring technologies such as gravimetry, EM and InSAR, which could offer cost-efficient solutions covering wide areas and providing a quick overview on the main production mechanisms. The final session will focus on data integration and reservoir management with presentations showcasing integrated monitoring of a large onshore field, dealing with noise to maximize the value of 4D seismic, and integrated reservoir characterization of an unconventional field. The workshop will be concluded by a keynote from Thierry Coleou (CGG), who will overview a global set of case studies of increasing complexity and emphasize the need for integration to make an impact.

For registration details, please refer to the EAGE website.

EAGE Education Calendar 11 AUG

EAGE EDUCATION TOUR 2

LA PAZ, BOLIVIA

13 AUG

GEOBAIKAL 2018 CONFERENCE

IRKUTSK, RUSSIA

14 AUG

EAGE EDUCATION TOUR 2

BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA

27-31 AUG

EDUCATION DAYS RIO DE JANEIRO: MULTIPLE SHORT COURSES PROGRAMME

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL

28-31 AUG

EDUCATION DAYS ABERDEEN: MULTIPLE SHORT COURSES PROGRAMME

ABERDEEN, UK

EDUCATION DAYS MEXICO CITY: MULTIPLE SHORT COURSES PROGRAMME

MEXICO CITY, MEXICO

EAGE EDUCATION TOUR 13

CHINA, INDIA, INDONESIA, JAPAN, MALAYSIA, AUSTRALIA

3-7 SEP 17 SEP - 3 OCT 26 SEP

EAGE EDUCATION TOUR 11

HOUSTON, USA

14 OCT

EAGE EDUCATION TOUR 13

ANAHEIM, USA

EDUCATION DAYS STAVANGER: MULTIPLE SHORT COURSES PROGRAMME

STAVANGER, NORWAY

22-26 OCT 1 NOV 5-9 NOV

EAGE EDUCATION TOUR 13

ABERDEEN, UK

EDUCATION DAYS HOUSTON: MULTIPLE SHORT COURSES PROGRAMME

HOUSTON, USA

EAGE EDUCATION TOUR 13

MASSY, FRANCE

15-16 NOV

EDUCATION DAYS AMSTERDAM; PROGRAMME TBC

AMSTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS

19-23 NOV

EDUCATION DAYS MOSCOW: MULTIPLE SHORT COURSES PROGRAMME

MOSCOW, RUSSIA

15 NOV

FOR MORE INFORMATION AND REGISTRATION PLEASE VISIT WWW.LEARNINGGEOSCIENCE.ORG.

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EAGE NEWS

Second EAGE/SPE workshop on geosteering and well placement scheduled for Abu Dhabi The latest collaboration in the Middle East region between the EAGE and SPE will see a joint workshop focusing on geosteering and well placement to be held in Abu Dhabi on 5-8 November 2018.

Effective geosteering and well placement remain a fundamental and increasingly important part of successful reservoir management, especially with growing pressure to maximize recovery, and ever more crowded surface and subsurface locations. As with previous workshops, professionals and academics are invited to exchange knowledge and experience of the challenges currently being encountered and to discuss the solutions being piloted and implemented in order to improve and deliver more effective well placement and geosteering. The workshop will take the form of keynote presentations from

industry and academic specialists, technical presentations and open forums for discussion.

Driven by an experienced organizing committee, balanced between academics, services companies, independent, international and national operators, the workshop agenda organized over five sessions will cover: Case studies - Best practices and strategies for well placement and geosteering; Best practices and strategy based on deep directional resistivity tools; Role of data integration for intelligent well placement; Uncertainties in wellbore surveying; and Vision for well placement and geosteering: where the industry is going?

Geosteering and well placement can involve a diverse team of asset managers, drillers, completion engineers and technology managers. They all have an investment

in successful well placement along with geologists, geophysicists and petrophysicists.

The workshop covers the advantages successful well placement can have for the whole team; who can benefit from the data gathered during well placement; and how this information can be integrated into other workflows in a timely manner.

The organizing committee would like to encourage participation from technical and management individuals from all backgrounds not just those directly involved in well placement and geosteering.

The organizing committee looks forward to welcoming you to Abu Dhabi at what is expected to be an interesting and fruitful workshop. Click here to see the programme and registration details: https://bit.ly/2yPILMC

Arabian plate geology workshop to target Pre-Cambrian to Paleozoic petroleum systems The 7th Arabian Plate Geology Workshop is due to continue its successful run in Muscat, Oman on 9-13 December 2018 with the emphasis shifting to ‘Pre-Cambrian to Paleozoic Petroleum Systems in the Arabian Plate’. This represents a move away from consideration of the Mesozaic era which has been extensively explored and is better understood for hydrocarbon exploration.

The exploration of this year’s highlighted interval is more challenging due to deeper targets and data limitation.

The workshop provides a great chance to better understand challenges and opportunities collectively by combining the available dataset and huge experience throughout the entire Arabian

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Plate during Paleozoic and Precambrian Era. It will help in formulating and updating the regional stratigraphic framework based on common stratigraphic and chronostratigraphic markers.

The knowledge attained will enhance our ability to predict the source-reservoir-seal presence, quality and distribution.

The workshop will offer several case studies integrating different geoscience data to collectively understand Pre-Cambrian and Paleozoic. Oral presentations and posters will cover a variety of aspects enhancing our regional and sub-regional understanding.

There will also be core displays from the region to observe how we

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can track changes from one system to another and merge understanding for our perspectives. Additionally, there will be two-day field trips covering the Ediacaran Nafun Group and the Cambrian-Ordovician Amdeh, in order to enhance understanding of these complex systems that are the new frontiers.

The workshop invites anyone in industry/academia interested in sharing knowledge of the subject and anxious to learn from local experiences along with perspectives from outside the region.

Early registration deadline is 15 October 2018. For more information, please visit the EAGE website at https://bit. ly/2zbuCcD.

EAGE NEWS

Cross-discipline thinking the way forward for geomechanics Report on the EAGE/SPE workshop on ‘The Future of Geomechanics in Brown Fields and Unconventionals’ held on 2-3 May in Abu Dhabi.

2018 SPE/EAGE Geomechanics Workshop Abu Dhabi, UAE.

The workshop was entitled ‘The Future of Geomechanics in Brown Fields and Unconventionals’ and all three aspects of that were prominent. Many of the case studies referred to stimulation planning for shale gas/oil, or to the challenges of drilling, producing and injecting in depleted fields. Also the future developments of measurements, models, interpretation and even people were discussed in depth.

Throughout, however, it was clear how much cross-disciplinary thinking and collaboration is occurring now, and how much potential there is for that to grow further.

It was pleasing to see all areas of geomechanics covered over the two days. The 58 attendees came from a good selection of backgrounds, roles and locations, helping to broaden the scope of the questions and breakout sessions. Most of the presentations involved consideration of several topics in the areas of drilling, wellbore stability, sanding, natural fractures, well integrity, field development, reservoir integrity, seismic inversion, core testing, hydraulic fractures, subsidence/ heave, microseismic,1D models,3D models and coupled models.

There were a few questions that came up on multiple occasions, several of which point to where geomechanics might be heading in the future. It was interesting 14

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that the views and priorities of the attendees were often similar, regardless of their roles and experiences.

Participants wanted to know: What is the best way to sample cores for testing how should we interpret scatter in core test results? When is it appropriate or necessary to use a 3D geomechanical model?

What is the best way to identify and characterize natural fracture networks?

What is the best way to use microsesimic events and identify their exact origins?

How should we deal with uncertainty in geomechanical models, whether due to missing data, inaccurate data, or knowledge of fundamental mechanisms? How much attention should be paid to upscaling and resolution in models? How can the results of complex models be simplified in a way that helps decision-making?

Looking into the future, several trends are already becoming clear: There is an ever-increasing amount of data from the exploration, appraisal and development phases of every field. Processing and tracking that data is becoming a bigger challenge than lack of data to make decisions Wells and field developments are becoming more challenging, and the time available to respond is becoming shorter.

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Increasing computer power has led to bigger and more complicated models, but interpreting the results of those models is not easy. Sometimes it is better to have a simpler model that you understand rather than introducing more unconstrained parameters.

Big data/artificial intelligence/machine learning are coming but there is no clear picture about how they will be used. It will be hard to make effective use of them unless there is agreement on what types of data to process and how to evaluate the results.

The importance of geomechanics is continuing to grow, and geomechanics engineers are interacting more with other disciplines. This growth increases the requirement to explain findings to managers or drillers, and to put them in a financial, safety or efficiency context.

All of these points mean that the people doing geomechanics need a very wide range of skills, some of which can be taught while others are gained through experience.

The workshop committee would like to thank all the attendees for their contributions, especially the high level and openness of the presentations and discussions. The support from the sponsors, SPE, EAGE and scribes is also much appreciated.

EAGE NEWS

Geology of carbon capture and storage under review at Utrecht workshop The Fifth CO2 Geological Storage Workshop will take place this year in Utrecht from 21-23 November 2018. The last workshop on this subject was held more than four years ago, in April 2014 in Stavanger, Norway, and, we believe, it is time to recap all that has been achieved during these last few years.

The objective of this workshop is to present key advances and discuss remaining technology gaps as well as review a way forward. Development of international scientific workforces is needed to tackle specific challenges, as well as methods and tools that can demonstrate a safe and environmentally sound future for CO2 storage advances.

The workshop should be seen in the context of the Paris Agreement’s ambition to tackle climate change in which large scale implementation of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) is considered essential. To answer the challenge there will be a need for large-scale transport and storage systems capable of handling, at the megatonnes scale, CO2 captured at industrial and power facilities. Ideally,

the transport and storage systems will be integrated, multi-user and multi-store networks, delivering incentives to initiate capture efforts across industry and power sectors. For successful realization of CCS, it is vital to build confidence that injected CO2 is safely retained in the sub-surface and that CO2 storage can be deployed at the required scale. This has been investigated in several research initiatives during the last decade.

The workshop format will be a series of sessions each following the format of keynote speakers, a discussion forum, oral and poster presentations and demonstrations. The posters and oral presentations will form a key part of the proceedings, together with demonstrations of learning or training technologies. There will be six main sessions covering a wide variety of scientific subjects: Characterization, Risk and Impact Assessment; Reservoir Management and CO2 EOR; Infrastructure and CO2 impurity implications; Storage Monitoring and Remediation; Demonstration Cases and Non-Technical Challenges; and The Future.

The Technical Committee welcomes abstracts covering: site characterization and storage capacity, environmental impact assessment, subsurface risk assessment, geological utilization and storage of CO2, rock mechanics and rock/fluids interaction, storage capacity and pressure management, wells and infrastructure integrity, CO2 injectivity and injection technology, risk-based verification monitoring, modeling and monitoring integration, corrective measures, CC(U)S demonstration cases, public perception and risk communication, social and regulatory issues, the future - challenges for large-scale industrial deployment.

