First Break January 2021 - Land Seismic

VO L U M E 3 9 I I S S U E 1 I J A N U A R Y 2 0 21

SPECIAL TOPIC

Land Seismic EAGE NEWS Annual conference strikes optimistic note TECHNICAL ARTICLE Brittleness computation from rock moduli without density CROSSTALK What climate change mitigation has in store

Multiphysics 3D modeling delineates most prospective geothermal reservoir zone.

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FIRST BREAK® An EAGE Publication

CHAIRMAN EDITORIAL BOARD Peter Rowbotham (Peter.Rowbotham@apachecorp.com) EDITOR Damian Arnold (editorfb@eage.org) MEMBERS, EDITORIAL BOARD • Paul Binns, consultant (pebinns@btinternet.com) • Satinder Chopra, SamiGeo (satinder.chopra@samigeo.com) • Anthony Day, PGS (anthony.day@pgs.com) • Peter Dromgoole, Equinor UK (pdrum@equinor.com) • Rutger Gras, G.R.I.D. Advice (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) MEDIA PRODUCTION Saskia Nota (sna@eage.org) ACCOUNT MANAGER ADVERTISING Peter Leitner (plr@eage.org) PRODUCTION Saskia Nota (firstbreakproduction@eage.org) Ivana Geurts (firstbreakproduction@eage.org) EAGE EUROPE OFFICE PO Box 59 3990 DB Houten The Netherlands • +31 88 995 5055 • eage@eage.org • www.eage.org EAGE RUSSIA & CIS OFFICE EAGE Russia & CIS Office EAGE Geomodel LLC 19 Leninsky Prospekt 119071, Moscow, Russia • +7 495 640 2008 • moscow@eage.org • www.eage.ru EAGE MIDDLE EAST OFFICE EAGE Middle East FZ-LLC Dubai Knowledge Village Block 13 Office F-25 PO Box 501711 Dubai, United Arab Emirates • +971 4 369 3897 • middle_east@eage.org • www.eage.org EAGE ASIA PACIFIC OFFICE UOA Centre Office Suite 19-15-3A No. 19, Jalan Pinang 50450 Kuala Lumpur Malaysia • +60 3 272 201 40 • asiapacific@eage.org • www.eage.org EAGE 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

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Western sector of Pedemales salt flat

Editorial Contents 3

EAGE News

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Crosstalk

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Industry News

Feature: Minus CO2 Challange 2020

37 University finalists go head to head for the EAGE Minus CO2 Challenge 2020 Carla Oliveira dos Santos, Mahdi Bakhtbidar and Marco Aurélio Gemaque Cantuaria

Technical Article

39 Brittleness computation from rock moduli without density Gözde Venedik and Hüseyin Özdemir

Special Topic: Land Seismic

53 Pedernales Salt Flat, III Region, Atacama, Chile, an exploration target for hydrocarbons?

Hugo Vieytes 61 Quantum nodal system – Asse 3D survey success story Jerzy Trela, Victor Massaka, Piotr Pot˛ epa, Filiz Bilgili, Grit Gärtner and Lutz Teichmann 69 A large-scale study of the reliability of land nodal seismic recording systems

Tim Dean, Matt Grant, Richard Barnwell and Damien Barry 75 WSGF — Time for change part 2: Forces and energies acting on the seismic source and earth systems

Spencer L. Rowse 85 Optimization of 3D seismic data acquisition operations in South Urziceni, Romania

Andrew Clark, Robert Gruenwald, Emery Hauser and Delia Lazar 91 Single-sensor acquisition without data jitter: a comparative sensor study

Nicolas Tellier, Stéphane Laroche, Han Wang and Philippe Herrmann 101 Shallow velocity modelling – the application of high-resolution Full Tensor Gravity Gradiometry data and seismic tomography: a Permian Basin case study

S. Payton and G. Jorgensen

Feature: Whatsup!

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New Year’s Resolutions Peter Rowbotham

110 Calendar

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

cover: Moving land seismic equipment in the Saudi Arabian desert.

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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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Paper submissions due for 2021 conferences

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Photo Contest entries wanted

Local Chapters keep active during Covid

EAGE2020 delivers an optimistic ending to the year It was against the backdrop of a global health pandemic and subsequent downturn in the oil and gas industry that EAGE held its first ever online Annual event this past December.

to foster good discussion and the exchange of ideas amongst an eager geoscience community. In keeping with tradition, the conference centred around a robust technical programme featuring over 500

A forum session underway.

The meeting was previously rescheduled as an in-person gathering in December.

When that turned out to be too much of a risk the eventual decision was to switch to an online format. This uncertainty and disruption kind of echoed the challenges being faced by members of the Association’s, caught up in an industry already facing long term concerns due to the demands for energy transition and climate change mitigation.

In spite of the logistic challenge of delivering a full technical programme with simultaneous presentations, the Annual Meeting proved successful in being able

presentations. Many of the innovative presentations reflected the growing focus towards improving efficiency and value driven production. At the same time, a growing number of presentations in geothermal and CCUS reflected the opportunities for geoscientists in new business areas.

The virtual format also saw the reimagining of some aspects of the conference.

The usually busy exhibition floor was replaced with a virtual business space and a dedicated BizTalk presentation schedule.

The Virtual Community Hub also offered a varied programme with opportunities FIRST

for networking, education, career development and student activities. Meanwhile, the newly created Hot Topic rooms also created a space for robust discussions with a technical focus on key topics such as FWI and Rock Physics.

The Opening Session also proved to be a highlight of the conference. The hour-long programme started off with an interview with the EAGE Board in which President Everhard Muyzert stressed the importance of becoming an “association for all people with professional interests in geoscience problems that have an engineering aspect”.

This was followed by the Crosstalk Conversations, hosted by EAGE Editor Emeritus Andrew McBarnet and featured many businesses and thought leaders in the industry including: Jon Erik Reinhardsen (Equinor), Sophie Zurquiyah (CGG), Jarand Rystad (Rystad Energy), Marc Gerrits (Shell), Scott W. Tinker (Switch Energy Alliance) and Joseba Murillas (Repsol). The segment managed to deliver an optimistic message in its exploration of the future for geoscience business and technology. The discussion reflected on the challenges of ensuring energy security and equity while balancing environmental sustainability and minimizing the impacts of all forms of energy. Marc Gerrits also reminded the geoscience community that as ‘the custodian of technical excellence in the subsurface’

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EAGE NEWS

it had a critical role to play in a cleaner energy future.

The final day of the conference was fittingly capped off by the Forum Discussion on the ‘New Era of Geoscience’.

The panel contributors all identified opportunities for geoscientists outside the oil and gas industry as the energy transition gains pace. But it was recognised that the idea of a traditional geoscience career may have to give way to a more flexible and multi-disciplined strategy.

Whether schools and universities were catering for this eventuality was also a

moot point. During the discussion, Ellie Ardakani (Meta Innovation Technologies) reminded the audience of the importance of diversity and global recruitment as the best commercial strategy to ensure that all available talent is afforded a place at the table as we seek to solve some of the major challenges ahead.

Reflecting further on the success of the event, Everhard said: ‘2020 has been a challenging year for all of us. The EAGE year concluded with a very busy and successful week with our largest events held both online: the Near Surface Geoscience and

the Annual conferences. Both events were a great success. I have seen some good quality presentations and participated in many lively technical and panel discussions. I must thank all our participants, speakers, panellists, chairs, exhibitors, sponsors and staff for all their contributions. While I look forward to meeting you in-person in 2021, the past year’s online experience has left a very good impression on me.’

The EAGE2020 Annual Conference Online was sponsored by: Shearwater, Schlumberger, Equinor, Sharp Reflections, TGS, Total, Chevron and Thermo Fisher.

Global community was present at NSG 2020 online conference

Opening session.

The week of 7-11 December will always be remembered as the week in which EAGE delivered its two flagship conferences more or less simultaneously. Both were of course online as a result of the Covid-19 restrictions.

Starting the week was the annual Near Surface Conference & Exhibition, combining three parallel conference programmes: the 26th European Meeting of Environmental and Engineering Geophysics, the 4th Applied Shallow Marine Geophysics Conference and the 3rd Conference on Geophysics for Mineral Exploration and Mining.

Building on the earlier experience with online conferences such as ECMOR (14-17 September) and GET 2020 (16-18 November 2020) the big Near Surface meeting was organized through pre-recorded presenta4

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tions, allowing delegates to engage with material before and after the conference.

Doing so, sessions included faster paced presentation pitches followed by extended Q&A. The Technical Programme proved to be the engine behind the NSG conference, including 150 presentations encompassing traditional and emerging topics and technologies, including environmental and engineering geophysics; mineral exploration and mining; groundwater and archaeological studies; modelling, inversion and data processing; together with methods, applications and new developments.

In addition to the varied programme, an assortment of additional activities was added to the online meeting, including a virtual exhibition where delegates explored the technologies, services and innovations

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offered by international companies and organizations. Despite the move to online, it was still an opportunity to network with peers in the industry and make new contacts.

Furthermore, a well-rounded opening and closing ceremony marked opportunities for the full community to gather, as well as the inclusion of the EAGE Happy Hour, during which delegates could take a bit of a break from the hard work that online conferencing is!

The online conference had some happy unintended consequences. It allowed the core NSG community in the EAGE membership to reconvene. But also, with no need to travel and with access at the click of a button, online provided an opportunity to welcome delegates and contributions usually not present at NSG conferences. These included a series of strong interventions from KEGS (Canada) and SAGA (South Africa). We want to thank our first time attendees for joining the conference - hopefully, it’s the start of a new tradition for you!

We look back at a positive online NSG Conference & Exhibition - something which was only possible through the support of our committees, volunteers, speakers and companies. We in particular want to thank those companies sponsoring the event: Equinor, BP and Applied Acoustic.

We hope to see you again later this year, this time hopefully in person in Bordeaux for NSG 2021.

NO MORE SEPARATION ANXIETY

DUG DEBLEND

Blended surveys provide a number of operational and technical advantages. In the OBN example pictured above, three triplesource vessels were firing within 15 km of each other. Such overlapping shots must first be separated to permit subsequent processing. DUG Deblend is our inversion-based solution which can reconstruct shots as if they had been acquired separately.

It generalises to a wide range of scenarios and can also simultaneously deblend seismic interference, which is simply an unintended form of blended acquisition. With DUG Deblend, there is no more separation anxiety.

(Data courtesy of AGS and TGS)

EAGE NEWS

Hurry up with submission of papers for Amsterdam 2021

It’s already been a long road to Amsterdam. But next June we should finally be holding the EAGE Annual Conference

& Exhibition in the Dutch capital, a year after originally planned because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The first order of business is to ensure you have submitted your extended abstract for consideration as an oral or poster presentation to be included in the 2021 EAGE Annual Conference Technical Programme. Time is running out as the submission deadline is 15 January 2021, 23:59 CET. Please refer to www.eageannual2021.org to find out more about the submission process and instructions, or contact us at abstracts@eage.org.

We realize that some of the 2020 Technical Programme presentations were

included in the Annual Online event which took place in December, but we are still welcoming submissions for this coming year to be added to already accepted abstracts where authors chose to wait until in person presentation was possible.

As ever, the conference is designed to cover research and practice in a wide variety of disciplines including geophysics, geology, mining and civil engineering, computer science, HSE and sustainability. In addition to the Technical Programme, we also have on the agenda a series of dedicated sessions tackling hot topics in the industry.

Get your abstracts in for Near Surface Geoscience 2021 This year’s Near Surface Geoscience Conference & Exhibition is to be held from 29 August to 2 September, for the first time in Bordeaux, South Western France recognized worldwide for its fine wine.

The main focus will be on the 27th European Meeting of Environmental and Engineering Geophysics where we continue to cover a wide array of topics related to the near surface field, from the applications of geophysics to the emergence of new technologies and research trends.

The 2nd Conference on Geophysics for Infrastructure Planning, Monitoring and BIM (Building Information Modelling) will be an added attraction following its inaugural success in 2019, Here researchers and professionals can share geophysical innovation and technologies aimed at providing solutions for the challenges of the urban infrastructure life cycle.

This year we are also introducing the 1st Conference on Hydrogeophysics, an important sub-discipline in hydrogeology and ecohydrology that has emerged over 6

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NSG 2021 will cover a wide array of topics related to the near surface field.

the last three decades. This conference aims to become a platform to present and discuss state-of-art research and advances on water resources management, remediation, natural and anthropogenic hazards as well shallow geothermal energy.

Without a doubt, the main conference and the two parallel meetings cover topics that are of societal relevance for the whole world and our near surface

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geoscience community. We look forward to a fruitful exchange among academia, research institutions, governmental organizations, service and engineering companies and end-users. If you want to be part of the technical programme this year, submit an abstract before 15 April 2021. More details on the topics of each conference and submission guideline can be found on www.NSG2021.org.

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EAGE NEWS

Data science on agenda at first online regional conference in Russia & CIS Boris Belozerov (Gazpromneft NTC), chair of the meeting, reports on the First EAGE regional conference in Russia & CIS on data science in the oil and gas industry that took place on 19-20 October as an online event.

