First Break February 2021 - Reservoir Monitoring

VO L U M E 3 9 I I S S U E 2 I F E B R U A R Y 2 0 21

SPECIAL TOPIC

Reservoir Monitoring EAGE NEWS Hybrid Annual for Amsterdam TECHNICAL ARTICLE Next African exploration hotspot CROSSTALK Mining out of its depth

NORTHERN NORTH SEA: THE NEXT PHASE North Viking Graben dual-azimuth volume This new multi-client survey in the Northern North Sea will provide a second azimuth in an EastWest direction over the existing Northern Viking Graben (NVG) data set and extends coverage in the UKCS. The existing North-South data set will be completely reprocessed, and together with the new survey will create a dual-azimuth volume to: ¬ Identify and de-risk near-field exploration targets ¬ Aid maturation of stranded discoveries towards development ¬ Enhance the imaging of multi-directional fault patterns ¬ Provide improved resolution to resolve complex reservoir stratigraphy Contact us to find out how this data set could help you unlock new plays.

The right data, in the right place, at the right time datalibrary.scan@cgg.com

cgg.com/NVG

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) • Satinder Chopra, SamiGeo (satinder.chopra@samigeo.com) • Anthony Day, PGS (anthony.day@pgs.com) • Peter Dromgoole, Retired Geophysicist (peterdromgoole@gmail.com) • Rutger Gras, Consultant (r.gras@gridadvice.nl) • Hamidreza Hamdi, University of Calgary (hhamdi@ucalgary.ca) • 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) • Angelika-Maria Wulff, Kuwait Oil Company (AWulff@kockw.com) EAGE EDITOR EMERITUS Andrew McBarnet (andrew@andrewmcbarnet.com) MEDIA PRODUCTION Saskia Nota (firstbreakproduction@eage.org) PRODUCTION ASSISTANT Ivana Geurts (firstbreakproduction@eage.org) ACCOUNT MANAGER ADVERTISING Peter Leitner (plr@eage.org)

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First UK Geoenergy Observatory opens in Glasgow

Editorial Contents 3

EAGE News

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Crosstalk

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Industry News

News Feature

31 Sierra Leone, the under-explored conjugate Ben Sayers, David Contreras and Ahmed Tejan Bah on Sierra Leone as potentially the next big African exploration hotspot.

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 19 Leninsky Prospekt 119071, Moscow, Russia • +7 495 640 2008 • moscow@eage.org • www.eage.ru

45 New diffraction directivity prestack attributes for seismic fracture prediction

Konstantin Smirnov, Evgeny Landa and Igor Fedyaev

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 AMERICAS SAS Calle 93 # 18-28 Oficina 704 Bogota, Colombia • +57 1 4232948 • americas@eage.org • www.eage.org EAGE MEMBERS CHANGE OF ADDRESS NOTIFICATION Send to: EAGE Membership Dept at EAGE Office (address above) FIRST BREAK ON THE WEB www.firstbreak.org

Technical Article

35 A robust approach to estimate Q from surface seismic data and inverse Q filtering for resolution enhancement

Pardeep Sangwan and Dinesh Kumar

Special Topic: Reservoir Monitoring

53 Using onset times from frequent geophysical surveys to understand reservoir fluid flow and to estimate flow properties Donald W. Vasco, Gil Hetz and Akhil Datta-Gupta 61 Application of spectral decomposition as a direct hydrocarbon indicator within the challenging rock physics environment Mirza Naseer Ahmad and Sabrina Sultana 69 Measurement, monitoring, verification and modelling at the Aquistore CO2 storage site Zeinab Movahedzadeh, Alireza Rangriz Shokri, Rick Chalaturnyk, Erik Nickel and Norm Sacuta 77 A new era of borehole measurements for permanent reservoir monitoring Garth Naldrett 83 Revisiting seismicity near the town of Azle, Texas to show evidence of induced seismicity Leo Eisner, Zuzana Jechumtálová and Paulina Woz’niakowska 87 Reprocessed time-lapse seismic data provides new reservoir information on the Njord field Patrick Smith, Paul Glenister, Marianne Yanez, Kristoffer Sundøy and Øyvind Kvam 94 Calendar

ISSN 0263-5046 (print) / ISSN 1365-2397 (online)

cover: Floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel docked in Malaysia.

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European Association of Geoscientists & Engineers

Board 2020-2021

Everhard Muijzert President

Dirk Orlowsky Vi c e-President

Near Surface Geoscience Division Alireza Malehmir Chair Esther Bloem Vice-Chair George Apostolopoulos Immediate Past Chair Micki Allen Contact Officer EEGS/North America Riyadh Al-Saad Oil & Gas Liaison Hongzhu Cai Liaison China Albert Casas Membership Officer Eric Cauquil Liaison Shallow Marine Geophysics Deyan Draganov Technical Programme Officer Ranajit Ghose Editor in Chief Near Surface Geophysics Hamdan Ali Hamdan Liaison Middle East Vladimir Ignatief Liaison North America / Russia Andreas Kathage Liaison Officer First Break Musa Manzi Liaison Africa Myrto Papadopoulou Young Professional Liaison Andreas Pfaffhuber Liaison Infrastructure & BIM Koya Suto Liaison Asia Pacific Catherine Truffert Industry Liaison

Pascal Breton Secretary-Treasurer

Oil & Gas Geoscience Division

Caroline Le Turdu Membership and Cooperation Officer

Ingrid Magnus Publications Officer

Michael Peter Suess Chair; TPC Lucy Slater Vice-Chair Caroline Jane Lowrey Immediate Past Chair; TPC Erica Angerer Member Wiebke Athmer Member Juliane Heiland TPC Tijmen-Jan Moser Editor-in-chief Geophysical Prospecting Francesco Perrone YP Liaison Philip Ringrose Editor-in-chief Petroleum Geoscience Conor Ryan REvC Liaison Martin Widmaier TPC Aart-Jan van Wijngaarden Technical Programme Officer

Colin MacBeth Education Officer

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.

Companies can subscribe to First Break via an institutional subscription.

Every subscription includes a monthly hard copy and online access to the full First Break archive for the requested number of online users.

Aart-Jan van Wijngaarden Technical Programme Officer

Alireza Malehmir Chair Near Surface Geoscience Division

Orders for current subscriptions and back issues should be sent to EAGE Publications BV, Journal Subscriptions, PO Box 59, 3990 DB, Houten, The Netherlands. Tel: +31 (0)88 9955055, E-mail: subscriptions@eage.org, www.firstbreak.org.

Michael Peter Suess Chair Oil & Gas Geoscience Division

First Break is published by EAGE Publications BV, The Netherlands.

However, responsibility for the opinions given and the statements made rests with the authors.

COPYRIGHT & PHOTOCOPYING © 2021 EAGE All rights reserved. First Break or any part thereof may not be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transcribed in any form or by any means, electronically or mechanically, including photocopying and recording, ­without the prior written permission of the Publisher.

PAPER The Publisher’s policy is to use acid-free permanent paper (TCF), to the draft standard ISO/DIS/9706, made from sustainable ­forests using chlorine-free pulp (Nordic-Swan standard).

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HIGHLIGHTS

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Deep learning opportunity ahead

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DGG is on a PR mission

Sochi to make more ProGREss

Double the possibilities at this year’s EAGE Annual Conference & Exhibition The preparations for the 82nd EAGE Annual Conference & Exhibition are well underway and we look forward to another full programme this year. The

EAGE Annual 2021 goes hybrid.

Technical Programme selection is in full swing and most of you should have already heard back by now on whether your abstract submission was successful.

Our Technical Committee is working hard this month to build the conference schedule based on the accepted submissions.

The 2021 edition of the Annual conference will include an online presence. Even though EAGE strives to organize the event in-person at the RAI Amsterdam venue, we understand that travelling restrictions may still play a big role in whether all our contributors will be allowed to attend the conference

physically. This is why the 82nd EAGE Annual Conference & Exhibition will be organized as a hybrid event. Presenters will be given the opportunity to present their research via our online platform, with delegates also having the opportunity to attend in person or virtually.

Both the physical and virtual components of the event will feature plenty of activities best suited for the respective environment. More information in detail will soon follow on our website at www.EAGEANNUAL2021.org. Make sure to check it frequently and stay up to date.

Join the first digital edition of SAGEEP in March We invite you to join us between 14-19 March for the online SAGEEP 2021 (33rd Symposium on the Application of Geophysics to Engineering and Environmental Problems) and the 1st Munitions Response Meeting, once again supported

by EAGE. SAGEEP 2020, originally scheduled for late March 2020, was one of the first conferences affected by international lock down and travel restrictions. Since the postponement of the meeting, teams at EEGS and EAGE have worked on taking

SAGEEP online in 2021, with the results of this now becoming evident. As an online meeting, SAGEEP 2021 will build on the experience of our earlier online conferences whilst maintaining the traditional look and feel of the meeting.

The technical programme schedule, together with a rich selection of short courses and scientific talks, are available on our website. We hope you are eager to hear what remarkable new approaches your peers have worked on, what experiences they’ve had, how the science of geophysFIRST

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ics continues to grow to be increasingly relevant to our world, and to embrace the future of possibility in geophysics.

Registration for SAGEEP 2021 and the 1st Munitions Response Meeting Online is already open. You can benefit from the discounted fees by registering before 28 February 2021. More information can be found on www.sageep.org.

14-19 MARCH 2021

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EAGE NEWS

Special interest community on Basin and Petroleum Systems Analysis is our latest newborn

Digital elevation model showing an excavation site with steep rock walls mapped from a drone.

The New Year gets off to a great start with the inauguration of another EAGE Special Interest Community (SIC), this one devoted to those with a special interest in Basin and Petroleum Systems Analysis. The group intends to focus on the challenges in basin modelling, pore pressure, seals as well as the relevant inter-disciplinary connections, especially geology and geochemistry.

If these are your areas of interest or professional activity, you can already join the community via LinkedIn ‘EAGE - Basin & Petroleum Systems Analysis’.

Community participation is open to the entire EAGE membership, with all welcome to contribute to the conversation.

Within the group, community members are encouraged to share relevant news updates, career development as well as

opportunities for collaborative projects and discussions on the latest strategies, technologies and developments within the field.

Special Interest Communities (SICs) operate within EAGE with the mission of empowering members in knowledge and experience exchange, as well as offering mutual support in various areas.

Over the course of 2020, SICs have played a critical role in keeping connections active - and creating new ones - in times of isolation. When the first SICs were created, about six years ago, we could only imagine how popular this form of interaction within EAGE would become. Joining a community is a way for keeping up to date with relevant news in your field of interest and to gain new contacts. At the same time, it is a platform for finding (and sharing) opportunities such as vacancies, calls for applications or submissions, volunteering roles, grants and support tools.

Recently our work with SICs has taken flight: in 2020 we introduced two new technical groups (Hydrogeophysics and Mineral Exploration Geophysics) and we are thrilled to announce more communities are coming up soon. Make sure to explore all our communities.

Student e-Summits returning in 2021 Following the successful launch of the new e-Summit initiative in April 2020, we are pleased to announce that the e-Summits will be returning in 2021. Student e-Summits bring together a panel of students and young professionals to discuss a different topic each time on issues that affect them.

Previous editions included: energy transition in Latin America, career development in the mineral exploration sector and best practices from recent graduates starting their careers.

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Key to the format is interactive dialogue between panelists and the audience.

The e-Summits are meant to be by students, for students. For that reason we are keen to hear from our student community about what kind of topics they would like to see addressed in the upcoming year. Please share your suggestions via students@eage.org by 31 March, we’re looking forward to your feedback on what you would like to talk about.

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Following a successful start, our e-Summit programme is back in 2021.

EAGE NEWS

Online course offers a dive into deep learning If you have ever wondered about what deep learning is all about, or you want to know more, then there is an online course coming up which should be just up your street.

On 1-5 March and 17-21 May, Bernard Montaron, CEO, Fraimwork SAS, is offering an extensive online course on ‘Developing Deep Learning Applications for the Oilfield: From Theory to Real World Projects’. Details can be found on EAGE’s new online education platform – Learning Geoscience where you can stay up-to-date on the latest developments in geoscience and engineering.

Montaron’s course begins with the story of artificial intelligence (AI) from the 1950s to the AI revolution of the 2010s. Today’s AI business landscape and what’s happening in the oil and gas are reviewed. The basic concepts of machine learning are introduced, followed by a detailed presentation of neural networks (NN). How NN were used 25 years ago in the oilfield are discussed, then participants can experiment with a NN trained in 12 seconds to read handwritten digits. Deep convolutional NNs (DNN) are then studied and applications to salt mapping and fault detection in seismic data are discussed and demonstrated.

The course format opens with a onehour plenary session, followed by indi-

Delving into deep learning.

vidual homework and team exercises with results presented at the end of the week.

The two team exercises will investigate how a DNN can be trained to detect non-visible gas/water contacts in seismic data of carbonate pinnacles offshore Central Luconia, Malaysia. Such an exercise is a big help to exploration, and studying the feasibility of using deep learning to find sweet spots in Bakken field to produce unconventional oil at positive NPV. For all EAGE’s extensive online courses, you sign up for a deep-dive

learning experience which will include lectures to watch at your pace in addition to live interactive sessions with instructors. Lectures and exercises will become available on the first day of the course.

You will then have access to the course for a period of one month to complete all the requirements and achieve your certificate.

The Montaron’s course on deep learning applications for oilfield projects on 1-5 March 2021 is open for registration on www.learninggeoscience.org.

Work at home with EarthDoc! This is just a reminder that EarthDoc is with you in these times of Covid. Our online database brings together some of the most relevant and cutting-edge content from the energy industry and the wider geoscience world, covering topics in the oil and gas and near surface fields, as well as innovative new areas, such as digitalization.