All extended abstracts that will be accepted will be published with Open-Access on EarthDoc. Find the submission instructions on the event website via events.eage.org for more details.

Submit your abstract before 31 August and speak at this workshop. Visit the event website and read all details of the programme and how to register.

Horizontal wells conference headed for Kaliningrad in 2019 EAGE is holding its third biannual conference on horizontal wells in Kaliningrad on 27–31 May 2019. Vladimir Vorobyev (Gazpromneft-Angara), chairman of the organizing committee, says the event reflects the need in the current depressed market to discuss reducing the odds of drilling a dry hole, increasing reservoir penetration and well flow rates, and achieving higher levels of project profitability.

EAGE’s two previous events on this topic in 2015 and 2017 sparked great interest amongst oil and gas operators and service companies. This year will see presentations from Rosneft, Gazprom Neft, LUKOIL, Salym Petroleum Devel-

opment, Schlumberger, Weatherford, Halliburton, Roxar, CGG, and scientists from research institutions and universities.

Choosing Kaliningrad as the venue for the conference is connected not only to the high level of regional development, fine sunny weather in May and the possibility of instructive geological field trips, but also to the dynamic development of hydrocarbons on the Baltic shelf. The growth of shelf projects in the current situation is hard to imagine without horizontal drilling and the technologies used to exploit such reserves are much advanced.

Abstracts can be submitted for eight sessions on various aspects of drill-

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ing horizontal wells from planning to executiion. The Call for Abstracts deadline is 1 March 2019. Detailed information on Horizontal Wells 2019: Challenges and Opportunities is available on our websites.

Please note that the event will be held in the Russian language.

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EAGE NEWS

Geomodel to celebrate 20 years of geoscience discussion at Gelendzhik Over the years some 200 to 300 leading oil and gas E&P geoscientists have attended the Geomodel Conference representing about 100 Russian and foreign companies and universities. This year’s 20 th anniversary event will be held on 10-14 September in its usual host city of Gelendzhik on the Black Sea. The conference programme includes more than 160 oral and poster presentations, a geological field trip and two lectures on topical problems in geological and geophysical research. It will also include commercial presentations of innovative developments in software systems and technologies.

Several specialized sessions will be run in parallel allowing participants to look into and discuss theoretical and practical issues in exploration of oil and gas fields, as well as their development. Among the most popular sessions this year are likely to be Kinematic and Dynamic Interpretation of Seismic Data (attribute analysis, all types

of inversion, etc.), Applied Problems of Seismic Data Processing, and Regional Session on West Siberia.

The technical programme is available on our websites www.eage.org and www.eage.ru. Abstracts of papers included in the scientific programme will be published on EAGE’s online geoscience database EarthDoc (www.earthdoc.org).

Materials of all EAGE events are indexed in the Scopus system.

Special lectures are being organized on 10 September, one on ‘Seismic Facies Analysis’ by Tatyana Olneva (Gazpromneft STC) and the other on ‘Petroleum Geology

and Geophysics’ by Valentin Kolesov (Pangea). The field trip will focus on subsurface geology of part of the North-West Caucasus on 14 September.

The programme committee chairman Igor Kerusov (Lukoil-Engineering) says that at the 20th anniversary Geomodel conference it is important to review the research and development experience gained over two decades and make this the basis for further progress.

For detailed information, refer to the event website and please note that the Geomodel Conference will be held in the Russian language.

Instant translation conquers language barrier at EAGE Annual

Breaking the language barrier.

The Annual Meeting in Copenhagen saw a trial run of an innovative on-the-spot translation device for use during technical programme sessions. EAGE took the initiative to find a solution to the challenge of language barriers that can hamper discussions during the Q&A sessions in the technical Program.

Making use of the world’s first artificial intelligence-powered instant voice translation solution, EAGE collaborat16

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ed with Travis to develop a solution to translating questions and answers for non-native speakers and attendees, in a real conference setting.

With additional tech support from EAGE, the device was successfully trialled at a well-attended session chaired

by EAGE President Jean-Jacques Biteau on Wednesday 13 June. At the afternoon session, people in the audience were able to ask questions in their mother language and have that question and response translated in real-time. The presenter at the session listened to a translated question through their ear-phone and provided their response in Chinese, which then appeared in English translation on screen, to the delight of the audience. Through this innovative initiative, the audience was able to follow the full conversation and engage deeply with the topic of discussion.

To facilitate the application, speakers, chairpersons and the audience were given some instructions to ensure a smooth adoption of the technology. Although there is

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certainly room for further improvements, the reaction from the audience was very positive. Gerry Lourantos, an attendee at the afternoon session, said he appreciated EAGE’s effots to improve the Q&A sessions by making bilateral communication easier for non-native speakers, calling the solution ‘revolutionary’.

A more extensive trial will be conducted at the EAGE Near Surface 2018 event in Porto in September.

Outgoing EAGE Board Member, Roald van Borselen, said: ‘EAGE is continually exploring innovations and initiatives that can help our members connect with each other. This solution offered our international delegates a valuable opportunity to ask questions and engage with presentations, despite the language barriers that have traditionally limited audience engagement and networking at our events.’

If you are interested in utilizing this service for your presentation in Porto, please contact eage@eage.org.

EAGE NEWS

Seals need to be better studied and understood is workshop verdict

WORKSHOP

REPORT

The Second EAGE/AAPG Hydrocarbon Seals of the Middle East Workshop, was held at the Westin Abu Dhabi Golf Resort & Spa on 17-19 April 2018. This is what transpired.

After the success of the first workshop, the second EAGE/AAPG joint event attracted over forty professionals from both academic and industrial sectors to discuss hydrocarbon seals, which unlike the reservoir, are probably the least understood part of the petroleum system. More than just hydrocarbon traps, they are involved in controlling the migration and charge volumes and the lateral and vertical distribution of hydrocarbon within a trap.

The workshop opening address by Mohammad Faqira (Saudi Aramco) highlighted the challenges and opportunities of evaluating seals in the Middle East. He suggested that about 52% of known seals are ineffective, and stressed the significance of data integration for seal risk mitigation.

EAGE president Jean-Jacques Biteau then focused on the importance of identifying pressure regimes that could impact the effectiveness of a seal. Compaction, for instance, would cause disequilibrium in mechanical stress, potentially causing fluid loss.

Middle East regional seals A global insight into the world of seals with case studies kicked off the first full session. In one presentation, James Faroppa (C&C Reservoirs), based on 1500 global reservoir studies over the course of the past 21 years, indicated 50% of dry holes were a result of seal failure. Seals are generally classified as homogenous, which he revealed is not the case in reality and hence their classification is essential for better characterization.

The main discussion points during the breakout session revolved around the importance of prioritizing seal evaluation in industry and the factors required to do so. It was concluded that there was still no systematic approach for seal evaluation, as seals were not considered a high priority and thus studies were more regionally focused and dependent on data available.

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Current methodologies and practices used across industry involved understanding the stratigraphic position, lithology and capillary capacity of the seal.

Integrated seal prediction vs. lookback analysis The main takeaway from this session was the importance of using integrated workflows for fault seal analysis and sealing capacity assessment with the help of well, seismic and MICP data. Brainstorming revealed that seals could be categorized based on three factors: Position geometry: top, lateral (e.g. fault) and bottom seals; Lithology, e.g., clastics, carbonates, evaporates; and Pressure seals that happen when hydrocarbon entry pressure is less than its buoyancy pressure.

The main attributes to be considered during analysis were identified as brittleness, ductility, stress conditions, entry pressure, fluid type, thickness, permeability and hydraulic fracturing. The main controls in determining a seal were the geometry (tectono-stratigraphy), burial conditions, thickness, continuity and timing (when the seal got its’ capacity).

Extra attributes related to fault seals include juxtaposition, fault throw, fault history, base seal trap and sand-shale ratio. Additionally, some unconventional seals were introduced including diagenetic seals, tar masks and hydrodynamic seals.

Seal Integrity Assessment The second day started with a keynote address by Christopher Wibberley (TOTAL), in which he identified fault permeability as an important seal property and emphasized the need to quantify it.

Pressure regime was another essential fault seal property.

Calibrating core, well logs and seismic facies for seal integrity assessment has

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Delegates at the second EAGE/AAPG Hydrocarbon Seal Workshop.

been ongoing as advocated by companies such as KOC, ADNOC and Saudi Aramco.

Major challenges involve upscaling issues from core to log to seismic. Shortage of available data due to lack of studies is another prime issue. Furthermore, the complexity increases for carbonates due to the introduction of diagenetic overprint.

Emphasis in the session was also placed on educating technical teams on marketing their ideas to the management, perhaps by discussing the value of addition to the project and by having cost-benefit discussions.

Critical elements for assessing seal integrity were also explored during this session. These included lookback analysis, field analogues, timing, sequence stratigraphy, permeability, juxtaposition, throw, fluid type and pressure across seal.

Structural Geology and Geomechanics This session involved integration of various disciplines in a 3D basin model such as tectonic history, thermal, lithostratigraphic and pressure model, along with a detailed uncertainty map and depth-converted map (from seismic). It was pointed out that all these models should add up to tell a ‘consistent’ story.

Other criteria suggested for evaluation were the use of Allen Methodology (1987) to help provide points for juxtaposition to assist in fault seal calibration and to identify if the faults are open or closed, as well as the incorporation of geomechanical

EAGE NEWS

parameters during the initial stages of modelling. The importance of running multiple scenarios and incorporating uncertainty, a factor generally not taken into account at industry level, in models for more robust decision-making and improved profitability was emphasized.

Seal assessment: petroleum system modeling perspective Pierre Laer of ADNOC delivered the last keynote speech on Day Three highlighting the use of basin modelling and back-stripping analysis for seal assessment in the event of lack of data or issues faced during upscaling. The session focused on the role of basin modelling to help reconstruct the basin geology and tell the story of fluid

generation, migration and accumulation.

A case study from Saudi Arabia showed, with the help of a kitchen maturity map, immature areas in the presence of faults indicating a fault leak.

There was also discussion about possible future work on integration of compaction as geomechanical data input in models.

Poster Presentations Two posters, from Saudi Aramco and PT Pertamina Persero, showcased case studies where integrated workflows of seismic interpretation, sedimentology and sequence stratigraphy analysis were used to characterize and map seals.

Another poster by Khalifa University highlighted the importance of rock

brittleness, a geomechanical parameter, in determining fracability. The last poster by Petrochina introduced a new seismic technique called ‘two wide and one high’ to identify salt structures and hydrocarbon accumulation in salt-bearing basins.

In his closing remarks Fahad Al-Najrani (Saudi Aramco), chair of the event, emphasized the importance of studying seals. He also called for use of integrated workflows for seal assessment and characterization that would allow for better decision-making in the long run.

Special thanks are due to the platinum level sponsorship of Adnoc and Saudi Aramco, and Icebreaker sponsorship by Total.