Participants in discussion.

This first conference focused on the main aspects of data analysis from the practical issues of machine learning application during exploration and extraction to the concerns of creating functional platforms for data analysis. The main distinguishing quality of the event was the focus on the practical aspect. We were able to learn how certain pieces of advanced intelligent data analysis technology can already work and bring results.

In session ‘Applications and Use Cases of Machine Learning’, Andrei Koziaev (RN-KrasnoyarskNIPIneft) showed how machine learning tools are used in complex geological sections of Eastern Siberia. Alexander Butorin (Gazpromneft NTC) demonstrated how the application of random forest technology, comparatively simple in its execution, can be used for interpreting the results of wavefield inversion. A huge spark of interest was produced by a report from Vladimir Bulaev (NPF Geofizika) on the use of neural networks for compression of geophysical data.

There were not many accounts showcasing the practical tools of unconventional geological modelling. Our next conference will pay more attention to this, because the value lies precisely in correlating all data in the early stages of field exploration into some coherent, 8

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geologically grounded field models - this is one of the most important challenges in front of us and the industry as a whole.

The extended keynote by Sabine Klarner touched upon a wide range of topics and showed how important it is to approach the choice of data analysis tools reasonably and cautiously.

Machine learning tools are not always more effective than traditional methods.

Most importantly, it is necessary to pay attention to the data that we use and take into account the representativeness, quantity and the models that we use for the final analysis.

The papers presented in the session ‘Automation, Robotics for E&P’ revealed a wide spectrum of automation applications. We all see that there is a process (it has already begun) of transferring data storage and processing to cloud systems, although in the oil and gas industry it is

City of Novosibirsk will host the 2021 conference.

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difficult due to the fact that often the data is proprietary with security involved.

The second challenge is the development of the application of machine learning methods for automated interpretation and correlation. This will allow automating all these processes, speeding them up, accelerating decision-making, and eliminating the human factor.

The third direction of research development is building digital twins. There is a lot of talk about this, but it is not always clear what this is, i.e., in the form of interaction of some objects, in the form of processes, or the interaction of these processes with other processes.

Of interest is that complex 3D models are being built, for example, of the geological environment, and on a large scale at the field level, and at the level of regions, which includes the so-called multi-physics approach. At the same time, insufficient attention is focused on how these models are validated and how they reflect reality. Nevertheless, such systems are being built and even applied.

During the session ‘Data analytics and machine learning’, several interesting algorithms for solving specific problems were presented. Of note were the presentations on the application of Bayesian algorithms (Petr Andriushchenko, ITMO University), a very interesting algorithm for comparing seismograms (Antonina Arefina, Gazprom Neft), comparison of

EAGE NEWS

algorithms for predicting thermal conductivity (Anuar Shakirov, Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology), predictions of explosive disjunctions based on potential fields using neural networks, GIS clustering, and the use of stochastic methods for petrophysical modelling.

When we look at what is being done in the industry and what is being done in Russia, we are only starting to move from the process of studying and getting to know machine learning tools to systematizing and creating the correct generalized picture of methods, tools and architectures of certain applied things in intelligent analysis. We are heading towards compli-

cation and the creation of a hierarchical classification system that would allow the transition from ‘narrow’, applied artificial intelligence to a broader, more versatile AI that can analyze metadata about the task and about data types and select the most optimal network architectures.

The value from all this is an increase in quality, and, probably, the ability to integrate more data, reducing risks and uncertainties. We are introducing within the wide community of the universities we work with, among our young specialists, the idea that, in general, the paradigm of competencies of a modern petroleum engineer or an exploration

engineer is changing dramatically. Data mining tools, modern programming languages, frameworks that allow you to make better mining tools are becoming a reality. This is a competence that should become one of the main ones when recruiting an oil and gas engineer in future. Experts will begin to devote more time to advanced analysis, rather than integration, data fusion, etc.

The Data Science in Oil & Gas conference was initiated by the EAGE Local Chapter Tomsk-Krasnoyarsk-Novosibirsk and conducted by the EAGE Russia & CIS office. The next conference is scheduled for 4-6 August 2021 in Novosibirsk.

Paris LC discusses prospects in post-Covid oil and gas world There could hardly have been a more topical webinar than the last one organized in November by the EAGE Local Chapter Paris entitled ‘Upstream Oil & Gas Industry Covid-19 Aftermath’.

Speakers, Marine Simoën, IRIS associate research fellow and Pierre Hacquard, analyst and petroleum Geoscientist, Equinor, explored the impacts of the Covid-19 outbreak on the upstream oil and gas industry and its potential consequences on oil supply and demand over the next years. A focus was put on current

industry trends in exploration, investments, geopolitical tensions that could disrupt supply security as well as the US onshore industry that accounted for 60% of oil supply growth over the last decade.

Conclusions were drawn on the capability of the industry to face and evolve. Their presentation reached 70 attendees around the world with very enthusiastic feedback on the insights provided.

LC Paris is happy to share a recording of the webinar, published on the EAGE YouTube channel under the EAGE Com-

munities playlist. To receive news on future events by the EAGE Local Chapter Paris, follow their LinkedIn page (www. linkedin.com/company/eage-local-chapter-paris/) and drop us an email to paris. localchapter.eage@gmail.com if you would like to become a member.

Attendees enjoyed the presentations.

EAGE Education Calendar 4-5 JAN

VALUE OF INFORMATION IN THE EARTH SCIENCES, BY JO EIDSVIK

ONLINE

11-15 JAN

DEVELOPING DEEP LEARNING APPLICATIONS FOR THE OILFIELD, BY BERNARD MONTARON

ONLINE

19-20 JAN

SEDIMENTOLOGICAL CHARACTERIZATION OF CARBONATE ROCKS, BY CATHERINE BREISLIN & LAURA GALLUCCIO

ONLINE

28-29 JAN

BEYOND CONVENTIONAL SEISMIC IMAGING, BY EVGENY LANDA

ONLINE

25 JAN 4 FEB

INTRODUCTION MACHINE LEARNING FOR GEOPHYSICAL APPLICATIONS, BY JAAP MONDT

ONLINE

2-5 FEB

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

ONLINE

3-4 MAR

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

BY JAN DE BRUIN

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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EAGE NEWS 

Perm was ideal venue for engineering and mining geophysics event

Brainstorm session.

The year 2020 will be remembered among the most ill-fated periods of recent history, but it still has had its silver linings. One such was the 16th Conference and Exhibition Engineering & Mining Geophysics 2020 held on 14-18 September in Perm, Russia alongside Engineering and Mining Geology 2020 Workshop.

Perm was chosen to host the event for several reasons. The city was established following the discovery of copper deposits in Permian sandstones in the 17th century.

The name Perm gained world renown thanks to Scottish geologist Roderick Murchison, who announced the Permian system in the name of the city in 1841.

In the early 20th century, the discoveries of oil and potassium salt deposits in the Permian strata made Perm Krai one of the most significant regions in terms of mineral resources. In addition to oil and potassium-magnesium salts, the deposits of diamonds, gold, and several less flashy mineral raw materials were discovered in the region as well.

Advanced geophysical methods are the keystone of safe and efficient natural resource development. The largest mining enterprises of the region, such as URALKALI, Eurochem Usolskiy potash plant, and Verkhnekamsk Potash Company have geoscientific services of their own to support the operational exploration stage. The 10

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recent advancements in the hardware and methodological framework of geophysical studies to predict structural features of the rock mass and estimate the effects of the development process on its properties are of unconditional interest for production geophysicists.

Perm is a major industrial centre with a population of over one million people, and like any other large urban industrial agglomeration has various problems that

karst development, as well as the presence of a branching network of historical workings in copper sandstones. These natural and anthropogenic engineering-geological hazards are rather common outside Perm Krai as well. The biggest threat is associated with the operating mines, where both types of hazards are present at the same time. It is apparent that the problem of ensuring safe and healthy natural resource development on territories with such complex engineering-geological structure requires new science-based technical solutions in the field of engineering geophysics.

Most participants at the conference agreed that the brainstorm session to cover these main issues was a success and that the results produced would stimulate significant progress in coming up with solutions and help Perm Krai and other mining regions make the development of natural wealth safer and more effective.

The event gathered over 150 specialists from all over Russia with both in-person and online participation options available to the participants. The event was on par with meetings in pre-pandemic years in terms of submissions with a total of 148 papers presented within 16 scientific sessions. The conference also

Playing volleyball has become a tradition at the event.

arise from construction and maintenance of housing and production facilities. Apart from that, Perm and Perm Krai have some region-specific engineering geological challenges due to sulfate and carbonate

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included an exhibition, where 10 companies were able to demonstrate their new developments not only in the exhibition halls but also in the field at the test site of the Mining Institute.

EAGE NEWS

The methodology of integration of various geophysical survey types to increase the information value of geological interpretation was the recurring theme of most discussions throughout the conference. A number of papers launched multiple discussions on the physical justification of the proposed methodological approaches. Although the agenda was traditionally dominated

The workshop on engineering and mining geology chaired by Prof I.V. Abaturova, of the Ural State University, covered a wide range of geological problems including solid mineral geology and geotechnical surveys. The workshop also featured a specialized session titled ‘Man-made Mineral Formations. Solid and Hydromineral Components’ chaired by V.A. Naumov

Get seen by the 48.000 First Break readers!

Visiting the famous Kungur ice cave.

by discussions of seismic surveys, significant attention was paid to potential field and EM methods, especially in archaeological geophysics.

In addition to presentations of scientific papers, I.I. Chaikovskiy presented a course titled ‘Structural Geological Models of the Verkhnekamsk Salt Deposit as Initial Information for Geophysical Research’ that was highly appreciated by the audience.

Prof K.V. Titov, of the Institute of Earth Sciences of St-Petersburg State University, and P.S. Kordi, chief geophysicist, Polymetal International, moderated a successful panel discussion entitled ‘Ore Geophysics: Sulphide Deposits’ later mentioned by some as one of the highlights of the event for its spirited debate.

A.A. Shamurzaev and V.V. Olenchenko as on a previous occasion chaired a specialized session on engineering geophysics in permafrost, a highly topical and relevant matter for our country, which should definitely be covered again at future EAGE events.

(Institute of Natural Science, Perm State National Research University).

The geological section of the conference will develop further, and it has already been announced that the discussions will continue at the Engineering and Mining Geology Conference in 2021.

A volleyball tournament and a trip to the Kungur Cave were organized by the Mining Institute as an addition to the scientific agenda so that the participants could keep picturesque photos and pleasant memories of Permian hospitality.

The Organizing Committee of the conference was chaired by I.A. Sanfirov, director of the Mining Institute of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The Mining Institute was a partner of the event together with URALKALI, a global potash producer, and Polymetal International, a leader of the precious metal mining industry. The event was backed by Electrometry Design Bureau.

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EAGE NEWS

Learning Geoscience raises online education to new level

Learning Geoscience - focal point for all EAGE online education activities.

Education is key to EAGE’s mission to promote the development and application of geosciences and engineering. Since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, online education has seen enormous growth and hundreds of people have attended EAGE courses remotely thanks to our new online interactive formats.

Behind the scenes, we have been working on new developments to constantly improve and expand the EAGE online educational offerings and we are excited to introduce the new online education platform - Learning Geoscience. The platform gives learners the possibility to follow the latest education in geoscience and engineering remotely through an integrated set of interactive, or self-paced, online courses by experienced instructors from industry and academia, as well as free learning materials, including e-lectures and webinars.

The new Learning Geoscience platform is built on three core pillars.

Firstly, Free Learning, through which learners get unlimited access to a wide range of online learning opportunities free of charge. This includes e-lectures, student e-lectures, as well as scheduled and on demand webinars on the 12

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most interesting developments in geoscience and engineering.

Secondly, EAGE Courses offer a broad range of online education opportunities both for young and experienced professionals in different areas of geoscience and engineering. The online courses bring carefully selected courses by experienced instructors from industry and academia.

The main formats of online EAGE short courses are 1) Self-paced online courses, i.e., pre-recorded online courses that you can complete in your own time

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over a set period, 2) Extensive online courses with interactive elements providing a deep-dive learning experience, with extensive self-paced online materials complemented with regular interactive sessions with the instructors, and 3) Interactive online short courses which involve real-time instructor-led online sessions spread over two to four days with the possibility to interact with the instructors and ask questions. These courses also include some of the most popular EAGE Education Tours (EETs).

On top of this, we are proud to introduce a section dedicated to Partner courses, new training programmes by experienced instructors from our partner organizations.

We are already scheduling a rich education programme for 2021 with a mix of interactive online short courses, and interactive, or self paced, extensive short courses currently open for registration.

The first two extensive courses scheduled for January are the ‘Introduction to Machine Learning for Geophysical Applications’ by Jaap Mondt and ‘New Applications of Machine Learning to Oil & Gas Exploration and Production’

by Bernard Montaron. Check out the education calendar on page 9 for a quick overview of upcoming online courses and go to www.learninggeoscience.org for the complete programme and to join.

What does the new Learning Geoscience do for you?

