First Break March 2021 - Modelling / Interpretation

VO L U M E 3 9 I I S S U E 3 I M A R C H 2 0 21

SPECIAL TOPIC

Modelling / Interpretation EAGE NEWS Annual meeting moves to October TECHNICAL ARTICLE A geophysical perspective on machine learing INDUSTRY NEWS End of the line for Polarcus?

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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, Retired Geophysicist (peterdromgoole@gmail.com) • Rutger Gras, Consultant (r.gras@gridadvice.nl) • Hamidreza Hamdi, University of Calgary (hhamdi@ucalgary.ca) • John Reynolds, Reynolds International (jmr@reynolds-international.co.uk) • James Rickett, Schlumberger (jrickett@slb.com) • Dave Stewart, Dave Stewart Geoconsulting Ltd (djstewart.dave@gmail.com) • Femke Vossepoel, Delft University of Technology (f.c.vossepoel@tudelft.nl) • Angelika-Maria Wulff, Kuwait Oil Company (AWulff@kockw.com)

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Seismic classification: A Thalweg tracking/machine learning approach

Editorial Contents 3

EAGE News

18 Crosstalk

EAGE EDITOR EMERITUS Andrew McBarnet (andrew@andrewmcbarnet.com)

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Industry News

MEDIA PRODUCTION Saskia Nota (firstbreakproduction@eage.org)

Technical Article

PRODUCTION ASSISTANT Ivana Geurts (firstbreakproduction@eage.org)

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Tutorial: a geophysical perspective on machine learning Ian F. Jones

ACCOUNT MANAGER ADVERTISING Peter Leitner (plr@eage.org)

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Imaging and depth conversion of low relief fields Chris Field, Said Al Abri, Ahmed Obeidi and Tahira Qureshi

Special Topic: Modelling / Interpretation

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)

53 Efficient reflectivity modelling for full wavefield FWI Tony Martin, Yang Yang, Norman Daniel Whitmore, Nizar Chemingui, Tiago Alcantara and Eric Frugier 59 Seismic classification: A Thalweg tracking/machine learning approach

Paul de Groot, Mike Pelissier and Marieke van Hout 65 Alternative workflow for GLCM-based estimation of spatial variation in seismic data using pre-selected directions Christoph Georg Eichkitz, Martin Krainer and Marcellus Gregor Schreilechner 73

Velocity for inversion of 3D seismic surveys Huw James

79 Applying heat flow scenarios to investigate hydrocarbon generation potential — heating up the Venus prospect

Colette Lyle 85 The effects of lithology and facies types on the anisotropy parameters and upscaling factor of the sand reservoirs in the deep-water Sadewa field, Kutei Basin, East Kalimantan, Indonesia Dona Sita Ambarsari, Sigit Sukmono, Ignatius Sonny Winardhi, Teuku Abdullah Sanny, Pongga Dikdya Wardaya, Erlangga Septama, Tavip Setiawan, Ahmad Mulawarman, Richie Rahmat Pratama, Vida Irine Rossa and Befriko Murdianto 93 AVO modelling and interpretation with the help of the 1.5D elastic waveequation

A. Gisolf, P.R. Haffinger and P. Doulgeris

Feature: WhatsUp!

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Hey Siri/Alexa – tie my wells Peter Rowbotham

102 Calendar

FIRST BREAK ON THE WEB www.firstbreak.org ISSN 0263-5046 (print) / ISSN 1365-2397 (online)

cover: Enhanced modelling of Côte d’Ivoire Turonian reservoir structure with InsightEarth 3D interpretation software (image courtesy of CGG Multi-Client).

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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

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

Ingrid Magnus Publications 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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Canary tweets in Aberdeen

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Looking forward to YP summit

Success for virtual St Petersburg event

Amsterdam in the autumn is the new setting for our Annual Meeting The 82nd EAGE Annual Conference & Exhibition has been rescheduled to 18-21 October 2021 at the RAI Exhibition Centre in Amsterdam. We believe that everyone will understand the choice of a later date in the year. It should increase the opportunity for a safe return to in-person gatherings as the recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic accelerates with the rollout of vaccination programmes worldwide and return of international travel.

One immediate change is that we are able to extend the submission date for abstracts to be considered for this year’s Annual Technical Programme. The new deadline is 1 May 2021. This will ensure that we can capture all the latest technical developments and current case studies in our professional communty.

The programme will also feature usual collaboration with SPE EUROPEC. For those who attend, Amsterdam in October provides a congenial setting for our meeting under the theme ‘Delivering for the Energy Challenge: Today and Tomorrow’. Our Annual Meeting provides a long awaited opportunity to bring the geoscience community together to discuss the energy transition issues involved. Our goal is to enable as many people as possible to participate in our extensive Technical Programme, Exhibition and associated events. Our hot topic forums offer an excellent opportnity to hear how business and technology leaders view the future.

Place to meet: October in Amsterdam.

This year our Exhibition will be particularly welcome for companies and organizations that have the first opportunity to once again showcase products and services of interest to our members FIRST

and visitors. It already features 250 confirmed companies eager to share the latest developments in geophysics, geology, reservoir/petroleum engineering and more.

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EAGE NEWS

We appreciate that there will be some members who may still be prevented from making the journey to Amsterdam.

For this reason the event is being planned in a hybrid format with parallel physical and online deliveries of the technical programme and many other aspects of the conference and exhibition.

The health and safety of those able to participate in person is of course our top priority, and the RAI venue is working closely with the relevant Dutch authorities to ensure all the protocols for larger

gatherings are met. We will be issuing regular updates on what the requirements for attendance may involve.

We know that everyone is excited to be able to reconnect with their professional community. Amsterdam 2021 promises to be a memorable meeting capturing an important snapshot of the future of the energy industry and is sure to be filled with stimulating discussions.

For all event details, registration and updates please refer to our website www.eageannual2021.org.

SAGEEP 2021 makes its debut online SAGEEP 2021 and the 1st Munitions Response Meeting are ready to bring the latest developments in near-surface geoscience to a worldwide audience.

Taking place online on 14-19 March, the conference will be a 100% virtual experience.

During the five days in March, EAGE and EEGS are working together with the National Association of Ordnance Contractors (NAOC) to bring a varied technical programme to delegates - combining sessions on methodological advances with insightful case studies from around the globe. You can watch the recorded material prior to the meeting and join us for the live Q&A sessions with the speakers during the confer-

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ence days at the allocated presentation time.

SAGEEP 2021 also brings a series of five short courses on different topics. The courses will focus on ‘Active and passive surface wave methods for characterization of seismic site conditions’, ‘WellCAD geophysical log presentation & processing software: new features update’, ‘Ground Penetrating Radar - Principles, (virtual) practice and processing’, ‘Processing, inversion, and visualization of AEM data using Aarhus Workbench’, and an ‘Introduction to BTField software for data acquisition, processing and UXO classification’.

In addition to the live conference presentations, the event will also feature an

online exhibition, where you can see what companies in the near-surface industry have developed in the past year. You can click on their virtual booths and read more about their projects.

Last but not least, SAGEEP 2021 has prepared a social programme for delegates, with interactive talks and ample opportunities for networking. Every day of the event will feature a mid-day activity, in between technical sessions, with invited speakers discussing some of the most interesting developments in near surface.

Don’t wait any longer and register today for SAGEEP 2021 Online and join the event from anywhere. You can find all the details on the conferences and short courses at www.sageep.org.

14-19 MARCH 2021

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ONLINE

UP-GOING WAVEFIELD

DOWN-GOING WAVEFIELD

UP/DOWN DECONVOLUTION

DOWN/DOWN DECONVOLUTION

WHICH OBN PROCESSOR DELIVERS UP/DOWN AND DOWN/DOWN DECONVOLUTION?

When processing information-rich OBN data sets up/down deconvolution enables us, in a single step, to apply 3D source and receiver deghosting, source designature, and surface-related multiple attenuation to the up-going wavefield.

But wait, there’s more! We also offer an exclusive down/down deconvolution solution which provides all these benefits to the down-going wavefield. These algorithms can significantly improve results and reduce turnaround time.

When you think OBN processing. Think DUG. (Data courtesy of AGS and TGS)

EAGE NEWS

International discussion anticipated at Russian hosted environmental studies workshop Dr Svetlana Bricheva of the Institute of Geography, Russian Academy of Science is excited about a particular session in the upcoming Geophysics in Environmental

Dr Svetlana Bricheva, chair of the workshop.

Studies workshop being organized in collaboration with the EAGE Near Surface Geoscience Division Committee as part of the Engineering and Mining Geophysics 2021 Conference and Exhibition.

As workshop chair, Bricheva is highlighting the ‘Breaking the barriers’ session. She says, ‘This is where we will interactively discuss the experience and prospects of international cooperation based on geophysical research. We will talk what Open Science is and how to use it.’

The key issue of the workshop, according to Bricheva, is the usage of near-surface geophysics for the study of productive soils, groundwater, pollution, different eco- and biosystems like trees and roots, including urban and permafrost conditions. This is a topic that has been actively developing in the world over the past decade. Discussion of foreign and Russian experience, prom-

ising research directions, new ideas, and achievements will be held in English.

The hybrid format of the workshop will allow Russian and foreign speakers to participate in face-to-face and online formats.