EarthDoc provides over 70,000 papers and articles covering the main fields of study within geoscience, engineering and

energy, as well as houses all event papers from EAGE events and partner association events from all around the world.

You can enrich your data quickly and easily with content from event proceedings, journals, articles and research papers from this EAGE’s extensive online geoscience database.

With many of us working from home currently, it’s good to know that EarthDoc works across all devices, with IP-address authenticated access

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from your smartphone, tablet, laptop or PC. Dive into the depths of the EarthDoc archive and enrich your data quickly and easily. With full access to leading scientific journals, including First Break!

If you are not connected and you want to know how EarthDoc can help you and your organization, contact us via earthdoc@eage.org and start your free two-week trial now.

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EAGE NEWS

EAGE Asia Pacific launches Virtual Geoscience Week

Meet the geology of South East Asia.

If you want to familiarize yourself with the geological intricacies of South East Asia, then we have the event for you - wherever you are located in the world.

We are introducing the EAGE Asia Pacific Geoscience Week to review the way ahead for exploration and production in the region. The geology is known to be highly complex due to combinations of regional tectonics, large structuring events and diverse depositional systems. After over 100 years of exploration and exploitation in the region, hydrocarbons are becoming more difficult to find and exploit, and many frontier areas are yet to be explored. New advances in technology and methodology offer improved subsurface characterization, leading to greater prospectivity beyond the wellbore. Such is the demand for better and more accurate understanding of basin characteristics and reservoir launches Virtual that pre-drilled reservoir and hydrocarbon prediction techniques are more important today then ever.

With all this in mind the EAGE Asia Pacific Virtual Geoscience Week aims to gather geoscience experts from around Asia Pacific, share in their observations and investigate new and creative ideas on sedimentary basins and reservoir models. It will be an opportunity to evaluate new methods and technological advancements in data science, seismic reservoir characterization, prospect evaluation, reservoir modelling, fault extraction, etc. Participants will be able to widen their networks and areas of knowledge, thereby opening up new and exciting opportunities and promoting scientific advancement in this exciting field.

The virtual workshop is scheduled to discuss: Basin prospectivity analysis and new play concepts in South East Asia, Stratigraphic and sedimentological studies needed to mature asset (exploration to production); New and proven technology applications in subsurface characterization; Reservoir contaminants – how to evaluate, monitor and handle CO2; H2S and oth-

ers; Hydrocarbon evaluation in complex structures; Small and marginal field opportunities; and Fractured basement. We have key industry leaders on board set to present insightful keynote talks*, including Peter Lunt (Stratos Energy Advisors), Duncan Barr (Independent | Geologist), Bob Morley & Harsanti Morley (Palynova UK), Sebastien Lacaze (Eliis), Douglas Waples (Sirius Exploration Geochemistry), Chris Clayton (Beicip Franlab Asia), John Jong (JX Nippon Oil & Gas Exploration Co), John Kaldi (CO2CRC), Carlos Giraldo (Independent | Structural Geologist), Narender Penkar (PETRONAS Carigali Sdn Bhd) and more.

The workshop will be virtual – and therefore accessible from anywhere in the world. Registration for this event is currently open via events.eage.org. *The keynote panel may be subject to change without prior notice. Please refer to the event website for the latest updates.

EAGE Education Calendar 2-5 FEB

INTEGRATED METHODS FOR DEEP-WATER RESERVOIR CHARACTERIZATION, BY JON R. ROTZIEN

ONLINE

16-19 FEB

SEDIMENTOLOGICAL CHARACTERIZATION OF CARBONATE ROCKS,

BY CATHERINE BREISLIN & LAURA GALLUCCIO

ONLINE

1-5 MAR

DEVELOPING DEEP LEARNING APPLICATIONS FOR THE OILFIELD: FROM THEORY TO REAL WORLD PROJECTS,

BY BERNARD MONTARON

ONLINE

3-4 MAR

SEISMIC ACQUISITION PROJECT ESSENTIALS: FROM CONCEPT TO COMPLETION AND BEYOND,

BY JAN DE BRUIN

ONLINE

15‑18 MAR

SEISMIC SURVEILLANCE FOR RESERVOIR DELIVERY, BY OLAV INGE BARKVED

ONLINE

22‑26 MAR

DATA SCIENCE FOR GEOSCIENCE, BY JEF CAERS

ONLINE

15-16 APR

MICROSEISMICITY: A TOOL FOR RESERVOIR CHARACTERIZATION, BY SERGE A. SHAPIRO

ONLINE

22-23 APR

THE USE OF SURFACE WAVES FOR NEAR SURFACE VELOCITY MODEL BUILDING, BY LAURA VALENTINA SOCCO

ONLINE

PLEASE ALSO CHECK THE CALENDAR OF WEBINARS ON THE LEARNING GEOSCIENCE WEBSITE. FOR MORE INFORMATION AND REGISTRATION PLEASE VISIT WWW.EAGE.ORG AND WWW.LEARNINGGEOSCIENCE.ORG.

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4 MILLION REASONS WHY YOU SHOULD GIVE US A SHOT 4 MILLION SHOTS 140,000 UNIQUE NODE DEPLOYMENTS 130 BILLION TRACES 1.5 PETABYTES RAW DATA EQUIVALENT TO 520,000 km2 TOWED-STREAMER DATA

The Utsira 3D OBN survey, offshore Norway, is one of the largest OBN surveys ever acquired. It consists of approximately 4 million shots, 130 billion traces, and 1.5 petabytes of raw data. That’s equivalent to 520,000 km2 of typical towed-streamer data. Thanks to our powerful high-performance compute and industry-leading algorithms we can process, image, and deliver results in record time. We took good care of each and every one of those 4 million shots. Maybe it’s time you give us a shot too!

(The Utsira 3D is part of the TGS multi-client library)

EAGE NEWS

Vladimir Grechka (1962 – 2020)

Vladimir Grechka, a geoscientist originally from Russia who made his reputation with original research in many aspects of seismic theory, has died unexpectedly.

Grechka was born on 3 March 1962 in Novokuznetsk, Russia. In 1978 he entered the School of Physics and Mathematics at Novosibirsk State University. After graduation, he continued his studies at the Faculty of Geology and Geophysics, graduating in 1984. In 1994, he immigrated to the US, where he completed his PhD at the University of Texas - Dallas. In 1995, he moved to the Department of Geophysics at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colorado, working on his own research and co-heading scientific projects.

In 2001, he joined the Shell Oil Company as a senior staff geophysicist, and from 2012 to 2019, he served

as a senior technical consultant to Marathon Oil. From 2019 until his untimely death, he served as senior advisor, borehole seismic.

Grechka’s research was focused on theory of seismic wave propagation in anisotropic media, velocity analysis, fracture characterization, and microseismic. Throughout his career working for oil & gas and service companies, Grechka actively conducted research on the theory and applied aspects of the propagation of seismic waves in anisotropic elastic media, the characteristics of fractured rocks, and microseismic phenomena. Recently, he had been researching the applications of new microseismic and GSP methods for improving the determination of reservoir characteristics. His latest book, Anisotropy and Microseismics: Theory and Practice, published this year, is dedicated to this subject.

Grechka received J. Clarence Karcher Award from the SEG in 1997 and the East European Award from the European Geophysical Society in 1992. He served as the editor-in-chief of Geophysics from 2009 to 2011. Grechka was a member and an instructor of the SEG and EAGE. Vladimir Grechka was a man of that glorious time when deep knowledge and inner freedom of thought were most valued. He was totally devoted to his research, dedicating all his effort and time expanding and

sharing the knowledge in his research within the academic and industrial communities. The scope and depth of Grechka’s geophysical research, in particular seismic anisotropy, is far beyond the known standards; it is enough to view the headlines of his publications and books to understand this. His great achievement was in transforming his high-level theoretical scientific knowledge into practical applications. His decisions were always elegant and unambiguously interpreted, and his assumptions were physically justified. In his work, Grechka combined the mathematical rigour of formulations and calculations with methods of numerical modelling and inversion.

Grechka’s scientific legacy is enormous. His work will continue to be cited, motivating the scientific geophysical community to further explore and advance his research themes. His death is truly a great loss to the geophysical community, and of course, to his close colleagues and many friends.

Grechka’s romantic soul called him from his scientific research to the high mountains. He was a rock climber and mountaineer. He visited and climbed the most challenging mountains: Altai, Tien Shan, Pamir, Andes, and in the Himalayas, he managed to conquer one of the 8000 m peaks.

Vladimir Grechka died in a tragic accident on 5 November 2020.

EAGE Student Calendar 19 MAY 2021

STUDENT WEBINAR: GEO SKILLS FOR THE ENERGY TRANSITION,

BY SEAN MCQUAID

ONLINE

14-17 JUNE 2021

82ND EAGE ANNUAL CONFERENCE & EXHIBITION (STUDENT ACTIVITIES)

AMSTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS AND ONLINE

JUNE 2021

LAURIE DAKE CHALLENGE 2021 FINAL ROUND

ONLINE

FOR MORE INFORMATION AND REGISTRATION PLEASE CHECK THE STUDENT SECTION AT WWW.EAGE.ORG

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EAGE NEWS

Contribute to our first digital subsurface conference in Latin America The First EAGE Digital Subsurface Conference in Latin America is to be held online between 26-28 May 2021 and is inviting abstract submissions for the programme.

The event presents a great opportunity to catch up on the impact and implications of the increasing emphasis on digitalization in the oil and gas business.

Oil and gas companies face formidable challenges to their efficiency, sustainability, and profitability after Covid-19. As a result of the pandemic, prices have collapsed so severely that the urgency to address these issues has accelerated dramatically. One of the clearest and most viable responses to these systemic challenges is to accelerate digitalization strategies to help improve

resilience and remain attractive to investors.

Arguably the upstream oil and gas industry in general has been lagging behind in digital enablement and understanding the possibilities. However the impact of the digital data revolution in geosciences is still very significant. Computing power has accelerated according to Moore’s Law, while data science accelerates the rate at which routine tasks are performed. In general, key digital applications integrate real-time data and advanced analytics for better decision-making, improved efficiency and sustainability, and acceleration of the business cycle.

For the conference we hope to offer a series of technical presentations as well as

an exciting knowledge sharing platform to provide an interactive and integrated learning environment with opportunities to network through panel discussions, technical presentations and hands-on activities. The five key topics of the conference are: Cloud computing, Big data analytics and advanced algorithms, Internet of Things (IoT) structures and predictive maintenance, Artificial intelligence and machine learning, and autonomous robots. The conference will bring you also a special workshop session on high power computing (HPC).

If you are you interested in presenting at the conference, the call for papers is open until 5 March 2021, so do not miss out and submit your abstract to the event website.

Germany’s geophysical society implements outreach programme

Screenshot from ‘DGG 100 - The Movie’.

The German Geophysical Society (DGG – Deutsche Geophysikalische Gesellschaft) is establishing a new public relations and outreach committee (PRO), chaired

by Maximilian Haas (CERN, Switzerland), with the intention of improving its communication to all its members across Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

The core tasks of the committee include public relations representation, geophysical news and science communication in 10

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German-speaking countries, promotion of national, transnational and international cooperation with other geoscientific associations, as well as the publication of bi-monthly newsletters and the extension of the media coverage specifically designed for students, young researchers and senior scientists. Special focus will be given to an increased social media presence.

The increased social media activity has resulted in a growing number of followers

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and has already strengthened the communication and connection among our members within a short time. The DGG also received great feedback regarding the ‘DGG image movie’, which was created for the 100th anniversary of the Society’s foundation in 2022 (now available on the DGG YouTube channel in English and German).

In addition, the first two newsletters in September and November 2020 have been published. All DGG members, members of other societies (including EAGE), companies, institutions, universities and public offices are welcome to contributions and news about geophysics or related disciplines.

The point of contact for all members and friends of the DGG will continue to be the DGG homepage (https://dgg-online. de), which is managed and continuously kept up-to-date by the PRO committee.

Besides regular updates, new sections will be introduced for both members and non-members and a technical refurbishment is planned for 2021.

EAGE NEWS

New ‘how-to’ video on chairing a session The latest in our ‘how to’ series of videos has just been released. It tells you the best way to chair a conference or workshop session and can be found at EAGE’s website Learning Geoscience (www.

LearningGeoscience.org).

Previous topics included in the series have covered ‘How to submit a good abstract’ and ‘How to get published’, in which we discussed tips and tricks to get your paper through the review processes, and ‘How to present to a live audience’ in which we shared experience to improve the presentation you are preparing.

The idea behind the series is that joining a large international event, such as the EAGE Annual, is a great way to share your research, expand your expertise, connect with professionals from around the world and grow a network of invaluable contacts. However, it is easy to get overwhelmed with preparation before the event, or with information and activities during and after the event, especially for first-time presenters. To assist you getting the most out of a big event, we have

developed the ‘how-to’ videos with great advice from EAGE experts.

The new video is dedicated to tips on how to chair a session. An important element contributing to the success of a presentation, as well as to a productive scientific exchange, is good chairing.

In the video, six experienced members explain the role of a chair in a technical session, as well as share their experience and advice on making an interactive and exciting session, facilitating an engaging Q&A and healthy debate, on time management, and on how to keep the audience’s attention based on their experience.

The videos address different questions and situations, so whatever your concern, the answer is here. Speakers featured in this series are: John Brittan (ION Geophysical, technical programme committee member), Pierre-Olivier Lys (Total, students affairs committee co-chair and technical programme reviewer), Roald van Borselen (Aramco Overseas, technical programme commit-

Aart-Jan van Wijngaarden.

Ivan Vasconcelos.

tee member), Ivan Vasconcelos (Utrecht University, e-lecturer and technical programme organizer), Paul Zwartjes (Aramco Overseas, AI Committee member and technical programme reviewer), and Aart-Jan van Wijngaarden (Equinor, technical programme officer).