Learning Geoscience is the focal point for all online education activities organized by the Association. Users of this new, online education platform will benefit from the following features: • Modern design that is easy to navigate; • Access to an integrated set of interactive, or self paced, online courses; • Online materials complemented with regular interactive sessions with the instructor; • Real-time instructor-led online courses; and • Selected courses from experienced instructors from our external partners.

Curious about the new platform? Go to www.learninggeoscience.org to find out more.

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EAGE NEWS

Optimizing project turnaround performance is now a major preoccupation EAGE is to hold a first online workshop on Optimizing Project Turnaround Performance (OPTP) between 22-24 February 2021. Tony Martin, geophysical advisor, PGS and chair of the workshop, describes what’s in store for participants.

There are a number of reasons why reducing the turnaround time between seismic data acquisition and delivery to the interpreter’s workstation is so important in today’s industry.

Primarily it allows us to revise or change a business model. On the contractor side, the less time it takes to complete a project, the more can be undertaken, leading to improved revenue. Enhanced competitiveness may also result in the same.

Additionally, newly developed techniques that accelerate turnaround may upgrade results and create new opportunities. On the operator side, the quicker data delivery happens the more time is available to the interpreters to analyze the data, make decisions on further development, drill or drop an exploration acreage and for the company to realize potential ROI. OPTP stands for Optimizing Turnaround Project Performance. Whilst there is a strong incentive and desire to accelerate data delivery, the workshop will cover anything that may help or achieve that, and that is both significant in scope and diverse in nature. So, whilst there is an undeniable interest in optimizing turnaround, trying to attract attention to such a vast scope is challenging. With hindsight, it might have been better to focus on singular components. The

other challenge is that many associates accelerated turnaround as either having consequences for data quality, or be the realm of machine-learning techniques, and on both accounts, this is not true.

Tony Martin, workshop chair.

The workshop covers one of the hot topics in the industry, but as that topic is in itself diverse, a participant should be updated on a range of innovations and technologies that they can take away with them to implement in their own day-to-day business. As the subject is varied, so are the keynote, invited and submitted papers and speakers. They represent a cross-section of both our geoscience industry, and the data science business. The same can be said of the organizing committee, which has leading

academics chief geophysicists, renowned researchers, geophysical advisors and prominent data scientists. Their broad experience has enabled and attracted both an exciting and interesting collection of papers, as well as a format that will allow plenty of open and constructive discussion.

I would highlight that geoscientists are at the pinnacle of data science.

Nobody knows how to manipulate, move, order, reorder, apply processes, check and validate data better than we do. The collective experience of geoscientists in our industry is an invaluable asset, and we are the best source of ideas for developing pragmatic solutions to the challenges we face, like trying to accelerate data delivery – we do not always need to look elsewhere. Our community needs to be reminded of this.

Registration for the workshop is still open and you can benefit from a discounted fee up until 7 February 2021.

Learn more about the event and register on the event website, via events.eage.org.

EAGE Student Calendar 19 MAY 2021 14-17 JUNE 2021

STUDENT WEBINAR: GEO SKILLS FOR THE ENERGY TRANSITION,

BY SEAN MCQUAID

ONLINE

82ND EAGE ANNUAL CONFERENCE & EXHIBITION (STUDENT ACTIVITIES)

AMSTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS

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

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EAGE NEWS

Geomodel 2020 makes the most of reduced circumstances

Plenary session presentation.

The annual Geomodel conference in Gelendzhik is a well-known platform for presenting new innovative technologies for processing and interpretation of geological and geophysical data, as well as examples of solving practical issues in geological exploration and development of oil and gas fields in various regions.

Attendance at this year’s 22nd edition was significantly hit due to Covid-19.

Even so, more than 100 representatives from 60 companies and universities, such as LUKOIL, Rosneft, Gazpromneft STC, NOVATEK STC, Rosgeologia, Schlumberger, Baker Hughes, CGG, LUKOIL-Engineering, INGG SB RAS, VNIGNI, Moscow State University, Gubkin Russian State University of Oil and Gas and many others took part in the conference that was held in a hybrid format.

More than 80 papers were presented in 15 oral and poster sessions and including a round table discussion dedicated to neural network technologies and machine learning. I.I.Priezzhev, professor at Gubkin Russian State University of Oil and Gas and chair of the conference Organizing Committee captured the topic of the moment with his discussion on ‘Neural networks and other machine learning algorithms and 14

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their application in deep interpretation of seismic data together with well data’.

According to the feedback from the event participants, the hybrid format was welcomed as the best solution to provide for a successful conference.

source with limited generation/filtration and capacitive reservoir properties and/ or a complex geological structure of the area. In this regard, the best and most interesting paper in the session was the presentation on the use of the phenomenon of tectonic tension for the generation of hydrocarbons and the possibility of identifying new zones of hydrocarbon accumulation.’

According to Boris Enikeev (Pangea), the most interesting point was the discussion of the efficiency of sludge usage, as well as papers on zeolites and permittivity.

Dmitry Danko (Gubkin Russian State University of Oil and Gas) said: ‘There has been a clear trend towards the integration of a large amount of geological and geophysical information when interpreting seismic data. Also, much attention is paid to assessing the accuracy and verification of the obtained results, especially in well-studied fields.

It is necessary to apply new technologies to previously studied areas. Deep analysis of the results, especially neg-

Ivan Priezzhev, chairman of the conference Organizing Committee, and Dmirty Danko, session host.

Sergey Astakhov (KONTIKI Oil prospecting company) said: ‘The future of hydrocarbon systems modelling depends on the solution of particular tasks of geological exploration, for example, a local prediction of the possibility of hydrocarbon migration from a

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ative ones, is needed. Oil and service companies understand that there is no more room for errors in the current environment. Therefore, a large circle of specialists needs to be involved. This allows us to consider problems from different angles and reduce production risks. The

EAGE NEWS

greatest impression was made by Dmitry Myasoedov (RN-Shelf-Arctic). His presentation tried to implement the idea of estimating the posterior probability of the relationship between AVO anomalies and fluid saturation with a sufficiently large number of factors during the pro-

that in the future the focus of attention of specialists will shift towards the improvement of technologies for obtaining more and more accurate and reliable depth-velocity models of the environment. The audience was particularly impressed by the skill and efficiency of

Poster session discussion.

cessing of seismic material. The question is debatable, but, no doubt, it will find a response in production activities.’

Mikhail Denisov (GEOLAB) noted: ‘The observed trend in seismic data processing is increasing the accuracy of depth constructions by using the most modern and advanced processing algorithms, among which tomographic inversion and full-wave seismogram inversion should be noted. If not so long ago geophysicists almost always performed processing and imaging in the time domain, now the emphasis is on deep constructions, which is more correct and more accurate. This is in line with the latest global trends.

Such a processing strategy requires the construction of depth-velocity models of the environment, which is a separate and non-trivial task.’

Vladimir Bondarev (USMU) said: ‘Due to the exceptional importance of obtaining the most plausible seismic images of the geological environment, this line of research in seismic exploration will continue to occupy a leading place in the work plans of theoreticians and practitioners. It can be expected

displaying large volumes of information, with which the presenters worked.’

Olga Abrosimova (Novosibirsk branch of VNIGNI) said: ‘Focusing on Western Siberia, the study of the Bazhenov Formation, hydrogeochemical studies and the resource base are still important.

Mikhail Zubkov (West Siberian Geological Centre), chairman of the session on fracturing and fractured reservoirs, observed: ‘By means of physical and mathematical modelling we can understand the patterns of formation of fractured zones in order to use the obtained patterns to predict fracture zones, their length, orientation in space to search for the most productive areas of hydrocarbons and the subsequent organization of the optimal scheme for their development. Additional experimental and theoretical material is needed in order to increase the diversity of structural forms that form destruction zones of different morphology. With the help of tectonophysical restoration of the geological environment, it is possible to identify zones of predicted increased fracture density and simulate fracturing that occur in certain deformation conditions. This will make it possible to more reasonably plan geological exploration, as well as the development of hydrocarbon fields with fractured reservoirs.’

EAGE and the organizing committee look forward to seeing participants at Geomodel 2021, the 23rd Oil and Gas Exploration and Development Conference, which will take place 6-10 September 2021, and will address a wide range of issues from geology to field development. Abstracts are accepted until 20 May 2021.

Post presentation debate.

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EAGE NEWS

Get yourself in the frame and enter EAGE/EFG Photo Contest 2021

© Michael E. Phillips, EAGE/EFG Photo Contest 2020.

For all photo enthusiasts out there, the EAGE/EFG Photo Contest 2021 is now open for entries. Once again, the

© Natasha Barrett, EAGE/EFG Photo Contest 2020.

theme of the Photo Contest 2021 will be ‘Legends of Geoscience’. However, this year there is a twist. Beside the three sub-categories Geosciences for Society, Women Geoscientists and Landscape and Environment as per previous year, this year we introduce the fourth sub-category: Geoscientists’ Life, in which we collect impressions from your work in the field, in the physical office or wherever your ‘office/ workstation’ locates.

The Photo Contest is open to all members of EAGE and those national geological societies that are affiliated with the European Federation of Geolo-

gists (EFG). Submissions are open from 1 January to 15 March 2021. All entries will be reviewed by experts and the photos will be judged with regard to their relevance to the theme and of course the photo quality. After this review process, the accepted photos will be published online, and all members will have the opportunity to cast their votes in two rounds, for the best 12 and top three photographs respectively. The winners will be announced in September 2021.

We are eager to see various aspects in all field of geoscience through your lens. Visit www.eage.org/en/photo-contest for more information.

© Tanishk Verma, EAGE/EFG Photo Contest 2020.

SEASON'S

GREETINGS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR! 21841-Seasons greetings 2019/2020 extern ENG 1_3.indd 1 16

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EAGE NEWS

What’s ahead for seismic acquisition and imaging discussed at LC Netherlands meeting

Q&A session underway.

Panos Doulgeris writes: Another online event was successfully organized by EAGE Local Chapter (LC) Netherlands in November themed ‘The future of seismic acquisition and imaging: Some perspectives’ featuring talks by Gerrit Blacquière and Eric Verschuur.

The event was also viewed by members of the LCs of London, Aberdeen, Oslo and Paris, of the DOGS-Delft and RWTHAachen student chapters, and of the Oslo Society of Exploration Geophysicists.

Main themes of the night were the role and nature of geophysics during and after the energy transition period as well as the transformational role of artificial intelli-

gence to the field. The latter was backed up by a number of examples presented by the two speakers.

In the first talk, Gerrit Blacquière pointed the direction of seismic exploration to robotization of acquisition and the automation of processing and characterization. He explained that the trend in the industry has always been the acquisition of more data. He anticipated that recent developments will lead to the development of smarter processes that will deliver more information from less data.

Blacquière presented two cases to support his view: deghosting and low-frequencies reconstruction by using machine learning techniques. Although this technology is in its early days, he reported that the results obtained are deemed encouraging and further work will be performed in this direction.

During the second talk, Verschuur focused primarily on extracting all the available information from the measurements by taking a more holistic approach towards seismic processing. Presented as

case studies, the adoption of surface and interbed multiples for imaging complement perfectly the use of diving waves by Full Waveform Inversion and diffractions by diffraction imaging. Going one step further, incorporating multi-physics measurements, e.g., gravity or electromagnetics measurements, could potentially address remaining uncertainties about the subsurface. Concluding that geophysics and seismic will still have a central role in ongoing subsurface exploitation activities, he remarked that artificial intelligence can potentially be a very powerful tool with a direct impact on every stage of seismic processing.

At the end of the two presentations, a Q&A session took place where the two speakers could address the questions from the audience. A digital recording of the event talks is available on the EAGE Communities YouTube channel, at www. youtu.be/pYluVXSQcJk. If you want to contact EAGE LC Netherlands, join its LinkedIn group or e-mail to eagelcnetherlands@gmail.com. Don’t miss out on future talks.

Prize start for Czech Local Chapter The EAGE Local Chapter (LC) Czech Republic was launched in Prague in January 2020 with great plans and aspirations thanks to the work of 14 founding EAGE members from the Prague area.

Among them were employees of private companies, research institutions and government institutions covering a wide range of interests from seismology geology including basin modelling, gravity and near surface geophysics. This naturally brought some challenges in organizing something interesting for the entire local community, but the overall discussion was positive and we planned field trips, lectures, invited speakers and bowling.

When Covid-19 came into the picture, we re-evaluated our goals. Despite the restrictions, we were able to organize two fascinating webinars. The LC also accepted the opportunity to organize jointly with the commercial company Seismik a competition for the best Master’s or Bachelor’s thesis, known as the ‘Seismik Prize’. The competition had been run by Seismik since 2012, but the LC was able to give the award a new meaning and life. It believes that the event provides an opportunity to attract new young professionals to become EAGE members and motivate the future geoscientist to join our group.

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LC Czech Seismik award presentation.

The final award ceremony took place recently at Seismik headquarters and was the last event of the year for the LC. It now looks forward to a full programme of activities in the new year of 2021 just begun.

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EAGE NEWS

Value of the rock physics approach is topic of LC London evening

Texture of reservoir rock.

Nick Huntbatch, quantitative interpretation product manager of Ikon Science, was guest speaker at London Chapter’s evening talk in November 2020.