Geology lesson for French students on Oman field trip Earlier this year 10 students from the EAGE student chapter of Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Géologie (ENSG) Nancy made a field trip to Oman. This is their report.

We participated in the field trip as part of the petroleum geosciences option at ENSG, an advanced curriculum taught through specialized courses in petroleum exploration, sedimentology, stratigraphy, dynamics of basins and petroleum systems that directly correspond to future career paths in the oil and gas industry.

The aim of the project was to investigate the petroleum systems of the Arabian platform and familiarize us with the specific regional tectonic scheme of the Oman Mountains. Oman is known worldwide for its geological interest and is an open-air book of geology with a million of years’ history of sediment deposits and tectonic

Some of the team on location.

activity. Each year, hundreds of geologists have discovered the sedimentary units and its petroleum systems in which petroleum is produced in the Arabian platform. The same rocks were foiled and compressed during the orogeny and are observable in the mountains.

The field trip from 3-12 March took place with the support of teachers of the ENSG. With them, we studied both sedimentary and tectonics topics. In the Oman Mountains in the northeast of the country, we focused on the regional stratigraphy, characterizing the sedimentary facies of reservoirs and the burial history of sediments. We also learned about the specific obduction context and its ophiolites.

Oman proved to be the perfect place to put our geological skills into practice.

We greatly appreciate the financial support from EAGE, and also from our other sponsors - Total, SPE, Schlumberger and Centre de Recherches sur la Géologie des Matières Premières Minérales et Energétiques (CREGU).

Only with all this support was the project possible. The Oman field trip was the first activity of the EAGE student FIRST

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Explaining the geology.

chapter of the ENSG. The aim of the student chapter is to organize activities, such as conferences or field trips for ENSG students and create ties with the industry.

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EAGE NEWS

Transition issues were key concern for Women’s Special Interest Community in Copenhagen

The speakers’ panel at the WGE Special Session at the EAGE 80th Annual Meeting.

Close to 100 participants attended the Special Session organized by Women in Geoscience and Engineering at the EAGE Annual Meeting in Copenahgen making the event a great success.

This year’s session was strongly focused on the current industry trends and featured an inspiring presentation by keynote speaker Marit Brommer, executive director of the International Geothermal Association. Her speech on ‘Driving your career in the energy transition: Ready, steady, go!’ got the discussion started on setting clear career goals, pursuing them consistently and conserving the flexibility required to move within an industry sector going through a historical transition.

A panel of female professionals operating in different companies and

representing different professionals roles was ready to elaborate on this topic and share their experiences: Monica Calvert (lead geophysicist, Total), Laura Bornatici (principal geophysicist, Cairn Energy), Kristin Gjertsen (VP Impact Projects, Aker BP), Severine Pannetier Lescofitt (principal geophysicists, Equinor) and Julie Branston (region manager, Europe and Russia, Schlumberger, WesternGeco).

In the feedback survey circulated during the event, one participant described the session as a ‘brilliant presentation, fantastic panel session, great interaction between audience and speakers, two truly well spent hours’. Another attendee reported that the keynote was ‘very punchy and efficient to boost boldness and self-confidence’, which is one of the goals of the WGE Special

Interest Community, regularly publishing a Motivation Monday post.

For some participants, the special session was also the opportunity to meet face-to-face with their mentors/mentees currently taking part in the WGE e-Mentoring Program. This is a six-month exchange activity launched by the group for the second time this year where experienced professionals are actively engaged in counselling and knowledge sharing with younger colleagues.

Another feedback point was the request for a stronger diversification of the speakers. This is something the committee intend to improve for next year’s edition, as the reach of the group expands and more professionals join from different countries.

The Women in Geoscience and Engineering community of EAGE can be accessed via LinkedIn and currently counts over 1130 members all over the globe.

The Special Session featured a lively Q&A with the audience gathered in Copenhagen.

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EAGE NEWS

Young Professionals session is a hit in Copenhagen One of the highlights at this year’s Annual Meeting in Copenhagen was the Young Professionals (YP) Special Session held for the fifth year and attracting increasing numbers of young geoscientists each time.

Five speakers were invited to share their views and provide advice to young professionals navigating the early stages of their career.

Henk-Jaap Kloosterman, global learning manager subsurface at Shell, opened the session with a presentation entitled ‘The World of Work is changing’ discussing the exciting perspectives offered by new digital technologies for virtual classroom and distance learning. Peter Haffinger, co-founder and managing director of Delft Inversion, followed with a talk on alternative career paths ‘in a dynamically changing geoscience world’ which caught the attention of both junior and more experienced delegates in the audience.

The fact that the ongoing energy transition is revolutionizing the market and signalling the need for a new set of diversified skills was stressed by several speakers, including Anders Rossland (exploration manager at Aker BP) who focused on soft skills as key to the future.

The session talks closed with a discussion

by Monica Calvert (lead geophysicist) and Nick Lagrillière (senior geologist) from Total. They addressed the concept of the energy roller-coaster in terms of the ups and downs it causes in both personal and professional life. Both speakers suggested that the best way to navigate these times is to seize opportunities and tackle challenges.

Monica Calvert leads an informal discussion with YP. The roundtables at the YP Special Session were a fantastic opportunity for young geoscientists to discuss with the speakers.

After the presentations, participants were invited to join roundtables to talk informally with the speakers, ask questions and share experiences. This is traditionally a much appreciated part of the YP Special Session programme, and again this year feedback was positive. This was also an excellent opportunity for networking with peers from other countries and fields who share similar interests.

Some suggested more time be allocated for the roundtable discussions. The problem is that time at the Annual Conference is limited. However, the YP LinkedIn group offers a permanent platform for continuing these talks and initiating new discussions on career topics and the opportunities presented by the energy transition.

Over the Summer of 2018, the YP Committee will be going through a transition of its own as new elections have

been called. For those willing to get more involved in the YP community and take an active role in the coordination of YP activities for the period 2018-2020, applications are open until August 15. The composition of the new YP Commiteee will be announced in September.

Filippo Broggini (YP chair) and Matteo Broggini (YP committee member) moderated the session.

The EAGE Student Fund supports activities that help bridge the gap between the university and professional environments for students of geosciences and engineering. Thanks to our Student Fund contributors we can continue supporting students around the globe and through this securing the future of our industry. For more information to become a Student Fund contributor, please visit eagestudentfund.org or contact us at students@eage.org.

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What went down in Copenhagen Reflecting on our Annual Meeting in Copenhagen the last Geoservices (EMGS), cut a distinctive figure in the exhibition hall month, to this observer at least, it was uplifting but also a little now promoting Axxis Geosolutions (AGS). This is the company disconcerting. he helped to found that has appeared out of nowhere to announce It always helps when the sun shines. For last EAGE Annual a four-vessel seabed node survey in the North Sea this summer. occasion in Copenhagen in 2012 it was wet, cool and blustery, Earlier this year it completed a first project working with BGP some sort of weird augury of the industry downturn just around the offshore Indonesia for BP. Its approach is agnostic as far as the corner. This time we had a week of real summer in the city. Coinchoice of nodes is concerned, currently it is deploying Geospace cidence or not, this seemed to reflect the mood of the gathering, Technologies equipment. boosted by an encouraging attendance of over Also in Copenhagen were representatives 5000 participants, making sessions lively and of First Performance Geoservices (FPGeo), a ‘The tone was set by keeping exhibitors busy for the full four days. newly founded Norwegian company that sees a flawless Opening Students seemed happy as ever with their proan opening in the market to provide ocean gramme and the Special Interest Community bottom seismic (OBS) data. Its mantra is that Ceremony’ sessions were a highlight. The tone was set by high cost and operational inefficiencies have a flawless Opening Ceremony in the presence of Prince Joachim of been holding back greater oil company use of the technology, Denmark, and there were no unexpected dramas to deal with, like even though it is already encroaching significantly into traditional the loss of power in Paris last year. marine seismic spending on towed streamer–based solutions.

The cautious optimism resonating among participants was Both newcomers will have been encouraged – towed-streamer doubtless influenced by the prevailing price of oil, now settling at operators not so much – by the reported comments of Kristian around $70 per barrel, and knowing that the marine seismic busiJohansen, CEO of TGS, the largest single customer for marine ness – really the engine room of geoscience applications serving seismic data. In an industry talk/webcast he stated that his company the oil and gas industry – was looking more solid that it has done is working with some of the leading seabed seismic players and that for years. In other words, existing seismic vessel capacity, albeit this could be the future of the seismic industry. Oil companies have dramatically shrunk from 2012, is for the time-being more or less a higher appetite for this survey method, according to Johansen, fully employed. this could be a risk for both traditional vessel owners but also the Of course there were veterans of the E&P seismic spending value of existing conventional 3D multi-client libraries. cycle warning against taking too much for granted. We could Such talk led to some speculation by some about if and when just be seeing a seasonal effect, these voices said. Oil company key remaining towed streamer-based marine seismic contractors exploration spending plans are not yet pointing to a sharp upswing, such as PGS, Polarcus and Shearwater Geoservices will get and maybe a potentially worryingly high proportion of current involved in the market trend towards seabed acquisition systems. vessel activity is favouring multi-client surveys with their higher An option that would have obvious benefits to oil companies attendant risk. would be to leverage their tow-streamer capabilities by offering On the positive side was the talk of increased oil company a combination of towed-streamer and seabed technologies in one focus on the use of ocean bottom nodes for targeted seismic data survey. acquisition. None other than Bjarte Bruheim, one of the founders However, the main grist for the rumour mill was the guessing of Petroleum Geo-Services and ex-chairman of Electromagnetic game over the future of the marine and land seismic assets of

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were essentially out of their comfort zone. The Total man was Schlumberger’s WesternGeco business unit following its decision quick to point out that his organization was an energy company. to withdraw from all seismic data acquisition operations.

It was left to Paul McConnell of Wood Mackenzie to describe At the time of writing (mid-July) no announcements have the real predicament for the oil and gas industry. Transition, he been forthcoming from Schlumberger. The most plausible theory said, was a demand story in which the march of new technology expressed in Copenhagen was that Schlumberger would offload will impose itself on the power landscape and there’s nothing its vessels and use of its proprietary Q-Marine and IsoMetrix much the oil and gas industry can do about that. In addition, it was technology to an existing contractor. Part of the deal would agreed that what happens in China, India and South-East Asia will guarantee future work from Schlumberger’s multi-client projects be the determining factor in the years to come with those regions going forward. Any agreement would bring a number of modern representing two-thirds of the world population by 2050 and thus 3D vessels back into the market, which could affect marine seismic having impact future energy demand. survey pricing. That may worry existing players, but having made The implication of the energy transition debate was that the oil its exit, Schlumberger’s understandable focus is getting some of its industry will appear to have lost control of its destiny, unsure of money back from investing well north of $1 billion in vessels and where it is heading. It is not a good look. In the eyes of upcoming technology. generations Big Oil has lost its swagger to the Amazons and The potentially dark cloud hovering over the meeting in Googles of this world.