The workshop is being held on 27 April in Gelendzhik, Russia and online, and organized in four thematic blocks: Agriculture & Ecosystems (soil and plant interactions, tree trunk inspection, drainage systems, productive soils, wetlands); Permafrost & Water (monitoring and modelling of groundwater-surface interaction, soil moisture, unsaturated water and solute flow, thawing and freezing cycles, effects of permafrost on soil productivity); Landforms and Geohazards (long-term and short-term geological processes; ancient and active faulting, landslides, and other hazards and landscape formation and development); and finally the ‘Breaking the barriers’ session.

EAGE Education Calendar 1 MAR 1 APR

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

BY BERNARD MONTARON

ONLINE

3-4 MAR

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

BY JAN DE BRUIN

ONLINE

16 MAR

WEBINAR - FACIES PROBABILITIES: SEISMIC INVERSION COMING OF AGE, BY PATRICK CONNOLLY

ONLINE

17‑18 MAR

SEISMIC SURVEILLANCE FOR RESERVOIR DELIVERY, BY OLAV INGE BARKVED

ONLINE

23 MAR

WEBINAR - NEAR-FIELD MEASUREMENTS VERSUS FAR-FIELD ESTIMATIONS OF AIR GUN ARRAY SOUND PRESSURE LEVELS, BY PHILIP FONTANA

ONLINE

22‑25 MAR

DATA SCIENCE FOR GEOSCIENCE, BY JEF CAERS

ONLINE

12‑13 APR

A COMPREHENSIVE OVERVIEW OF SEISMIC DATA PROCESSING STEPS, BY PIET GERRITSMA

ONLINE

15-16 APR

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

ONLINE

19‑22 APR

FUNDAMENTALS AND PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS OF SPE-PRMS FOR CONVENTIONAL AND UNCONVENTIONAL RESERVOIRS, BY ALEXEI HUERTA

ONLINE

22-23 APR

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

ONLINE

26-29 APR

INTRODUCTION TO WATERFLOOD MANAGEMENT, BY SAAD IBRAHIM

ONLINE

4-7 MAY

3D PRINTING AS AN EMERGING TECHNOLOGY IN GEOSCIENCES, BY FRANCISZEK HASIUK & SERGEY ISHUTOV

ONLINE

17 MAY 17 JUN

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

BY BERNARD MONTARON

ONLINE

7-10 JUN

INTRODUCTION TO DATA ANALYSIS: CONCEPTS AND EXAMPLES, BY ROBERT GODFREY

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

Canary tweets for Aberdeen LC Always up for a catchy title for its evening talks in collaboration with PESGB, EAGE Local Chapter Aberdeen went with ‘Can the canary tweet again?’

It was a presentation by Vanessa Starcher of the British Geological Survey on the Geoenergy Observatory in Glasgow, ‘a new research facility for mine water geothermal energy’, as featured on page 22 of February 2021’s First Break.

Starcher led her audience through the concepts of mine water heating and storage and then explained the purpose of the site in Glasgow as a test bed of technology for future mine water heat projects. The area was previously mined from the 1800s to the 1920s, and mineworking maps reveal both stoop and pillar and longwall drift mining in the area.

As well as environmental monitoring boreholes, and an offset borehole with seismometers, a series of boreholes have been drilled down to 100 m, intersecting several mined coal seams. Some have hit unmined coal (pillars), while others have intersected waste zones. This allows investigation of hydrodynamic flow regimes from a range of worked environments. It is hoped that this facility will enable the widespread adoption of urban mine water heating schemes throughout previously mined areas, especially in Scotland, the NE of England and Wales.

Dubai borehole workshop to focus on maximizing data value in era of energy transition Event co-chairs Howard Simpson (Independent consultant) and Sami Al Saadan (Saudi Aramco) introduce EAGE’s 6th Borehole Geophysics Workshop.

As the world accelerates the transition to renewable energy, hydrocarbons are still, and will remain for some time, a key part of the energy mix. One constant through these changes is EAGE’s vital role in hosting technical workshops, and this includes the Borehole Geophysics workshop, now in its sixth iteration.

Borehole geophysics is a key component to link surface measurements with the reservoir. Data acquired in the well provide high resolution geological and geomechanical measurements vital to calibrate and constrain the processing of surface seismic and other data across the field. The next EAGE Borehole Geophysics workshop, planned as a hybrid event for 16-18 November in Dubai, will bring together geophysicists and geoscientists from operating companies, contractors, equipment suppliers, academics, and anyone interested in promoting and celebrating borehole geophysics in all its forms.

Although these workshops may have previously focused on vertical seismic profiling (VSP), the next workshop will

be open to discussions on a wide range of geophysical techniques, including VSPs. The committee will be inviting technical submissions and case studies from many subjects, including but not limited to: Advances in borehole geophysics sources and sensors; DAS data acquisition - case studies and integration with DSS and DTS; Multi-component 3D imaging with seismic and borehole sonic data; Drilling applications of borehole geophysics; Downhole microseismic – advances and case studies; Machine Learning and AI in borehole geophysics; Calibration and data integration through multi-scale/multi-physics; Advances in modelling and multi-component data processing; Full waveform imaging and inversion; and Monitoring, sustainable energy and near-surface applications.

There will be an opportunity to display technical posters where preferred, plus a display area where invited companies and organizations can promote their acquisition hardware and methods. A social programme will also be part of the event.

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Previous borehole geophysics workshops have attracted a large number of excellent submissions, and the technical committee anticipate the same for Dubai.

Call for abstracts will close on 1 April 2021, for more information please visit the event website via events.eage.org.

Use of modern artificial intelligence technologies for drilling and production.

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EAGE NEWS

Workshop promises a closer look at the hydrocarbon prospectivity of the Northern Emirates Event chairman Paul Swire (RAK Gas) showcases some of the recent exploration successes as well as prospectivity that is currently being detailed in ongoing exploration activity in the Northern Emirates.

The geology of the Northern Emirates is attracting renewed attention from oil exploration companies, so much so that on 6 April EAGE will be holding an online workshop to discuss the prospectivity of the area.

Wadi Rahbah – Panorama of the Hajar Supergroup.

The allochthonous thrust sheets that form the Hajar Mountains which extend into the United Arab Emirates from Oman form a rocky spine to the Northern Emirates. Representation of the geology of the whole Arabian Platform can be viewed in outcrop from the Middle Cretaceous through to the Permian. The mountains form a spectacular backdrop for those who want to see the components of the highly prolific petroleum systems of the Middle East. While most of the hydrocarbons that have been exploited from these systems are from other better developed areas from Abu Dhabi to Kuwait, the Northern Emirates provide as yet mainly untapped potentiality waiting to be unlocked with the use of new exploration techniques.

The recent 2020 large Mahani gas discovery in Sharjah testifies to this, as does

the acquisition in the period over 20182020 of high quality 3D seismic over most of the Ras Al Khaimah exploration blocks both on and offshore. Increased operational activities have led to a new focus which has captured the interest and commitment of foreign IOC’s and national companies to explore along with national partners in these areas to discover, develop and produce the hydrocarbons (mainly gas) that the developed economy of the UAE needs to forge ahead in its continued dynamic growth seen over the last 50 years and projected into its future.

Classic carbonate plays such as the Wasia and Thamama (Shuiaba) formations are also proven in the Northern Emirates with a number of producing fields in the tectonically compressional onshore areas to the mainly extensional offshore areas.

The best quality reservoirs are typically grainstones and rudstones deposited in a shallow water higher energy environment.

Other play types include the Middle and Upper Jurassic Neyriz and Musandam Unit 3, carbonate reservoirs and are sourced possibly also by late Jurassic and or Silurian, this play is proven with the giant Sajaa Field. A developing play the Pabdeh calciturbidites sourced by the Aruma and Pabdeh shales could provide huge potential as it will be much better imaged and then exploited with the integrated use of the new 3D seismic using Play Based Exploration (PBE) techniques.

There are a number of other regionally proven plays that could be prospective, including the Bih Formation (Khuff) sourced by Silurian Qusaiba to Oligocene Asmari Oolites and shallow marine sandstones.

Exploration for new resources can focus on allochthonous and autochthonous thrust sheets whether on frontal thrusts or in foredeep basins and beyond this into a classic rift tectonic setting with trap formation often related to salt withdrawal and collapse.

The online event will share some of the latest research and also will be used to showcase some of the recent exploration successes, as well as prospectivity that is currently being detailed in ongoing exploration activity in the area. This will be supplemented by studies of the magnificent local geology that can be used as direct analogues for these activities.

Further details can be found on the event website via events.eage.org.

Photos courtesy of Paul Swire (RAK Gas).

Wadi Sha’am – Contact between Triassic Ghalilah Formation and Jurassic Musandam Group.

EAGE Student Calendar 20 APRIL 2021

EAGE GEO-QUIZ (STUDENT CHAPTERS ONLY)

ONLINE

19 MAY 2021

STUDENT WEBINAR: GEO SKILLS FOR THE ENERGY TRANSITION,

BY SEAN MCQUAID

ONLINE

JUNE 2021

LAURIE DAKE CHALLENGE 2021 FINAL ROUND

ONLINE

18-21 OCTOBER 2021

82ND EAGE ANNUAL CONFERENCE & EXHIBITION (STUDENT ACTIVITIES)

AMSTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS AND ONLINE

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

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EAGE NEWS

Decarbonization possibilities discussed at the EAGE 2020 Annual Online Dr Joeri Brackenhoff (TU Delft) reports on a recent discussion on Decarbonization Patterns hosted by the EAGE Local Chapter Netherlands and the European Federation of Geologists (EFG) during the EAGE 2020 Annual Conference Online.