During the webinar Huntbatch told us about the modern use of powerful seismic reservoir characterization techniques to enhance details of both subsurface architecture and it petrophysical properties.

The understanding of the rock physics is based on well data that after quality control and conditioning are used for petrophysical interpretation of distinct lithofacies units. Upscaling is required for building impedance and amplitude

models of the subsurface. The response from these models is then compared with the surface seismic data. The elastic properties and AVO response for different saturations are estimated with some uncertainty dependent on seismic bandwidth, available angle range, noise and rock property overlap. The prior knowledge of facies and per-facies rock physics trends is a key link between geology and geophysics that allows predicting the subsurface and capturing uncertainty in geological properties and in the data.

The rock physics driven approach facilitates a better understanding of res-

ervoir geometry and plumbing, and ultimately provides the gateway to building better, more accurate property models of the subsurface.

This lecture was the seventh webinar organized by EAGE Local Chapter London in 2020 attracting a global audience to our local online activities. Recording of the talk is available on the EAGE’s YouTube channel.

EAGE Local Chapter London acknowledges Artem Kashubin of PetroTrace, Bingmu Xiao of CGG, Lok Lee of Schlumberger, Celina Giersz of Shearwater and, of course, Nick Huntbatch of Ikon Science for arranging this event.

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!

SUPPORTED BY

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We would like to thank our corporate partners for their generous support to EAGE in 2020! #

3d-Radar AS A Aarhus GeoSoftware • Abitibi Geophysics • ACTeQ • Advanced Geosciences Europe

Aerogeophysika • Aist-Tsukuba-Central-7 Library • Aker BP • Allied Publishers Subscription Agency • AMS/ETH BIBLIOTHEK • Applied Acoustic Engineering • ARK CLS • AS Mediendesign • Austhai Geophysical Consultants Co. Avalon Sciences

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BGP • BHP Billiton • Biodentify • BP • BRGM • British Library C Casalini Libri • Cegal • CGG

Chevron • China Geological Library • China National Publications Import & Export • China University of Geosciences China University of Petroleum • Chulalongkorn University • CNOOC Petroleum • Cognite • ConocoPhillips Creative Books & Periodicals D DEA Norge • Delft Inversion • dGB Earth Sciences • DownUnder GeoSolutions Dynamic Technologies DTCC

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Earth Science Analytics • EBN • ECOPETROL AMERICA • Eikon Technologies • Eliis

Elsevier • Emerson • EMGS • Energi Simulation • Eni • Equinor • Esbaar • ESG Solutions • Esso • European Patent Office • ExxonMobil

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FEBUS OPTICS • fibrisTerre Systems

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Systems Advanced Magnometers • GEODEVICE

Geofizyka Torun • Geometrics • Geophysical Insights • Geoport Scientific Technical and Trade • Geosiam Geophysical Services • Geospace Technologies • Geospatial Research • Geotech • Geotechnogies • Geoteric • GeoTomo Geotomographie • Geovista • GF Instruments • GK Processing • GNS Science • Guideline Geo H Halliburton Hanyang University • Hellenic • Hess Corporation • High Artic Energy Services • Hindustan Subscription Service I

IBM • IHS Global • Ikon Science • Imperial College London • ImpulseRadar Sweden • INA Industrija Nafte

InApril • INPEX • Intelligent Resources • ION • Iraya Energies • IRIS Instruments • Irkutsk Oil Company Gas and Metals National Corporation Kumul Petroleum

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Japan Oil,

Katalyst Data Management • KAUST • KB Elektrometrii • KMS Technologies

Land Seismic Noise Specialists • LEIBNIZ-INSTITUT FUER ANGEWANDTE GEOPHYSIK • Lim Logging

LM Tietopalvelut Oy • Louisiana State University • Lundin Norway • LYTT Limited M Magseis Fairfield • Marac Enterprises • Mari Petroleum Company • Memorial University of Newfoundland • Microsoft • Missing Link

N National

Sciences Library • NBG Systems • NEFTEX • Neubrex • NGI • Niels Bohr Institutet paa Rockefeller, Biblioteket • NORSAR Innovation • NRCAN Library Ottawa

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and Natural Gas Corporation • Oil Search • OMV • ONHYM • OptaSense

OYO Corporation P Pakistan Petroleum • Petro Trace • Petrobras • Petroleum Abstracts At The University of Tulsa • Petroleum Experts • Petronas • Petroseismic • PGS • Polarcus • Polymetall • Posco Daewoo • Princeton University Library • Progressive International Agencies • PTTEP Q Qeye R RadExPro Europe • Reliance Industries Repsol • Research Institute Bureau of Petroleum • Resoptima • RISC • Robertson Geo • Rock Flow Dynamics ROGII

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Santos • Saudi Aramco • Schlumberger • Seagate Technology • Searcher Seismic • Seiche • Sercel

Severo-Zapad • SGS • Sharp Reflections • Shearwater • Shell • Sherritt International • SiberGeo • SibGeofizPribor • Silixa Sodipress • Sound QI Solutions • Stanford University • STEMA Systems • Stryde • SUSTech

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TARGET Energy Solutions

TDI-Brooks • Technische Informationsbibliothek • TechnoImaging • Technoinfo • Tensor Research • Texas A&M University • TGS • Thermo Fisher Scientific • TNG-Group • Total • TU Delft

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Universidade Estadual de Campinas

Universitaetsbibliothek Leipzig • University of Auckland Library • University of Birmingham • University of Calgary University of Leoben • University of New South Wales • University of Oklahoma Libraries • University of Texas Libraries University of Tokyo • Upstream Info Center • Uralgeopole • Uralkaliy V Vista Clara W W-Geosoft • Wellesley Petroleum • WesternGeco • Wintershall Dea • WSAdvertising

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Yandex.Cloud • YPF FIRST

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What does climate change mitigation have in store for us?

Exactly where are we with climate change mitigation and energy The general slowdown of the economy is expected to reduce transition? It’s a question worth asking as we pass the fifth anniverglobal GHG emissions by about 2-4 GtCO2e by 2030 compared sary of the 2015 Paris international agreement on climate change with the pre-Covid-19 current policies scenario. This assumes a mitigation. It set the goal of limiting global warming this century pronounced short-term dip in CO2 emissions, after which emissions to below 20C in pursuit of a more ideal 1.50. The impression from follow pre-2020 growth trends. The UNEP report warns that global GHG emissions are only projected to be significantly reduced by some speakers in the plenary panel sessions at the EAGE Annual Conference & Exhibition was that we could be reaching some kind 2030 if economic recovery is used as an opening to pursue strong of inflexion point. Perhaps based more on hope than substance, the decarbonization along the lines of the International Energy Agency argument was that the scourge of the Covid-19 pandemic may spark (IEA) sustainable recovery scenario. This could result in global some kind of new ‘wokeness’ about our reckless dependence on GHG emissions of 44 GtCO2e by 2030, a reduction of 15 GtCO2e fossil fuels and where humanity is heading. In other words we could (just over 25%) by 2030 compared with the pre-Covid-19 current be shocked into action. policies scenario.

For a reality check, a good place to start is the United Nations A great deal therefore depends on countries integrating low-carEnvironment Programme (UNEP). For the last 10 years it has bon development into rescue and recovery measures, evidence been providing an annual assessment of the difference between for which is sparse as of yet. Covid-19-related fiscal spending by governments is of unprecedented scale, currently amounting where greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are predicted to be in 2030 and where they are today. Are we bridging the gap? to roughly $12 trillion globally, or 12% of global gross domestic Absolutely not. That’s the stark message from product (GDP) in 2020. For G20 members, fiscal spending amounts to around 15% of GDP the newly published UNEP Emissions Gap ‘Scourge of the Report 2020. on average for 2020., much less for middle Covid-19 pandemic income and developing countries.

However, it proposes that a low carbon pandemic recovery could cut 25% off GHG may spark some kind There are valid possibilities for promotemissions expected in 2030 based on policies in ing decarbonization, for example, support for of new wokeness.’ zero-emissions technologies and infrastructure place before Covid-19. ‘Such a recovery’, the report says, ’would far outstrip savings foreseen such as low-carbon and renewable energy, with the implementation of unconditional nationally determined low-carbon transport, zero energy buildings and low-carbon induscontributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement, and put the world try; support for research and development of zero-emissions close to the 2% pathway’. technologies; reduced fossil fuel subsidies through fiscal reform; The report finds that CO2 emissions could decrease by about and nature-based solutions, including large-scale landscape res7% in 2020 compared with 2019 as a result of Covid-19, with toration and reforestation. Of course some rescue measures could a smaller drop in GHG (CO2 plus methane, nitrous oxide and be counter-productive, for example if bailouts to fossil-fuel based fluorinated gases). Restricted transport is seen as the main cause industries such as airlines and the automobile business are offered for the reductions. This is not especially encouraging as road, rail with no low-carbon transition or sustainability conditions. and aviation will surely rise steeply once people can travel again, Some 126 countries covering 51% of global GHG emissions but maybe businesses in particular as opposed to holidaymakers have net-zero goals that have been formally adopted, announced or will consider whether some of their previous travel expenditure are under consideration. If the US returns to the Paris Agreement was necessary. as promised by President-Elect Joe Biden and adopts a net-zero

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GHG target by 2050, the share would increase to 63%, according potential recruits to the discipline. No one seemed in any doubt to UNEP. that the changing energy world would present opportunities.

Cited were the focus on cleaner oil and gas E&P operations; As of now France and the UK have legally enshrined their 2050 net-zero GHG emissions goals; the European Union aims to achieve the subsurface knowledge required for renewables, thermal and net-zero GHG emissions by 2050; China plans to achieve carbon hydrogen; water sourcing; the mining required to find materials to support massive increases in battery uses, etc. neutrality before 2060; Japan has announced a goal of net-zero GHG emissions by 2050; the Republic of Korea’s president has Probably the most mentioned technology was carbon capture committed the country to becoming carbon neutral by 2050; Canada utilization and storage (CCUS), among other things a chance to further galvanise the existing oil and gas industry expertise into an intends to legislate a goal of net zero emissions (though it is unclear incontrovertible benefit to the community. A report last September if this refers to just CO2 or all GHGs) by 2050; South Africa aims produced a ringing endorsement for the technology from the to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050; and Argentina and International Energy Agency (IEA). It stated that CCUS ‘will need Mexico, which are both part of the UNFCCC Climate Ambition to form a key pillar of efforts to put the world on the path to net-zero Alliance, are working towards net-zero emissions by 2050. emissions’, alongside electrification, hydrogen and sustainable bioImpressive though this may seem, UNEP notes that ‘to make energy. A similar sentiment was expressed in a report last November significant progress towards achieving the long-term temperature published by the think tank Global CCS Institute which stated that goal of the Paris Agreement by 2030, two steps are urgently CCS capacity grew by a third in the past year, but it was far too slow required. First, more countries need to develop long-term strategies to meet global climate targets, that are consistent with the Paris Agreement, and second, new Plans for more than 30 commercial faciliand updated NDCs need to become consistent with the net-zero ties have been announced in the last three years, according emissions goals’. to the IEA, and projects now nearing a final investment deciBut now we come to the ugly bit for us all. Around two thirds sion represent an estimated potential investment of global emissions are linked to private household of around $27 billion, more than double the activities according to consumption-based account‘Probably the investment planned in 2017. This portfolio of ing. Decoded, that means we need to make lifestyle changes related to mobility, residential and food, most mentioned projects is increasingly diverse – including power generation, cement and hydrogen facilities, and each of which contributes close to 20% of lifestyle technology industrial hubs – and would double the level of emissions. was CCUS.’ CO2 captured globally, from around 40 million Foregoing one long-haul return flight has the tonnes today, the IEA reports. potential to reduce annual personal emissions by Former EAGE president Philip Ringrose, adjunct professor 1.9 tCO2e per capita on average. Home energy emissions can be at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) tackled through improving existing and new housing stock. The use and specialist in geoscience at the Equinor Research Centre, has of renewable electricity by households could also reduce emissions been a longtime proselytizer of CCUS solutions. He was on hand by approximately 1.5 tCO2e per capita per year for those on higher at last month’s EAGE plenary forum session on energy transition to incomes. Shifting consumption towards low-carbon diets has strong stake the technology’s claim to be at the top of the climate change emissions reduction potential. Moving to a vegetarian diet, for mitigation agenda. example, could reduce emissions by an average of 0.5 tCO2e per A recent paper with co-author Tip Meckel of the University of capita per year.