Expert talk in Aberdeen on 4D seismic EAGE Local Chapter Aberdeen closed off 2020 with a joint talk with PESGB from Jonathan Brain (Shell) on ‘20 years as a 4D practitioner’.

Since joining Shell 20 years ago, Brain has worked on over 50 4D seismic projects in Europe and consulted on many more globally. In this talk he reflected on the common themes he has observed and considered what makes for a successful project and ultimately business value. He highlighted that 4D requires knowledge of all subsurface disciplines.

Brain guided the audience round the five key elements of successful 4D: (i) Know your data so that you can see the signal through the noise, (ii) Know your signal – magnitude, alternative causes,

Graphic says it all ...

(iii) Integrate with the whole team and all data, (iv) Visualization – be clear on the colour bar and share selectively, and (v) Uncertainty, especially what can’t you see and why? With 20 years of 4Ds to fall back on, early examples were presented from the Gannets, Draugen and Schiehallion (noting that another Gannet monitor survey was shot in 2020), through cases of communicating the 4D results and uncertainties to non-specialists and

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finally to the key technological developments that unlocked value at the HPHT Shearwater Field for infill drilling.

This discussion raised three key elements: (i) 4D remains vital for continuing development and adds value, even for very mature fields such as the Gannets cluster; (ii) The use of 4D data at a field evolves with time and contributes to a subsurface understanding and decision making in many different ways (both static and dynamic) – Shearwater is a case in point; and (iii) The final value of a 4D survey is complex to calculate but usually goes well beyond the limited VOI study estimates.

Keep an eye on the Calendar of Events for more events by Local Chapter Aberdeen in 2021 or join them via LinkedIn.

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Sochi will host second conference on geological exploration as a business ProGREss’21 will be the second staging of the EAGE international conference on ‘Geological exploration as a business’.

It will once again be held in the Russian city of Sochi in the first week of November 2021.

The conference promises to be a highly relevant event in the world of exploration.

Growing uncertainty, risks of reduced investment in geological exploration, as well as new efficiency challenges are major issues for the oil and gas industry.

ProGREss’19 was held in Sochi on November 5-8, 2019 and brought together

Opening the event.

more than 280 Russian top managers and experts (Gazprom, Gazprom Neft, Rosneft, Novatek, Rosneft, Lukoil, Tatneft, Bashneft, INK) and international oil and gas (Shell, Repsol, Wintershall, OMV, Mubadala Petroleum, Total) and oil service companies, leaders in the field of exploration and technology.

In 2021, EAGE plans to significantly expand the event programme, attracting more top speakers and industry experts.

The programme will include topics such as management of large exploration projects from industry majors’ perspective; analysis of international practices in exploration projects; review of prospective exploration areas in Russia and the CIS; best practices for dealing with high geological uncertainties. And case studies on the use of digital technologies to ensure the safe and efficient organization of exploration work.

We invite you to take part in the scientific programme of the conference by sending submitting abstracts on one of the following topics: Geological explo-

Big screen presentation.

ration as a business, capitalization of geological exploration projects, project management; Portfolio management in a crisis; Safe and efficient production, reduction of exploration costs; Digital transformation, a quantum leap in data analysis and accounting; Potential for the future, promising areas for exploration; Best exploration practices; Models of field development at early stages; New technologies in geological exploration; and Partnerships, venture projects. Abstracts are welcome until 15 July 2021.

Petroleum Geoscience moving to online continuous publication model Starting in 2021, Petroleum Geoscience is being published online only and moved to a continuous publication model. Under the continuous publication model, as soon as an article is ready to be published, it will be immediately assigned to an issue online rather than waiting for other articles in the issue to be completed, resulting in faster access to the final version of the article.

Issues are completed based on the volume of content and the journal’s individual publishing schedule. Once complete, an issue will be closed and any new articles will then be placed in the next open issue.

Petroleum Geoscience is co-owned by the Geological Society (GSL) and

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EAGE. The journal transcends disciplinary boundaries and publishes a balanced mix of articles covering exploration, exploitation, appraisal, development and enhancement of sub-surface hydrocarbon resources and carbon repositories. The integration of disciplines in an applied context, whether for fluid production, carbon storage or related geoenergy applications, is a particular strength of the journal. Articles on enhancing exploration efficiency, lowering technological and environmental risk, and improving hydrocarbon recovery communicate the latest developments in subsurface geoscience to a wide reader-

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ship. The journal publishes four issues per year.

Petroleum Geoscience also publishes thematic collections, curated sets of papers that present a timely snapshot of research in a topic of high current interest and importance, and the Energy Geoscience Series, an on-going collection providing a channel for the anticipated growth in non-petroleum related aspects of geoenergy and applied earth science.

EAGE NEWS

CONFERENCE

REPORT

First seismic inversion conference proves memorable

An expectant audience gathered online on 26-29 October for the first EAGE Conference on Seismic Inversion attracting around 100 participants with both industry and academia representatives coming from Canada, US, East Asia Pacific and Europe. This is the report on what transpired.

The First EAGE conference on Seismic Inversion was the first international meeting of its kind with topics spanning from case studies to technological advances, from more conventional seismic inversion aspects to inverting for wavelets and joint multi-geophysical data inversion, and contributions from machine learning in seismic inversion settings.

Ahead of the conference, Sara Grant, senior seismic analyst at BP, hosted a pre-conference webinar on ‘Seismic inversion in a net zero carbon world’. A panel of industry experts provided some insightful hints on the potential future of seismic inversion as more and more hydrocarbon exploration and production companies pledge their support for a net zero carbon future.

As seismic inversion often acts as a scientific tie-in hub across many disciplines in the industry adoption - from structural interpretation, well tie and signal estimation, geology and rock physics, to reservoir model and simulation model update - the topics spanned an accordingly broad range of focus.

The technical programme started with a keynote talk from Pat Connolly, director, PCA, on ‘Seismic Inversion Coming of Age’ covering the current and potential future state of seismic inversion with an emphasis on One Dimensional Stochastic

Inversion (ODiSI). The technical programme then began with a session on rock and fluid predictions and two sessions on time-lapse seismic.

Day two started with a ‘lunch and learn’ with Dries Gisolf, co-founder of Delft Inversion, on ‘Non-linearity in acoustic imaging’ followed by a keynote talk by Dario Grana, associate professor at the Department of Geology and Geophysics and the School of Energy Resources at the University of Wyoming. The rest of the day was dedicated to integration and case studies of seismic inversion, with poster sessions.

Day three covered aspects of multi-component data and anisotropy. A session was also dedicated to new contributions about machine learning in the seismic inversion domain. A live online panel discussion was co-hosted by Øyvind Kjøsnes, lead geophysicist, AkerBP, and Tanya Colwell, product strategy manager, CGG, on ‘Barriers to industry adoption of seismic inversion: value, integration and communication’. The panel discussion brought in industry experts from around the world, from Australia, Europe and Canada.

An engaged audience participated with live polls, asking questions and commenting.

The discussion touched upon aspects of seismic inversion in a historical perspective, how we currently evaluate and value

seismic inversion, how seismic inversion as a multi-disciplinary tie-in can improve on cross discipline communication and how we see the future of seismic inversion.

Day four started with a keynote examining the role played by geophysics in energy transition presented by Mel Ball, director of integrated geophysics at BP. This was followed by three sessions respectively dedicated to new methods, depth domain and wavelets and uncertainty from priors and parameters.

The conference was well attended with about 100 registered participants from all over the world and very active discussions taking place on the virtual event platform.

While looking forward to welcoming participants at the Second EAGE Conference on Seismic Inversion planned for Porto, Portugal on 1-3 November 2021, all the registered participants of the 2020 edition were offered the complimentary online short course on ‘Geostatistical reservoir modelling and uncertainty quantification’

by Dr Dario Grana. For more information, please visit seismicinversion.org.

The conference was sponsored by Saudi Aramco, Qeye, Delft Inversion, BP and CGG.

The EAGE Student Fund supports student activities that help students bridge the gap between university and professional environments. This is only possible with the support from the EAGE community. If you want to support the next generation of geoscientists and engineers, go to donate.eagestudentfund.org or simply scan the QR code.

Many thanks for your donation in advance!

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Mining out of its depth It is ironic that the drive towards the zero carbon society should Its efforts to fully develop its Solwara 1 acreage off the coast stir up interest in a solution that is arguably as ethically and enviof Papua New Guinea collapsed under the weight of community ronmentally challenging as the problem. The saying ‘The remedy and environmentalist pressure and lack of solid financial backing. is worse than the cure’ attributed to the English Elizabethan era The Nautilus venture was portrayed as endangering hydrothermal philosopher and statesman Francis Bacon (1561-1626) comes to vents, seafloor formations where superheated fluids from deep in the Earth have been or are being released into the water column. mind.

That is just one point of departure when considering the Such areas are regarded by scientists as ecologically precious for latest swell of interest in the potential of ocean bed mining being their biodiversity, home of a range of little understood, fragile expressed in Norway. The lure is obvious and the argument for organisms only found in the deep dark ocean. exploitation logical and may on balance be The need for more research ahead of any good for the planet. It is said that the world mining is the refrain of many marine biologists ‘Norway provides a is likely to experience excessive demand and and environmental protection groups including near ideal test bed possible shortages with regard to the materials, the Deep Sea Mining Campaign (DSMC), an including rare earth elements (REMs), needed association of NGOs and citizens from the for a first foray into for batteries to build electric cars, use in solar Pacific Islands, Australia, Canada, and the US. the deep water’ The organization, regulation and control panels, etc., basically the means to enable more carbon neutral power generation, not to menof all mineral-related activities in the deeper tion other technology necessities like mobile phones. According to international seabed area ‘for the benefit of mankind as a whole’ has been mandated to the little known International Seabed the US Geological Survey, the treasure trove of so far unexploited deep sea minerals would provide a virtually unlimited supply of just Authority (ISA), based in Kingston, Jamaica. This is the result the type of green technology support that the world needs to effect of a 1994 agreement by 167 Member States, and the European climate change mitigation as well as other valuable metals.

Union under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. The US We can be sure also that, if not in Norway, then somewhere is a notable non-signature to the agreement although it does send else deep sea mining is going to be initiated. Japan, for example, is observers to the Authority’s periodic plenary sessions. gearing up to start later in the decade. The wisdom or practicality ISA has the duty to ensure the effective protection of the of such initiatives is another matter. marine environment from harmful effects that may arise from deep Norway provides a near ideal test bed for a first limited foray seabed-related activities. In addition, as part of the ISA remit, the into the deep water. The country is one of the few – Papua New Secretary-General has been tasked to prepare and implement a Guinea is another – that features an accessible oceanic spreading dedicated strategy to meet the needs identified by ISA members, ridge containing desirable mineral deposits within its exclusive in particular geographically disadvantaged states, landlocked economic zone (EEZ). Any mining activity can therefore be condeveloping countries, small island developing states and least ducted under national governance without reference to international developed countries. In effect a scheme has to be devised to share marine jurisdiction. As it happens, Canadian company Nautilus out the bounty from any future mining production. How this might Minerals spent several years planning exploitation of massive work and how investors will treat such risk raises a big question. sulfide systems, the potential source of high grade copper, gold, Of course the sceptical already point to the apparent conflict zinc and silver, in 1600 m water depth off Papua New Guinea. of interest between ISA’s permitting role and its management

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of future mining activity (of which none has yet transpired).

REMs are a family of 17 elements consisting of scandium, yttriA mining code is in its final drafting stages but has still to be um, and the lanthanum-group elements but geologists will confirm that the term ‘rare earths’ is a misnomer, as some of these elements ratified. Two decades ago ISA started entering into contracts with international companies, typically associated with a government are not particularly rare and all of them are metals, not earths. It sponsoring interest, for exploration in designated areas for is doubtful whether any offshore mining of the kind envisaged (including more familiar metals such as copper) could ever compete polymetallic nodules, polymetallic sulphides and cobalt-rich ferromanganese crusts in the deep seabed. The main focus of with what will always be available on land. exploration interest has been the 3000 m deep Clarion-Clipperton No country could be better placed or trusted than Norway to take on the seabed mining challenge. The target areas are not as Zone, in the Equatorial North Pacific Ocean south and southeast of daunting as the deeper deposits in international waters. It has 50 Hawaii. This is where the mother lode for any future mining effort years of experience pioneering technology for offshore oil and gas is located offering a desert of endless mineral rich nodules the size with arguably the most progressive regulatory regime. Equinor, of tennis balls lying enticingly on the seabed waiting to be scooped the state owned company, is at the forefront of energy transition up. The Central Indian Basin of the Indian Ocean is also a target initiatives. area. So far 29 contracts have been issued without any operational In February Reuters reported that the Norwegian government is approvals to date. forging ahead with an environmental impact assessment of exploraOne of the few serious experiments to test the impact of tion and production operations for deep sea mineral deposits in the commercial seabed mining-related impact on the ocean ecosystem country’s EEZ. Assuming a favourable finding, exploration licences was the DISCOL project carried out in 1989. A German scientist could be awarded as early as 2023, although that seems optimistic.