Copenhagen arose from the surprisingly frank observations heard This became more obvious in the ensuing session on digitalduring the three main executive sessions, on the role of oil and gas ization. Here it was conceded that the one-time digital leadership in the energy transition era on the opening day, and on digitalizaexample of seismic exploration geoscience has long been overtaktion and integration of disciplines on Day 2 and 3 respectively. It en. The talk was how buzz words such as HPC, was hard not to come away from those debates with the impression that oil companies are ‘It would have been the Cloud, Big Data, AI, analytics, collaboration, real time, etc could put the industry on the experiencing a loss of confidence in their role in the modern energy era and the realization more realistic to swap path of automation, takes the grunt work out of data processing and optimization and allow that their operations and way of doing business “opportunities” with geoscientists to get on with the real job of high are no longer seen as cutting edge and in some “uncertainties’ level interpretation. Nothing we haven’t heard respects are falling behind. Credit for prizing before. out the evidence must go to Martin Breum, Ashok Belani of Schlumberger, never one to hold back, the moderator of all three debates, who was extraordinarily well was very clear that an available capability was not being taken prepared and able to cut to the chase on a wide variety of topics. advantage of. However, one suspects something that worries oil From the discussions in these executive sessions with top company budget controllers is exactly what impact digitalization industry representatives, it became increasingly ironic that the will have on the bottom line. One speaker alluded to this with over-arching theme for the event in Copenhagen was ‘Opportuniwords to the effect that oil and gas companies were first and ties presented by the energy transition’. It would have been more foremost primary energy producers, and not in the digitalization realistic to swap ‘opportunities’ with ‘uncertainties’, because it business. However, the panel as a whole recognized that if the was obvious that oil companies haven’t a clue how the energy industry is to attract the best and the brightest, oil companies transition is going to play out. No one knows at this point. must be seen to have serious digital credentials. That may now be The representatives from Total and Equinor on the panel difficult to establish in the face of competition from more savvy both legitimately claimed to have enlightened policies in terms digital-based industries. of investing in renewables, being attentive to the IEA Paris 2% The integration of disciplines session was a further reminder reduction in CO2 emission targets, etc. However, both conceded that their companies’ business for the foreseeable future would be of how moribund oil companies can appear, even inadvertently. predominantly oil and gas, and that they were working in the dark After all, this is a topic that has been under discussion for decades. in terms of the impact of growth in energy renewables, electric As we all know, the basic problem is how to make decisions vehicles, etc. There was consensus that the coal industry was on based on a wide range of geoscience, engineering and economic the way out and that oil and gas would be needed for decades to data generated by a battery of different disciplines. There’s never come. However, companies believe they will have to increasingly going to be a perfect answer. What seemed to emerge is that single focus on low cost reserves with a small carbon footprint to stay discipline work will always be relevant. For the best collaborative profitable. As Jez Averty from Equinor remarked, the best his efforts, multi-disciplinary teams are best served by focusing on one company can do is work with a range of outcomes. At some point project at a time with less emphasis on individual multi-tasking. in the discussion the interlocutor even asked whether oil comThe choice of suitable personnel seems to be crucial and there was panies should actually involve themselves in renewables which talk of ‘integrators’ as a special category.

Views expressed in Crosstalk are solely those of the author, who can be contacted at andrew@andrewmcbarnet.com.

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24th

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2nd

European Meeting of Environmental and Engineering Geophysics

Applied Shallow Marine Geophysics Conference

Conference on Geophysics for Mineral Exploration and Mining

9 -12 S E P T E M B E R 2 018

PORTO, PORTUGAL

Register now! w w w. n e a r s u r f a c e g e o s c i e n c e 2 0 1 8 . o r g

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First EAGE Workshop on the Challenges in the Hydrocarbon Provinces of the Eastern Mediterranean 2 9 - 3 0 N OV E M B E R 2 018 • M A LTA

Several license rounds in recent years, and the close proximity to the market makes the Eastern Mediterranean an appealing area for exploration and investment. Although the area is of great interest currently, many questions and challenges remain open, both related to the geology and the complexity of imaging issues.

The First EAGE Workshop on Geophysical and Geological Challenges in the Hydrocarbon Provinces of the Eastern Mediterranean aims to explore challenges to understanding the geology of the Eastern Mediterrane an, including seismic imaging issues, while developing an increased understanding of the key components in the recent successful discoveries and the overall complex regional geology. Find more details on this workshop via the event page: events.eage.org

W W W. E AG E .O R G

Call for Abstracts Deadline: 15 September 2018

Submit your Abstract

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HIGHLIGHTS

INDUSTRY NEWS

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US Supreme Court rules against ION

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Norway still has 4 billion barrels of oil to exploit

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Spectrum agrees to buy Shearwater’s Reveal software

Oil companies commit to big seismic surveys after Norway’s 24th round

Twelve licences have been awarded.

A series of geophysical surveys will be carried out on the Norwegian Continental Shelf after Norway awarded 12 new production licences in its 24th licensing round.

Nine of the 12 licences include firm work commitments for oil companies to acquire 3D seismic surveys, 2D surveys,

reprocess 3D seismic data, conduct CSEM studies, EM feasibility studies and G&G studies.

‘In contrast to the awards of the 23rd licensing round, the majority of these awards are less mature and therefore require more work before the drilling candidates are ready,’ said Nicholas Ashton, head of exploration on the NCS for Equinor. ‘Consequently, Equinor will gather and interpret data before the licences are presented to the partners who will decide on any drilling of exploration wells.’

Norway’s Ministry of Petroleum and Energy has offered 12 new production licences to 11 companies in the 24th licensing round. Three licences are in the Norwegian Sea and nine licences are offered in the Barents Sea. Equinor was the biggest winner with five operatorships, Aker BP won two operatorships, Spirit Energy won two operatorships, while Lundin, Shell and OMV one operatorship each.

Equinor has shares in seven licences, Aker BP six licences, Spirit Energy four licences, Lundin three licences, DEA two licences, Shell Idemitsu, M Vest Energy, OMV, VNG and Wintershall have shares in one licence each.

For licence 957 Equinor must acquire 3D seismic data, 3D CSEM data and G&G studies.

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For licence 958 Shell and VNG must reprocess 3D seismic data, conduct an EM feasibility study and acquire 3D seismic data.

For licence 959 Equinor, M Vest and Spirit Energy must conduct G&G studies, acquire 3D seismic data, and acquire 3D CSEM data.

For licence 961 Equinor and Aker BP must conduct G&G studies and acquire 3D seismic data.

Licence 962 Spirit, Lundin and Aker BP must acquire 3D seismic data and reprocess 3D seismic data and conduct a CSEM feasibility study.

For Licence 963 Aker BP and Equinor must acquire a 3D CSEM study.

For Licence 964 Aker BP, Wintershall and DEA must acquire 3D CSEM data, reprocess 3D seismic data and acquire 2D seismic data.

For Licence 965 Lundin and Spirit Energy must acquire 3D seismic data; and conduct an EM feasibility study.

For Licence 966 Equinor and Aker BP must conduct G&G studies; reprocess 3D seismic data and/or acquire 3D seismic data.

‘We have a clear ambition of maintaining profitable production at today’s level on the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS) until 2030 and beyond. It is therefore crucial that we are awarded new exploration acreage beyond already

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INDUSTRY NEWS

Global energy demand rises along with CO2 emissions, says BP report

opened areas,’ said Arne Sigve Nylund, Equinor’s executive vice president for development and production in Norway.

‘Exploration on the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS) is becoming ever more challenging. It is important to Norway and the companies to map remaining commercial resources both in the Norwegian Sea and the Barents Sea. We see the need for testing new exploration models and that is what we aim for in these licences. Proving alternative exploration models is the best way of fully mapping the NCS resources,’ added Ashton.

‘We have built on our 40-year history in North Norway and our long exploration experience from the Barents Sea. We therefore want to clarify the potential in the western margin of the Barents Sea and in the Hoop area around Wisting.’

Gro Gunleiksrud Haatvedt, SVP Exploration of Aker BP, said: ‘These awards will provide more valuable exploration potential and supplement our existing portfolio, and position the company for further growth in the region’.

Based on the offered awards EMGS expects to realize net uplift revenues of approx. $6.7 million from data-licensing agreements related to the company’s multi-client library. ’A considerable number of the awarded licences have CSEM as a work commitment which underscores the value and mature position of CSEM in the exploration workflow.’ said Christiaan Vermeijden, CEO of EMGS.

BP’s Statistical Review of World Energy for 2017 shows an increase in global energy demand, led by growing demand for natural gas and renewables.

However, gains in energy efficiency have slowed as industrial activity in the OECD accelerated and output from China’s most energy-intensive sectors returned to growth.

Coal consumption increased for the first time in four years, led by growing demand in India and China, and carbon emissions are estimated to have increased after three years of little-to-no growth.

In 2017 global energy demand grew by 2.2%, above its 10-year average of 1.7%.

This above-trend growth was driven by stronger economic growth in the developed world and a slight slowing in the pace of improvement in energy intensity.

Demand for oil grew by 1.8% while growth in production was below average for the second consecutive year. Production from OPEC and the ten other countries that agreed cuts decreased, while producing countries outside of that group, particularly the US driven by tight oil, saw increases.

Consumption exceeded production for much of 2017 and as a result OECD inventories fell back to more normal levels.

The year 2017 was a strong year for natural gas with consumption up 3% and production up 4% – the fastest growth

rates since immediately following the global financial crisis. The single biggest factor fuelling global gas consumption was the surge in Chinese gas demand, where consumption increased by more than 15%, driven by government environmental policies encouraging coal-to-gas switching.

Renewables grew strongly in 2017, with wind and solar leading the way. Coal consumption was also up, growing for the first time since 2013.

In 2017 global energy demand grew by 2.2%.

Bob Dudley, BP group chief executive, said: ‘2017 was a year where structural forces in the energy market continued to push forward the transition to a lower carbon economy, but where cyclical factors have reversed or slowed some of the gains from prior years. These factors, combined with rising demand for energy, has resulted in a material increase in carbon emissions following three years of little or no growth.’

PGS starts 3D survey in the North Sea PGS has started shooting the second of three new 3D GeoStreamer surveys covering nearly 7400 km2 of the Moray Firth area of the North Sea. This pre-funded multi-client project promises to reveal a large swathe of the Moray Firth-Orcadian Basin area.

Phase 1 covering the outer Moray Firth is now complete and processing is continuing.

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Phase 2 focuses on the inner area of the Moray Firth. This is less explored owing to the challenging combination of shallow water, shallow sub-surface chalk and deep targets. The key imaging challenge of Moray Firth is the masking of deep structures by a combination of shallow water and complex shallow overburden.

High-density GeoStreamer data and modern imaging technology will address

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this, to improve the understanding of the source and the reservoir potential.

The three new Moray Firth datasets will be used as a baseline survey for future 4D studies ahead of upcoming rounds in the UK covering both mature and frontier areas.