Texas Bureau of Economic Geology got some serious attention with UNEP does not lose sight of the need for equity here acknowlits proposition that there is easily enough space in the world’s near edging that the emissions of the richest 1% of the global population shore continental margins to meet the IPCC’s goal of storing six to account for more than twice the combined share of the poorest 50%. seven gigatons of carbon dioxide a year by 2050, and that the goal Compliance with the 1.5°C goal of the Paris Agreement will require could be achieved by installing 10,000 to 14,000 injection wells reducing consumption emissions to a per capita lifestyle footprint worldwide in the next 30 years. of around 2–2.5 tCO2e by 2030. This means that the richest 1% ‘The great thing about this study is that we have inverted the would need to reduce their current emissions by at least a factor of decarbonization challenge by working out how many wells are 30, while per capita emissions of the poorest 50% could increase by needed to achieve emissions cuts under the 20C scenario,’ Ringrose around three times their current levels on average. states. ‘It turns out to be only a fraction of the historical petroleum At the EAGE online event in December, these themes were industry, or around 12,000 wells globally. Shared among 5-7 contouched upon from a geoscience perspective. The focus in the tinental CCS hubs, that is only about 2000 wells per region. Very general forums was not so much addressing the climate change doable! But we need to get cracking as soon as possible.’ forecasts, dour as they are, but rather how energy transition Cracking heads together among world leaders of energy policy in particular may redefine the role of the geoscientist in the and finance will be a necessary start. future and how this will impact an upcoming generation of Views expressed in Crosstalk are solely those of the author, who can be contacted at andrew@andrewmcbarnet.com.

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PGS Ramform Vanguard latest survey data from Viking Graben

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Geodata study for Mayflower Wind study off Massachusetts

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US Arctic drilling back on the agenda

Global oil and gas discoveries outperform expectations to top 10 billion boe in 2020 Despite concerns that Covid-19 could drive down discovered volumes to their lowest levels in decades, found resources in 2020 are already confirmed to be more than 8 billion barrels of oil equivalent (boe) and were projected to reach 10 billion boe by the end of the year, according to research from Rystad Energy.

About 3.75 billion boe, or 46% of total discovered volumes, are gas while liquid volumes are estimated at 4.31 billion boe. Yet-uncounted resources in finds such as Sakarya in Turkey point to additional upside, meaning that 2020 will avoid returning to the multi-decade low seen in 2016 at just 7.7 billion boe.

The 73 new discoveries announced this year (through to October) are evenly split between land and sea with 36 onshore and 37 offshore. Russia leads the way in terms of discovery volume, with 1.51 billion boe, while Suriname comes second with 1.39 billion boe and the UAE follows third with 1.1 billion boe.

Of the offshore volumes, which account for slightly more than three-quarters of discovered resources, 33% was found in ultra-deep waters, 38% in deepwater areas and 29% in shallow waters.

‘Global oil and gas operators will chase plenty of additional volumes in wildcats planned for the final two months of the 2020, although some may not

be completed until early 2021 and will therefore add to next year’s tally. We believe discovered volumes are likely to settle at around 10 billion boe,’ said Palzor Shenga, senior upstream analyst at Rystad Energy.

Oil and gas companies’ exploration plans have included prospects with higher chances of success in mature areas, as well as high-risk, high-reward wildcats in frontier regions, resulting in some game-changing offshore discoveries.

Companies have experienced exploratory success in emerging plays in countries including Suriname, Guyana, South Africa and Turkey, as well as in proven mature regions such as Brazil and Norway.

Ranking companies by discovered volumes shows that Russia’s Gazprom is in the lead, ahead of Total and Apache. The latter two have found around 960 million boe and 700 million boe respectively of net recoverable resources this year, mainly thanks to three major discoveries in Block 58 off the coast of Suriname.

‘We expect that only about 4.5 billion boe of the 8 billion boe discovered so far this year will be produced by 2040, and in coming years annual discovered volumes are likely to settle at a new normal of around 10 billion boe per year,’ said Rystad.

‘We see two main reasons for this trend. First, oil and gas players are streamFIRST

lining portfolios and exploration strategies and will scrutinize prospects more closely than before, thereby reducing the number of wells that will be drilled. A more stringent selection procedure for drill-ready prospects means that only the ones with the highest chance of success will see a spinning drillbit.

‘Second, companies will be less willing to drill high-risk wells in environmentally sensitive frontier areas, both for financial and environmental reasons.

As a result, the full petroleum potential of areas such as the Alaskan Arctic, Foz do Amazonas in Brazil and the Barents Sea may never be unlocked.

Rystad said it also expected improved data access and digitization would help operators pinpoint successful prospects with more accuracy. Increasing access to data and the growth of digital platforms will enable exploration teams to rapidly discover and access basin-scale data, and manage exploration opportunities using data sharing across multi-disciplinary teams, it added.

‘Increasing use of digitization will reduce costs and make exploration procedures more standardized, and data sharing and collaboration means each operator will need to drill fewer wells to understand the subsurface. This will lead to higher productivity per well drilled,’ Rystad said.

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TGS starts three 3D surveys offshore South America

Geoscience atlas of offshore Ireland is completed

TGS has started the Malvinas 3D programme offshore Argentina and is planning two seismic surveys offshore Brazil.

Offshore Argentina, the BGP vessel Prospector will acquire approx. 5000 km2, which will bring the total coverage in the area to 18,000 km2. The survey is expected to be completed in Q1 2021.

Offshore Brazil, TGS will mobilize the COSL vessel HYSY720 to commence acquisition of the Espirito Santo 3D survey by the end of the year. This is a Dual Azimuth (DAZ) survey covering a 1400 km2 area in the Espirito Santo Basin. The vessel is currently in transit to Brazil and acquisition is expected to be completed by the end of Q1 2021.

TGS also plans to commence a 7000 km 2D survey in the Pelotas Basin during Q1 2021. The Pelotas 2D programme will have depth imaged products available in early Q3 2021, in time for the 17th Brazil licensing round. The new data set will complement the existing TGS 2D data coverage in the area and allow for better prospect mapping. The survey will be acquired in partnership with BGP, using its vessel Pioneer.

The delayed start of these three projects has led TGS to revise its annual investment guidance for 2020 down from $325 million to $300 million.

Kristian Johansen, CEO at TGS, said: ‘Latin America is one of our key focus areas and despite the challenging market conditions, our clients are continuing to support our projects in this region.’

Merlin Energy Resources Limited has completed the first comprehensive stratigraphic map of offshore Ireland.

‘The Standard Stratigraphic Nomenclature of Offshore Ireland: An Integrated Lithostratigraphic, Biostratigraphic and Sequence Stratigraphic Framework’ comprises a large-format illustrative Atlas, which documents new lithostratigraphic, chronostratigraphic, biostratigraphic and sequence stratigraphic frameworks for the drilled Phanerozoic section of the Ireland offshore region.

The database for the study included all legacy stratigraphic data from 264 released wells and boreholes. In addition, a number of UK wells that are close to the median line with Ireland have been tied to the evaluations. Furthermore, a significant amount of new biostratigraphic data was generated by additional sample analysis from key wells and intervals.

A total of 309 lithostratigraphic units (groups, formations, members, units) are described and illustrated by type and reference wells, distribution maps and ties to seismic data. Nearly 200 new lithostratigraphic names are introduced in the Atlas. Correlations and comparisons are made between the newly defined offshore Ireland stratigraphy and that of the UK offshore, UK onshore, North Sea and offshore Eastern Canada regions. As a result, UK lithostratigraphic nomenclature has been applied to offshore Ireland rock units, where subsurface contiguity can be demonstrated. Sixty-three previously existing names are utilized from the UK. An extensive database of 3D and 2D seismic data was interpreted, leading to the recognition of a set of 60 consistently defined and named seismic horizons. These are illustrated in a set of 10 regional seismic lines and 55 figures showing seismic to well ties across the region. In addition, the seismic evaluation, combined with gravity data interpretation, has led to a revision of the structural elements for the region.

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BGP vessel Prospector will shoot 5000m2.

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A regional evaluation of source rock potential has identified 21 formations with hydrocarbon generation potential based on the newly developed stratigraphy. The 16 proven hydrocarbon reservoir units in all known fields and discoveries offshore Ireland are formally named and described, and their distributions mapped.

The atlas was commissioned by the Irish Shelf Petroleum Studies Group (ISPSG) and has been developed by a consortium led by Merlin Energy Resources Ltd, incorporating Palaeodate Ltd, Network Stratigraphic Consulting Ltd, Riley Geoscience Ltd, Integrated Geochemical Interpretation Ltd and Dunford Exploration Ltd. The Atlas is being made freely available by Ireland’s Department of Environment, Climate and Communications. All maps generated in the project are available in an ArcGIS database.

Dr Philip Copestake, project manager and Atlas editor, at Merlin said ‘Merlin Energy looks forward to using the atlas and accompanying databases as the foundation for future subsurface interpretations offshore Ireland, whether for natural resources evaluations, academic investigations or as the basis for reservoir definition and mapping to support energy transition projects such as carbon capture and storage.’

Clare Morgan, head of technical section, Petroleum Affairs Division, at Ireland’s Department of Environment, Climate and Communications described the atlas as ‘a reference tool for all geoscientists working Ireland’s offshore basins, whether industry, researchers or government-based and this unique document will be utilized for many years and decades into the future. As Ireland moves away from hydrocarbons to offshore renewable energy development, the repurposing of the knowledge from the oil and gas industry to the renewable energy industry, such as provided in this study, is hugely beneficial.’

INDUSTRY NEWS

PGS releases X Viking Graben 2020 survey data

PGS’ Ramform Vanguard completed the survey in the summer.

First data is available on PGS’ GeoStreamer X Viking Graben 2020 survey.

In the summer of 2020 PGS acquired advanced offset- and azimuth-rich data, which is contiguous to the GeoStreamer X Viking Graben 2019 survey.

‘PGS has addressed illumination challenges in this area with a single vessel towing a highly efficient, dense receiver spread,

record-wide sources to capture ultra-near offsets, and several long streamer tails that provided longer offsets for optimal FWI at depth. The first results are available just three months after acquisition and the GeoStreamer X data quality is very good,’ said Gunhild Myhr, VP new ventures at PGS. The area is known for its prolific source rock and good-quality reservoirs.

Late Jurassic rifting led to the formation of numerous horst and rotated fault blocks along the margin of the Viking Graben.

Targets range from Eocene injectites, deep marine fans, fluvial deposits and weathered basement.

Illumination challenges in the area are associated with sand injectites, often cemented, with anomalously high velocities (so-called ‘v-brights’), as well as large, complex shallow channels and gas at various levels. Improved imaging will also make it possible to better assess injectites with reservoir potential.

Julien Oukili said: ‘This fast-track PSDM volume delivers higher image-clarity and better subsurface illumination.

Work is ongoing with the full integrity imaging, which will enhance in particular demultiple, 5D regularization, and velocities, to provide optimal illumination and resolution.’

The survey was completed July 2020 and final PSDM results will be available in Q2 2021.

CGG wins reprocessing contracts offshore Malaysia CGG has won two large-scale complex seismic reprocessing contracts from PTTEP covering two regions offshore Malaysia.

The company will conduct merged reprocessing of surveys from many vintages, including towed-streamer and OBC seismic data from offshore Sabah and Sarawak. The fast-track products are expected by mid-next year and final workstation products will be delivered by the end of 2021.

The images are expected to improve the definition of producing reservoirs, enable enhanced planning and drilling of future wells, and open up new plays for near-field exploration at deeper intervals.

This region has a complex highly faulted subsurface where scattered gas bodies

mask the target reservoir on existing data sets. To unmask the gas wipeout, remove distortions at the reservoir level and image the bounding faults, CGG will apply its latest workflow including proprietary imaging technologies, such as high-frequency full-wavefield Time-Lag FWI (HF-FWI), Q-compensating least-squares (LS-Q) Kirchhoff PSDM and LS-Q RTM, which have been fine-tuned over many similar projects in the region. These technologies will also be focused on improving imaging of the deeper exploration targets with enhanced amplitude, resolution and continuity in the mini-basins and improved definition of the steeply dipping folds underneath the main unconformity.

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Meanwhile, CGG has won a threeyear contract extension from Petroleum Development Oman (PDO) to continue providing land seismic imaging services at its dedicated processing centre (DPC) in Muscat.

The company will continue to implement its latest proprietary algorithms to bring step-changes in the imaging of the ever-growing volumes of land data, characterized by complex near-surface conditions and strong multiples. CGG will also aid PDO’s transition from cable to node multi-source acquisition and the incorporation of machine learning into its workflows.

PDO operates a concession in Oman that covers almost one third of the country’s land surface area.

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PGS starts next phase of Campos deepwater survey offshore Brazil PGS has started acquisition of the latest phase of the Campos Deepwater GeoStreamer X, a prefunded multiclient 3D seismic survey with multi-azimuth coverage. In December PGS started to acquire an additional 8400 km2.

The vessel Ramform Titan is being configured with 14 multisensor streamers, each 10.05 km long, the largest spread ever towed offshore Brazil. This configuration minimizes the number of source points per square kilometre and reduces the number of acquisition days, said PGS. This survey will provide the first 3D seismic data over blocks offered in the upcoming 17th Bidding Round, now scheduled for October 2021.

The Campos Deepwater GeoStreamer X project combines new and legacy 3D data delivering long-offset, multi-azimuth seismic data over the deepwater portion of the northern Campos Basin.

The survey area includes presalt open acreage adjacent to Albacora and Marlim Leste fields and areas acquired and under contract in the 14th Bidding Round, with drilling operations underway to test large presalt structures.