Hjalmar Thiel trialled the raking of a 11 km2 area of the deep ClarThe initiative follows the completion last ion-Clipperton Zone in the Pacific Ocean with year of the third ocean floor investigative expea specially designed 8 m plough/harrow. This ‘A serious if not dition carried out since 2018 under the direction mining simulation created a plume of disturbed sediment that rained down and buried most of insurmountable hurdle of the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD), the agency responsible for administration of all the study area, smothering creatures on the may be the cost …’ subsurface data acquired from the Norwegian sea floor. The test revealed that the impacts Continental Shelf and for mapping seabed minof seabed mining reached further than anyone erals. In fact, scientific exploration in the Mid-Atlantic Ridge by the had imagined, according to a report in Nature, but it did not University of Bergen dates back to the late 1990s. The NPD target actually extract any rocks from the seabed. This would have was the massive accumulation of sulphide ores from the hydrotherdestroyed even more marine life. Even so, a return visit 30 years mal systems on the Mohn Ridge. This is an oceanic spreading ridge later revealed that the site had still not recovered. The more that separates two tectonic plates. Drilling operations in 3000 m recent MIDAS three-year study partly funded by the European water depths were required to bring samples to the surface.

Commission came up with some similar findings.

Meantime Rystad Energy has just delivered a hefty report on In its latest Biodiversity Strategy for 2030, EU says it should the wealth creation possibilities plus the possible negatives. Some advocate that ‘marine minerals in the international seabed area Norwegian geoscience companies are scenting potential business. cannot be exploited before the effects of deep sea mining on the TGS (see Industry News) last month waded in with a press release marine environment, biodiversity and human activities have been asking whether the time for deep sea mineral exploration has sufficiently researched, the risks are understood and the technolarrived. In addition, an offshore mineral mining company called ogies and operational practices are able to demonstrate no serious Green Minerals was launched late last year as a 100% wholly harm to the environment, in line with the precautionary principle and taking into account the call of the European Parliament.’ owned subsidiary of Seabed Exploration.

In the background the Norwegian University of Science and The EU will continue to fund research on the impact of deep-sea Technology (NTNU) has a deep sea mining pilot programme covermining activities and on environmentally friendly technologies, ing study of everything from deep sea mining systems, geophysical while arguing for more transparency in international bodies, such exploration, resource assessment to the ethical and environment as the International Seabed Authority.’ considerations. NTNU researchers are said to have estimated there Even if environmental concerns can be overcome, a serious if could be up to 21.7 million tonnes of copper - more than the world’s not insurmountable hurdle may be the cost of ever turning ocean copper output in 2019 - and 22.7 million tonnes of zinc on the bed mining in 3000 m or more depths of international waters into a Norwegian Continental Shelf. viable commercial as opposed to strategic venture, for example to It is no wonder that Norwegian Minister of Petroleum and escape from China’s current near monopoly on REMs production Energy Tina Bru is talking about momentum. Where it leads is a worldwide (mainly because no other country is willing to take on deeper question. the dirty work involved).

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

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BP renews North Sea assets sale

China set to become world’s biggest land seismic market China will buck the global trend of cuts in spending on land seismic services and lead global purchases in the next two years, according to research by Rystad Energy.

Starting with a projected 12% demand boost in 2021 and a 16% increase in 2022, China will be the global leader in onshore seismic purchases in the next two years, with its market estimated to reach a cumulative $1.7 billion in value, overtaking the US at $1.6 billion and Russia at $1 billion in 2021–2022.

Within Asia, China is expected to account for 80% of the total purchases over the next two years. China, as part of its 14th five-year economic development plan starting next year, is looking to boost its shale gas production by between 50 billion to 80 billion m3 per annum through to 2025.

BGP, a subsidiary of China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) and the market leader in the global land seismic market, this year conducted multiple surveys both within and outside China. In April 2020 the company began a large 3D seismic acquisition survey in the Jintang-Santai area of the Sichuan basin in China. It is by far the largest 3D seismic survey in the Sichuan basin in 2020, covering up to 2263 km2, and will aid the development of natural gas reservoirs in southwest China.

BGP also concluded the world’s first large-scale 9C-3D seismic survey in the

Qaidam basin in western China in August.

In the wider Asian region, the company conducted a walk-away VSP survey for Pertamina in Indonesia. Sinopec Oilfield Service Corporation also undertook onshore oil and gas exploration in Shunbei, southeast Sichuan and other regions of China.

PetroChina, China’s biggest onshore operator, has in 2020 made important discoveries in Tarim, Sichuan, Junggar, Erdos and other basins. Overall, Rystad estimates that the number of Chinese exploration wells will climb to 2641 in 2021 from 2187 this year.

The global onshore seismic market has fallen in purchase value by 27% in 2020, according to Rystad. This year operators’ budget cuts will continue to strain the services sector before a projected recovery in 2022, it warned.

Global onshore seismic purchases are expected to fall to $3.9 billion in 2020 from almost $5.4 billion in 2019. Rystad Energy forecasts the overall decline to continue into 2021, with purchases sliding to $3.2 billion before they start a recovery to $3.7 billion in 2022 and further in following years.

Interest in onshore exploration picked up in 2019, as evidenced from the number of lease rounds that were held and the onshore acreage that was awarded. In 2020, though, onshore licensing awards through to October dropped by two-thirds to FIRST

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Natural scenery of Qaidam Basin.

106,000 km2 in acreage from 316,000 km2 during the same period last year. The largest onshore acreage awarded was in India, which amounted to 30,566 km2. This was followed by Australia with 15,513 km2 and Oman with 10,000 km2.

Among other key regions, it expects activity in the US, which accounts for a major share of North American purchases, to pick up in 2022, while it will take one more year for activity in Russia to get back on its feet.

‘Asia, North America and Russia will account for more than 70% of the onshore seismic purchases over the next two years.

While Asia will begin its recovery in 2021, both North American and Russian purchases will continue to shrink,’ said Binny Bagga, senior energy service analyst at Rystad Energy.

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Big seismic companies launch pioneering shared multi-client data offer PGS, TGS and CGG have announced a pioneering strategic partnership to offer a shared ecosystem providing direct access to their subsurface multi-client data libraries.

This independent, cloud-based ecosystem will offer a single search point to access all three companies’ multi-client data and allow customers to interactively find, visualize and download their subsurface assets and entitlements all in one place.

Rune Olav Pedersen, president and CEO at PGS, said: ‘This partnership shows the possibilities when you combine a collaborative approach with the power and breadth of data and the vision to improve customer experience. Combining cloud agnostic direct access to three of the largest multi-client data libraries in one place ensures enhanced efficiency,

Seismic CEOs (from the left): Rune Olav Pedersen (PGS), Kristian Johansen (TGS) and Sophie Zurquiyah (CGG).

usability and reduced lead times, raising the bar on customer experience globally.’

A beta version is targeted for release in the first quarter of 2021, enabling clients who own data to review the technology and provide feedback, as well as giving other commercial data suppliers the opportunity to evaluate the potential of joining the collaborative approach.

Kristian Johansen, CEO at TGS, said: ‘Proactively supporting our clients’ digital transformation initiatives through the development of this one-of-a-kind vendor collaborative ecosystem, accessible from the users’ desktop, is essential to the foundation for any future development of modern subsurface workflows and beyond.’

A full launch of the ecosystem is expected in the second half of 2021. PGS, TGS and CGG intend to expand the scope of the project in the future to include additional features, vendors and data types.

Sophie Zurquiyah, CEO at CGG, said: ‘The industry historically lacked an ecosystem that provided a vendor neutral single point of access to the industry’s commercial data. This new ecosystem is platform agnostic, which will enable clients to access multi-client seismic and geologic data, when and where they need it.’

Research shows fewest licensing rounds since 2002 The year 2020 has featured the fewest concluded licensing rounds of the 21st century as only 43 rounds have been completed, Rystad Energy research shows. Awarded acreage is estimated to be the lowest since 2002 at just over 324,000 km2, with Norway being this year’s global leader in total licensed area.

Licensing rounds have been growing every single year since the previous downturn, reaching a high of 98 concluded rounds in 2019. The count of completed licensing rounds is not expected to increase by much in 2021 either, with total awarded acreage likely to remain below 500,000 km2.

Australia leads the lease round tally this year as seven lease rounds were concluded, covering different regions, both onshore and offshore. The US follows with four lease rounds: two in the Gulf of Mexico, one in Alaska and one in the Beaufort Sea. Results were still pending at the time of writing, but Rystad said that even when they were confirmed, the count would still remain the lowest of the century in 2020.

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‘Even though many regulatory authorities are now conducting licensing virtually, most licensing activity still involves technical data review. This has been impacted this year by travel restrictions for personnel, and also by a lack of sufficient funds from exploration companies,’ said Aatisha Mahajan, senior upstream analyst at Rystad Energy.

The decline affects almost all continents, with acreage awards in Asia the hardest hit in terms of size at less than one-quarter of the 2019 level. Shelved exploration plans have caused new acreage in the Middle East to drop to 20,000 km2 this year from 100,000 km2 in 2019, while South American licensed acreage shrank to just 12,000 km2 from 180,000 km2 as all licensing rounds in Brazil were delayed.

Africa was initially expected to be the exploration licensing hotspot for 2020 but ended up with 64% less acreage licensed this year compared to 2019, said Rystad.

Looking at the global licensed acreage in 2020 by country, the largest area was awarded in Norway’s APA round, followed by India’s two concluded OALP

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rounds. Angola, Australia and the UK take the next spots on the ranking. The awarded acreage in these top five countries all comes from more mature basins. However, frontier basins also attracted substantial interest, especially the Herodotus basin in Egypt, and Sierra Leone in West Africa.

India’s national oil company ONGC (India) acquired the most acreage last year with awards in the domestic OALP rounds, followed by London-based Deltic Energy which picked up substantial acreage in Sierra Leone. Majors like ExxonMobil, Total, Chevron and Shell are also among the top 10 companies with an average of 15,000 km2 each in new licensed acreage.

Rystad expects next year’s licensing activity to continue to be dominated by countries like Suriname, Guyana, the US, Norway, Israel, India, China, Malaysia, Egypt and the UAE. Other countries may not announce their licensing schedules until the second half of next year as they wait for interest to pick up, including Indonesia, Myanmar, Thailand, Algeria, Tanzania, Equatorial Guinea, Ecuador and Barbados.

INDUSTRY NEWS

UK industry body publishes zero carbon strategy for oil and gas companies A revised strategy from the UK Oil & Gas Authority has been submitted to the UK parliament, featuring for the first time an obligation on the energy industry to support the UK’s net zero target.

In addition to the net zero obligation, the revised strategy also requires industry to work in such a way that encourages collaboration with the supply chain and actively supports carbon capture and storage projects.

Alongside the direction set out in the strategy, industry is also making progress in commitments to reducing production of greenhouse gas emissions well as stewarding towards emission reductions. The OGA will track, monitor, benchmark and report on this overall

emissions reduction. It published its first benchmarking report on emissions from flaring and venting earlier this year.

The OGA’s analysis of energy integration showed that integration has the potential to make a 30% contribution towards the country’s overall net zero target, primarily through CCS projects and through CCS plus hydrogen production.

Adding offshore renewables (wind, wave and tidal) could take that up to 60% of the abatement required in 2050.

Dr Andy Samuel, OGA chief executive, said: ‘This is an important moment in the North Sea story, bringing a key sector of the economy into the overall net zero project.

‘We have a clear vision for how to achieve this, supporting industry to reduce production emissions and to provide the infrastructure, expertise and capital to unlock game-changing carbon capture and storage and hydrogen production at scale.

‘With around 30 energy transition projects already underway, this strategy lays the foundation for that vision to become a reality, unlocking significant high value opportunities.’

Meanwhile, the OGA said it welcomes the publication of the UK government’s Energy White Paper and ‘the recognition of the critical role that oil and gas is expected to play in helping deliver our energy needs, as well as enabling game changing energy transition solutions such as carbon capture’.

BP and Amazon ramp up digitization and power agreement

More innovation on the way.

BP and Amazon have agreed to extend their longstanding relationship. BP will supply additional renewable energy to power Amazon’s operations, and Amazon Web Services (AWS) will help to accelerate BP’s programme to digitize its infrastructure and operations.

William Lin, BP’s executive vice president, regions, cities & solutions, said: ‘Our successful relationship supports both BP’s and Amazon’s ambitions to reduce our emissions and help our customers reduce theirs. Amazon is helping BP with innovative digital technologies and, using our trading capabilities and scale, we will give Amazon the reliable and flexible

renewable energy supplies they need to meet their ambition to decarbonize.’

In a new series of clean power agreements, BP has agreed to more than triple the renewable power that it will supply Amazon in Europe.

BP will supply Amazon with an additional 404MW of wind power in Europe, starting in 2022-275MW sourced from a new wind project in Sweden and 129MW from two new wind projects in Scotland.

This is in addition to the companies’ December 2019 agreement for BP to supply AWS in Europe with around 170MW of renewable power.

Building on their longstanding relationship, in December 2019 BP agreed to migrate over 900 key applications hosted in its European mega data centres to the AWS cloud.

One year on, the migration is running ahead of schedule with over 60% of BP’s European mega data centre workloads now migrated to the AWS cloud, including business-critical applications and trading platforms. By utilizing AWS’s services,

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data centres and cloud capabilities, BP can reduce energy use and emissions from its own digital infrastructure and data centres.

BP and Amazon are also collaborating on several artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning use cases, for example: using Talk2Me – an automated AI support system powered by Amazon Alexa – to reduce 40% of helpdesk calls in BP retail; migrating to the Amazon Aurora cloud database for BP trading; and modernizing the BP procurement and supply chain using Amazon QuickSight, a business intelligence tool powered by machine learning, to automatically track purchases and analyse spending trends.

As more data accumulates, repetitive tasks can be automated, optimizing costs and processes, and driving efficiencies.

‘BP and Amazon continue to see potential to further grow and deepen their relationship, increasing the benefits of digital innovation and support for achieving their common sustainability ambitions,’ said BP in a statement.

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Northern Lights CO2 storage project clears key funding hurdles

Graphic of Northern Lights storage project. © Equinor, 2021.

The Norwegian Parliament has voted to fund the country’s Northern Lights CO2 transport and storage project.