Phase 1 is now complete. Fast-track data for each phase will be available four months after final shot.

INDUSTRY NEWS

PGS processes data ahead of Danish licensing PGS has finalized the processing of 7600 km2 of modern, multi-sensor, broadband, towed-streamer seismic data in time for the upcoming 8th Danish licensing round.

The round will have a six-month application deadline with awards expected within six months. The newly processed 7600 km2 of modern multi-sensor broadband towed-streamer seismic data is incorporated into a unified prestack depth Central Graben GeoStreamer PURE volume, which now exceeds 18,000 km2. Plays can be assessed from a regional perspective right down to the reservoir detail with the same dataset, said PGS. The main petroleum system is characterized by Middle-to-Late Jurassic source rock and individual Jurassic fluvial-deltaic to shallow marine sandstones, plus Late Cretaceous-to-Paleocene chalk and sandstones, sealed by intra-Jurassic to Paleocene claystones.

Chalk studies conducted in the UK and Norway reveal obvious similarities with potential plays in the Danish offshore areas. Lessons learnt from seismic reservoir characterization studies using elastic attributes can be replicated for these Danish chalk analogs.

‘Reliable attributes provided by broadband GeoStreamer data enables careful rock physics analysis and calibration at wells,’ said PGS in a statement.

‘Utilizing broadband seismic data as input to pre-stack inversion workflows is effective for the reliable differentiation of the intra-chalk layering away from the wells. This is important in order to understand the high porosity chalk observed at established hydrocarbon discoveries and fields. The rock physics results demonstrate that broadband seismic data with robust elastic attributes can distinguish hydrocarbon-filled porous chalk from water-wet anomalies in Denmark too.’

‘The new dataset generated considerable interest with our geologists as significant parallels could be made to similar observations on the East Shetland Platform.’

ModelVision

Untested basins of Paleozoic age on the Ringkøbing-Fyn-High were mapped and range in ages from Devonian to Permian. Interpretations of the GeoStreamer data enabled a better understanding of these basins on older seismic data. Rock physics studies were conducted on wells penetrating Permian and Devonian reservoir sections and the results were combined with quantitative interpretation workflows to extract elastic rock properties.

‘The results are very encouraging with porosities of up to 28% observed in the Permian reservoirs and 12%-15% in the Devonian reservoir,’ said PGS. ‘Confident predictions of high porosity reservoirs away from wells is possible by using acoustic impedance volumes from the broadband data. Soft kicks and gas chimneys observed close to or above these sub-basins suggest a working source rock and further supports the idea of a working hydrocarbon system. The discovery of this new play is attributed to the superior resolution and the reliable attributes of the modern broadband seismic data.’

The 18,000 km2 of GeoStreamer 3D data in the Central Graben area reveals plenty of potential waiting to be explored in this area. Key fields are Ula, Gyda, Ekofisk, Eldfisk, and Valhall, with discoveries: King Lear, and Mjølner said PGS. The latest advanced imaging routines have been applied to target the Paleocene and Cretaceous chalk, middle-to-late Jurassic, as well as the Permian and Triassic. Permian eolian sands are particularly well imaged by a workflow that has included anisotropic velocity model building, Kirchhoff depth migration and PGS Complete Wavefield Imaging (CWI).

Denmark’s 8th licensing round will take place in 2019. Applications need to be made by 1 February 2019.

Denmark last held a licensing round in 2016.

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Magnetic & Gravity Interpretation System All sensors Processing 3D modelling 3D inversion Visualisation Analysis Utilities

Minerals Petroleum Near Surface Government Contracting Consulting Education

Tensor Research support@tensor-research.com.au www.tensor-research.com.au Tel:

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INDUSTRY NEWS

CGG completes 3D survey offshore Mozambique CGG has completed acquisition of 15,400 km2 of 3D marine seismic data in the outer Zambezi Delta Basin, west of the Beira High. The survey area covers Blocks Z5-C and Z5-D and surrounding non-held acreage.

This is the first survey to be conducted after CGG signed an agreement with Mozambique’s Instituto Nacional de Petroleo (INP) in 2017 for the acquisition of a new multi-client programme.

The fast-track PreSTM data set will be available in Q4 2018 in anticipation of a licensing round in 2019. Final PreSDM deliverables will be made available in Q4 2019. A JumpStart integrated geoscience package will complement the survey to help accelerate industry understanding of the petroleum systems in the area.

Sercel’s QuietSea integrated passive acoustic monitoring system was deployed on the survey vessel to ensure monitoring of marine mammals in the environmentally sensitive Mozambique Channel.

Sophie Zurquiyah, CEO, CGG, said: ‘This advanced 3D survey is being imaged with our latest subsurface imaging technologies. Combined with our JumpStart integrated geoscience programme, regional coverage from our 2017 East Africa Robertson Study, and the Robertson New Ventures Suite, it will support INP’s promotion of the potential in the deepwater Zambezi Delta Basin and the west flank of the Beira High. This full package will also provide interested industry companies with the information required to confidently derisk the full Paleozoic, Mesozoic

and Cenozoic series in this exciting new exploration area.’

Meanwhile, CGG has completed the Pre-Stack Time Migration (PSTM) of its 2500 km2 Dunquin multi-client survey acquired in Block 44 of the Porcupine Basin, west of Ireland, in 2017.

Dunquin is the latest in a series of multi-client surveys that CGG has recently been acquiring in the area, totalling 10,500 km2 of 3D data and around 2000 km of long-offset 2D broadband data.

PSDM products for its 2016 Galway and Cairenn surveys were delivered last year.

Similar to CGG’s Galway and Caireen surveys, the Dunquin data will be processed through velocity modelling and depth imaging. Initial FWI results reveal important details of the carbonate reservoir that forms the Dunquin structure.

US Supreme Court rules against ION in patent dispute against WesternGeco

The US Supreme Court, Washington, D.C., U.S.

The US Supreme Court has reversed a lower court’s decision that lost profits WesternGeco sought against ION are not available as a matter of law.

The Supreme Court reversed the Federal Circuit Court’s 2015 decision that such profits were unavailable, but did not reinstate the $93 million jury verdict against ION that the Federal Circuit had overturned. Rather, the Supreme Court remanded the case back to the Federal Circuit for consideration of other argu28

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ments that could reduce or eliminate the damages.

‘While we are disappointed with the Supreme Court’s ruling, and believe that the type of lost profits WesternGeco is seeking should be categorically unavailable, the Federal Circuit has yet to determine whether they are available to WesternGeco in this case because they never opined on an argument we made,’ said Brian Hanson, ION’s president and chief executive officer. ‘Under the jury

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instruction given in trial court, the jury could only award lost profits to WesternGeco if they found that ION and WesternGeco were direct competitors for the surveys that WesternGeco lost. However, we did not bid for or perform any of those surveys; they were performed by foreign customers who bought our DigiFIN lateral streamer positioning devices. We were only a supplier to that market; not a participant in it. We strongly believe that we are right in our argument that the jury could not have found us to be a direct competitor in this market, and that the award should be reversed on those grounds alone.

‘In addition, between the time the Supreme Court heard arguments in our case in April and issued this decision, the Federal Circuit affirmed a finding by the Patent and Trademark Appeals Board that four of the six patent claims that supported the damages to WesternGeco were based on patents that never should have issued in the first place. We will seek a new trial as to damages and will forcefully argue in any new trial that the two remaining claims cannot support lost profits.’

INDUSTRY NEWS

Norway still has 4 billion barrels of oil to exploit, says NPD The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate’s (NPD) 2018 Resource Report for Exploration shows that production of oil and gas will increase going forward, but new and larger discoveries have to be made in order to maintain the same level after the mid-2020s.

The estimate for undiscovered resources is 4000 million standard cubic metres of oil equivalents (Sm3 o.e.), which corresponds to about 40 Johan Castberg fields. The NPD expects about two-thirds of the undiscovered resources to be located in the Barents Sea; the rest is distributed between the North Sea and Norwegian Sea. ‘This report includes an updated overview of undiscovered petroleum resources on the shelf. It shows that after more than 50 years of activity, about 55% of anticipated oil and gas resources have yet to be produced. Of these, just under half have not even been discovered,’ says exploration director Torgeir Stordal.

One trend in recent years is that the discoveries have been smaller than before. Moreover, it is becoming more difficult to find the oil and gas deposits.

The report says that new technology will continue to be developed to provide better data and better tools, which have contributed to new insight and new exploration concepts.

The report says that 55% of oil and gas resources offshore Norway have yet to be produced.

‘This development will continue.

The combination of better geotechnical expertise and digital technology will probably become the key to identifying new resources in the years to come.’

The NPD also promised to start searching for minerals on the seabed.

‘In many places in the world there are minerals with rare earth elements on the seabed, and there is a beginning commercial interest in exploiting these resources,’ it said. ‘There are seabed minerals in the deep parts of the Norwegian Sea on the Norwegian shelf.’

The NPD said that it will start its own surveys to learn more about these minerals over the summer.

Meanwhile, the Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy has announced acreage for permits for exploitation of a subsea reservoir for injection and storage of CO2 (exploitation permit). The application deadline is 7 September 2018; awards are expected in the fourth quarter of 2018. In the same manner as for the award of production licences, the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate will evaluate the geotechnical work and advise the ministry prior to an award.

Polarcus wins contract for big 3D survey offshore Australia Polarcus has won a contract to shoot a 3D seismic survey over the Beehive prospect, which is one of the largest undrilled hydrocarbon structures in Australia.

The survey acquisition area is approx. 600 km2 with a larger operational area around it to allow for vessel turns and testing of equipment. The operational area is located in the Joseph Bonaparte

Gulf, approx. 225 km west-southwest of Darwin.

The Beehive 3D seismic survey is being carried out for Australian energy company Santos and is fully funded by Santos and its partner Total. Melbana Energy retains a 20% interest in block WA-488-P which will be covered by the survey.

The acquisition of a new 3D seismic survey over Beehive will provide potential

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for further derisking of the prospect and will facilitate consideration of a preferred location for the Beehive-1 exploration well.

The Beehive 3D survey was expected to start in July and complete before the end of August 2018.

Meanwhile, Polarcus has announced that vessel utilization for the second quarter of 2018 was 85%, compared with 75% in the second quarter of 2017.

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Brazil announces winners in 4th Production Sharing Round Equinor has expanded its portfolio in Brazil’s prolific Campos and Santos basins after winning the Uirapuru and Dois Irmãos blocks in the 4th Production Sharing Bidding Round in Brazil.

Equinor, ExxonMobil and Petrogal Brasil presented the winning bid (75.49% profit oil) for the Uirapuru production sharing contract in the Santos basin.

Petrobras will operate the licence with 30% in partnership wtih Equinor (28%), ExxonMobil (28%) and Petrogal Brasil (14%). The pre-determined signature bonus is (approx. $682 million). The Uirapuru exploration block is located in the Santos basin, north of the BM-S-8 (Carcará discovery) and North Carcará blocks, both operated by Equinor.