Hadi Hajibeygi portrayed here holding a H2 tank in one hand, and rock in another, inside a CT scanner.

The goal of the discussion was to present novel techniques to decrease the amount of carbon emissions caused by humanity.

It was hosted by Drs Diego Rovetta and Joeri Brackenhoff of the EAGE Local Chapter Netherlands with Prof. Hadi Hajibeygi of TU Delft in the Netherlands and Prof. János Szanyi of the University of Szeged in Hungary invited as the event speakers.

Hajibeygi leads the TU Delft Subsurface Storage theme and he talked about the possibility of storing energy inside the ground. Traditionally, the Earth has always been a source of energy, for example in the form of hydrocarbons. However, the role it can play in the energy transition is still under-explored. Hajibeygi pointed out that the subsurface has an enormous potential for storing renewable energy, most notably green gas or compressed and hot fluids.

In order to fully utilize this potential, the gas and fluids stored in the ground need to be efficiently retrieved. If this can be achieved, Hajibeygi argues that the Earth could be the largest battery that we will ever use, and it is right below our feet. He showed the results of several advanced modelling studies that determine if a location has the potential to

be used as a cyclical storage site. A major advantage of this approach is that in many cases the infrastructure for such sites is already in place, for example in depleted gas reservoirs, where many important parameters are already known.

Szanyi focused more on the application of geothermal techniques, showing his many years of experience in this field as the coordinator of the Geothermal Energy group of the European Federation of Geologists (EFG). His talk briefly mentioned the advantages of using geothermal energy, due to its independent nature from weather effects and its renewable potential. Usually, the method is applied to generate power or to act as a heat source for buildings.

Szanyi presented a third option, where the geothermal systems are used to recover metallic minerals located deep inside the Earth. The idea of the technique is that the heat and energy transfers taking place inside the geothermal system can manipulate the geological formations inside the subsurface so that they release the metallic minerals. If this is achieved, the geothermal system can not only recover energy, but also metallic resources. Szanyi showed that this dual recovery can make FIRST

the application of geothermal techniques more profitable as a result.

In the discussion period Hajibeygi and Szanyi commented on each other’s presentations and mentioned the benefits of their respective methodologies. Many questions from the audience concerned the feasibility of the approaches that were being presented, as their ideas have not been fully implemented in practice. Both Hajibeygi and Szanyi discussed these concerns and showed why they believe that their approach could be implemented in the near future. The overall reception was very positive and both the speakers were able to get their message across.

Overall, the event was a great success: while limited in its form due to the lockdown, it brought nuanced discussions about a complex subject. Even if the goal to have a net-zero emission society is still distant, the speakers believe that such a future can be achieved through cutting-edge research.

You can stay informed about Local Chapter The Netherlands through the LinkedIn page (https://www.linkedin. com/groups/13690220/) and become a member by sending an email to eageLCNetherlands@gmail.com.

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EAGE NEWS

Local Chapter Netherlands explores impacts of Covid-19 lockdowns Dr Dorit Koenitz reports on a recent webinar presented by Local Chapter Netherlands.

While the government of the Netherlands was busy announcing stronger Covid-19 lockdown measures, the EAGE Local Chapter Netherlands closed its webinar online season of 2020 on 14 December with a discussion on the impact of the lockdown measures since the spring on our climate and on the general seismic background activity.

The speakers for this evening were Drs Henk Eskes and Jelle Assink, who both work at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI). The Institute is the national research and information centre for weather forecasting and monitoring, climate, air quality, and seismology.

First Eskes took his audience into space and introduced us to ‘Sentinel-5P TROPOMI satellite NO2 observations: impacts of the lockdowns on air pollution levels’.

In the first part of his talk, we learned about the TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI). It is a spectrometer on board the Copernicus Sentinel-5 Precursor satellite from the European Space Ageency (ESA) observing wavelengths in the infrared, visible light and ultraviolet.

The instrument can measure components such as nitrogen dioxide (NO2), ozone, formaldehyde, methane, carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide and aerosols.

The satellite flies in a polar orbit around the Earth and is therefore able to fully map the entire Earth’s atmosphere in one day.

Thanks to TROPOMI’s high resolution of 3.5 x 5.5 km, not only detailed information about a region can be obtained, but also individual sources of air pollution such as cities, highways, power plants, and industrial complexes can be distinguished. NO2 primarily gets in the air from the burning of fuel. It forms from emissions from cars, trucks and buses, power plants, and off-road equipment. Not only does NO2 have direct health effects, it is also a significant gas in air pollution, nature and climate. NO/ NO2 are transformed to harmful particles (nitrates) in the atmosphere and nitrate

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deposition is harmful for the ecosystem. In addition, NO/NO2 play a role in the formation of free tropospheric ozone and have an impact on the lifetime of methane. These two greenhouse gases are a significant driver of climate change.

Comparing the lockdown months in spring 2020 with the same months of 2019, Eskes showed examples from China and Europe (Italy, France and Spain). An unprecedented sudden major reduction in NO2 concentration on all continents could be observed with TROPOMI. These reductions were related to the worldwide Covid19 lockdown measures. Up to 50-60% were recorded mainly due to the transportation sector (cars, trucks, aircrafts, and ships) which in many countries is the biggest source of NO2 pollution.

Covid-19 pandemic: A virus challenges our day-to-day life.

After the lockdowns, lasting typically about a month, the economy picks up and concentration increases again. However, a 10-20% reduction still remains which could be due to people still working from home.

The TROPOMI data have caused a massive media attention. As of October 2020, more than 40 scientific papers have already been published on this subject and many more are to follow.

In the second talk, Assink shared his finding on ‘Global quieting of high-frequency seismic noise due to Covid-19 pandemic lockdown measures’. Scientists from 25 countries on five continents collaborated to conduct this work during the lockdown in April-May. The main task of the KNMI seismology and acoustic department is to

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monitor the seismicity in the Netherlands.

While induced seismicity occurs mainly in the north near Groningen due to gas extraction and salt mining, small tectonic earthquakes are registered in the south along fault zones. KNMI operates a dense network of seismometers, accelerometers and micro-barometers to monitor these events 24/7 and data is publicly available.

Due to the sensitivity of seismometers that detect displacements of very small amplitudes down to the order of nanometres, not only earthquakes, but also small vibrations from human activity that propagate into the ground as high-frequency seismic waves can be recorded. Globally, a reduction of the seismic noise level during the lockdown period could be observed.

On average, a reduction of 10-20% was measured in the Netherlands. The largest reduction of 50% was found in Sri Lanka.

The noise reduction resulted in enhancing the detection of small earthquakes, which are otherwise frequently mask by anthropogenic noise.

An example from Mexico shows that due to the quieting, an earthquake of M5.0 was visible without any filtering required. In general, less noisy signals help to understand the seismicity of a region better. Assink pointed out that noise, though a nuisance for a seismologist in the past, could be used to image the Earth itself. Recent studies demonstrated that cross-correlations of noise recordings from ocean waves can help estimate the group velocity or the temperature at large ocean depth.

It was interesting to learn that besides all the negative headlines, the lockdowns of the Covid-19 pandemic had some positive effects. It is quite a paradox: although the virus attacks our health, the clean-up of the atmosphere due to the lockdowns contributes to an improvement to our health.

More about LC Netherlands can be found at our LinkedIn page (https://www. linkedin.com/groups/13690220).

EAGE NEWS

Gustavo Sclocchi thesis awards honouring student work now in 28th year The EAGE Student Fund, together with SPE Italian Section (Society of Petroleum Engineers) and Assorisorse (Sustainable Natural Resources and Energy), is contin-

should either be Italian nationals or university graduates from an Italian university in order to apply. The thesis topics can be diverse but have to be related to energy,

uing its support of the prestigious Gustavo Sclocchi Thesis Awards scheme, now in its 28th year, recognizing outstanding university graduates specializing in energy industry studies.

The award has a strong connection to Italian academic excellence - students

from fossil sources to renewable and geothermal. These include carbon management and neutrality; energy economics and management; exploration, production and transport of hydrocarbons, including LNG; geology, geophysics and formation evaluation; green refinery feedstocks; health, safe-

ty and environment; and renewable sources, energy transition and circular economy.

The theses will be evaluated and awarded according to the following categories: First level (A) - Master of Science (Laurea Magistrale) theses and Doctor of Philosophy (Dottorato di Ricerca) theses; and second level (B) - Master Reports and Bachelor of Science (Laurea di I livello) theses. A maximum of three prizes will be awarded for category A, two prizes for category B, plus six special mentions.

Over the years, we’ve seen a diverse group of students winning the awards.

Together with the SPE Italian section and EAGE-SEG Italian Section, we are looking forward to this year’s contributions!

Deadline to submit complete electronic copy of the thesis is 31 March 2021. Questions should be addressed to sclocchiaward@gmail.com.

The Award ceremony will take place in June 2021 in the ‘Aula Magna’ of Politecnico di Milano (Piazza Leonardo da Vinci) and via online streaming.

More details about the ceremony will be announced soon.

Near-surface geophysics for mineral exploration and mining to be subject of journal special issue Editors of a special issue of Near Surface Geophysics (NSG) are inviting papers which focus on emerging geophysical techniques for mineral exploration and mining, novel modelling and interpretation approaches, including joint inversion of multiphysics data, as well as representative case studies.

The subject is topical as near-surface geophysics plays a major role in the search for mineral deposits and in monitoring mining processes. Considering the complex challenges of modern-day exploration, the focus now is on making new discoveries in remote areas, especially undercover. This requires developing novel geophysical

techniques, which improve exploration success and lead to new discoveries and successful development of mineral deposits.