The world’s first open-source CO2 transport and storage project, Northern Lights will enable transport of CO2 from industrial capture sites to a terminal in Øygarden for intermediate storage before being transported by pipeline for permanent storage in a reservoir 2600 m under the seabed.

The project is the transport and storage component of Longship, the Norwegian government’s full-scale carbon capture and storage project.

‘Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is important to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement. Longship is the largest climate project ever in the Norwegian industry and will contribute substantially to the development of CCS as an efficient mitigation measure. Working together with the industry, the step-bystep approach has confirmed that the project is feasible,’ said Norway’s minister of petroleum and energy, Tina Bru. Equinor, Shell and Total made a conditional investment decision on the Northern Lights CO2 project in May 2020. The partners are now in the pro-

cess of establishing a joint venture, (subject to merger clearance), for all project activities, including business development.

The Northern Lights project will be open to third parties and as such will be the first ever cross-border, open-source CO2 transport and storage infrastructure network. It will offer European industrial emitters the opportunity to store their CO2 safely and permanently underground. Phase one of the project will be completed mid 2024 with a capacity of up to 1.5 million tonnes of CO2 per year.

ION deploys Gemini source technology for the first time ION Geophysical has announced the first proprietary commercial deployment of the company’s Gemini extended frequency source technology in an unnamed location for a big energy company.

Following the technology’s commercialization in September, energy companies have specified Gemini in a number of proprietary tenders, the first of which was expected to begin in January.

‘In this long-offset 3D towed streamer survey, Gemini’s broad source spectrum will improve subsurface characterization of a moderately complex geologic area with greater operational efficiency and 20

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considerably less environmental impact.

The innovative source significantly extends low frequencies, while limiting higher frequencies to a more ecologically friendly range,’ said ION. Ken Williamson, executive vice president and chief operating officer of ION’s E&P Technology and Services group, said: ‘The sector is rapidly adopting creative acquisition techniques to enhance image quality in both towed streamer and seabed surveys. Gemini is proving to be an integral enabling technology that efficiently supports substantially improved data quality and lower environmental impact

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desired by the industry. This project also expands the geographies in which permits have been issued, further validating the technology’s environmental credentials and ease of permitting. In order to meet market demand, we are rapidly expanding our capacity and seeking regulatory approval in additional jurisdictions.’

Meanwhile, ION has reached agreement with its lenders to restructure 84% of outstanding bonds, extending the December 2021 maturity by four years to 2025. The company has also given its shareholders the opportunity to participate in a rights offering for additional shares.

INDUSTRY NEWS

Shearwater wins 3D project offshore India

SW Vespucci will see action.

Shearwater GeoServices has won a 3D broadband marine seismic acquisition contract from ONGC in the Western Offshore India area.

IAGC welcomes more certainty for Gulf of Mexico seismic surveys

The four-month project, scheduled to commence in Q1 2021, covers two areas totalling 2800 km2 in the Arabian Sea off the west coast of India. Shearwater plans to use the vessels SW Duchess and SW Vespucci for the surveys.

‘Shearwater has a strong, long-standing relationship with ONGC and adding this award to our 2021 backlog demonstrates our market-leading position in Indian offshore geophysics, enabling us to maintain high activity in the region throughout 2020 and into 2021,’ said Irene Waage Basili, CEO of Shearwater GeoServices.

The International Association of Geophysical Contractors (IAGC) has welcomed the US government’s new Marine Mammal Protection Act framework for geological and geophysical activities in the US Gulf of Mexico. However, it also criticized the framework as ‘rigorous and, in some instances, overly burdensome requirements for G&G activities’.

‘The new regulations are also premised on assumed impacts that drastically overestimate the actual impacts of the G&G industry, which have been carried out for more than 50 years in the Gulf of Mexico without noticeable impacts on marine mammals, other marine life, or fisheries,’ said the IAGC in a statement.

Jersey Oil & Gas settles payment dispute with TGS Jersey Oil & Gas (JOG) has reached a settlement with TGS in a financial dispute over an agreement entered into with TGS on 9 February 2018.

Under the agreement, TGS claimed payments from JOG totalling $1,050,838 in respect of licence awards to Jersey Petroleum Limited (JPL) in the UK Oil & Gas Authority’s 31st Supplementary Offshore Licensing Round and the acquisition by JPL of

Equinor’s 70% interest in Licence P2170 (Verbier).

Jersey Oil and Gas has disputed the validity of both claims, following which two hearings have taken place in the Norwegian courts. On the basis of legal advice received, JOG has negotiated and agreed a final settlement payment to TGS of $850,000.

Following this payment, the group’s estimated cash position at 31 December 2020 was £5 million.

PGS completes huge offshore Brazil reprocessing project PGS has completed the final phase of its Santos Vision multi-client seismic data revitalization project, with the latest data covering areas to be included in the Brazil Transfer of Rights Round in 2021.

Nearly 49,000 km2 of seismic data from 13 separate surveys have now been reprocessed into a single, seamless, broadband product.

Endangered baby Humpback Whale.

Current producing acreage opportunities, that will be included in the next ANP Bidding Round for Surplus Volumes (Cessão Onerosa) in Q3 2021, include the Sepia and Atapu fields. The multi-client products now available from the Santos Vision dataset provide new insights over these producing assets and other fields, such as Lula, Sururu, Berbigao, and south Gato do Mato.

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‘Nonetheless, the IAGC is hopeful that this decision will result in a more predictable regulatory environment for G&G activities, which are essential to well-planned and environmentally responsible oil and gas exploration and production in the Gulf of Mexico,’ it added.

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UK opens first underground geothermal laboratory

Site of the UK Geoenergy Observatories - Glasgow Observatory. Photo: BAM Nuttall.

The UK Geoenergy Observatory the first of two new British underground laboratories to assess the potential for geothermal energy projects.

The facility in Glasgow, run by the BGS, comprises 12 boreholes, which are 16-199-m deep and fitted with 319 sensors.

Data from the observatory will help scientists understand the subsurface better, and how heat using warm water from abandoned mines could be used as a renewable energy source for homes and industry.

The facility has already released 19 open data packs, giving scientists access to borehole information, including optical images from up to 199 m underground, environmental monitoring data and live seismic monitoring.

Dr Karen Hanghøj, executive director of the BGS, said: ‘The Glasgow Observatory builds on the city’s industrial past.

‘The data from Glasgow’s abandoned mines will help us understand the processes and impacts of a mine water heat source and potential heat store as a sustainable way of heating homes and businesses in our cities.

‘Over the next 15 years, the network of boreholes will monitor any changes in the properties of the environment below the surface, and help to close the knowledge gap we have on mine water heat energy and heat storage.

‘There is no other publicly funded observatory like this in the world, and it is very fitting that it is located in Glasgow, which will host COP 26 next year.’

Professor Dame Anne Glover, president of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, said: ‘It makes sense that the UK’s first geoenergy observatory is in Glasgow, given Scotland’s geology is world famous.

‘With the government’s target of achieving net zero emissions by 2050, emerging low carbon technologies may offer the best solutions to shaping future energy policy.

‘This observatory will be absolutely key for scientists to advance the study of renewable energy.’

A second observatory is planned for a site in Cheshire in the north of England as part of a £31 million ($42 million) investment by the UK government.

The BGS said that Central Scotland, northern England and south Wales all have flooded, abandoned mines that could be tapped to supply local communities or industry with heat.

Scientists around the world have been invited to use the facility from March.

Exxon Mobil publishes new emissions reduction target Exxon Mobil has announced plans for further reductions in greenhouse gas emissions over the next five years to support the goals of the Paris Agreement and anticipates meeting year-end 2020 reductions.

The company plans to reduce the intensity of operated upstream greenhouse gas emissions by 15 to 20% by 2025, compared to 2016 levels. This will be supported by a 40 to 50% decrease in methane intensity, and a 35 to 45% decrease in flaring intensity across its global operations. The emission reduction plans, which cover Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions from operated assets, are projected to be consistent with the goals of the Paris Agreement. The company also plans to align with the World Bank’s initiative to eliminate routine flaring by 2030.

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‘We respect and support society’s ambition to achieve net zero emissions by 2050, and continue to advocate for policies that promote cost-effective, market-based solutions to address the risks of climate change,’ said Darren Woods, chairman and chief executive officer of Exxon Mobil.

ExxonMobil’s plans will leverage the continued application of operational efficiencies, and development and deployment of lower-emission technologies.

Other measures include: investments in lower-emission technologies, such as carbon capture, manufacturing efficiencies, and advanced biofuels; increased cogeneration capacity at manufacturing facilities; support for ‘sound policies’ that put a price on carbon; accounting

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for environmental performance as part of executive compensation.

As from this year ExxonMobil will also provide Scope 3 emissions on an annual basis.

Since 2000, the company said that it had invested more than $10 billion researching, developing and deploying lower-emission technologies, including nearly $3 billion at cogeneration facilities that more efficiently produce electricity and reduce related emissions.

In 2018, ExxonMobil announced plans to achieve by year-end 2020, a 15% decrease in methane emissions and 25% cut in flaring, compared with 2016 levels.

At the time of writing, the company said it anticipated meeting both by the end of 2020.

INDUSTRY NEWS

Sercel lands another big seismic equipment deal in Saudi Arabia Sercel has won a second major contract to supply land seismic equipment to a leading seismic acquisition contractor for a 3D mega-crew survey in Saudi Arabia.

The new 3D contract includes a Sercel 508XT seismic acquisition system of more than 60,000 channels equipped with strings of SG-10 geophones, and a fleet of more than 30 Nomad 65 Neo all-terrain vibrator trucks with a full VE464 advanced vibrator electronics package. The equipment will be deployed from March on the desert survey that is scheduled to last three years.

It has also won a smaller contract to equip a 2D survey to be conducted by the same contractor. These two new contracts closely follow the recently announced award to Sercel of a similar large-scale

Sercel Nomad 65 Neo vibrator trucks in operation.

contract to equip a separate Saudi 3D mega-crew survey.

Emmanuelle Dubu, CEO, Sercel, said: ‘The award of this second mega-

crew equipment contract in Saudi Arabia significantly strengthens Sercel’s already well-established position in the Middle East.’

Nigeria shortlists companies for bid round Nigeria has shortlisted 161 companies in the final stage of the bid round process for 57 marginal oilfields in the country.

Paul Osu, head of public affairs, at the Department of Petroleum Resources

(DPR) said that the firms were selected from more than 600 companies which applied for pre-qualification.

Nigeria’s marginal fields are categorized as having reserves booked and reported annually to the DPR and to have

remained unproduced for a period of more than 10 years.

Osu said Nigeria last conducted marginal field bid rounds in 2003, with 16 of the fields now contributing 2% to the national oil and gas reserves.

Polarcus wins 4D contract in the Far East Polarcus has entered into an agreement with SCF to provide 4D marine seismic

acquisition services in the Far East for a major E&P company.

Polarcus vessels finding Far East work.

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The programme for the company in the Sovcomflot group requires one Polarcus ICE-1A class vessel and will commence in Q2 2021, running for around three months.

Contractual arrangements and associated third party approvals were expected to be finalized before end January 2021.

Meanwhile, Polarcus has won a contract for providing 3D seismic data acquisition services in the Asia Pacific region. The project has an expected duration of 2.5 months and is scheduled to commence in Q1 2021, subject to relevant approvals.

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US historic lease sale in Alaska disappoints

Arctic National Wildlife Refuge near Kaktovik, Alaska. Photo: Ray Bulson/Alamy.

The US Bureau of Land Management has received 13 bids totalling an underwhelming $14.5 million and covering 552,802 acres in the first oil and gas lease sale for the Coastal Plain of Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).

Energy analysts said that the auction on 6 January was disappointing with only three oil companies bidding. Super majors steered clear of the sale amid low crude prices, fears of a public backlash and regulatory uncertainty. The three bidders were Knik Arm Services, Regenerate Alaska and the state-owned Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority.

The BLM offered 22 tracts, spanning approx. 1.1 million acres of the eligible 1.56 million acres included in the 2020 Record of Decision (ROD) for the Coastal Plain Oil and Gas Leasing Programme.

BLM withdrew approx. 460,000 acres (10 tracts) from the sale after input from Alaska Native Tribes, nongovernmental organizations and the Canadian government. Most of the comments focused on the core calving area of the Porcupine Caribou Herd, and the importance of polar bear and migratory bird habitats, in particular for snow geese.

Supporters of the leasing remained upbeat. ‘After 40 years we have finally achieved a lease sale for the 1002 Area of ANWR as Congress mandated in 2017,’ said Senator Dan Sullivan (R-AK).

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Representative Don Young (R-AK-AtLarge), said: ‘We are finally achieving what was promised when President Carter signed ANILCA into law. Alaskans have always been good stewards of their own land, and they know how to balance environmental protection with energy development.’

President Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 directs the Secretary of the Interior to conduct at least two area-wide leasing sales, not less than 400,000 acres each, within the Coastal Plain Oil and Gas Programme area of ANWR. The lease sales must be held within seven years with the first lease sale taking place on December 22, 2021 and the second lease sale before December 22, 2024.

A majority of the Coastal Plain Oil and Gas Leasing Programme area will be subject to no surface occupancy restrictions (359,400 acres) and operational timing limitations (585,400 acres) to protect habitat and wildlife.

A federal court in Alaska allowed the lease sale in Alaska to go ahead after it denied an appeal from environmental and Native American groups to block the sales.

Four lawsuits had been filed seeking to block the auction of drilling rights in the coastal plain of ANWR along the Beaufort Sea that took place on 6 January.

They had also requested a court order barring permits sought for seismic operations within 352,400 acres of the refuge’s 1.6 million-acre coastal plain. Opponents

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said seismic studies would disrupt resident populations of polar bears. The US Fish and Wildlife Service said seismic disturbances to bears would be minimal.