A consortium comprising Equinor (25%), Petrobras (45%, operator) and BP (30%) were the high bidders

(16.43% profit oil) for the Dois Irmãos production sharing contract in the Campos basin.

The pre-determined signature bonus is approx. $103 million. The Dois Irmãos block sits adjacent to an area where Equinor with partners were awarded four high potential blocks in the 15th licensing round in March.

In the Três Marias pre-salt area a consortium of Total, BP and Petrobras was outbid by a consortium of Chevron and Shell. As with Uirapuru, Petrobras exercised its preferential rights and entered the winning consortium with an operating 30% interest along with Shell and Chevron holding interests of 40% and 30% respectively. Chevron-Shell offered a profit oil share of 49.95%, while the Petrobras-led group bid 18%. The government asked for a minimum profit oil share

Uruguay puts offshore oil blocks on permanent offer Uruguay will move towards a permanent offer process for offshore oil blocks as other Latin American countries have done, after an April auction failed to attract bids, said industry, energy and mining minister Carolina Cosse.

Under the new bidding system, the country will leave blocks permanently open to bids from companies with the same set of bidding conditions. That would differ from previous ‘rounds’ of bidding which each had different conditions, meaning companies had to win approval to present an offer each time, Cosse said.

The South American country had offered up 17 blocks in its first oil auction in seven years, as rising oil prices have led to renewed interest in the region.

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of 8.32% and a fixed signature bonus of $22 million.

Sharjah opens first licensing round The Sharjah Petroleum Council (SPC) has opened an inaugural onshore licensing round covering three concession areas, offering 30-year contracts with a 10-year extension.

Concession Areas A, B and C are located in the producing Thrust Zone play trend, including an unappraised deeper gas discovery below the Sajaa gas-condensate field (Area A). Sharjah National Oil Corporation (SNOC), which has been appointed to conduct the licensing round, is preparing to drill a well in Area B as operator and is also offering a partnership in the near-term exploration opportunity.

Extensive 3D seismic data (shot in 2016 and fully processed in 2017 and early 2018) significantly improved the imaging of the fold-thrust belt and early indications are emerging of potentially large, undrilled prospects and untested plays.

SNOC exploration and production manager, Masoud Al Hamadi, said: ‘Early results of the recently acquired high spec2018

ification 3D seismic are encouraging and we look forward to pushing ahead with drilling operations.’

Significant capacity is available in existing SNOC field infrastructure, gas-condensate processing and export facilities and all suitable field discoveries can be tied into the existing plant in order to generate early cash flow at lower CAPEX, with SNOC to purchase the hydrocarbons.

The concession agreement and joint operating agreement are available for review in the SNOC data room along with the 3D seismic data.

Bidding instructions are available at www.snoc.ae and bidding will close on 18 November 2018 with the winners announced shortly after and contracts effective from 1 January, 2019.

Envoi has been engaged by Sharjah National Oil Corporation (SNOC), on behalf of the Sharjah Petroleum Council (SPC), to assist in the search for E&P companies and investors to participate.

INDUSTRY NEWS

Equinor warns that the energy transition is ‘too slow’ Equinor’s Energy Perspectives report claims that the transition to a more sustainable energy system is too slow and that the target to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius, set out in the Paris climate change agreement, does not allow for further delays in policy, industry and consumer action to reduce emissions.

Despite ambitious goals set in the Paris Agreement, both the use of coal and CO2-emissions increased in 2017, says the report. Oil and gas demand is also growing. In the transport sector electrification increases, but is far from keeping pace with the overall growth in global vehicle sales. In short, even with technology development happening quicker than expected, the transition taking place is too slow, owing to insufficient policy actions.

‘The climate debate is long on targets, but short on action’, said Eirik Wærness, Equinor’s chief economist. ‘We believe it’s possible to achieve climate targets set out in the Paris agreement, but that requires swift, global and co-ordinated political action to drive changes in consumer behaviour and shift investments towards low carbon technologies. Delaying actions will make it very hard to reach the climate targets.’

Electricity demand increases consistently in all scenarios, with solar and wind making up significant shares of generation mix in 2050. Equinor predicts that 49% of electricity demand in 2050 will be accommodated for by new renewable energy, compared to around 5% in 2015.

This growing demand, and the need to phase out coal and reduce demand for

fossil fuels, suggests an enormous call for investments in new electricity production capacity, as well as infrastructure and storage technologies, says the report.

Also in a scenario consistent with the 2-degree target, there will be significant demand for fossil fuels. Gas holds up among fossil fuels with an expected demand in 2050 only 10% below 2015.

Oil however, sees a decline in demand of around 38%.

Large investments in new oil and gas resources will be needed as only around half of the demand in 2050 can be supplied from existing fields. In the other scenarios, the investment challenge is even bigger owing to much higher demand.

Go to equinor.com to read the report.

Seabird signs deal to shoot 2D survey in NCS Seabird Exploration has signed a partnership agreement with MultiClient Geophysical to conduct a 6000 km multi-client 2D deep imaging campaign on the Norwegian Continental Shelf, including cross-border lines to UK Contintental Shelf.

Harrier Explorer will tow a single 12,000 m streamer with a power-

ful source, to image the oceanic and continental crust, for new conceptual geological understanding and improved interpretation of large-scale tectonics.

The company will be entitled to 50% of all future revenue stemming from sales of the acquired data.

SeaBird Exploration has also signed an agreement to provide a source ves-

sel for an upcoming seismic survey in the US Gulf of Mexico. The project is anticipated to commence during Q3 and will have a minimum firm duration of approximately 60 days.

SeaBird will be using the 2D long offset vessel Osprey Explorer for the project.

Seabird has three vessels booked for most of Q3.

Eagle Ford formation estimate soars The Eagle Ford Group of Texas contains an estimated 8.5 billion barrels of oil, 66 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, and 1.9 billion barrels of natural gas liquids, according to a new assessment by the US Geological Survey. This estimate consists of undiscovered, technically recoverable resources in continuous accumulations.

The Eagle Ford Group stretches from the Texas-Mexico border to the west, across portions of southern and eastern Texas to the Texas-Louisiana border to

the east. It is one of the most prolific continuous accumulations in the United States, and is comprised of mudstone with varying amounts of carbonate.

The Eagle Ford Group has long been known to contain oil and gas, but it was not until 2008 that production got underway in East Texas.

‘This assessment is a bit different than previous ones, because it ranks in the top five of assessments we’ve done of continuous resources for both oil and gas,’ said USGS scientist Kate FIRST

Whidden, lead author for the assessment.

‘Usually, formations produce primarily oil or gas, but the Eagle Ford is rich in both.’

Continuous oil and gas is dispersed throughout a geologic formation rather than existing as discrete, localized occurrences, such as those in conventional accumulations. Because of that, continuous resources commonly require special technical drilling and recovery methods, such as hydraulic fracturing.

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Spectrum agrees to buy Shearwater’s Reveal software Spectrum has signed an agreement to buy Shearwater Geoservices’ Reveal software for its Seismic Imaging division.

‘Spectrum chose Reveal software for its modern, easily extensible platform and highly interactive capabilities,’ said a company statement. ‘The software allows for rapid testing of advanced workflows and parameter selection. This promotes high productivity and better quality results. The programming interface allows Spectrum to insert its own proprietary technologies into the same environment for seamless workflows.’

Mike Mellen, executive vice-president of seismic Imaging at Spectrum, said, ‘Spectrum has been in the seismic imaging business for more than 30 years. We image more 2D seismic data annually than anyone in the industry.

Our agreement with Shearwater provides us with the most modern commercial

Spectrum will insert its proprietary workflows into the Reveal platform.

seismic processing platform available on the market today.’

Meanwhile, Spectrum has started shooting its latest offshore multi-client 2D seismic survey in the Eastern Turkish Black Sea. The first phase of this campaign comprises 7000 km of 2D data and is

focused on an area identified to have significant hydrocarbon potential. The project is carried out in partnership with BGP, utilizing a long-offset configuration optimized for broadband data processing. Acquisition is expected to take three months with final processed products available in Q1 2019.

British government committee rejects national decision-making on fracking British government plans to transfer shale oil and gas exploration planning decisions

Anti-fracking protest in Balcombe, UK (Photo courtesy of Randi Sokoloff).

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democracy, a cross-party committee of UK lawmakers has warned.

In May, the UK government announced plans to speed up planning applications to support development of the country’s shale gas industry.

Among the measures is a proposal for fracking sites to be classified as ‘nationally significant infrastructure’, which would mean approval for planning applications would be done at a national rather than local level.

Changing the decision-making process in this way would likely exacerbate existing mistrust between communities and the fracking industry, the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee says in a report.

‘Taking decision-making powers away from local planning authorities would be a backward step. It would remove the important link between fracking applications and Local Plans and be hugely harm-

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ful to local democracy and the principles and spirit of localism,’ said Clive Betts, chair of the committee.

Instead, local mineral planning authorities have the best knowledge of their areas to determine the impacts of fracking, the report said.

British shale gas developer Caudrilla expects to fracture its first two horizontal wells in Blackpool later this year, subject to approvals.

Meanwhile, Scotland’s highest court has ruled in favour of a government ban on fracking which had been challenged by energy giant INEOS. ‘This decision vindicates the extensive process of research and consultation which the Scottish government has undertaken since 2015,’ said Scottish business minister Paul Wheelhouse. ‘Our preferred position is not to support unconventional oil and gas extraction in Scotland (fracking), and that position remains unchanged.’

INDUSTRY NEWS

Mexico reveals bidding terms for September auction Mexico’s oil regulator CNH has announced bidding terms for 37 onshore blocks up for auction in September, as well as the seven joint ventures on offer with national oil company Pemex in October.

The minimum additional royalty payment used to determine winning bids for the 27 September tender will range from 2.5% to 5%, while the maximum additional royalty will range from 25% to 40%. The additional royalty makes up part of the overall government take. In the event of a tie, the winner will be the one that offers the biggest cash payment.

The 37 areas are concentrated in four of Mexico’s potentially lucrative geo-

TGS and PGS launch second vessel for East Canada programme TGS and PGS have allocated a second vessel to their 2018 East Canada acquisition programme. Ramform Sterling will acquire a minimum 2700 km2 of 3D seismic data, including additional data within the 2017 Harbour Deep and Cape Broyle 3D survey outlines. Acquisition is expected to be completed in Q3 2018.

Following this eighth consecutive season of data acquisition offshore East Canada, the jointly-owned library will have more than 175,000 km of 2D GeoStreamer data and approx. 40,000 km2 of 3D GeoStreamer data.

Pre-processing of the initial GeoStreamer signal will be performed

by PGS on board Ramform Sterling, following which TGS will perform data processing using its Clari-Fi broadband technology. Fast-track data will be available in Q1 2019 with final data in Q2.

logical provinces including Sabinas-Burgos, Tampico-Misantla, Veracruz and the Southeast Basins.