A general trend is towards collecting increasingly large volumes of diverse geophysical data in airborne, ground or borehole surveys, and extracting the maximum amount of useful geological information from these data for the shared earth models.

For those wishing to contribute to this special issue of NSG on Near-surface geophysics for mineral exploration and mining, deadline for submission of full manuscripts is 31 May 2021 with final decision on accepted manuscripts by FIRST

15 December 2021. Publication is planned for February 2022.

Guest Editors for this special issue are Michael Zhdanov (University of Utah and TechnoImaging) - michael.s.zhdanov@gmail.com; George Apostolopoulos (National Technical University of Athens) - gapo@metal.ntua.gr; and Dan DiFrancesco (Niagara Gravity Consulting) - dan.difrancesco1@gmail.com.

Modelling and interpretation approach.

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EAGE NEWS

How Young Professionals Summit can continue to make a difference Member of the event organizing committee, Gerardo Gaitan (Royal Holloway, University of London), explains what the YP Summit scheduled for EAGE Amsterdam 2021 is all about.

Young professionals (YPs), now more than ever, acknowledge the importance that we have in the energy mix and to the future of the energy sector. Nevertheless, according to recent statistics, about 50% of young professionals in the UK have said they are preoccupied and/or uncertain about their

YPs around the world face unique challenges, especially after months of lockdowns and economic hardship. With these challenges, however, comes an opportunity for professional development and personal growth. That is why some of us have taken the bull by the horns and

Checking in for summit in 2019.

future. So, how can we help a fellow YP? How can we make sure that we are not bombarding them with too many online events, webinars, and conferences?

This is not another discussion on how much we will need our younger generations to tackle the next societal and energy problems. This article is intended to shed light on what a network of YPs is doing globally to help our younger generations to be ready and start being part of the energy solution.

We must strive to listen to what our YPs have to say and heed their struggles.

We should learn from previous ups-anddowns in the oil and gas industry. In this respect, we must also understand differences and complications. For example, this generation unlike previous ones has to take global warming into consideration.

We have to work together to protect the environment as the energy sector evolves and hopefully thrives with better technologies and practices, themselves only possible with the collaboration and the exchange of ideas.

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committed to help via the YP Summit, a one-day event organized for YPs by YPs in the energy sector.

The YP Summit promotes cross-disciplinary collaboration and industry exchange of ideas to equip our young generations with the necessary tools they need. It was the first event of its kind in the UK and Europe, and now has been imitated with similar initiatives both in Europe and further afield.

In a recent post published on LinkedIn, I explained how the term ‘young professional’ is a loose term. The YP Summit is not only targeted at recent graduates or young people. It is inclusive of a any YP in the first 10 years of their career regardless of the age. Whether you are a recent graduate or someone trying to change roles within the industry, this summit is for you. We aim to improve the communication and relationship between experienced professionals and YPs. It is not entirely up to older generations to pass on the knowledge they have fostered through years of experience. It is also up

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to us YPs to take the initiative and look for the answers we strive to find.

The idea of the YP Summit began in 2017 and has been a great success ever since. We have successfully delivered the YP Summit in London (2018) and in Aberdeen (2019). Due to the pandemic restrictions, we postponed the 2020 event until the autumn of 2021. EAGE intends to host the 2021 edition in Amsterdam if the situation permits.

The EAGE, along with the Petroleum Exploration Society of Great Britain (PESGB) and the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE), have collaborated to host the event in previous years, as they acknowledge its importance to forthcoming generations. This partnership has been renewed for the next edition of the YP Summit as the three societies continue to work together supporting a collaborative YP network.

The meeting tries to address all the challenges that YPs might encounter in their professional careers, from early stages to switching between industries. It is open to all professionals in the energy, technology, and business sector.

The YP Summit committee itself is a multi-cultural and multi-disciplinary team.

We are dedicated to bringing professionals together, to meet, and focus on what are our biggest obstacles and how we can overcome them. Our goal is to help recent graduates and YPs to smoothly transition into their next interview, their next position, or their next job. Our YP summits have been attended by YPs from around the world including Brazil, Germany, Iran, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, Poland, Republic of Ireland, Ukraine, USA, and Venezuela. We have received positive comments from prominent geoscientists and engineers in the energy industry and in academia, which encourages us to continue this legacy.

If you would like to know more about the YP Summit programme, visit us at yp-summit.org.

EAGE NEWS

Workshop to focus on what’s next for high performance computing Amik St-Cyr (Shell) and Vincent Etienne (Saudi Aramco), event co-chairs, look forward to a potentially in-person meeting on the next steps in high performance computing.

High-Performance Computing (HPC) plays a leading role in our current energy business and will be of critical importance for a successful energy transition.

Looking across multiple industries, our business undoubtedly exploits the largest HPC capacity. It helps in seeking higher productivity, lowering costs and making better use of huge amounts of data through high-performance simulation and data analytics. Algorithms performing as fast as possible on the best available hardware have a direct impact on many of the decisions shaping our business. This is particularly true in this post Covid world.

Achieving this goal, through the various forms of HPC, from supercomputers onsite to elastic and versatile solutions on the cloud, is the underlying theme of this fifth staging of the EAGE Workshop on High Performance Computing for Upstream: -‘Heterogeneous HPC: Challenges, Current and Future Trends’.

In upstream, simulation and modelling are our principal mechanisms for the accurate location of hydrocarbons and their optimal production. The reliance on data for making better business decisions at a lower cost is becoming critical. Seismic data are explored using traditional imaging algorithms such as reverse time migration (RTM), full waveform inversion (FWI) and electromagnetic modelling (EM) to illuminate the hidden subsurface of the earth, and reservoir simulation is used to produce fields optimally and predict the time evolution of assets.

Both these are highly compute-intensive activities, which push the leading edge of HPC storage, interconnect and calculation. The industry is evolving on several fronts. Changes in the underlying hardware with the advent of coprocessing or accelerator technologies and manycore CPUs are challenging practitioners to develop new algorithms and port old ones to reap the most performance from

Circuit board futuristic server code processing.

modern hardware. The explosion of data and the recent rapid development in machine learning (ML) are leading to non-traditional ways of interpreting seismic and reservoir data. The emergence of significantly faster reservoir simulation technology is breathing new life into multi-resolution and uncertainty quantification workflows.

The ability to create and mine these data relies on the optimal utilization of supercomputers. This is the result of various synergies between industries, companies, departments and, most importantly, people. HPC IT departments (or even HPC cloud solution providers) are focused on minimizing turnaround times for various workloads, but also deploy the various computing architectures in a cost competitive fashion while adapting to the fast-paced innovation in the semiconductor industry.

Research groups and software application teams in both academia and industry develop algorithms and keep abreast with the latest new ones, while adapting and optimizing existing or new production frameworks to the latest parallel programming model, language and architecture.

The three-day workshop will feature both oral and poster presentations, panel sessions and keynotes from the leading experts in the industry, as well as insightful and interesting deep-dives embedded

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into the workshop technical programme.

The workshop will be in a hybrid format: planned as a physical event with the option of attending and presenting online, should any travel restrictions still apply.

The event will take place on 6-8 September 2021 in Milan, the business and fashion metropolis of Italy. A visit to ENI’s green data centre, home of the #1 supercomputer in our industry, is currently planned. Besides the technical content, social evening events will give attendees the opportunity to exchange further ideas or just share a glass in a relaxed atmosphere.

Milan Cathedral (Duomo di Milano).

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EAGE NEWS

Landa beams prestack signal enhancement talk to LC London from Israel

Illustration from Landa’s presentation.

Evgeny Landa (PetroTrace) took advantage of the online format to present an evening lecture for EAGE Local Chapter London from Israel. His topic of choice was prestack signal enhancement via local coherent stacking with illustrations of the benefits of the method on seismic gathers and migrated images.

A model-independent signal enhancement algorithm is based on the fundamental fact that any function in the vicinity of an arbitrary point can be expanded into a Taylor series and adequately approximated in the vicinity

of this point. Signal enhancement is achieved by a partial summation of the prestack data along the traveltime stacking surfaces. These traveltime surfaces describe a local second-order approximation of the traveltime of a coherent seismic event and are used for partial summation.

A specific and unique feature of this approach is that there are two different grids defined in data space: a sparse parametric grid, where the Taylor expansion coefficients are estimated, which actually represent the wavefront parameters, and

an output grid, much denser, in which the resulting data is placed after partial summation. In this scheme, multiple operators can contribute to the same output sample, and the output amplitude is normalized to the number of operators crossing the target sample.

This strategy solves (at least partially) the problem of conflicting dips. The partial stack improves the output data quality by increasing the signal-to-noise ratio. The loss of higher frequencies in the resulting data is avoided by combining the original amplitude spectra with the estimated phase spectra from the enhanced data.

The presentation was followed by a Q&A session where specific aspects of the proposed approach and its similarities to some other industry methods were discussed. 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, Evgeny Landa of PetroTrace for arranging this event.