Had they succeeded decisions about the region would have been delayed until after the 20 January inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden, who opposes drilling there.

Groups suing included the National Audubon Society, Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Earth, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and three Gwich’in tribal governments.

They argue that the lease sales would pave the way for irreparable damage to a pristine tundra ecosystem and that the federal government failed to adequately analyse greenhouse gas emissions from potential drilling in the area.

However, in her order district judge Sharon Gleason said the plaintiffs had failed to establish that they would suffer irreparable harm as a result of the sale.

The groups have vowed to continue the legal fight.

In court filings, opponents cited a recent decision by the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals that cancelled approval of what could become the nation’s first offshore oil production facility in federal Arctic waters. In that decision, the court found that the Department of Interior had failed to account for increased carbon emissions overseas when it approved the project.

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SAExploration emerges from bankruptcy SAExploration Holdings has completed a financial restructuring and emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy as a private company. As a result of the restructuring, which received broad support from its creditors, the company has reduced its debt by approximately $74 million.

‘We are very pleased to have completed this efficient and consensual reorganization, and we look forward to working with our stakeholders and newly-appointed board members as a private company,’ said Michael J. Faust, president and CEO of the company that offers seismic data acquisition, data processing and interpretation.

Last month, the company entered into a consent agreement with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that resolves all allegations pertaining to fraud charges against the company filed by the SEC in October.

‘The joint motion filed by the SEC and SAE in support of the consent agreement notes the SAE’s cooperation, remediation and internal investigation, and that there is no allegation of continuing or ongoing misconduct by SAE, former SAE executives hid their fraud from the board, SAE has removed the former executives who were responsible for the misconduct and that SAE has implemented enhancements

BRIEFS The Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) has awarded BGP the world’s largest 3D transition zone seismic survey worth up to $519 million. The survey will capture 3D images of the subsurface at ultradeep locations. The terrain comprises coastal areas, islands, and shallow water.

to its internal policies and procedures, including the addition of a chief compliance officer,’ said SAExploration in a statement.

The company consented to a final judgment on 18 December that that does not impose any monetary penalty on the company.

Upon emergence from Chapter 11, SAE agreed a new $15 million loan facility with some existing lenders, refinanced its prior credit facility with a new $20.5 million loan facility with existing lenders, and eliminated $89 million of principal and interest on its prior senior loan facility and 6% senior secured convertible notes due in 2023. New equity has been issued to certain existing lenders.

Kenneth Tubman, president of PPA Resources, will serve as chairman of the board of directors. Joining him on the board as directors will be Peter Cramer, founder and managing partner of the Pc Advisory Group, Zaki Selim, former president, Middle East & Asia, Schlumberger. Michael J. Faust, president and CEO of the company will also serve on the board as will Marc Rowland, founder and senior managing director of IOG Capital who will serve as audit committee chairman.

Shell has become operating partner of the Col-5, Purple Angel and Fuerte Sur exploration and production contracts in the deep waters of the Colombian Caribbean, with a 50% interest in each contract held by the Colombian state-owned Ecopetrol.

Exxon Mobil will write down as much as $20 million of its upstream assets in its forthcoming fourth quarter results, which are expected to show a fourth consecutive quarterly loss. However, it said that higher oil and gas prices had boosted upstream income by $1 billion compared to the third quarter.

Eni has struck a deal with the International Cooperation Center of the National Development and Reform Commission (ICC-NDRC) to promote collaboration with Chinese energy players, share knowledge and best practices, assess energy policies and market regulations, identify areas of mutual interest, and develop relationships with Chinese institutions.

Norway’s production figures for November 2020 show an average daily production of 2,026,000 barrels of oil, NGL and condensate. Average daily liquids production was 1,725 000 barrels of oil, 290,000 barrels of NGL and 12,000 barrels of condensate. Oil production in November is equal to the NPD’s forecast.

Shearwater refinances its debt Shearwater GeoServices has signed new debt and guarantee facilities totalling $437 million, as part of the planned refinancing of the company’s maturing debt.

The new facilities include the refinancing of the $325 million bridge facility originating from the acquisition of the marine seismic acquisition assets and operations of WesternGeco in November 2018.

‘We enjoy continued confidence from our lenders whose long-term backing has supported Shearwater in driving the necessary consolidation in the market. The agreed financial structure provides us with a flexible and robust financial platform for pursuing

our long-term strategy and solidifies our position for a market recovery,’ said Andreas Hveding Aubert, the CFO of Shearwater.

The new facilities with two- and four-years maturities have been signed with DNB Bank, SpareBank 1 SR-Bank, DVB Bank and GIEK. They replace approximately $500 million of debt under the old structure, effectively refinancing all corporate facilities except for the net liabilities assumed as part of the acquisition of the CGG vessels in January 2020.

Additionally, Shearwater’s existing shareholders will contribute $25 million of new equity as part of the refinancing.

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Operator Aker BP and partners Equinor, Wintershall Dea and PGNiG have decided to develop the Gråsel discovery in the Norwegian Sea in 2021.

Equinor and its licence partners have decided to invest $335 million in the North Sea Statfjord Øst field to improve recovery by 23 million barrels of oil equivalent.

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TGS expects service companies to map deep sea minerals Deep sea mineral exploration in the search for metals and rare earth minerals (REMs) will become the new frontier for seismic companies in the coming years, said TGS. ‘The fledgling industry is exciting governments, industries and financiers.

Rare earth minerals will be essential for applications ranging from high-tech, clean energy, transportation and communications, to robotics, nanotechnology, medical equipment, antibiotics and medicine,’ said TGS. As energy transition pushes the industry toward electricity produced from sources such as solar and wind, more batteries will be needed for temporary storage. In the transport sector, electrification is increasing demand for metals such as lithium, copper, cobalt and REMs. Images of Pacific black smokers, with a rich ecosystem feeding off the mineral-rich water, are available. These active sulphide complexes will not be mined, as only extinct sites barren of macro-life will be open for mining. For this reason, images and other proof will be a central part of the exploration work undertaken before any exploitation of deep-sea mining can take place.

mining in Norwegian waters by 2023 which can become a blueprint that other countries to open their deep-water areas,’ the company said.

The world’s areas of volcanic activity are primarily concentrated around plate boundaries and subduction zones.

Sulphide complexes – fertile grounds for metals and rare earth minerals – are particularly sited around spreading ridges or subduction zones at the plate boundaries.

These complexes can exist anywhere there is ongoing volcanic, hydrothermal activity, as well as in subduction zones such as in the Far East. Further manganese nodule fields and metal-rich crusts sitting on hard ground are adding to the great potential for REMs in myriad locations right around the globe, said TGS. Ocean mining sites are usually to be found around large areas of polymetallic nodules or active and extinct hydrothermal vents and sited at depths of 1.4 to 3.7 km water depth. The vents create globular or massive sulphide deposits, which can then be mined using either hydraulic pumps or bucket systems that take ore to the surface to be processed.

What could be mined and where? © TGS, 2021.

‘TGS experts hold a strong technical belief that the latest 3D seismic acquisition and imaging technologies would be the geophysical tool of choice for Mohn Ridge and beyond. TGS is optimistic that the Norwegian Government will legislate to create a licensing round for deep sea 26

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Though deepsea mineral extraction still has some environmental impact, drilling technologies from the oil and gas industry can be used in conjunction with geothermal energy to run the production facilities. As such, deep-sea mining might fill the world’s need for battery metals in

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a less environmentally impactful way than its onshore equivalent.’

A financially viable industry is still some time off, but the first technical and legislative steps are being taken. For example, in 2011 a Japanese research team discovered rare earth minerals on the seabed of the Pacific Ocean when testing soil samples from a number of locations at depths of between 3.5 and 6 km. It has been estimated that these deposits could contain up to 80-100 billion tons of REMs alone.

In September, the European Raw Materials Alliance (ERMA) was formed by the European Commission as part of a plan on Critical Raw Materials. The ERMA will be managed by EIT Raw Materials and overseen by the European Commission in order to create a framework for secure and sustainable access to critical raw materials.

Initially, the focus will be on the rare earth value chains, after which it will extend to other raw materials to drive Europe’s green and digital transitions.

So far only Norway has opened for commercial mining. The country has recently passed a law that will eventually allow production and is planning the first licensing round in the coming years.

The first area of exploration is likely to be the Mohn’s Ridge in the middle of the North Atlantic between Iceland and Svalbard.

Regulations currently state that it is only open for non-profit scientific work (academia). TGS filed a non-profit application via the University of Bergen in the summer of 2020 for testing 3D seismic on known sulphide deposits at the Loki’s Castle. The company received the permit application, but did not gain enough funding from a joint venture consisting of academia, government, mineral companies and oil companies. Currently a thorough environmental assessment is being carried out and, if allowed, a licensing round is indicated for 2023.

In 2018 and 2019, The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD) completed a successful three-week data acquisition expedition on the Mohn’s ridge, with

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mapping carried out using an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV), the Kongsberg Hugin.

Highly sophisticated methods and workflows for the subsurface mapping of oil and gas reservoirs can simply and effectively be utilized for marine mineral exploration with just minor adjustments in

data acquisition, processing and interpretation techniques.

This year NPD did shallow drill holes and sampled known, extinct sulphide complexes. It used coil tube drilling technology from a ship and many valuable samples and cores were brought on shore for further analysis. In one place they

report up to 12% copper and 3% cobalt, very rich ore just below the seafloor.

Countries in the Far East may be the first ones to follow Norway. Papua New Guinea almost allowed underwater mineral exploration company, Nautilus, to start production before environmental protests in Australia halted financing.

Global drilling to bounce back this year says Westwood

Westwood look at 2021 drilling prospects.

High impact exploration has weathered a perfect storm of a pandemic, an oil price crash and an accelerating energy transition but research from Westwood Global Energy Group shows a substantial drilling programme in 2021.

High-impact exploration started well in 2020 with the first quarter seeing the highest number of wells completed since Q4 2014 and commercial success rates above 30%.

The world changed in Q2 with the Covid-19 pandemic taking hold, seeing oil prices crash and exploration budgets slashed. In Q3 2020 just seven high impact wells completed, the lowest quarterly figure since Westwood’s records began in 2008.

The year closed with 72 high impact wells completed, down from 99 in 2019, but at a similar level to that seen between 2016 and 2018. Westwood estimates that ~17 bn boe was discovered from high impact exploration in 2020, down slightly from 2019 but still more than 2017 and 2018 put together. Discovered oil volumes were the highest for five years (6.8 bn bbl)

with 10 bn boe of gas also discovered.

Commercial success rates remained above 30%, more than double that of 2016.

The three largest discoveries of the year were all claimed by Rosneft in the Kara Sea and West Siberia, with Russia accounting for ~70% of the discovered volume, up from ~10-30% in 2017-2019.

Current projections for 2021 suggest that activity should at least match the 70 wells in 2020 with the potential to be higher and up to 100. Drilling plans are still fluid and will firm up in Q1.

Exploration hot spots for 2021 are mainly in the Americas, particularly offshore Mexico, the Suriname-Guyana Basin and offshore Brazil. Africa is expected to have another quiet year, with only a handful of high-impact wells being drilled. However, this does include the much-anticipated multi-billion-barrel Venus prospect in Namibia. Northwest Europe should see 10-15 high-impact wells drilled, a similar number to 2020.

An estimated ~26 bn boe is being tested by 76 wells that are considered FIRST

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‘probable’ in 2021, weighted 75:25 oil to gas. This drops to ~8 bn boe split 65:35 oil to gas when the chance of success is considered, reflecting the higher risk nature of some of the oil prospects being targeted. As in previous years, additional discoveries may be announced in countries where drilling plans are less transparent, especially in Russia and the Middle East.

Total, Shell and Exxon are expected to be the most active high impact explorers in 2021. Total has the widest geographic spread with wells possible in more than 10 countries. Shell is expected to have a focus in Mexico, although it is also planning two high impact wells in the UK and a frontier test in Sao Tome. Exxon is focused on just Brazil and Guyana, and CNOOC is focused on Guyana, Canada and Mexico. Previously active companies such as Repsol and Tullow have cut high impact drilling significantly in response to strategy changes.

Westwood has highlighted 20 ‘key wells to watch’ in 2020. Two are frontier basin tests which, if successful, could open multi-billion barrel-plays (Venus offshore Namibia, Perseverance offshore Bahamas).

Seven are testing new plays in proven basins, or testing extensions of proven plays in to deeper water that offer benefits of large volumes with follow on potential (e.g. Silverback in the Gulf of Mexico and Rencong in North Sumatra). Six are testing extensions to proven commercial deepwater plays with significant potential albeit at some risk (eg. Ondjaba offshore Angola, Bulletwood offshore Guyana, Nemo offshore Brazil). Five are large prospects in proven plays which will be high value if successful (eg Edinburgh block, offshore UK, and Dan Day offshore Vietnam).

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Eni and PTTP sign mega exploration deal in Abu Dhabi

Exploration Offshore Block 3 map. Source: Eni.

The Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc) has awarded exploration rights for Abu Dhabi’s Offshore Block 3 to a consortium led by Eni and Thailand company PTTEP. Dr Al Jaber, CEO, Adnoc, said: ‘Despite volatile market conditions, we are making very good progress in delivering Abu Dhabi’s second competitive block bid round, underscoring our world-class resource potential. We continue to welcome partners that share our vision to sustainably unlock value from our hydrocarbon resources.’

Eni will operate the exploration phase of the concession, and PTTEP and Eni will collectively hold a 100% stake in the exploration phase, investing up to $412 million towards exploration and appraisal drilling, including a participation fee, to explore for oil and gas in Offshore Block 3.

Following a commercial discovery, Eni and PTTEP will have the right to develop such commercial discoveries.