At the same September tender, development rights for nine first-ever shale projects, located near the US border in Tamaulipas state, will also be auctioned off.

On 31 October, the CNH will tender rights to partner with Pemex on seven separate onshore projects. Six of the seven joint ventures to be awarded will require interested oil companies or consortia to offer an additional royalty payment of 15%, while the seventh one, known as Giraldas-Sunuapa, calls for a 6% additional royalty.

The bid variables depart from the past practice of setting maximum and minimum values for the additional royalty, and would lead to ties if more than one bidder makes an offer. Ties on the joint venture projects will be broken by the bidder that offers the biggest cash payment, 80% of which would go to Pemex’s exploration and production unit, while 20% would go to the government.

Prospective Pemex partners also have to offer an initial payment to the state-owned company, ranging from $5 million for the Lacamango joint venture to $146 million for Juspi-Teotleco — representing Pemex’s past investments at the sites.

Huge 3D survey starts over Utah mining prospect MGX Minerals is this month expected to start a 65.4 mile2 3D seismic survey over the Blueberry Unit at the Company’s Utah Petrolithium Project in the Paradox Basin of Utah. The survey will include 9062 source points and comprise 6354 vibrator points, 841 buggy drill points and 1867 Heli points.

The Blueberry Unit (oil, gas and lithium) and Lisbon Valley claims (lithium) now consist of approximately 115,000 acres of oil and gas leases and 118,000 acres of largely overlying and contiguous mineral claims. The project is being simultaneously explored for oil, gas, lithium and other brine minerals to determine locations for deployment of the company’s lithium and mineral extraction technology. Brine content within the Lisbon Valley oilfield has been historically reported as high as 730 ppm lithium (Superior Oil 88-21P).

The Lisbon Valley oilfield has approximately 140 wells and is contiguous with the Blueberry Unit. According to production statistics, as reported by the

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Utah Department of Natural Resources, Oil, Gas and Mining Division, cumulative lifetime production within the Lisbon Valley oilfield has totalled 51.4 million barrels of oil as of January 2018.

The Paradox Basin has one of the

The Utah Petrolithium Project.

largest undeveloped oil and gas fields in the United States, according to the USGS.

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INDUSTRY NEWS

FairfieldNodal changes name to Fairfield Geo to reflect expanding capabilities FairfieldNodal has changed its name to Fairfield Geotechnologies (Fairfield Geo) to reflect its evolution as a provider of lifeof-field technology, data and solutions.

Fairfield Geo pioneered the use of ocean bottom nodes (OBN) and is a provider of ocean bottom nodal technology, related services and data. However, the company continues to build on a comprehensive OBN technology portfolio and has embarked on an aggressive programme to grow its capabilities through M&A and strategic partnerships.

‘The recent acquisitions of WGP, the US multi-client data library from Geokinetics and the strategic partnerships with

Schlumberger, Ikon Sciences and others reflect Fairfield Geo’s strategy to expand beyond its roots as a provider of nodal data acquisition services,’ said Chuck Davison, CEO of Fairfield Geotechnologies. ‘We continue to aggressively grow our multi-client and life-of-field services in the US and internationally through targeted acquisitions and organic investments.’

Meanwhile, the company has relocated its headquarters to the Houston Energy Corridor. While its engineering, field service, manufacturing, and the operational centre will remain at the company’s Sugar Land, Texas location, the new corporate

office will be located in the Air Liquide building at Memorial City.

Finally, Fairfield Geotechnologies has reached an agreement with ‘one of the world’s leading geophysical services companies’ to sell an additional 3000 Z100 nodes, their second sizeable purchase in a year. ‘Fairfield Geotechnologies has designed the Z100 nodal system to allow safe and easy 4C data acquisition in transition zones, where it provides continuous recording for up to 30 days at depths from 0 to 300 m,’ said a company statement after the deal was announced.

The client will take delivery of the nodes before the end of the year.

ION Geophysical teams up with Greensea to widen offer for underwater navigation systems

ION Geophysical and Greensea Systems have teamed up to develop underwater navigation solutions for manned and unmanned underwater vehicle operators.

This partnership will accelerate the adoption of ION’s technologies into larger, ‘less cyclical’ markets offshore and in the military while providing Greensea with options to integrate ION sensor technology into a growing number of navigation systems.

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magnetic heading sensor into Greensea’s INSpect navigation system to improve subsea vehicle navigation accuracy in remote GPS-deprived environments.

Chris Usher, executive vice-president of ION’s Operations Optimization group, said: ‘Greensea was instrumental in helping us identify adjacent market opportunities for our technology and partnered with us to integrate and test our technologies’ fit into their navigation system and devices.’

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Meanwhile ION has announced a second significant sale this year of optical magnetic heading sensors to enable subsea vehicles to quickly reach their desired destinations.

Chris Usher, said. ‘In multiple tests we have demonstrated improved positioning accuracy to under half a percent of the distance travelled, without the aid of GPS or acoustic navigation and without locally calibrating the compass. Our mechanically gimbaled optical magnetic heading sensor does not require calibration across different latitudes as the Earth’s magnetic field changes.’

Finally, ION Geophysical has announced the 100th deployment of its Marlin offshore operations optimization software.

‘We are now seeing clients move from project deployments to permanent office installations, and starting to look at managing fleet activity. The marine industry is on the cusp of a rapid digital transformation and we are just scratching the surface of Marlin’s potential,’ said Chris Usher, executive vice-president of ION’s Operations Optimization group.

INDUSTRY NEWS

Searcher Seismic completes Papua New Guinea reprocessing project Searcher Seismic has completed the Laurabada Ultracube 3D reprocessing project offshore Papua New Guinea.

The Laura West Ultracube3D Reprocessing Survey comprises of ~770 km2 while the Laura East Ultracube3D Reprocessing Survey covers ~1020 km2.

The Laurabada Ultracube project entailed the reprocessing of two open-file 3D datasets with a modern broadband deghosting and pre-stack depth migration sequence over what is highly sought-after acreage. The Ultracube is split into two cubes: The Eastern cube is near-shore, shallow water, while the western cube is deep water in the Gulf of Papua.

Joshua Thorp, geoscience manager for Searcher Seismic, said there has been a significant data quality uplift from the reprocessing of the legacy data which has revealed exciting new potential in the Gulf of Papua.

‘Source and receiver deghosting was applied in the reprocessing which significantly improves the low frequency content. For Laurabada East, this helps with the imaging below the fold belt as that is quite dispersive and attenuative with the seismic source. Similarly, on Laurabada West, there are multiple large carbonate bodies that are highly absorptive which

BRIEFS Eni has announced a new oil discovery in Block 15/06, in the Kalimba exploration prospect in Angola’s deep offshore.

The discovery is estimated to contain between 230 and 300 million barrels of light oil in place.

are only penetrated by the low frequency signal.

‘The legacy processing only applied 2D SRME for the demultiple, whereas the reprocessing has used 3D GSMP/SRME from WesternGeco. In the fold belt on Laurabada East this in particular helped with the complex diffracted multiples from the seabed that were contaminating the pre-Tertiary grabens. On Laurabada West there were complex peg leg multiples from the top carbonates which were modelled and subtracted effectively.

‘The legacy processing only used an isotropic PSTM workflow, whereas the reprocessing used an anisotropic TTI prestack depth migration. In Laurabada East, the PSDM workflow allowed for high resolution velocity modelling in the fold belt which improved the pre-Tertiary graben imaging and depthing. In Laurabada West, there was detailed carbonate velocity modelling which combined with the deghosting allowed for much improved resolution on the flanks and base of the carbonate pinnacles,’ Thorp added.

The Laurabada 3D reprocessing project complements Searcher’s existing 2D seismic coverage which currently stands at more than 80,000 km, offshore Papua New Guinea.

Magseis has won a contract for an operation in South East Asia using proprietary MASS nodes. The project includes several major oil companies, which have jointly designed the survey.

The contract will commence in Q3 2018 and last for three months.

General Electric has said that it will divest its stake in oil-services company Baker Hughes in the next two to three years. Analysts said that GE will either need to hold an initial public offering, sell block trades of shares to institutional investors, or find an entirely new investor because Schlumberger and Halliburton would pose antitrust risks.

Norway’s parliament has approved Equinor’s $5.85 billion plan to develop the Johan Castberg oil field in the Barents Sea. The centre-right government and the opposition Labour Party joined forces to ensure a 91-10 majority vote.

Exploration is expected to start in 2022.

It would become the second biggest producing oilfield in the Norwegian sector of the Barents Sea after Eni’s Goliat field.

Cuba-Petróleo (CUPET) will launch a bid round in December 2018 for offshore blocks in the Cuban Economic Exclusive Zone. BGP Marine has acquired a 25,000 km long-offset multi-client 2D survey offshore Cuba. Earthmoves and partner GEO International have undertaken a review of the northern Caribbean, including a geological evaluation and identification of prospective plays offshore Cuba.

Sercel launches transition zone acquisition system Sercel has launched a transition zone version of its 508XT seismic acquisition system that will enable seismic crews to deploy the solution in marsh zones and water depths of up to 25 m.

Designed with reinforced hardware to withstand the complex challenges of operating in shallow water environments, the new 508XT transition zone system also benefits from Sercel’s fault-tolerant

X-Tech cross-technology architecture, featuring local storage and automatic rerouting to maximize survey productivity.

Pascal Rouiller, Sercel CEO, said: ‘By adapting our 508XT technology for transition zone environments, Sercel has made another step forward in our strategy to meet customer needs for a single seismic acquisition system that can operate in any terrain and any configuration.’

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Equinor and partners Lundin and Spirit Energy have struck oil in the PL 167 licence on the Utsira High in the North Sea.

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INDUSTRY NEWS

UK launches 31st licensing round The UK Oil and Gas Authority (OGA) has launched the 31st Offshore Licensing Round, offering blocks in frontier areas of the UK Continental Shelf (UKCS), supported by government-funded data.

A total of 1766 blocks (370,000 km2) of open acreage is now available across the West of Scotland, the East Shetland Platform, the Mid North Sea High, South West Britain and parts of the English Channel, covered by more than 80,000 km of publicly available seismic data generated through the 2015 and 2016 government seismic programmes. The new seismic data, together with supporting datasets and reports, were released in advance of the round.

This suite of exploration data packs and reports include regional geological maps for the Northern North Sea, East Shetland Platform and SW Approach-

es; final and interim products from the Frontier Basins Research programme; joined digital well logs; and a report on the hydrocarbon potential of the Liassic.

As a result of high levels of industry interest following the 30th Round, the OGA is also offering companies the opportunity to propose additional blocks in more mature areas, for possible inclusion where applicants intend to commit to a substantial firm work programme.