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27 Determination of the resistivity distribution along underground pipes in urban contexts using galvanic and capacitive methods S. Rejkjær, C. Finco, C. Schamper, F. Rejiba, A. Tabbagh, J. König and T. Dahlin 43 Cross-borehole geoelectrical time-lapse monitoring of in situ chemical oxidation and permeability estimation through induced polarization T. Bording, A.K. Kühl, G. Fiandaca, J.F. Christensen, A.V. Christiansen and E. Auken

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73 Estimation of earthquake local site effects using microtremor observations for the Garhwal–Kumaun Himalaya, India R. Pudi, P. Roy, T.R. Martha and K.V. Kumar 95 Detection of urban underground cavities using seismic scattered waves: a case study along the Xuzhou Metro Line 1 in China J. Zhang, S. Liu, C. Yang, X. Liu and B. Wang

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269 Kirchhoff pre-stack depth scalar migration in a simple triclinic velocity model for three-component P, S1, S2 and converted waves V. Bucha 289 Order-controlled closed-loop focal beams and resolution comparison of primary and multiple reflections for seismic acquisition geometries W. Wei and G. Blacquière 307 Seismic data interpolation using deep learning with generative adversarial networks H. Kaur, N. Pham and S. Fomel 327 Unified elimination of 1D acoustic multiple reflection E. Slob and L. Zhang 349 Elastic wave-mode separation in 2D transversely isotropic media using optical flow X. Wang, Y. Lu and J. Zhang 372 Stress prediction and evaluation approach based on azimuthal amplitude-versus-offset inversion of unconventional reservoirs B. Du, G. Zhang, J. Zhang, J. Gao, X. Yong, W. Yang, R. Jiang, S. Wang, H. Li and E. Wang 388 The impact of seismic inversion methodology on rock property prediction M. Martinho, T. Tylor-Jones and L. Azevedo 404 Elastic properties of a reservoir sandstone: a broadband interlaboratory benchmarking exercise A. Ògúnsàmì, I. Jackson, J.V.M. Borgomano, J. Fortin, H. Sidi, A. Gerhardt, B. Gurevich, V. Mikhaltsevitch and M. Lebedev 419 Deep learning assisted well log inversion for fracture identification M. Tian, B. Li, H. Xu, D. Yan, Y. Gao and X. Lang 434 Subsurface structures of the Xiaorequanzi deposit, NW China: new insights from gravity, magnetic and electromagnetic data A. Shaole, Z. Zhixin, Z. Kefa and W. Jinlin 448 Denoising of magnetotelluric data using K-SVD dictionary training J. Li, Y. Peng, J. Tang and Y. Li 474 Improved controlled source audio-frequency magnetotelluric method apparent resistivity pseudo-sections based on the frequency and frequency–spatial gradients of electromagnetic fields M. Zhang, C.G. Farquharson and C. Liu

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EAGE NEWS

Geophysical Prospecting latest virtual issue features ‘Rock physics for the next generation’ Rock physics is the topic of the new virtual edition of Geophysical Prospecting (GP). ‘Rock physics for the next generation’ is the title of the Special Issue arising from papers presented at the 5th International Workshop on Rock Physics on 23-26 April 2019. hosted by the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Contributions were invited that make novel theoretical, experimental and applied progress in measurement, modelling, and inversion of rock physics, with an emphasis on multi-physics and the stress-de-

pendency of different physical properties.

Twenty-eight submissions were received, of which 15 papers were accepted.

Four distinguished scientists acted as associate editors for this Special Issue: Dr David Dewhurst (CISRO), Prof Xinding Fang (SUSTech), Prof Tongcheng Han (UPC, China East), and Prof Teng-fong Wong (CUHK). GP is grateful for their contribution in bringing the work together in a valuable volume.

This Special Issue is organized loosely in three parts: the first part deals with

the recent developments in rock physics modelling, mostly focused on velocity and attenuation dispersion associated with different fluid flow mechanisms. The second part discusses several laboratory experiments and their results; and the last part contains papers on the practical uses of rock physics models in various field applications.

Papers in summary and in full can be accessed via https://onlinelibrary.wiley. com/doi/toc/10.1111/(ISSN)1365-2478. si-rock-physics-for-next-gen.

Depth imaging undertainty under investigation at upcoming workshop

A question of depth.

We are just a month away from an excellent event that will explore the core topics related to quantifying uncertainty in depth imaging. EAGE Workshop on Quantifying Uncertainty in Depth Imaging, taking place virtually from 12-14 April 2021, is due to discuss where we stand as an industry on calculating, providing and using information regarding the reliability of the available seismic tools. The workshop is expected to explore the impact of the methods we use throughout the life of the seismic project and how we use the results to make decisions. Keynote presentations are scheduled from, among others, CGG, Schlumberger, PETRONAS, Earth Resource Management Services, BP, and Aramco Services Company.

Images of seismic data form the foundation for understanding the nature of structures and subsurface properties everywhere away from existing wells.

The industry has largely moved to depth images. They have the potential to accurately position the reflectivity even under a complex overburden. However, it is well understood that the resulting images will have various sources of inaccuracy.

Some of the causes include inaccuracies in the velocity model, the methods and assumptions during the processing of the data, incomplete sampling of the data, incomplete modelling of all the physical phenomena affecting the propagation of seismic energy and signal to noise.

Despite the known challenges and the multi-million dollar decisions that are made on the basis of this information, the industry does not always deliver information on the reliability of these images and a mechanism to use this information in the process of risking decisions. This workshop aspires to improve our shared understanding of what we can do today and where our ambition should be for the future in terms of reliability of our seismic products.

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EAGE Workshop on Quantifying Uncertainty in Depth Imaging will cover technical topics under headings including: Uncertainty resulting from model building practices; Comparing uncertainty from the results of key algorithms; Use cases where uncertainty impacts decisions; Impact of using complementary information to reduce uncertainty; Propagating the understanding of uncertainty through the exploration and development cycle; and How should we characterize depth imaging uncertainties at each stage of the exploration and development cycle?

More information on the event can be found at https://eage.eventsair.com/ quantifying-uncertainty-depth-imaging/.

Erratum In First Break Vol 39, 2, Feb 2021, p. 13, there was an error in interpreting the ODiSI acronym.

The correct text should be ‘One Dimensional Stochastic Inversion’. The error has been corrected in the online version of the article.

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EAGE NEWS

Saint Petersburg 2020 proved a successful event

CONFERENCE

REPORT

Sabine Klarner, chair of the International Steering Committee for the second time, reports on some highlights from St Petersburg 2020, the largest regional geosciences conference and exhibition of its kind, held on this occasion as an online event.

It has become a nice tradition to hold one of EAGE international conferences and exhibitions in Saint Petersburg every two years. The 9th International Geological and Geophysical Conference ‘Saint Petersburg 2020’ was the second EAGE activity in Russia fully held online. PetroTrace was the main sponsor and Total sponsored the technical programme. Some 140 talks in 27 sessions were attended by 180 geoscientists from over 80 companies and 11 countries.

Dmitry Bolotnik, vice president of PetroTrace, noted: ‘Despite the challenges due to the epidemiological environment, we managed to organize and host an excellent conference filled with interesting messages and innovative ideas that will ultimately help improve the efficiency of the prospecting, exploration and development of our oil and gas assets.’

Aleksey Vashkevich, director for Technology Development at Gazprom Neft and Advisory Committee Chairman, opened the conference and highlighted the importance of converting new technologies into commercial projects: He said: ‘Our industry is at the frontline, facing the global macro-economic trends.

Challenges like this have always been the starting point for administrative and technological changes that eventually push us to a higher efficiency level. As a business, we are strongly pressed to get high-quality functional expert services,

Round table discussion on AI technologies.

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both inside and outside the company.

The importance of experts has increased in the past year, making them a much needed resource. For this reason, as part of organizational changes at Gazprom Neft’s Science and Technology Centre, we intend to introduce a new staff element next year to include a comprehensive career branch staffed with experts. This will be one of our focal points.’

At the plenary session of the conference, Evgeny Bondarev, head of the Department for Technological Development and Digital Transformation of Geological Exploration at Gazprom Neft, spoke about the growing role of artificial intelligence technologies in geological exploration. ‘Gazprom Neft already has several successful cases, in which artificial intelligence played a key role, and we continue to create new products that will provide an opportunity to improve efficiency and reduce the cost of exploration.’

B. Enikeev (Pangea), who chaired the Formation Evaluation session, said that in his sphere a few independent directions are under active development such as experimental research in petrophysics, data analysis, application of neural networks and solving inverse problems. The necessary synthesis of these directions is not yet there where it should be. Along with the increased use of Open Source libraries and training specialists for their relevant and critical use, this is one of the tasks for the near future.

E. Marfin (Kazan Scientific Centre) hosted the session on Core and Formation Fluid Studies. In his opinion, trends in this direction are special core analyses to study physical rock properties, acoustic emission that occurs both during deformation and during filtration of fluids through the cores, as well as the analysis of physico-chemical interaction of fluids and porous media (dissolution of core during acid treatment, precipitation of salts, etc.).

A highlight was the presentation by V.V.

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S. Klarner, A. Vashkevich, D. Bolotnik, V. Vorobiev, and Maria Devisheva at the conference opening session.

Lisitsa (Institute of Petroleum G&G SB, RAS) on ‘Numerical Study of Chemical Fluid-Solid Interaction on Pore-Scale’, discussing an algorithm for modelling the evolution of the interface between the pores and the core matrix. This is due to the chemical interaction of a liquid with a solid, proved by a series of numerical experiments that has shown the possibility to simulate different modes of dissolution of the core matrix with different correlations of porosity, permeability and tortuosity.

S. Ursegorov (Skoltech), chairing the Reservoir modelling session, sees a sequential replacement of traditional deterministic and stochastic geological and hydrodynamic models of oil and gas fields with alternative models based on machine learning and artificial intelligence methods, in particular adaptive models.