Adnoc has the option to hold a 60% stake in the production phase of the concession.

The term of the production phase is 35 years from the start of the exploration phase.

Offshore Block 3 covers an offshore area of 11,660 km2 northwest of Abu Dhabi city. New 3D seismic data has been acquired for a part of the block, which, combined with its proximity to the existing onshore oil and gas fields, suggests the concession area has great potential.

Eni and PTTEP will contribute financially and technically to ADNOC’s mega seismic survey, which is already acquiring seismic data within the block area. This world’s largest 3D seismic survey is cap-

turing high-resolution 3D images of the complex geology at ultra-deep locations below the surface.

In January 2019, a consortium led by Eni and PTTEP was awarded two offshore blocks in Abu Dhabi’s first competitive bid round. The consortium continues to explore for oil and gas in the blocks known as Offshore 1 and Offshore 2, northwest of Abu Dhabi city.

Claudio Descalzi said: ‘This award follows the one achieved by the same consortium in 2019 for offshore exploration Blocks 1 and 2 and strengthens our relationship with our valuable partner PPTEP. Offshore Block 3 represents a challenging opportunity that can unlock significant value thanks to exploration and appraisal of shallow and deep reservoirs.’

Adnoc launched Abu Dhabi’s second competitive block bid round in 2019, offering onshore and offshore blocks, on behalf of the SPC. Based on existing data from detailed petroleum system studies, seismic surveys, exploration and appraisal wells data, estimates suggest the blocks in this second bid round hold multiple billion barrels of oil and multiple trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

This award comes after the SPC announced the discovery of recoverable unconventional oil resources estimated at 22 billion stock tank barrels (STB) and an increase in conventional oil reserves of 2 billion STB which boosted the UAE’s conventional reserves to 107 billion STB. Adnoc has also recently awarded an onshore block to Occidental.

Total prepares seismic campaign offshore Egypt Total and Shell will need to carry out a 3D seismic acquisition campaign in the Mediterranean, offshore Egypt, after signing an exploration and production agreement for the North Ras Kanayis offshore block in the Herodotus basin.

A consortium led by Total (Total 35% operator, Shell 30%, KUFPEC

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25%, Tharwa 10%) and the Egyptian Natural Gas Holding company will shoot seismic over the block covering an underexplored area of 4550 km2, extending from 5 to 150 km from the shore, with water depths ranging from 50 to 3200 m.

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Kevin McLachlan, senior vice-president exploration at Total, said: ‘We are excited by the exploration potential of the North Ras Kanayis Offshore block.

It reinforces our presence in Egypt, following a gas discovery made in July 2020 with the Bashrush well on the North El Hammad licence.’

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Exploration round-up Eni has struck oil in the Meleiha Concession in the Western Desert of Egypt. The Arcadia 9 well was drilled on the Arcadia South structure 1.5 km south of the main Arcadia field already in production. The well encountered 85 ft of oil column in the Cretaceous sandstones of the Alam El Bueib 3G formation. Two development wells, Arcadia 10 and Arcadia 11, have since been drilled. The first encountered a 25 ft oil column and the second 80 ft, within the Alam El Bueib 3G formation. Arcadia 11 also encountered 20 ft of oil pay in the overlying Alam El Bueib 3D formation.

Eni holds a 38% interest in the Meleiha concession while Lukoil holds 12% and EGPC 50%.

Horizon has started drilling two infill wells in the Weizhou 6-12 fields of Block 22/12, Beibu Gulf, offshore China. The two-well infill drilling programme is targeting undeveloped reserves in the WZ612 area, including the WZ6-12-A11 well into the producing WZ6-12 North field, and the WZ6-12 A3S2 well into last year’s WZ6-12 M1 discovery. The two

wells will provide valuable reservoir data to determine production and reservoir performance in both the WZ6-12 N and WZ6-12 M1 oil pools. Participants are CNOOC (operator) 51%, Horizon Oil (Beibu) 26.95%, Roc Oil 19.60%, and Majuko Corp 2.45%.

Lundin is drilling wildcat well 16/413 S in production licence PL 359 about 6 km northwest of the discovery well 16/4-6 S on the Solveig field in the North Sea. ConocoPhillips wildcat well 6507/5-10 S, 23 km north of the Heidrun field in the Norwegian Sea and 220 km west of Brønnøysund, has proved petroleum in reservoir rocks from the Early Jurassic Age (Åre Formation) and Triassic Age (‘Grey Beds’). The well encountered an oil column of 270 m in the Åre Formation, a total of 90 m of which are sandstone layers with generally very good reservoir properties. The discovery is estimated at 12 and 32 million Sm3 of recoverable oil equivalent.

Extensive data acquisition was carried out.

Vista Oil and Gas has confirmed shale oil from two wells in the Bajada del Palo Oeste of the Vaca Muerta play in Argentina. The two wells confirm the potential of the Lower Carbonate landing zone of Vaca Muerta in Bajada del Palo Oesteas. The Lower Carbonate has an average total organic content of 5.2%, an average total porosity of 12.7% and an average water saturation of 26%. According to the geological model, this could add up to 150 new wells to our existing drilling inventory of 400 wells in Bajada del Palo Oeste.

Petronas and Exxon Mobil have discovered hydrocarbons in Suriname with the successful drilling of the Sloanea-1 exploration well located in Block 52. Block 52, which covers an area of 4749 km2, is located north of the coast of Paramaribo within the prospective Suriname-Guyana basin. The Sloanea-1 exploration well was drilled to a total depth of 4780 m, encountering several hydrocarbon-bearing sandstone packages with good reservoir qualities in the Campanian section.

Magseis Fairfield wins OBN contracts in North Sea and Gulf of Mexico Magseis Fairfield has won a contract from ConocoPhillips for permanent reservoir monitoring (PRM) and 4D OBN monitor surveys on the Norwegian continental shelf. The company has also been awarded a contract by ConocoPhillips for OBN services. Both contracts have a five-year duration, with options to extend for up to five years. The initial surveys are anticipated to start in the second quarter of 2021.

The company has also been awarded a deepwater Ocean Bottom Node (OBN) monitor survey in the US Gulf of Mexico. The survey is anticipated to start in Q1, 2021 and run for approx. three months.

The OBN study is for a repeat customer, with nodes to be deployed

Artemis Odyssey, a vessel deployed by Magseis Fairfield.

by ROV at 1000-1900 meters depth.

Magseis Fairfield will mobilize the ZXPLR1 crew for this data acquisition contract.

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INDUSTRY NEWS

BP relaunches sale of its North Sea fields

The platform in the North Sea. Source: BP.

BP has reportedly relaunched the sale of stakes in a number of North Sea oil fields it agreed to sell to Premier Oil before the company was taken over by Chrysaor last year.

In June 2020 Premier Oil signed sale and purchase agreement (SPAs) with BP for the acquisition of BP’s interests in the Andrew Area and its Shearwater assets.

Premier agreed to pay BP $210 million upon completion for the BP Acquisitions.

In addition, up to a further estimated $115 million would become payable by Premier

to BP based on higher future oil and gas prices. This further consideration was to have been funded from the revenues of the acquired assets.

BP was to retain 100% of the existing Shearwater abandonment costs and 50% of the existing Andrew Area abandonment costs resulting in an estimated $240 million (pre-tax) of abandonment obligations to be taken on by Premier.

However, the transaction was abandoned when Pemier was taken over by Chrysaor in October 2020.

Lion nears delivery of 2D data for offshore Indonesia survey Lion Energy is finalizing processing and interpretation of a 664 km of high-resolution 2D data survey acquired late last year offshore Seram Island, Indonesia, in the East Seram Production Sharing Contract (PSC).

Once processing is completed next month Lion will have met its commitment obligations in the East Seram (PSC). ‘The data is being processed in Jakarta and overseen by experts engaged

by Lion,’ the company stated.

The survey was designed to investigate some large leads on the offshore Kobi area with areal closure up to

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30 km2 and also the potential extension of the 20 mmbbl Bula oil field and other leads in Bula Bay area. Interpretation of the data is expected to be finalized in Q2, 2021.

Concurrently, Lion continues to plan for an approximate 200 km onshore survey targeting large onshore gas and oil leads.

Lion has a 60% interest and operatorship of the East Seram PSC. Lion’s cost of the survey is largely covered under the farm-in arrangement with OPIC East Seram Corporation which holds a 40% interest.

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TGS warns of $90 million impairment in its data library value TGS is expecting net segment revenues for the fourth quarter of 2020 to be approx. $118 million and will book a no-cash impairment of up to $90 million on the value of its multi-client library.

Ahead of the company’s results presentation on 11 February, Kristian Johansen, CEO at TGS, said: ‘As expected, we saw a seasonal uptick in the activity level during Q4 and we are pleased to report a 61% sequential growth in late sales. While we continue to see signs of a gradual improvement, partly driven by a higher oil price, we remain cautious about the speed of recovery, with only modest changes to E&P spending expected for 2021.

‘As a result of lower long-term oil price assumptions, most of our largest clients have announced significant impairments and exploration writeoffs during the past year. Lower oil price assumptions, capital constraints and more focused exploration strategies are expected to cause longer payback times for certain multi-client surveys, particularly in frontier areas with a lack of infrastructure and/ or exposure to recent geopolitical changes. As a result, TGS is carrying out a thorough assessment of the accounting value of its library.

While the review is still continuing, the preliminary assessment indicates a non-cash impairment of between $70 and $90 million in Q4 2020.

‘With our efficient cost structure and strong balance sheet, with close to $200 million in cash, TGS is well positioned to continue combining dividend payments with sound strategic investments, further enhancing our position as the world’s leading subsurface data company.’

NEWS FEATURE

Sierra Leone, the under-explored conjugate Ben Sayers1*, David Contreras1 and Ahmed Tejan Bah2 offer an overview of the oil and gas prospectivity of Sierra Leone, potentially the next big African exploration hotspot.

Introduction Sierra Leone is a West African country situated between the Republic of Guinea and the Republic of Liberia. The country has approximately 8 million people who speak the national language of English, although many local dialects derived from a tribal past are still spoken. The country has a dense tropical rainforest and wetland environment making it a host to a great diversity of flora and fauna, as well as sandy white beaches. The country was originally named Serra Leoa, which is Portuguese for ‘Lioness Mountains’, referring to the Lion Mountains near the capital of Freetown.

Following a study in 2016, about 12% of the population of Sierra Leone had access to electricity, of that 12%, 10% was in the capital Freetown, from the remaining 90% of the country, which equates to 7.2 million people, only 2% have access to grid-fed electricity (Energy Africa Access, 2018). With these low figures Sierra Leone is placed at 183 out of 187 in the development index, creating a real need for resources to be discovered, harnessed and distributed. This article will provide a positive view on the future for Sierra Leone from a hydrocarbon perspective.

An article a decade ago stated: ‘Following the recent major discoveries in West Africa, a new focus has been placed on the conjugate margin in northern Brazil, where over the entire 2200 km margin only 20 wells have been drilled in water depths

greater than 500 m. Using the analogy from equatorial African discoveries, it appears that the highest potential may be in the deep waters on the slope and continental rise of the Brazilian margin.’ (GeoExpro, 2011) Fast-forwarding to 2021, we are now looking for the discoveries along the northern South American coastline to see where the highest potential could lie in West Africa. Sierra Leone, which has more than 400 km of Atlantic coastline can be tectonically-reconstructed back to fit with the Guyana Basin.

Obviously, the exploration success in that region has led to truly world class oil discoveries (9 Bbbls at the date of publication, but with ever-growing satellite discoveries could be as large as 15 Bbbls), which should be waiting in their eastern twin in Africa.

ExxonMobil in Guyana has achieved great success, and Suriname is also surprising the oil industry with four recent similar discoveries by Apache and Petronas. However, French Guiana had the maiden discovery in the Zaedyus well before Guyana and Suriname, with recoverable resources estimated of 250 mmbbls.

The organic-rich source rocks that charge the Liza field complex (producing 120,000 bopd) and the surrounding discoveries from the Canje Formation (Late Cretaceous) were deposited at the same time as the similar source rocks that charge the Sierra Leonean discoveries of Venus and Jupiter (drilled by Anadarko in the

Figure 1 PSTM image showing the Venus noncommercial discovery (2009) drilled in 1800 m of water.

1

2 TGS xxx | Geophysical xxx Company (UK) | 2 Petroleum Directorate SIerra Leone

*

Corresponding author, E-mail: ben.sayers@tgs.com xxxx

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NEWS FEATURE

early part of the last decade). These source rocks were deposited in this unique environment created after the rifting of the two continents. Further to the south in the West African margin, in Republic of Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, the same age source rocks are deemed responsible for the sourcing of oil in several discoveries, among which Jubilee is the most important (producing 82,000 bopd in 2020).

The same successful petroleum system seems to be present along the entire South American margin of the Equatorial Atlantic Ocean. Interpretation of recently acquired high-resolution seismic data in the Foz do Amazonas and Pará-Maranhão Basins in northern Brazil indicates that the potential for the replication of the success in the neighbouring countries is highly likely. Tens of prospects of stratigraphic traps encompassing slope submarine fans and channels of Late Cretaceous age were mapped and their dimensions are greater than those in Guyana and Suriname.

Previous exploration in Sierra Leone Sierra Leone has a mature mining industry with extraction in minerals which include diamonds, bauxite, gold, iron ore, platinum, zircon plus other heavy minerals, but the tectonic and thermal regimes that produce these precious mineral resources in the onshore realm also provide the perfect environments for promising petroleum potential.