The tailored acquisition configuration for the GeoStreamer X project will provide 10-km long offsets to improve depth velocity modelling accuracy of the postsalt, salt, and presalt sections, facilitated by the use of full wave-form inversion.

FWI modelling results indicate these long offsets will aid in derived velocity accuracy in the presalt section. These additional offset data also promise added angle range and improved signal/noise for seismic amplitude analysis and reservoir characterization. Multi-azimuth processing and velocity model building will improve illumination and image quality of the subsurface structures found within the presalt play in this portion of the Campos Basin.

Phase 1 imaging will be available in Q1 2021, providing final multi-azimuth products over open pre-salt acreage, including TTI Kirchhoff and RTM (45 Hz) PSDM products.

Shearwater wins contract for 3D survey offshore Senegal Shearwater Geoservices has won a large towed-streamer 3D acquisition and fasttrack processing project offshore Senegal for client Total.

The 5000-km2 survey covers the UDO Block Exploration area, offshore Senegal.

The vessel SW Empress will use an ultrawide tow Flexisource configuration together with fast-track processing enabled by Shearwater’s proprietary Reveal software.

The two-month survey is scheduled to commence in Q4 2020, adding to another recent award by Total to Shearwater for work in northwest Africa’s MSGBC Basin.

‘We are pleased to be awarded this contract by Total in North West Africa, providing us with back-to-back work for one of our vessels,’ said Shearwater CEO, Irene Waage Basili.

Meanwhile, Shearwater has won a 3D seismic acquisition contract in the Bay of Bengal, India from Reliance Industries.

The survey is scheduled to commence in Q1 2021 and covers 1500 km2 of block KG-UDWHP-2018/1 in the Krishna-Godavari basin and will be executed by the vessel SW Vespucci.

The contract includes fast-track time processing.

Magseis Fairfield reports Q3 net profit of $3 million Magseis Fairfield demonstrated the resilience of the ocean bottom seismic market by reporting third quarter net profit of $3.1 million on revenues of $46.9 million.

EBITDA was $10.4 million, marking the third sequential quarter with EBITDA improvement. Operating profit was $3.7 million. Cash balance increased to $62 million.

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Order backlog increased to $170 million, of which $50 million will be delivered by the end of the year.

‘The market outlook for the OBN market shows a small increase from 2020 to 2021 but the activity will still be below the 2019 levels,’ said the company’s results statement. ‘The OBN market is expected to see good growth beyond 2021 on the back of forecasted growth in

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offshore exploration spend in greenfield and brownfield projects.’

Carel Hooijkaas, CEO of Magseis Fairfield, said: ‘We are delivering another strong quater despite lower year on year revenue. We are encouraged by the forecasted OBN market rebound beyond 2021, especially since we see significant additional upside from technology advancements.’

INDUSTRY NEWS

CGG shoots airborne survey over prolific Congo basin

CGG is acquiring the first-ever multi-client airborne gravity and magnetic survey of the highly prospective onshore Congo Cuvette Basin in the Republic of Congo.

The Congo Cuvette basin is a large, underexplored onshore sedimentary basin

TGS completes processing of 3D US onshore surveys TGS has completed the final processing products for the high-resolution Canton and Gloss Mountain 3D surveys onshore US. The projects encompass approx.

2895 km2 in the Major, Woods and Blaine counties in the Anadarko Basin. Historical production in this area comes from stacked pay horizons ranging from the Ordovician Arbuckle to the Pennsylvanian Marmaton Group. Current targets include the Hunton, Woodford, and multiple zones within the Mississippian.

The processing flow is AVO-compliant to maintain true amplitude. It is suitable for rock property and attribute generation: prestack AVO inversion, azimuthal analysis and spectral decomposition. Phase and amplitude treatment will ensure accurate reservoir analysis, said TGS.

in a logistically challenging area for resource exploration, said CGG. A specially modified aircraft equipped with CGG’s proprietary Full Spectrum Falcon airborne technology will simultaneously collect the gravity gradient, gravity, and magnetic

data, for interpretation by CGG’s experts based in Perth, Australia.

The goals of the survey are to understand the sedimentary thickness of the Cuvette, and identify prospective structures using the low-noise Full Spectrum Falcon data.

It is estimated that the Cuvette could contain sediments up to 9-km thick, but with no modern data collected in the basin this will need to be verified. Geophysical data in the basin to date consists of 2D seismic data acquired mostly along the Congo River in the 1950s and 1970s as well as an airborne gravity and magnetic survey in the 1980s.

Greg Paleolog, senior vice-president, multi-physics, CGG, said: ‘The Cuvette Basin could be considered one of the last provinces in Africa to potentially hold giant to supergiant oil and gas accumulations.’

PGS delivers images for 3D surveys offshore Canada PGS is releasing images of its Blomidon, South Bank, and Torngat Extension surveys offshore Newfoundland and Labrador.

Three new GeoStreamer 3D surveys in eastern Newfoundland, south-eastern Newfoundland, and south Labrador, covering approx. 8500 km2, were completed in September 2020.

In Eastern Newfoundland the 3526 km2 Blomidon 3D (West Tablelands) survey targets Tertiary and Cretaceous leads on open acreage that will be included in the Eastern Newfoundland Call for Bids, which closes in November 2022.

In South-Eastern Newfoundland the 2635 km2 South Bank 3D survey is the first 3D project in an area that includes a huge Tertiary fan system. Open acreage will be included in the south-eastern Newfoundland Call for Bids, closing in November 2021.

In South Labrador the new 2050 km2 Torngat Extension 3D survey builds

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Released data covers some 8500km2.

on the existing Torngat 3D survey over oil-prone open acreage that is part of the South Labrador Call for Bids, closing in November 2021.

‘Canada remains a good investment for explorers and we experience significant interest for our multi-client GeoStreamer data in the Newfoundland and Labrador area as GeoStreamer data continues to enhance understanding and unlock new potential,’ said Neil Paddy, VP North America at PGS. Final PSTM GeoStreamer data will be available in Q1 2021.

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Rystad predicts global E&P investment of $380 million in 2021 Investments from global exploration and production companies in 2021 are projected to reach around $380 billion, almost flat year-on-year, according to research from Rystad Energy.

About 20% or $76 billion of the estimated 2021 investments could be at risk of deferral or reduction, with the remaining amount being categorized in the safer tiers of low and medium-range risk.

Investments may rebound to the pre-crisis level of $530 billion by 2023 if oil prices rise to around $65 per barrel – though Rytsad warned that after the previous market crisis in 2014, annual E&P investments never recovered to the pre-crisis level of about $880 billion and instead settled at $500 billion to $550 billion.

Much of that reduction was due to supply chain and efficiency improvements, leaving little scope for further

such reductions this time around, said Rystad. Instead, E&P players are pulling other levers to weather this market downturn, such as deferring infill drilling programmes, projects’ FIDs and start-ups, reporting significant write-offs on stranded assets, and reshaping their portfolios.

‘As E&Ps are also speeding up a transition into low-carbon energy, it is possible that this time, too, upstream investments will not return to pre-crisis levels in the long-term, even if they do recover somewhat over the next few years,’ said Olga Savenkova, upstream analyst at Rystad Energy.

Of the total $380 billion of projected investments, about 60% ($234 billion) is likely to come from producing assets, which have two main spending channels: facility and well capex. Within facility capex, about 38% will be spent on facility maintenance. This is believed to be

a low-risk category, as operators were forced to postpone most of their planned maintenance programmes in 2020 due to coronavirus restrictions and lower oil prices. Maintenance work will therefore have high priority in 2021.

Shallow hazard high-resolution prestack time migration products will also be available, to aid in shallow drilling hazard analysis, along with gravity and magnetic data for regional basin analysis.

Martin Melhuus, PGS vice-president sales and services for South America, said: ‘Despite the challenges of this year, the support of industry funding for this programme shows there is strong interest in the potential within the Campos Basin.

Available fast-track results show great promise and reveal large presalt structures within the available acreage.’

The survey will bring PGS’s coverage in the area to approximately 14,900 km2.

Fugro completes geodata study for US east coast windfarms

Fugro has surveyed a 520 km2 area for offshore wind turbines.

Fugro has completed a large site characterization field programme off the coast of Massachusetts for Mayflower Wind, a joint venture between Shell New Energies and Ocean Winds (a collaboration of Engie and EDP Renewables).

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which could generate up to 800 MW for more than half a million homes.

Fugro’s work on the project began in April and comprised four vessels and one aircraft to acquire geo-data about the site’s water depth, seafloor morphology, seabed and sub-seabed geohazards, historical and archaeological resources, benthic habitats, and soil properties.

Laboratory testing, data integration and analysis are now underway to support the project’s construction and operation plans.

Meanwhile, Fugro and the Japanese NYK Group have signed an agreement to provide offshore geotechnical services for Japan’s burgeoning offshore wind industry. They will also collaborate on a feasibility study into jointly operating a specialist investigation vessel for renewables projects.

INDUSTRY NEWS

PGS launches data offshore Angola and Namibia PGS has launched its expanded Angola Kwanza Shelf multi-client 3D coverage.

In partnership with Agência Nacional de Petróleo, Gás e Biocombustíveis (ANPG), the company is offering the latest 8300 km2 fast-track dataset for Kwanza Shelf in time for the Angolan 2021 Licensing Round.

‘The absence of adequate seismic data on the shelf has posed significant challenges to exploration, with the imaging of complex salt and presalt basins being historically poor but this high-quality dataset allows for detailed lead and prospect generation, attribute analysis, and reservoir-scale evaluations,’ said PGS in a statement.

Meanwhile, early PSTM products are available from PGS’ latest multi-client 3D survey in the Namibe Basin. New coverage over Blocks 29, 30, 44, and 45 brings fresh understanding for deeper water exploration, said PGS.

US GoM lease sale generates $120 million in high bids

The latest ANG Namibe 2020 3D GeoStreamer dataset targets more than 14,000 km2 in the Namibe Basin, complementing the ANG Namibe 2014 3D survey and NAM 2019 3D survey across the border in Namibia.

PGS now offers more than 34,000 km2 of continuous broadband seismic data in the region, tying into exploration and ODP wells.

Final PSTM products will be available in Q1 2021 and final PSDM data in Q3 2021. Regional GeoStreamer 3D data incorporating FWI velocity model building will better image structures and faults and help to establish target plays in the southern Namibe Basin, said PGS. ‘The new 3D data delivers improved signal-to-noise ratio. This enables mapping in this frontier area of a basin framework and Cretaceous through to Tertiary play elements in order to identify basin sweet spots in the syn and post-rift sections, derisking further exploration,’ said PGS.

The US region-wide Gulf of Mexico Lease Sale 256 generated $121 million in high bids for 93 tracts covering 79 million acres. Twenty three companies participated in the lease sale, submitting $135,558,336 in total bids.

Lease Sale 256 included 14,862 unleased blocks in the Gulf’s Western, Central and Eastern Planning Areas.

Lease sale 256, livestreamed from New Orleans, was the seventh offshore sale held under the 2017-2022 National Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Programme. Under this programme, 10 region-wide lease sales are scheduled for the Gulf.

Meanwhile, The US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) is offering 78.2 million acres for a region-wide Gulf of Mexico lease sale scheduled for March 2021. The eighth offshore sale under the 2017-2022 Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Programme will include 14,594 unleased blocks.

‘Despite circumstances imposed by the coronavirus, we are confident that industry remains interested in acquiring new leases to support their portfolios,’ said Mike Celata, director of BOEM’s Gulf of Mexico region.

Last year was a record year for American offshore oil production, at 596.9 million barrels, or 15% of domestic oil production, and $5.7 billion in direct revenues to the government, said BOEM.

Searcher teams up with NVentures to strengthen its geo-database Searcher Seismic has struck a deal to integrate NVentures’ competitor intelligence database on Searcher’s geo-imagery search engine – GeoClerk.

GeoClerk users will be able to search for geo-imagery through GeoClerk’s open-file database and the NVentures database with the platform intelligently identifying and classifying images into relevant categories.

The NVentures global E&P database consists of geology-rich reporting, maps and presentations, providing valuable and up to date information and insight to exploration teams monitoring upstream activity and local exploration results. This includes intelligence to support new ventures and business development groups analysing opportunities, trends and the farm-out market.

GeoClerk is a geo-imagery search engine, utilizing machine learning to intelligently extract imagery and surrounding data from all types of documents, classifying them into geologically relevant categories. GeoClerk searches for proprietary content held within several of its plug-ins from institutional and government databases.

Alan Hopping, VP for Searcher, said, ‘GeoClerk is a platform through which geoscientists around the world can at last access not only their own data but also GeoClerk’s growing inventory of proprietary databases. The addition of the NVentures plugin to GeoClerk will allow our users to search through years of highly technical data in an instant, saving them hours of endless research by having all available data accessible via one centralized and searchable platform, GeoClerk.’

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INDUSTRY NEWS

Hydrogen projects could boost $400 billion service industry, says Rystad A wave of green and blue hydrogen projects in coming years could unlock about $400 billion worth of spending for the service industry between 2020 and 2035, research from Rystad Energy industry has revealed.

Of the total pipeline, Rystad has projected that about 30 gigawatts (GW) of green hydrogen capacity is expected to be operational by 2035. Several blue hydrogen mega-projects are also being discussed at present.