The talk on ‘Application of a new method of machine learning based on a cascade of fuzzy-logical matrices for geological and hydrodynamic modelling of oil and gas fields’ by S.O. Ursegov (Skoltech) and A.Z. Zakharyan (Chervart) proposed a new form of artificial intelligence, instead of neural networks — a cascade of fuzzy-logical matrices. Dimensionless input parameters are used as coordinates

EAGE NEWS

of such matrices, and values of the target parameter characteristic of each pair of coordinates are used as a function. Using a cascade of hundreds or even thousands of such matrices, it is possible to predict the values of the target parameters with higher accuracy compared to traditional reservoir models.

P. Martyshko (Institute of Geophysics, Ural Branch of RAS) in the Non-seismic Methods session emphasized presentations on the application of electromagnetic research methods and GPR (including the Arctic) for the geoenvironment studies on the construction of 3D models of the Earth’s crust and upper mantle, the use of parallel algorithms and neural networks in the interpretation of geophysical data.

A. Shevchenko (PetroTrace), chairing the Seismic Imaging session, said that the increasing complexity of methods for constructing images leads to the fact that some specialists do not keep pace with the development of methods. Specifically, the university programs need to be adjusted to the increasingly ambitious industry demands for the daily data processing routine.

Noteworthy was the talk of B. Belozerov (Gazpromneft STC), in which he proposed a business model for sharing data in the field of geophysical services.

This would certainly lead to a radical change in the world of service companies and the geophysical services market.

A second session on Seismic Imaging was hosted by M. Denisov (Geolab). He deplored that standardized data processing in Russia is based on ‘bought software from a major (foreign) vendor with almost no chance for an economically successful implementation of domestic algorithmic developments.

A. Arkhipov (Geoshelf-Service) led the Attribute Analysis, Seismic Inversion, AVO, Rock Physics session. He noticed a growing number of works in which wave modelling is performed. Experts are becoming more careful when working with machine learning algorithms; the interest in nonlinear effects is growing.

D. Baturin (Lomonosov Moscow State University Marine Research Centre) chaired the session on Technologies for offshore seismic surveys with ocean bottom equipment appreciating the emergence of new Russian developments and their active implementation in production.

Import substitution and the revival of the production of Russian equipment for bottom seismic exploration are evident in, for example, the FLOUNDER seismic system developed by Marine Technical Centre, as well as ocean bottom seismic equipment using molecular-electronic sensors, presented by A. Razin (MFTI).

E. Anokhina (Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University) hosted the Fractured Reservoirs and Hydraulic Fracturing session. She mentioned the increasing use of various types of modelling including artificial intelligence/machine learning applications developed by Russian sci-

Stanislav Suslov chairs the seismic exploration session.

entists. Specifically, for the complex reservoirs in the West Siberian Basin this will lead to a reduction of reduce risks and the drilling of higher performance wells by successfully stimulating the production as a result of optimized hydraulic fracturing.

On behalf of the international organizing committee, I would like to thank all colleagues — organizers, sponsors, presenters and audience — who helped us to make the 9th International EAGE conference and exhibition in Saint Petersburg a success, and I encourage you to participate in the preparation of the next event planned for spring 2022.

Ekaterina Anokhina leads the fractured reservoir studies session.

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

Many thanks for your donation in advance!

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Business as usual for marine seismic ‘Everybody knows the dice are loaded, everybody rolls with their been entities in the vessel-operating marine seismic contracting fingers crossed’. The opening lyrics of one of the most poignant business since the 1980s, some admittedly extant for a very short recordings by singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen perfectly encapperiod, would include: Aker Geo, Armada Seismic, Arrow Seismic, sulate the forlorn quest that has driven countless enterprises in the Bergen Oilfield Services, CGG, Digicon, Dolphin Geophysical, marine seismic contracting business, virtually from day one.

Fugro, Geco-Prakla, Geosource, GSI, Halliburton Geophysical Services, Merlin Profilers, Reservoir Exploration Technology, Scan Ever since the mid-1980s and the first consolidation in the face of an industry downturn, marine seismic companies have been Geophysical, Schlumberger, Seiscom Delta, Seismograph Service, trying to defy the odds stacked against establishing a viable longTeledyne Exploration, Veritas DGC, Wavefield Geophysical, Westterm concern. All the time, they have laboured under the handicap ern Atlas, Western Geco and Western Geophysical. of adhering to an obviously dysfunctional business model.

The last companies standing are PGS and Shearwater GeoSerUnfortunately it looks as though Polarcus, in its current form at vices, both with issues to resolve. PGS has a record of operations least, has proved unable to turn the tables. At the time of writing, its going back to the early 1990s but not for the first time is looking lenders had foreclosed on its vessels and all employees have been fragile. The company recovered from a Chapter 11 episode in terminated while management explores what options exist for the 1993, today it has five vessels active, six idle and a current net company to continue in business. interest debt of $1 billion. The largest operator is Shearwater GeoServices, only established in 2016. Its fleet is based on the The ungarnished truth (everybody knows) is that none of Polarcus’s predecessors over several decades has ever been purchase of inventory from Schlumberger and CGG consisting able to sustain a profitable business. A few of 19 seismic acquisition vessels of which five or six are active. Current public debt savvy corporate and individual investors/ ‘Handicapped by speculators have managed to come out on top for this privately held company is running adhering to an financially and generations of geoscientists at over $400 million, the total is likely more. have enjoyed rewarding careers in a techno- obviously dysfunctional The only other significant provider of marine logically enthralling industry at the cutting seismic services for the international market business model’ edge of oil and gas exploration and producis the Chinese company BGP. It has four tion. The debt everybody but especially the vessels, none matching the technology heft oil industry owes to the geoscience community for the discovery of PGS and Shearwater. and supply of abundant hydrocarbons over several decades has Obviously the Covid-19 pandemic, collapse of the oil price never been properly acknowledged, and with energy transition now and drying up of oil company E&P spending has dealt the near topping the agenda, it will probably never will be. lethal blow to global marine seismic fleet operations and claimed a The corporate casualty list along the way has been legion. casualty in Polarcus - just when there were signs of some stability In the 2001 2nd edition of the SEG publication Geophysics in the emerging in the market. Yes, these circumstances have been excepAffairs of Mankind (Lawyer, L.C., Bates, C.C. and Rice, R.B.) – tionally problematic, but they still resemble the boom-bust cycle still the only history of the exploration geophysics business and its going on for decades. The business has always been at the mercy personalities – one section of the book features the ‘survivors’ of of fluctuating demand for oil and gas and the spending priorities of the 1986 oil industry recession. Even back then, the commercial the oil industry, i.e., factors out of their control. market was viewed as a battlefield, and the unrelenting attrition Time and time again it has been shown that ownership of has continued ever since. A partial list of companies that have vessels in a period of recession is extremely challenging given

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the overhead involved. That’s one reason why consolidations and never tolerated been outsmarted for long. One suspects too that business failures have been the norm each time demand for seismic the geoscience companies got ahead of themselves, e.g., creating services has dipped. Yet, as soon as there has been any sign of a demand for new products that oil companies may not have particuturnaround, we have seen a rush to bring vessels into the market, larly cried out for but were happy to see introduced. often encouraged by shipping interests that see an opportunity to In its withdrawal from the marketplace, Schlumberger expliclease vessels on profitable long-term charters. Frequent over-supitly recognized that technology differentiation was not worth the ply has been the result. It has allowed oil companies to take cost and effort. It also suggested that acquiring seismic data was no advantage of the competition and control the pricing of seismic longer so crucial, because so much could be achieved post survey services. This has limited contractors’ ability to extract an adequate with modern processing techniques. In other words, the dreaded return on their investment in boats and technology to sustain them day has arrived when marine seismic surveys have been truly through the bad times. commoditized. The market reflects this development. Multi-client, The history shows that only in the last few years has chronic asset light companies now dominate the order books. In addition, over-supply in the market been acknowledged as the persistent oil companies have come to like the multi-client model. It keeps fatal flaw in vessel-operated marine seismic contracting. The the cost and risk of surveys down while they still have the data, turning point surely came when Schlumberger decided to quit the the quality of which can be vastly enhanced at the processing and fray, followed by CGG, both on the ground that the business was interpretation stage. unsustainable. Their conclusion was that processing and marketing Arguably, Polarcus should have been able to keep its place worldwide of geoscientific multi-client data was the lucrative in this new market scenario rather than have the field left to just way forward, while commissioning surveys as needed from the two players. Being based in Dubai outside the home of the marine pool of available seismic vessels, most likely at advantageous seismic community in Norway may not have helped. Ironically its prices. Of course everybody knows that TGS understood that debt ratio at foreclosure was probably proportionately less than its ‘asset light’ was the best strategy all along. The company’s only competitors. It was also edging towards a revenue-earning stream aberration was in the temporary boom period of a seabed seismic offering where the field is of 2007-8. At that time it feared a shortage of less crowded field, has growth potential, and is ‘Geoscience is a available vessels for its projects and made an one so far disregarded by PGS. offer to buy the Wavefield-Inseis seismic fleet. community that has The birth of Polarcus itself had an extraorThe merger never went through, and CGG never tolerated been dinary back story. In the wake of the 2008 eventually bought the boats just as the market oil crisis when the global of fleet of seismic outsmarted for long’ vessels was thought to be in need of renewal, took a downturn.