Dr Andy Samuel, chief executive of the OGA, said: ‘Following hot on the heels of the strong industry response to the 30th Round, the OGA is opening up large areas of acreage to industry that offer the opportunity for high-impact exploration growth. The array of measures put in place by the OGA over the last two years, coupled with the

UK’s highly attractive fiscal regime and openly-accessible data have laid the foundation for the ongoing revival in exploration activity across all areas of the UK Continental Shelf.’

Energy and clean growth minister Claire Perry, said: ‘Through our ambitious modern industrial strategy, we recognise the importance of information and insight to help drive business performance. That’s why we provided £40 million in the 2015 and 2016 Budgets for seismic surveys in under-explored frontier areas of the UK Continental Shelf, resulting in new data and new opportunities in this latest round of licensing.’

The next round, the 32nd Offshore Licensing Round is planned to open in the summer of 2019, and will focus on mature areas of the UKCS.

TGS shoots new onshore survey in Canada TGS will shoot its seventh onshore seismic project for 2018, Dawson Phase II 3D seismic survey in Canada.

The Dawson Phase II 3D multi-client seismic survey is located in the province

of British Columbia, Canada, east of TGS’ previously announced Dawson Phase I. This new project will encompass approx. 274 km2 providing both an enhanced imaging solution and rock physics characterization of the Montney shale formation.

Permitting on the survey has already commenced and data acquisition is expected to begin in the second half of 2018. Preliminary data will be available in Q1 2019, with final data available Q3 2019. The high fold vibroseis data will be processed by TGS utilizing its modern

land imaging technology thus allowing operators to satisfy recent regulatory requirements to map faults for pre-assessment of induced seismicity hazards.

‘TGS continues to strengthen its onshore position with new seismic investments in prolific and high potential onshore plays across North America.

Dawson Phase II further expands upon adjacent TGS seismic data in the Montney Formation of Alberta and British Columbia, an area long targeted for oil and gas exploration’, said Kristian Johansen, CEO for TGS.

TGS buys Polarcus data offshore Australia TGS has bought the data from Polarcus’ 22,130 km2 Capreolus 3D survey offshore Australia for $6.5 million.

TGS said that it was buying data in an area of large untapped resources. ‘This high fold, full broadband seismic survey covers two hydrocarbon provinces with proven but underexplored oil and gas plays in the Beagle and Bedout sub-basin offshore north-west Australia. This 36

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transaction strengthens our 3D position offshore Australia and the dataset is very complementary to our existing, extensive 3D database in the neighboring Carnarvon Basin,’ said Kristian Johansen, CEO, TGS. Meanwhile, based on preliminary reporting from operating units, TGS expects net revenues for the second quarter of 2018 of $158 million, 47% higher than Q2 2017.

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‘Our strong Q2 revenue performance, driven by late sales from our data library, is further evidence of improvement in the global market for seismic data. Customer activity is significantly higher than one year ago, although E&P companies are still being selective and disciplined with respect to new data purchases. As such, the market is expected to remain volatile in the near-term,’ said Johansen.

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Special Topic

NEAR SURFACE GEOSCIENCE Near Surface Geoscience is a diverse field encompassing seismic and ground penetrating radar techniques. The Special Topic will anticipate some of the major themes for EAGE’s Near Surface Geoscience event in Porto in September.

João Carvalho et al discuss the seismic reflection results that taken together with borehole data, suggest that these faults have had activity in the Holocene and were probably the source of some historical earthquakes.

Danta Marizane Rosse et al show, for the first time, airborne geophysical data from data from Block 5, Cabo Delgado, North Mozambique.

Luiz Rodrigo Hamada et al present an interpretation to estimate the depth of the contact between the Quaternary and Tertiary sediments of the basin.

Laura Vanessa Araque Lavalle et al evaluate the geotechnical parameters obtained from electrical resistivity to determine soil type and its typical values.

Rachel Martini et al demonstrate the application of sonic tests as a NonDestructive Testing (NDT) research option for characterizing granite masonry walls.

Jorge Luís Porsani et al demonstrate the GPR results on the first Brazilian geophysical test site constructed close to the Institute of Astronomy, Geophysics, and Atmospheric Science (IAG).

Cassiano Antonio Bortolozo et al demonstrate how geophysics can be used to investigate and characterize the movement of a retaining wall Fernando Almeida et al demonstrate that TURAM geosphysical data can still be used and enhanced in areas where other information is still scare.

Reinaldo Alvarez Cabrera analyses the possibilities and limitations of using droneborne ground-penetrating systems for specific survey types.

Submit an article

Special Topic overview January

Land Seismic

First Break Special Topics are covered by a mix of original articles dealing with case studies and the latest technology. Contributions to a Special Topic in First Break can be sent directly to the editorial office (firstbreak@eage.org). Submissions will be considered for publication by the editor.

February

Reservoir Monitoring

March

Petroleum Geology

April

Passive Seismic

May

Modelling/Interpretation

June

Opportunities presented by the energy transition

It is also possible to submit a Technical Article to First Break. Technical Articles are subject to a peer review process and should be submitted ia EAGE’s ScholarOne website: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/fb

July

Unconventionals & Carbon Capture and Storage

August

Near Surface Geoscience

September

Reservoir Geoscience and Engineering

October

EM & Potential Methods

November

Marine Seismic

December

Data Processing

You can find the First Break author guidelines online at www.firstbreak.org/guidelines.

More Special Topics may be added during the course of the year.

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CALENDAR

CALENDAR OF EVENTS 21-23 NOV 2018

Fifth CO2 Geological Storage Workshop

www.eage.org • Utrecht, Netherlands

August 2018 11-17 Aug

GeoBaikal 2018

Irkutsk

Russia

Oslo

Norway

Barcelona

Spain

Cheng Du

China

Barcelona

Spain

Porto

Portugal

Gelendzhik

Russia

Barcelona

Spain

Rueil-Malmaison

France

Santander

Colombia

www.eage.org

22-24 Aug

Marine Acquisition Workshop 2018 www.eage.org

September 2018 3-6 Sept

ECMOR XVI 2018

5-7 Sept

Unconventionals in China – The Next 10 Years

7 Sept

EAGE/ TNO Workshop on OLYMPUS Field Development Optimization

9-13 Sept

Near Surface Geoscience Conference and Exhibition 2018

10-14 Sept

EAGE Geomodel 2018

17-20 Sept

DMG Gastech 2018

18-20 Sept

First EAGE/IFPEN Conference on Sulfur Risk Management in E&P (SRM 2018)

21-22 Sept

First EAGE Workshop on High Performance Computing for Upstream in Latin America

www.eage.org

www.eage.org

www.eage.org

www.eage.org

www.eage.org

www.gastechevent.com

www.eage.org

www.eage.org

EAGE Events

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24-26 Sept

SPE SPE ATCE 2018

25-27 Sept

Global District Energy Days

www.atce.org

http://www.2018dedays.org/

Dallas

USA

Helsinki

Finland

Cape Town

South Africa

Muscat

Oman

Perth

Australia

Anaheim

USA

Shanghai

China

Tunis

Tunisia

Lille

France

Bintulu

Malaysia

Abu Dhabi

United Arab Emirates

Cape Town

South Africa

Strasbourg

France

Yangon

Myanmar

Abu Dhabi

United Arab Emirates

October 2018 1-3 Oct

Future Energy Africa 2018: Conference and Exhibition

1-4 Oct

Second EAGE Workshop on Geochemistry in Petroleum Operations and Production

10-11 Oct

EAGE Workshop on Continuous Improvement in 4D Seismic

14-17 Oct

SEG International Exposition and 88th Annual Meeting

17-19 Oct

Energy China Forum 2018 - 8th Asia Pacific Shale Gas Summit

22-24 Oct

The 14Th Tunisian Exploration & Productions Conference

22-26 Oct

26e édition de la Réunion des Sciences de la Terre

29-30 Oct

EAGE Symposium on Maximising Carbonate Asset Values through Collaboration and Innovative Solutions

www.futureenergyafrica.com

www.eage.org

www.eage.org

www.seg.org

http://2018en.energychinaforum.com/

www.etap.com.tn/index.php?id=1048

https://rst2018-lille.sciencesconf.org/

www.eage.org

November 2018 5-8 Nov

Second EAGE/SPE Geosteering and Well Placement Workshop

5-9 Nov

Africa Oil Week 2018

8-9 Nov

EAGE/IGA/DGMK Joint Workshop on Deep Geothermal Energy

13-15 Nov

2018 EAGE Fourth AAPG/EAGE/MGS Myanmar Oil & Gas Conference

18-20 Nov

EAGE Workshop on 4D Seismic and Reservoir Monitoring

21-23 Nov

Fifth CO2 Geological Storage Workshop

Utrecht

Netherlands

26 Nov

Young Professionals Summit

London

United Kingdom

27-29 Nov

EAGE/SBGF Workshop on Least-Squares Migration

Rio de Janeiro

Brazil

29-30 Nov

First EAGE/PESGB Workshop on Machine Learning: European Edition

London

United Kingdom

30 Nov

First EAGE/BVG Workshop on Reservoir and Geomechanics

Bochum

Germany

EAGE Events

www.eage.org

www.africa-oilweek.com

www.eage.org

www.eage.org

www.eage.org

www.eage.org

yp-summit.eventbrite.co.uk

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www.eage.org

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First EAGE/PESGB Machine Learning Workshop 2 9 - 3 0 N OV E M B E R 2 018 • LO N D O N , U N I T E D K I N G D O M

Machine learning has been around for many years now and the E&P industry has used various algorithms and methods for a diverse set of problems. What has changed in recent years is that machine learning, artificial intelligence, digital transformations, data analytics, big data and cloud computing have become daily topics.

In this workshop we would like to share real-world examples from service companies, operators, software & hardware providers and academia, as well as the lessons learned in delivering machine learning in the oil and gas sector and how it can make a difference in daily operations and in delivering project efficiencies and increased insights.

The technical committee invites submissions of 1-2 pages abstracts including one figure via the event website: events.eage.org.

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Abstract Submission Deadline: 13 August 2018

Submit your Abstract!

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Fifth CO2 Geological Storage Workshop LATEST ADVANCES AND THE WAY FORWARD 21-23 N OV E M B E R 2 018 • U T R E C H T, T H E N E T H E R L A N D S

The Fifth CO2 Geological Storage Workshop will take place this year in Utrecht from 21-23 November 2018. The objective of this workshop is to present key advances made and discuss remaining technology gaps as well as review a way forward. The need to develop international scientific workforces is needed to tackle specific challenges, as well as methods and tools that can demonstrate a safe and environmentally sound future for CO2 storage developments. Submit your abstract via events.eage.org and speak at this workshop!

There will be six main sessions covering a wide variety of scientific subjects:

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Session Session Session Session Session Session

1: 2: 3: 4: 5: 6:

Characterization, Risk and Impact Assessment Reservoir Management and CO2 EOR Infrastructure and CO2 impurity implications Storage Monitoring and Remediation Demonstration Cases and Non-Technical Challenges The Future

Submit your abstract until 31 August 2018

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