Of the $400 billion worth of investments, transport and infrastructure will account for $130 billion, facility construction $120 billion, equipment costs $70 billion, while engineering costs and

maintenance, modifications & operations (MMO) will amount to about $25 billion each.

‘At present, hydrogen projects, especially green hydrogen, are centred in Australia and Europe. In Asia, meanwhile, Japan and Korea are looking into importing hydrogen and developing international supply chains, especially within transportation.

Hydrogen is also expected to feature in China’s forthcoming five-year energy plan, as well as in the plans presented by provincial authorities in the country,’ said Audun Martinsen, head of energy service research at Rystad Energy.

In Europe, a group of 11 gas infrastructure companies has come up with

a proposal for the development of EU hydrogen infrastructure starting with key renewable energy regions in Europe, such as the North Sea. Under the proposed infrastructure strategy, a 6800 km pipeline network will need to be built by 2030 to facilitate transportation.

For hydrogen storage, large-scale storage locations – salt caverns, aquifers or depleted hydrocarbon fields – will be needed, involving either locations already in use for other purposes or developing new ones. Storing and retrieving hydrogen in this manner will require the drilling of a large number of wells – both injectors and producers.

Equinor joins big green hydrogen project

Eemshaven is the focus of plans for a green hydrogen cluster in the Netherlands.

Equinor has become a partner in Europe’s biggest green hydrogen project.

The NortH2 project will produce green hydrogen using renewable electricity from offshore wind off the coast of Netherlands.

‘The project can be an important part in our efforts to build a competitive position in hydrogen, creating future value and industrial possibilities, said Equinor CEO, Anders Opedal. ‘Our aim is to be a net-zero energy company by 2050 and developing a profitable low carbon value chain for hydrogen will be an essential part of our transition to become a broad

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energy company. Hydrogen will be key to decarbonization and net zero efforts for the energy market, especially in otherwise hard to abate sectors which cannot be served by electricity.’

NortH2 was launched in February 2020

by Shell, Groningen Seaports Gasunie and the province of Groningen. Equinor joins RWE as new partners to the project. The project will complete a feasibility study by 2021, with the aim to start project development activities in the second half of 2021.

It will have a capacity of 1 GW in 2027, 4 GW by 2030 and 10+ GW by 2040 for electrolysis. This equates to

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0.4. million tonnes of green hydrogen production in 2030 and 1 million tonnes of green hydrogen production by 2040.

This could abate 8 to 10 million tonnes of CO2 emissions – equivalent to the yearly emissions from road traffic in Norway.

‘Hydrogen will add to the competitiveness of renewables in the years to come by adding value and an alternative route to market for renewables,’ said Pål Eitrheim, executive vice president New Energy Solutions in Equinor.

Equinor said that northwest Europe is well positioned to develop an integrated hydrogen value chain – from offshore wind development and renewable power generation to production, storage, transport and the sale of green hydrogen.

‘The North Sea has a great potential for large-scale wind development, there is extensive existing natural gas infrastructure that is suitable for storage and large-scale transport of hydrogen, and there are large industrial clusters in the Netherlands and Germany as well as heavy-duty vehicle OEMs that could economically benefit from a ‘first mover’ advantage,’ the company said.

INDUSTRY NEWS

US shale spending and output to keep declining in 2021 US shale oil output has declined by 3.1% to 7.5 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2020 from 7.7 million bpd in 2019, Rystad Energy estimates. In 2021 shale oil output is estimated to decline further by 2-3%.

US operators’ D&C capex, which was $98.7 billion in 2019, will more than halve in 2020 to $45.2 billion. Operators’ have now shifted focus towards preserving as much output as possible while implementing capital efficiency measures, which means 2021’s capex is projected to decline 7-9% year on year.

Rystad Energy has also analysed the third quarter guidance of 23 companies, which together account for about 41% of this year’s US shale oil production. Inter-

preting the companies’ released guidance, their 2021 onshore oil production will likely shrink by 1.9% while D&C capex will be 12.9% lower compared to the group’s stated 2020 plans. When the plans of larger producers and private operators are added to the analysis, capex decline will likely be lower, at 7-9%, and output cuts larger.

‘Amid a second wave of Covid-19 in North America and Europe, and uncertainty related to potential new regulation the industry may face once a new US administration settles in, operators largely remain disciplined. They aim to increase cost efficiencies and spend only the minimum amount needed to prevent next year’s output from declining too much,’

said Alisa Lukash, senior analyst at Rystad Energy.

Permian-focused operators will cut spending by about $1.6 billion, or 16% below this year’s target. Operators with a presence across multiple basins will follow suit, with an $800 million, or 11%, spending decrease. Bakken-focused peers will cut spending by $200 million, or 9%.

Despite the fact that operators in the Permian Basin are leading capex reduction efforts, the group has guided an almost 2% increase in oil output in 2021 compared to 2020. The factors driving this drastic cost reduction per barrel include service cost reductions and the price deflation of components.

Largest North Sea OBN survey is completed CGG and Magseis Fairfield have completed acquisition of the largest OBN survey ever acquired in the North Sea. Approx. 1650 km2 of long-offset, full-azimuth data have been acquired, with first images being made available in early 2021 and final PSDM data planned for release in Q4 2021. Further extensions of the OBN Cornerstone survey are being considered for 2021.

Some 1650 km2 of full-azimtuh data have been acquired.

Covering two highly prospective areas of the UK Continental Shelf, the OBN Cornerstone 2020 survey is designed to address the challeng-

Geothermal survey of the Netherlands passes 1000 km

es associated with deeper, higher-risk Jurassic and Triassic plays, typically under high-pressure, high-temperature conditions, and the presence of complex structural processes associated with Permian salt movement. The combination of full-azimuth imaging, additional fold and near-offset data will result in significant improvement of deep illumination and noise removal, while helping to illuminate and image the steep flanks and complex architecture created by salt diapirism.

The OBN Cornerstone 2020 multi-client survey in the UK Central North Sea commenced in March 2020 and has already received significant industry interest and prefunding, said CGG. Sophie Zurquiyah, CEO, CGG, said: ‘The new high-technology data set will complement CGG’s extensive high-quality Cornerstone towed-streamer data library, providing our clients with the best available information to de-risk the awarded blocks from the UK 32nd Licensing Round and support the UK Oil & Gas Authority’s strategy for maximizing economic recovery.’

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The Seismic Campaign for Geothermal Energy in the Netherlands (SCAN) has collected its 1000th kilometre of data in the municipality of Laarbeek (North Brabant).

SCAN has been examining the Dutch subsurface for the future use of geothermal energy since the summer of 2019. It is evaluating resources in areas of the Netherlands where there has so far been insufficient data available.

Energie Beheer Netherlands (EBN) and TNO have been conducting the programme on behalf of the Ministry of Economic and Climate Affairs.

The survey has now visited more than 130 municipalities. Approximately 16,000 holes have been drilled, nearly 200,000 geophones installed and more than 148,000 hours worked in the field.

The seismic survey is expected to continue until the end of 2021.

Gitta Zaalberg, programme manager of geotechnical operations at EBN, said that preparations were now being made for scientific drilling.

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INDUSTRY NEWS

US to make provision for more Arctic drilling The US government has pledged to make it easier to explore Arctic regions in US waters.

The US Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement and Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is to issue an Arctic Exploratory Drilling Proposed Rule to remove ‘unnecessary, burdensome provisions’ while ensuring that energy exploration on the Arctic Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) remains safe and environmentally responsible.

‘As countries like Russia increase their presence in the Arctic – including the use of US technologies to develop their seabed resources, it is increasingly important to ensure that the United States has a strong presence in the Arctic OCS,’ said deputy secretary of the inte-

rior Kate MacGregor. ‘The Beaufort and Chukchi Seas have a long legacy of oil and gas development – we believe these proposed revisions will better harness new technological innovation and best science to allow for responsible domestic energy development off the coast of Alaska.’

Executive Order 1375 directed the Department of the Interior to review the 2016 Arctic Exploratory Drilling Rule and to report recommendations. To date, there have been 37 wells completed in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas.

The proposed rule leaves 36 out of 65 provisions from the original Arctic Rule unchanged. Ten provisions were identified as appropriate for revision, and 12 provisions were added to maintain safety and environmental protection on the OCS.

Wells could be drilled in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas.

Sercel launches seismic tool to monitor buildings Sercel and Apave have launched AP’Structure, a structural health monitoring solution.

The solution will enable operators to monitor the integrity of entire buildings and infrastructure in real time, receive warnings about irregularities and prolong the life cycle of the infrastructure.

AP’Structure deploys S-lynks, a newly launched autonomous wireless solution from Sercel for measuring structural vibration.

With its embedded ultra-sensitive QuietSeis sensor, S-lynks can measure a structure’s ambient noise. The wireless system is self-sustaining and can be deployed on all types of structures. The recorded data is then streamed to the cloud for processing and is immediately accessible for remote analysis.

Apave’s engineers and technicians will carry out expert analysis and interpretation of the recorded monitoring data using proprietary algorithms. This

dynamic data is used to understand the behaviour of a structure, monitor its deterioration over time, trigger alerts if anomalies are detected that are not visible to the naked eye, and propose corrective measures.

Philippe Maillard, Apave CEO, said: ‘AP’Structure will enable operators to monitor the integrity of buildings and structures in real time so that they can anticipate and prioritize maintenance operations and prolong their life cycle.’

PGS completes imaging of offshore Ghana data PGS has completed imaging of the first-ever multi-client 3D seismic survey offshore Ghana. The broadband KPSDM data reveals sharper imaging of prolific Cretaceous reservoir targets.

The 3D GeoStreamer survey acquired in 2019 targets the Tano Basin, an area that has recently received high-profile exploration success with the Afina-1X discovery well. Down-dip

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analogs of this play are well imaged with increased high- and low-frequency content providing sharper imaging and improved resolution of stratigraphic traps.

The survey focuses on the Upper Cretaceous play, revealing a deep marine turbidite channel and fan complexes that provide excellent reservoir potential in the Cenomanian, Turonian, and Campanian formations. Deeper

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syn-rift plays are also well imaged with multiple Albian-aged leads identified in tilted fault blocks and inversion anticlines.

The company said that GeoStreamer data with Full Waveform Inversion velocity model building and AVO compliant prestack data will allow explorers to ‘significantly derisk deepwater exploration in this prolific basin.’

INDUSTRY NEWS

Shearwater wins large OBN survey offshore Brazil Shearwater GeoServices has won an award from Petrobras of a large Ocean Bottom Node 4D Baseline survey over the Jubarte Field in the Campos Basin offshore Brazil.

The 810 km2 survey will start in the first half of 2021 and be conducted over a three-month period.

The vessel SW Diamond will operate Shearwater’s unique 3x3 source which is equipped with three sub-arrays on each

BRIEFS Norway has announced the 25th licensing round, encompassing 136 blocks in the Norwegian Sea and the Barents Sea. The deadline to apply for blocks is 23 February, 2021. Awards are expected during the first quarter of 2021

of the three sources, as opposed to the conventional two, allowing increased efficiency without source compromise.

While conventional sources vary their energy in one direction versus another, this project’s omni directional source is designed to give out energy uniformly in all directions which will be key to 4D repeatability for this azimuth deepwater OBN acquisition, said Shearwater.

Chevron has announced its 2021 capital spending programme of $14 billion and lowered its longer-term guidance to an annual $14 to $16 billion through to 2025, lower than its previous guidance of $19 to $22 billion, which excluded Noble Energy. As investment is expected to decrease for a major expansion in Kazakhstan, the company will increase investments in the Permian, other unconventional basins, and the Gulf of Mexico.

Seabird makes move into deep-sea marine mining Seabird Exploration has diversified into deep-sea mining after announcing plans for funding and listing of its new subsidiary Green Minerals AS (GM).

‘Green Minerals will enable the world’s drive towards electrification and digitization in a sustainable manner. We do this by deep-sea mining of marine minerals and rare earth elements (REE) key to the green shift, eliminating the social costs in onshore mining while reducing the environmental footprint and solving a strategic need for the EU and USA,’ SeaBird said.

Green Minerals has raised $13 million by issuing 2.8 million shares in the new venture. Seabird has retained ownership of 77% in the company. Green Minerals

will seek listing on Euronext Growth Oslo in Q1 2021.

‘Some of the largest shareholders in Seabird, the executive chairman and at least one board member have pre-committed to subscribe to the offering,’ SeaBird said.

Medium-term, the company is looking to win licences to survey, explore and produce marine minerals on the Norwegian Shelf, capitalizing on what it says is a $77.8 billion resource potential.

Long term, Green Minerals said its goal is to win mining licences internationally, based on its Norwegian Shelf technology, and establish the company as a leading offshore miner globally.

EMGS has won a 3D CSEM and MT (magnetotelluric) multi-client survey in the Gulf of Mexico. The contract from an existing client represents the first project for this customer in the Gulf of Mexico.

The vessel Atlantic Guardian will start the one- to two-month survey in late Q1.