Offshore exploration started in the 1980s with wells drilled

by Amoco and Mobil finding oil shows in the shallow water. The first-deep water wells drilled from 2009 onwards resulted in the discoveries of Venus (Figure 1), Jupiter and Mercury. These wells targeted Late Cretaceous fan systems that had class II/III AVO anomalies and proved that all petroleum system elements were in place and the thermal regime was suited for oil generation at the critical moments. The oils recovered to surface were described as ‘light sweet crude oil with a gravity of between 34° and 42° API’ (Reuters, 2010) with a secondary target of the Mercury well recovering 24° heavier crude in a shallower reservoir (Tullow Press Release, 2010). Though these recent discoveries were non-commercial the initial early positive confirmation are great

indicators of what lies in wait. The first commercial well in the conjugate Guyana Basin was the 23rd well drilled in the basin, so with only eight wells having been drilled offshore Sierra Leone so far, there is already more positivity despite the sparsity of the drilling with only one of the eight previous wells coming up dry.

Geological history The pre-rift consists of faulting of the Palaeozoic to Jurassic strata with associated volcanics.

From late Jurassic to early Cretaceous period there was active rifting, coincident with tectonic subsidence of the stretched continental crust. This created extensional faulting and continental siliciclastic deposition took place in the resultant grabens. From the Aptian to Turonian, the fluvial and lacustrine environment progressed to a shallow marine environment as the Sierra Leone Basin was finally separated from its conjugate the Guyana Basin; the beginning of the passive margin phase.

Significant amounts of alluvial, fluvial and lacustrine sediments were deposited, and shallow marine incursions flooded the more subsided parts of the rifted terrain in the mid-Albian time.

Immediately after the onset of seafloor spreading, the marine realm transgressed and drowned the inner shelf and slope. The continued seafloor expansion developed oceanward, deepening with rotation of the rifted fault blocks and a full deep marine depositional environment established itself on the new crust in the proto-Atlantic basin.

Recent changes At the end of 2020 TGS entered into a long-term collaboration with the Petroleum Directorate of Sierra Leone (PDSL), which under the new direction of Foday Mansaray has the ambition to bring commercial hydrocarbon industry success to its nation.

The new partnership enables TGS to be able to work closely with the in-country experts from the PDSL and review the previous exploration data holistically, while bringing in TGS’ additional knowledge from complementary datasets in the neighbouring basins and on the conjugate margin (as shown in Figure 2). By

Figure 2 Main map shows the data that TGS is marketing in West Africa, with the inset map showing the conjugate database

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Figure 3 2D PSTM seismic data indicating untested potential in the northern domain of the Sierra Leone basin in particular in the syn-rift section

Figure 4 Undrilled basin floor fans many times bigger than the sub-commercial proven up dip siblings.

The saddle structure provides the up dip disconnect limiting the up dip migration of hydrocarbons to further charge the Savannah and Venus discoveries and retaining the oil in the deep

working both sides of this prolific margin, TGS is well placed to help the PDSL reach its aim of delivering a commercial discovery. The new collaboration is multifaceted and puts in place a long-term strategy for reprocessing and refreshing legacy datasets, alongside acquisition of new data. Interpretation of the legacy datasets in Sierra Leone and coupling with surrounding datasets in appropriate basins highlights that additional information is key to advancing the subsurface understanding. More modern datasets will be able to enhance the imaging around the known plays while illuminating the future untested plays.

The PDSL Sierra Leone was one of the only countries in 2020 that concluded a licensing round and successfully awarded acreage. The awardees were small players with huge ambition: Cluff Energy and Innoson Oil and Gas. The ability of the PDSL to cope with the disruption of the world economic markets during the global pandemic that halted and delayed many other activities, is a testament to the professionalism and reliable investment climate that the PDSL has created and it is keen to grow with stability. Part of this approach has been

through the adoption of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), which creates a transparent, and fair investment platform that is publicly visible (https://eiti.org/sierra-leone).

After a block re-demarcation in 2018, the PDSL now has a series of smaller blocks that align with the ECOWAS northsouth grid system which can be seen in Figure 2. Each block is approximately 1300 km2 though multiple blocks can be amalgamated to enable larger acreage positions to be taken by the bigger explorers. After the successful conclusion of the last bid round, the country has now moved into a direct tender approach enabling the open access to acreage. By comingling the flexible block system with the direct approach, the PDSL has shown its willingness to adapt to the challenging environments and encourage exploration in the region. The attractive fiscal regime also helps, with independent fiscal economic modelling from Ventura International Energy detailing the break-even price to be approximately $50/bbl for a commercial discovery in the deep-water environment, placing the country firmly in the attractive zone when compared with other African countries.

The latest oil price rally of the last months of 2020 and early FIRST

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Figure 5 3D PSTM seismic example indicating untested potential of the perched basins in the syn-rift. In the postrift basin floor fans and deep-water channels are the main reservoir. Numerous paleao-pockmarks are evidenced along with the BSR in the shallower section

days of 2021 bodes well for the attractive opportunity offshore Sierra Leone in the near-term.

The total offshore area of Sierra Leone covers approximately 170,000 km2, with 140,000 km2 of offshore open acreage available, creating a lot of potential for future investment in the country.

What comes next?

So far there have been eight wells to test the deepwater setting in the continental slope. All have been submarine fan systems with prominent AVO anomalies. There is further evidence to suggest that there are also completely untested opportunities for commercial discoveries in the basin floor as well as in the more proximal northern domain of the Sierra Leone basin.

Moving down-dip ‘Go deeper’ has been the mantra of the industry over the last decade and technical drilling capabilities have progressed so much that water depths of 4000 m are now in sight (Total’s Venus and Ondjaba wells in Namibia and Angola are planned and ready for 2021 drilling). This opens up the basin floor domain in the Sierra Leone offshore, where larger lobate sand bodies are more distal, providing better sorted reservoirs, with greater connectivity and ultimately larger spatial areas. They constitute the real prize for chasing the proven plays into deeper water (Figure 4).

New Plays Up-Dip In Figure 3 we can see a series of tilted fault blocks with high amplitude, high-frequency banding, indicative of clastic sediments that were deposited in the pre-rift environment before they were faulted and rotated during the mid-Albian continental break-up.

The stark unconformity eroded the tops of these fault blocks and provided a thick sealing shale layer that forms the perfect top seal for these rotated traps, providing confidence that they were faulted and rotated during the mid-Albian continental break-up. This thick top seal is comprised of the Apto-Albian and Turonian world-class source rocks that have both been tested in the previous exploration campaigns and have been prolific in the nearby production in the Ivorian and Tano basins (i.e., Jubilee field, 82,000 bpd in 2020, proven reserves 3 Bbbls, source: Tullow).

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Another example of an unexplored play concept can be found in the perched basins, as depicted in Figure 5. These formed during the transpressional events during the rifting and micro plate rotations. The perched basins are bounded by the outer high that in places controls the formation of structural traps. The water depth ranges are favourable for drilling with the deepest perched basins sitting in approximately 2400 m of water with a series of different trap types. The syn-rift contains many structural traps, and the erosion of these sediments indicates sea-level fall, thus allowing for deposition of shallower water sand-prone sediments within the perched rift basin. Examples of these shallower water sediments include braided channels and fan systems within stratigraphic pinch-out traps. The presence of progrades up-dip also implies that sand-prone fan systems are present in this perched rift basin.

Future is bright There are many opportunities to develop new and exciting prospects within the northern area of the Sierra Leone basin that differ from the proven system in the south. Considering also the potential waiting down-dip, Sierra Leone has all of the subsurface requirements to be the next big African exploration hotspot - especially when the new stable and transparent above ground investment environment is fully factored in. Access to acreage, good fiscal conditions, transparent and stable government, a positive investment environment, good quality data with reprocessing and new data on the agenda, plus the world-leading conjugate discoveries, all indicate that Sierra Leone should soon join the exclusive club of African oil-producing nations. ‘Unity, Freedom and Justice’ is emblazoned on the country’s coat of arms, but these three words also spell a great investment opportunity to those that look into the subsurface.

References https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5aec17b7ed915d42f7c6beab/Energy_Africa_Access_Campaign_-_Policy_Compact_ Sierra_Leone_Final_Report.pdf https://eiti.org/sierra-leone https://cn.reuters.com/article/ozabs-anadarko-20101115-idAFJOE6AE05P20101115 https://www.tullowoil.com/our-operations/africa/ghana/jubilee-field/

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Special Topic

RESERVOIR MONITORING Reservoir monitoring is crucial to the future of the industry as energy companies respond to the challenge of optimizing their fields while their infrastructure is still operational.

This need has been accentuated by the global pandemic, which has delayed the exploration plans of super majors and cut their budgets. Techniques include lifeof-field seismic surveillance, distributed acoustic sensing, time lapse 4D monitoring and gravimetric monitoring. Ocean bottom seismic techniques are continuing to evolve fast as are applications for monitor ever-increasing number of CO2 storage projects.

Donald W. Vasco et al present a technique featuring two recent time-lapse geophysical monitoring applications.

Mirza Naseer Ahmad and Sabrina Sultana propose an effective workflow to help to differentiate gas sands from other lithologies of similar rock physics properties by using spectral decomposition.

Zeinab Movahedzadeh et et al demonstrate how the Aquistore research programme is developing methods to monitor the security and subsurface distribution of the injected CO2.

Garth Naldrett explains why Distributed Acoustic Sensing offers new opportunities for VSP measurements, especially where the efficiency of measurements on a permanently installed cable makes borehole acquisition viable.

Leo Eisner et al investigate the origin of seismicity at a site and show that seismicity has been occurring over 13 years.

Patrick Smith et al present time-lapse seismic processing technology on the Njord field, offshore Norway that has generated opportunities to extract additional information from older data sets that may be very important for future production.

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

Modelling / Interpretation

April

Digital Transformation in Geoscience

May

Global Exploration Hotspots

June

Delivering for the Energy Challenge: Today and Tomorrow

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 via EAGE’s ScholarOne website: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/fb

July

Unconventionals and Geochemistry

August

Near Surface Geo Mining

September

Reservoir Characterization

October

Geoscience & Engineering in the Energy Transition

November

Marine Seismic & EM

December

Data Management and 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 1-3 MARCH

EAGE GeoTech 2021 First EAGE Geophysical Monitoring Technology Conference and Exhibition

Online www.eage.org

February 2021 2, 17 & 18 Feb

EAGE Global Hotspot Series: Algeria and Southern Africa www.eage.org

Online

15 Feb

Active integration of sub-surface data: Building the bridge from Geophysics to Well and Reservoir Management www.eage.org

Online

22-24 Feb

First EAGE Workshop on Optimizing Project Turnaround Performance www.eage.org

Online

1‑3 Mar

EAGE GeoTech 2021 First EAGE Geophysical Monitoring Technology Conference and Exhibition www.eage.org

Online

8-10 Mar

Second EAGE Workshop on Machine Learning www.eage.org

Online

14‑18 Mar

SAGEEP 2021 www.sageep.org

Online

22‑26 Mar

Tyumen 2021 www.eage.org

Tyumen

23 Mar 1 Apr

IPTC 2021 2021.iptcnet.org

Online

30-31 Mar

First EAGE Workshop on Borehole Geology in Asia Pacific www.eage.org

Perth and online

30 Mar 1 Apr

Fifth EAGE Eastern Africa Petroleum Geoscience Forum www.eage.org

Online

EAGE Online Event on Hydrocarbon Prospectivity of the Northern Emirates www.eage.org

Online

March 2021

April 2021 6 Apr

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Russia

Australia

CALENDAR

12‑14 Apr

EAGE Workshop on Quantifying Uncertainty in Depth Imaging www.eage.org

Online

19‑22 Apr

IOR 2021 www.eage.org

Vienna and online

19‑23 Apr

EAGE Asia Pacific Virtual Geoscience Week www.eage.org

Online

19-30 Apr

vEGU General Assembly 2021 www.egu21.eu

Online

26‑30 Apr

Engineering and Mining Geophysics 2021 www.eage.org

Gelendzhik and online

Russia

26‑30 Apr

Marine Technologies 2021 www.eage.org

Gelendzhik and online

Russia

26‑30 Apr

Engineering and Mining Geology 2021 www.eage.org

Gelendzhik and online

Russia

4‑6 May

Fifth AAPG/EAGE Myanmar Oil & Gas Conference www.eage.org

Yangon

Myanmar

10‑12 May

Second EAGE Workshop on Underground Storage of Hydrogen www.eage.org

Amsterdam

Netherlands

24‑28 May

Horizontal Wells 2021 www.eage.org

Astrakhan

Russia

26- 28 May

First EAGE Digital Subsurface Conference in Latin America www.eage.org

Online

13 Jun

Third Young Professionals Summit yp-summit.org

Amsterdam

Netherlands

14-17 Jun

82 nd EAGE Conference & Exhibition www.eageannual2021.org

Amsterdam

Netherlands

4‑9 Jul

Goldschmidt 2021

Lyon and online

France

27-29 Jul

First EAGE Guyana Basins Conference www.eage.org

Georgetown

Guyana

Austria

May 2021

June 2021

July 2021

August 2021 11-12 Aug

AAPG/EAGE Joint Workshop on High CO2, High Contaminant Challenging Fields and Alternative Energy www.eage.org

Ipoh, Perak

Malaysia

29 Aug ‑ 2 Sep

Near Surface Geoscience Conference & Exhibition 2021 www.nsg2021.org

Bordeaux

France

September 2021 6‑8 Sep

Fifth EAGE Workshop on High Performance Computing for Upstream www.eage.org

Milan and online

Italy

12-17 Sep

30 th International Meeting on Organic Geochemistry (IMOG 2021) www.imog2021.org

Montpellier

France

October 2021 4‑7 Oct

14th Middle East Geosciences Conference & Exhibition (GEO2021) www.geo-expo.com

Manama

Bahrain

18‑21 Oct

Second EAGE Digitalization Conference and Exhibition www.eage.org

Vienna

Austria

EAGE Events

Non-EAGE Events

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