Numerous strategies have been employed a group of Norwegians backed by Zickerman by contractors hoping to outmanoeuvre their competition. At shipping interests set up Eastern Echo. The company’s intention different moments Halliburton, Schlumberger and CGG built up was to build four seismic research vessels at a Spanish shipyard what looked like a dominant position in the market based on fleet using the innovative type X-Bow SX 124 design from Ulstein size, among other things offering the possibility of dictating the Design. Plans were scarcely underway when Schlumberger stepped contract price of surveys to the oil companies. It proved a miscalin and bought the company and its project. It saw this as a quick culation, because there were always enough rivals out there willing and convenient way to build new, state-of-the-art capacity. to provide the service to oil company customers at a cheaper rate.

Weirdly they put no restrictions on the personnel involved We come now to the most disappointing and frustrating aspect in Eastern Echo. Very soon a new company called Polarcus was of the whole story. Not unreasonably geophysical survey compalaunched again supported by Zickerman, with many of the same nies convinced themselves that technical differentiation could win management team. Its mission was to introduce six (eventually the day. Obviously oil companies would opt for the most advanced eight) X-Bow design vessels with a differentiating vision - environtechnology available on offer so as to obtain the best imaging mentally friendly (underlined by dazzling green ships), equipped to results, wouldn’t they? To which the answer is not that simple. operate in arctic regions (hence the made-up Polarcus name), able It turns out that the best was not always the optimal commercial to meet increasingly exacting safety standards demanded by oil option for oil company clients. Rightly contractors wanted a companies, and not over-priced. premium to reward their research and development (a function and The market winds briefly blew in favour of Polarcus, although expense that after 2000 had largely devolved from oil companies its initial technology advantage was soon overtaken. In no time to the service sector). Remarkable advances made in vessel design, competition and lower oil prices from 2014 took their toll. Oil 3D and 4D seismic, towed-streamer counts and spread sizes, companies just wanted to acquire data as cheaply as possible. To broadband, single point receiver recording, onboard and remote its credit, the company continued to provide a safe and professional processing, etc. have sometimes appeared to have vaulted one service throughout, but as on so many occasions in the past, it could contractor ahead of the field. But such leads have been short-lived. not service its borrowings to the satisfaction of its stakeholders.

A notable characteristic of the geoscience community is that it has Everybody knows …

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

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Elon Musk launches prize to cut carbon

Polarcus goes into provisional liquidation

Polarcus Naila is one of the vessels that the company has been instructed to put up for sale.

Polarcus is cancelling the contracts of its entire workforce and has put its vessels up for sale after the company went into provisional liquidation.

Discussions with lenders and new managers of former subsidiaries to ensure the continuance of current vessel operations, by negotiating a standstill agreement relating to the lenders’ security rights against the company and its subsidiaries, have failed.

‘Such an agreement would have permitted the continuation of current and awarded seismic projects for which the operating A-Class and N-Class vessels have been long committed to various E&P companies globally,’ said Polarcus.

On 2 February Polarcus reported that it had ‘received notice from lenders that

they no longer support the continuance of the company’s business relating to the vessels and had been instructed by its creditors to sail its vessels to safe locations in order to initiate a sale process.

‘Polarcus will continue to co-operate with the lenders and the new managers on their instructions to bring current operations safely to an end,’ said Polarcus in a statement. ‘The company is also communicating with its clients in relation to upcoming awards for which the vessels are now no longer available and to seek alternative solutions for them.

‘In light of these circumstances and given their impact on the group’s financial position, notice of termination of employment will shortly be issued to all group employees.’

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Meanwhile, a court in the Cayman Islands has appointed joint provisional liquidators charged with restructuring Porlarcus’ debt. David Griffin, Andrew Morrison and Lisa Rickelton of FTI have been authorized to ‘take all necessary steps’ to develop a restructuring of the company’s financial indebtedness with a view to ‘making a compromise or arrangement with the company’s creditors’.

On January 26, Polarcus confirmed a payment default under its working capital facility agreement and halted all payments of interest and amortization to lenders.

Six single-ship subsidiary companies (Polarcus Asima AS, Polarcus Alima AS, Polarcus Amani AS, Polarcus Adira AS, Polarcus Nadia AS and Polarcus Naila AS) and Polarcus Shipholding AS each received default and enforcement notices from lenders to transfer all issued shares in each company to the lenders. The lenders also replaced directors of each concern with a nominee of their own.

Polarcus said in a statement: ‘In light of the sustained economic challenges globally, the company has been in detailed discussions with its bank lenders to explore financial solutions. During this period, the lenders consented to the extension of certain financial obligations under the company’s bank facilities until 25 January, 2021. The lenders have now informed the company that no further extension will be granted at this time.

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cross-default of the group’s other bank facilities and of the convertible bond loan.

‘The company will continue to engage intensively with all affected finance providers. Nevertheless, there can be no assurance or guarantee that any consensual agreement will be reached and no formal standstill agreement is in place between the company and any finance provider.’

Polarcus said that lenders remained open to discuss a standstill period in relation to their remaining claims which would allow the continued operation of the vessel Vyacheslav Tikhonov, owned by Polarcus Selma, a subsidiary of the company. The lenders do not hold any security in either this vessel or this subsidiary. ‘Polarcus will continue to pursue such a standstill agreement in order to bring stability to the remainder of its business,’ it said.

At the start of the year the company reported that its vessel utilization had dropped from 79% in 2019 to 61% in 2020. As of 26 January 2021, the company’s backlog amounting to approximately $130 million.

The last publicly available figures of the company’s workforce in its 2019 annual report showed that Polarcus employed 327 people of which 73% were field employees and 27% office-based. It June 2020 Polarcus reported that it was cutting its workforce by 20%.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, Polarcus has restructured to significantly reduce its cost base. ‘These efforts together with a consistently high level of project performance has enabled the company to maintain market share in an extremely challenging market and to achieve a financial position where operations are cash positive before debt service,’ it said in a statement.

As First Break went to press Polarcus released a statement saying: ‘The board remains focused on pursuing a restructuring of its indebtedness and maintaining the underlying business as a going concern. Discussions between the company and its creditors, including the secured creditors, continue.’

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PGS posts fourth quarter net loss of $60 million PGS has reported a fourth quarter overall net loss of $60 million on segment revenues and other income of $173 million compared to a net profit of $28.5 million on segment revenues of $288 million in the fourth quarter of 2019.

The company made an operating loss of $22 million compared with an operating profit of $54 million in Q4 2019.

For the full year of 2020 PGS reported a net loss of $321.5 million on segment revenue and other income of $596 million, compared to a net loss of $72 million on segment revenues of $880.1 million in 2019. Operating profit (excluding impairments and other charges) was $12.2 million, compared to $96.4 million in 2019.

Segment multi-client pre-funding revenues of $218.6 million, with a corresponding pre-funding level of 98%, compared to $256.5 million and 105% in 2019.

Cash flow from operations was $366.5 million, compared to $474.3 million in 2019.

PGS reported an impairment charge of $108.4 million in 2020, partly related to stacked vessels. It also recorded government grants relating to the Covid-19 pandemic of $38.8 million in 2020 It has reduced annual gross cash costs by more than $200 million (compared to the initial 2020 plan) to compensate for a revenue reduction of 37% caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

All debt maturities and amortization have been extended to September 2022 and beyond.

Rune Olav Pedersen, president and chief executive officer, said: ‘In Q1 the seismic market quickly changed from an improving path to an abrupt downturn. Goss cash cost was slashed by more than $200 million from stacking vessels, significant downscaling of the organization, renegotiating terms with suppliers and several other initiatives.

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‘Multi-client late sales in the fourth quarter benefited from a usual end-of-year increase and licence round activity in West Africa and Brazil.

New acquisitions of multi-client data were mainly done offshore Egypt and we returned to Brazil with one vessel to continue our Campos deep-water campaign, initially started in early 2020.

‘During Q4 we sold well from multi-client surveys acquired in earlier quarters but still in the processing phase, boosting our pre-funding level to 185% on multi-client cash investment of $33 million. Only 8% of our vessel capacity was allocated to contract work in the quarter, a 4D project offshore Angola.

‘We launched a UK scheme of arrangement in Q4 to reschedule debt maturities and amortizations that we had agreed with an overwhelming majority of lenders. An English court sanctioned the scheme on 2 February.

PGS said it expects the improved oil price, a probable global recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic, and the effects of deferred projects from last year to support a gradual increase of demand for seismic services in 2021.

The recovery of the seismic industry is likely also to benefit from the recent industry capacity reductions.

Based on five vessels in operation through 2020, and with reference to the disclosed risk factors, PGS expects full-year 2021 gross cash costs to be below $400 million.

In 2021 multi-client cash investments are expected to be approximately $150 million.

Capital expenditure for 2021 is expected to be approx. $40 million.

The order book totalled $202 million on December 31, 2020 (including $89 million relating to multi-client).

The order book was $160 million on September 30, 2020 and $322 million on December 31, 2019.

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Seismic companies will suffer from US leasing ban on public lands, warns IAGC Analysts and industry groups have warned that oil services, including seismic services, will be badly by hit President Biden’s recently announced US moratorium on new oil and gas leases on federal lands.

Explorers still have ample inventories of undrilled well permits, but the industry is expected to shift its focus away from federally controlled regions such as New Mexico’s Delaware Basin, the Rockies

President Joe Biden imposed a moratorium on leasing of federal lands and waters on 27 January.

The biggest hits would come to services companies, especially seismic companies, according to Rystad.