Paragon Geophysical Services has selected Sercel’s latest nodal technology to conduct seismic surveys across the US. The company will use Sercel’s WiNG System-Certified Data delivery and QuietSeis broadband digital sensor.

Turkey has extended the seismic survey work being carried out by the vessel Oruc Reis in a disputed part of the eastern Mediterranean until 29 November. European Union foreign ministers are said to be evaluating grounds for sanctions against Turkey.

Total develops carbon storage simulator Total and its partners have launched a simulator designed to predict the long-term behaviour of CO2 stored in geological repositories.

Developed using new technologies in high-performance computing and applied mathematics, the GEOSX simulator aims to improve the management and safety of large-scale geological storage. It has been released as an open-source tool to support the entire industry in developing CCUS technologies.

GEOSX is the first major milestone of the five-year FC-MAELSTROM research project launched in 2018 by Total, Stanford University School of Earth, Energy and Environmental Sciences, and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory of the United States Department of Energy.

The project is led by a team based in California, working with researchers from industry players, universities and professional institutions.

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Brazil has launched its 17th Bidding Round in which 96 blocks will be offered in the Campos, Pelotas, Potiguar and Santos Sedimentary Basins, totalling 54,000 km2.

Deadline for submission of bids is 7 October, 2021.

The Danish parliament has voted to end all the country’s oil and gas exploration and extraction in the North Sea by 2050 as well as cancel its latest licensing round.

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INDUSTRY NEWS

Oilfield services market to shrink by $340 billion The oilfield services (OFS) market, including seismic services, is projected to lose $340 billion in purchases over the next eight years as peak oil demand arrives earlier and at a lower level than previously thought, according to Rystad Energy research.

The Covid-19 pandemic’s effect and the accelerating energy transition last month impelled Rystad Energy to revise its peak oil demand forecast to 2028, two years earlier than previously expected, at 102 million barrels per day, down from earlier projections of 106 million barrels per day.

OFS purchases are expected to drop to $473 billion this year from $625 billion in 2019 and remain flat in 2021 before starting a slow recovery. ‘Based on our updated peak oil demand forecast we now see OFS purchases returning to pre-pandemic levels only after 2024 in nominal terms, reaching $642 billion in 2025,’ said Rystad.

‘With a lower need and willingness among E&P companies to invest in oil and gas, capital expenditure across offshore, shale and conventional onshore resources will probably struggle to get back to 2019 levels,’ said Audun Martinsen, head of energy service research at Rystad Energy. ‘In nominal terms, offshore investment levels are projected to return to 2019 levels in 2023, with conventional onshore following suit in 2025 and shale in 2028. In real terms, however, investments in upstream oil and gas may never make it back to 2019 levels.’

The service market is now estimated to grow at a compound annual rate of 7.9% from 2020 to 2025, compared to 10.4% in previous forecasts. The biggest revision to service purchases comes from the engineering, procurement, production and installation (EPCI) segments, where lower sanctioning activity has had a negative impact, but segments related to wells have also suffered due to the slowdown in the shale sector.

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Emerson launches analytics software for reservoir identification Emerson has launched SpeedWise Reservoir Opportunity, a fully automated, cloud-native reservoir analytics solution.

The software, developed with Quantum Reservoir Impact (QRI), applies advanced algorithms, data mining and workflow automation to cut the amount of work required to identify field development opportunities from months to weeks.

The solution features automated geo-engineering workflows for identifying and ranking recompletion, vertical sweet spots and horizontal wells. By analysing historical field performance

and benchmarking against analog assets, the flexible framework intelligently picks the optimal parameters for the identification process, tailored to address the unique geological and engineering challenges posed by each field.

‘Oil and gas professionals can now identify field development opportunities with 10 times the speed and accuracy compared to present industry norms.

Using AI, advanced analytics and automation of complex workflows to deliver capital savings – that is a game changer,’ said Dr. Nansen Saleri, chairman and CEO, QRI.

Exploration round-up Equinor has won consent to drill exploration well 7220/7-4 in production licence PL 532, in the Barents Sea. The well will be drilled to test a prospect named Isflak. Water depth is 351 m.

MOL has won consent to drill wildcat well 2/9-6 S in production licence PL 617 in the Norwegian North Sea. The area in this licence consists of part of Block 2/9. The well will be drilled about 31 km east of the Valhall field.

ConocoPhillips and its partners in the Tor Unit have started production from Tor II in the Greater Ekofisk Area of the North Sea. It is a redevelopment of the Tor field, which was in production from 1978 to 2015. It is the first redevelopment of a shut-in field on the Norwegian Continental Shelf.

Maha Energy’s Tie-2 development well (7-TIE-2D-BA), on the Tie light oil field, onshore Brazil, has reached a TD of 2195 m. Electric logging and drilling results confirmed the Agua Grande (AG) and Sergi formations are likely to be oil bearing.

President Energy has reported that testing of the exploration well EVNx1 near the main Estancia Vieja field,

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Valhall field.

Rio Negro province, Argentina, has identified two pay intervals. Initial production of more than 200 bopd is expected plus associated gas.

Equinor and partners Petoro, Wellesley and DNO have been given a drilling permit for wildcat well 31/1-2 S and appraisal well 31/1-2 A in production licence PL 923 in the Northern North Sea. The wells will be drilled about 18 km southwest of the Fram field.

Equinor and partners Vår Energi, Idemitsu Petroleum and Neptune Energy have won a drilling permit for wildcat well 31/2-22 S and appraisal well 31/2-22 A in production licence PL 090 I in the Northern North Sea. The wells will be drilled about 8 km southwest of the Fram field.

INDUSTRY NEWS

Danish CO2 storage project clears regulatory hurdle

Hod illustration; Source: Aker BP

The mission to store CO2 beneath the Danish North Sea has cleared its first

major hurdle after the chosen subsea reservoir was confirmed feasible for CO2 injection by independent certification body DNV GL. The certification of feasibility issued

by DNV GL concerns the Nini West reservoir operated by Ineos, which is leading the Project Greensand consortium in partnership with Wintershall Dea and Maersk Drilling.

DNV GL confirms that the Nini West field is conceptually suitable for injecting 0.45 million tonnes of CO2 per year per well for a 10-year period,

and that the subsea reservoir can safely contain the CO2 in compressed form.

The Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS) acts as research partner to the project and is in the process of performing laboratory experiments of core material from the actual Nini West reservoir.

Project Greensand hopes to have the first well ready for injection from the Nini platform in 2025. Longer term, the ambition is to develop the capacity to store approx. 3.5 million tonnes of CO2 per year before 2030.

Sercel wins big land seismic contract in Saudi Arabia Sercel has won a big contract to supply land seismic equipment for a 3D mega-crew survey recently awarded to Argas in Saudi Arabia. The equipment selected 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 VE464 advanced vibrator electronics. Argas will acquire the long-term survey in a harsh desert

environment from the end of Q1 2021 onwards.

This award marks the fifth 508XT system to be deployed on a mega-crew survey in the Middle East in the last five years.

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Special Topic

LAND SEISMIC Land seismic systems continue to develop to facilitate ever more channels as well as cableless systems to ensure that efficient acquisition can take place in all terrains and with very little down time. New developments are also making systems more hard wearing so that they can operate at higher temperatures and in harsher environments. More sophisticated kit, including increasing use of drones, is facilitating larger surveys with longer sweeps.

Hugo Vieytes provides a synthesis on the exploration of hydrocarbons in the Perdanales Salt Flat, II Region, Atacama, Chile.

Jerzy Trela et al discuss recent advances in seismic nodal technology that have resulted in improved operational efficiency due to the reduction in size, weight, and increased field endurance of nodes and demonstrate why there is an urgent need to develop new quality standards for the next generation seismic data based on autonomous nodes.

Tim Dean et al examine an extensive set of node test results from several recent nodal surveys to determine just how reliable modern nodes are.

Spencer L. Rowse examines the factors that determine the transfer of energy from the source mechanism to the seismic signal Clark, R. Gruenwald et al describe the largest European single season data acquisition project successfully accomplished in challenging operational conditions in South Eastern Romania.

Nicolas Tellier et al present data-supported comparisons between two sensors and discuss their impact on final imaging.

Payton, S et al present a multi-physics approach that does not suffer from velocity-depth ambiguity and provides a robust shallow velocity model.

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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FEATURE: WHATSUP!

New Year’s Resolutions In this third WhatsUp! feature, Peter Rowbotham offers New Year’s Resolutions for geoscientists.

A new year gives the opportunity for new resolutions, but also time to reflect. Let me offer you these two thoughts; given how much you have dedicated to studies or projects in 2020, surely what you have learnt deserves to be shared for the benefit of others? And looking back, can you think of any occasion when you regretted publishing or presenting something? Contrast that with regrets about not publishing those projects which never quite made it to completion, the ideas you had to leave behind when starting a new job or taking a career break, the data sitting orphaned on floppy disks or exabytes? Resolution 1: make insights available to others in 2021 through technical papers, conference presentations or online content.

Visual communication A picture is worth a thousand words. As geoscientists and engineers, this is particularly true for us and the way we see and consider the earth. How often have you gazed down at the beach at low tide and marvelled at sedimentary processes in action, or looked up at the sky to see patterns redolent of seismic waves?

The sight of a farmer planting, harvesting or ploughing in race track mode brings to mind seismic acquisition, with trees or telephone poles his or her equivalent of our platform obstructions (Figure 1). Our ‘swathe/swath’ of acquisition comes from an Old English/West Germanic word, which in Middle English denoted a measure of the width of grassland covered by a sweep of the mower’s scythe (Figure 2). Continuing on the theme of the agricultural/geoscientific link, might I suggest you search for ‘Remote Sensing of Crop Lodging storymaps’ by Sugandh Chauhan. Before reading this, I knew next to nothing about satellite imaging of crops, what lodging meant (although I’ve

seen it often enough in my local fields), or how the skills I have as a geophysicist could transfer across directly to agriculture. With a broad audience in mind, Dr Chauhan has explained the why, what and so what of the research being undertaken. To paraphrase a primary school saying ‘If a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing (and talking about) well.’ Resolution 2: explain work in such clear terms.

Publishing with First Break If the resolutions so far have persuaded you to write a paper, allow me to make a pitch for this publication. First Break sits in the camp of mass media rather than learned journal, and for that reason the potential readership is large, but only if you catch their attention. The importance of figures in that role cannot be stated enough, and I relish those technical paper submissions to First Break with the fewest words and the best figures. Resolution 3: always give figures the attention they deserve.

As for writing, there are many guides available to how best to communicate with your audience, and for starters I would refer you to A Scrutiny of the Abstract by K.K. Landes and A scrutiny of the Introduction by J.F. Claerbout. The abstract is not a summary – it is your elevator pitch. Use it to motivate the reader to continue. The introduction should follow ‘Review, Claim, Agenda’ but save the reader’s patience and our printing costs/your membership fee by listing only the key papers that you would personally recommend that the reader follow up.

The easy parts are the method and results, the main pitfall here being a chronological listing of everything that was done.

Focus on the new — if what you have done is what everyone would do, save your breath and say ‘in the standard way’.

The following comments about results, discussion and conclusions were made to an author in a recent review, and provide useful pointers for future contributors: • The results are too light — you have produced some interesting maps but there is no discussion of the results.

• Together with a more detailed results section, the paper needs a discussion — somewhere to offer the reader some greater insights from your experience with this study. Where were the problems, was any special attention needed, where could improvements come in the future?

• The conclusion could offer more than a summary of what has been done. What has been concluded? Have you achieved everything you set out to do?

Views expressed in this article are solely those of the author, who can be contacted at peter.rowbotham@apachecorp.com.

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CALENDAR

CALENDAR OF EVENTS 22-24 FEBRUARY 2021

First EAGE Workshop on Optimizing Project Turnaround Performance

Online www.eage.org

February 2021 2, 17 and 18 Feb

EAGE Global Hotspot Series: Algeria and Southern Africa 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

March 2021

EAGE Events

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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

5‑7 Apr

Second EAGE Reservoir Characterization and Modelling Workflows for Giant Carbonate Field Developments of the Middle East www.eage.org

Ras Al Khaimah

6 Apr

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

Online

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

26‑30 Apr

Engineering and Mining Geophysics 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

10‑12 May

First EAGE Workshop on East Canada Offshore Exploration www.eage.org

St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador

Canada

24‑28 May

Horizontal Wells 2021 www.eage.org

Astrakhan

Russia

13 Jun

Third Young Professionals Summit yp-summit.org

Amsterdam

Netherlands

14-17 Jun

82 nd EAGE Conference & Exhibition www.eageannual2021.org

Amsterdam

Netherlands

Russia

Australia

April 2021 United Arab Emirates

Austria

May 2021

June 2021

EAGE Events

Non-EAGE Events

FIRST

BREAK

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VOLUME

39

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JANUARY

2021

111

WHY CHOOSE US?

ENABLING AFFORDABLE, HIGH-DENSITY SEISMIC FOR ANY INDUSTRY

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R E D U C T I O N I N O P E R AT I O N A L V E H I C L E S

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REDUCED HSE RISK

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L E S S E N V I R O N M E N TA L I M PA C T

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HIGH RESOLUTION IMAGERY

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