IAGC’s Dustin Van Liew, vice-president of regulatory and governmental affairs at the International Association of Geophysical Contractors, criticised the Biden administration for the abrupt announcement with ‘little consultation of its impact on the industry’, including seismic service companies: ‘The geophysical and exploration industry rely on consistent and transparent policy decisions by governments. An arbitrary suspension of leasing disrupts business certainty: major investments have already been made by companies by companies with a reasonable expectation of activities and returns.’

and much of the deepwater Gulf of Mexico.

Parker Fawcett of S&P Global Platts Analytics, said. ‘An outright ban of new leasing will impact Gulf of Mexico production five to 10 years out, limiting operators’ ability to access nearby unleased acreage close to exploration discoveries.’

Artem Abramov, Rystad Energy’s head of shale research, said installing a federal lease ban would equate to the loss of 250,000 boe/d by the end of the decade.

The effect would grow to 400,000 boe/d later in the 2030s.

As well as the executive order Biden has also initiated a review of existing fossil fuel leasing and permitting practices.

‘We’re going to review and reset the oil

and gas leasing programme,’ Biden said, citing the need to preserve public lands, but clarifying that he is not going to ban fracking.

About 22% of US oil production and 12% of natural gas production takes place on federal lands and waters, but the planned moratorium would not undo existing leases and permits. However, the American Petroleum Institute warned that this moratorium may just be the “first step” toward a broader ban on all oil and gas activity on public lands.

‘They’re going to continue to look at the permitting process, and we’re very concerned about a slowdown in permitting for our operators in the field,’ said API CEO Mike Sommers.

According to the US Department of Interior, the oil and gas industry is ‘sitting on approximately 7700 unused, approved permits to drill’.

‘Onshore, of the more than 26 million acres under lease to the oil and gas industry, nearly 13.9 million (or 53%) of those acres are unused and non-producing,’ said a Department of Interior statement. ‘Offshore, of the more than 12 million acres of public waters are under lease, over 9.3 million (or 77%) of those acres are unused and non-producing.’

Auctions held under the Trump administration resulted in only 5 million offshore acres purchased from 78 million acres offered over the past four years, it added.

In response to the order, the Western Energy Alliance filed a lawsuit on 27 January claiming that Biden has exceeded his presidential authority.

TGS starts 3D survey offshore Brazil TGS has started the Espirito Santo multi-client 3D seismic survey offshore Brazil.

The 2694 km2 survey, which will broaden the region’s 3D coverage while adding to the extensive offshore seismic library, is being acquired in a dual-azimuth acquisition format.

Espirito Santo fast-track data is expected in Q4 2021 and will be processed using Dynamic Matching Full Wave Inversion (DM-FWI).

‘DM-FWI is a technology that uses seismic reflection and refraction information to automatically update the velocity model and allows for superior, geologiFIRST

cally coherent velocity models, improved subsurface analysis and reduced uncertainty,’ said TGS in a statement. ‘Dynamic Matching FWI achieves a step-change in velocity modelling where imaging in depth is clearer and more geologically consistent while overcoming many of the limitations of standard FWI.’ BREAK

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PGS completes 3D survey in Campos Basin, offshore Brazil The vessel Ramform Titan has surveyed additional open acreage to complete PGS’ coverage of the emerging plays of the outboard Campos Basin, offshore Brazil.

This survey provides the first 3D seismic data for Brazil’s 17th Round, scheduled for October 2021. Fast-track anisotropic (TTI) PSDM products for the additional acreage will be available in July.

Ramform Titan began towing the largest spread ever offshore Brazil in June 2020 and returned to Campos in December. The acquisition configuration, with 14 streamers each 10 km long, is tailored to the challenges of the Campos area.

The vessel will continue on the next phase of the multi-client programme, which will deliver multi-azimuth illumination (MAZ) of presalt targets.

This project combines the latest PGS acquisition and imaging innovations with reprocessed library data in the Campos Basin to deliver improved imaging and understanding in a key exploration hotspot. The data covers acreage for multiple Brazil licensing rounds. When completed, the Campos Deepwater GeoStreamer X survey will cover approximately 17,100 km2.

Fast-track TTI PSDM products from the 2020 acquisition area are available now; final TTI PSDM products from the 2020 acquisition area along with fast-track TTI PSDM products from the additional blocks and gravity and magnetic data for regional basin analysis will be available in July.

over open and held acreage, available in Q2 2022.

Brazil’s concession bidding rounds for new exploration areas take place alongside the presalt and permanent offer rounds. The 17th Concession Bidding Round was rescheduled for October 2021.

The 17th round focuses on the Equatorial

New GeoStreamer multi-client 3D data on Campos Deepwater block opportunities.

Final MAZ products over open presalt acreage, including TTI Kirchhoff and RTM (45 Hz) PSDM were expected to be ready by March, with final MAZ products

Margin, with blocks from the Pará-Maranhão offshore basins, Pelotas, and Potiguar basins, plus ultra-deep waters outside the presalt Campos and Santos basins.

Fugro takes part in EU satellite seafloor mapping project Fugro is participating in a European Union research project to develop a remote solution for global satellite-derived seafloor mapping.

The three-year ‘4S’ (Satellite Seafloor Survey Suite) project will develop an online cloud-based solution that will use highly automated earth observation algorithms and workflows to remotely map and monitor seafloor habitats, morphology and shallow water bathymetry. Fugro will lead the project’s business and integration actions, while its hydrographers and geo-data specialists will evaluate the solution via several use cases around the globe.

4S will leverage artificial intelligence, physics models, and satellite and airborne

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data to derisk marine site characterization activities in the shallow water zone by quickly analysing seafloor properties using less personnel and equipment.

The 4S consortium includes experts from the fields of satellite data analytics, hydrography and biology, and is being led

by EOMAP, which specialises in optical remote sensing of aquatic environments.

Other project partners include the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research, QPS, Länsstyrelsen Västerbotten, CNR ISMAR, the Hydrographic Institute and Smith Warner International.

Dr Knut Hartmann, 4S project coordinator and COO of EOMAP, said: ‘The aim of 4S is to achieve a seamless integration of satellite-data analytics into marine

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and coastal workflows. We’re combining recent advances in satellite sensors, data analytics and cloud infrastructure to benefit marine reporting, monitoring and surveying methods.’

Dhira Adhiwijna, Fugro’s 4S project manager, said: ‘Fugro is honoured to be part of an exciting EU innovation that could result in faster and safer geo-data insights for our energy and infrastructure clients. Upon completion, 4S will be integrated into our high-speed hydrography offering and provide innovative solutions that will also derisk marine site characterization activities.’

This project has received funding from the EU’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme.

INDUSTRY NEWS

CGG reports higher multi-client and equipment sales CGG has reported an uptick in multi-client and equipment sales as it updated markets on expected fourth quarter 2020 segment group revenue of $282 million.

Geoscience revenue is expected to be around $75 million, sequentially down 3%, multi-client segment sales are expected to be around $101 million, sequentially up 38%, and equipment segment sales are expected to be around $106 million, sequentially up 115%.

CGG anticipates full-year 2020 segment revenue at around $954 million, down 32% year on year.

The company is expecting negative net cash flow of around $(245) million mainly due to significant negative change in working capital (with December revenue expected to be around $160 million) and non-recurring cash costs related to CGG’s 2021 plan and severance.

CGG anticipates year-end 2020 net debt to be around $849 million. The group’s liquidity is expected to be at around $385 million at the end of December 2020.

Group segment backlog as of January 1, 2021 stood at $421 million – its highest level since April 1, 2020.

Meanwhile, Eidesvik Offshore has decided to exercise its option and sell to CGG all its Shearwater shares for $30 million. CGG acquired 1,987,284 Class A shares and increased its shareholding in Shearwater Geoservices Holding to 6.64% of the total outstanding shares and 6.72 % of the shares having voting rights.

On the same day CGG accepted a binding offer from Rasmussengruppen to acquire all Shearwater shares held by CGG. Through this transaction, CGG will sell 3,945,532 Class A shares of Shearwater Geoservices for $27.62 million in cash.

University of Aberdeen launches energy transition degree The University of Aberdeen has launched the UK’s first postgraduate degree in energy transition systems and technologies.

The new course will educate to MSc level a new generation of systems engineers providing industry-relevant skills and training, with future career possibilities in all areas of the energy sector.

Based in the School of Engineering, with expert contributions from the schools of geosciences, business and law, the new master’s programme will draw on research being conducted within the University’s Centre for Energy Transition (CET).

The programme will present research opportunities at one of a number of energy developments in the region, including the National Decommissioning Centre (NDC) and the OGTC as well as infrastructure projects such as the Kincardine Floating Offshore Wind Farm, the Acorn Carbon Capture and Storage project and the planned renewable energy superhighway linking Scottish offshore sectors to the English mainland.

Programme director Professor Russell McKenna said the city’s heritage and global reputation as the ‘energy capital of Europe’ meant that it was perfectly placed to host the UK’s first such degree programme.

‘This course was set up to fill a gap and meet a need. In recent years, non-hydrocarbon-based energy has grown significantly in Aberdeen due its large talent

pool of energy engineers and scientists, and the abundance of wind and ocean energy resources off the Aberdeenshire coast.

‘The transition towards these systems has gathered momentum, aided by new technological innovations in areas such as wind and tidal energy, energy storage, carbon capture and storage, biofuels and hydrogen. Energy transition, however, continues to pose significant technological, commercial and political challenges for businesses and governments.

‘Energy transition engineers are faced with the challenge of redesigning our entire energy infrastructure while ensuring continued access to reliable and affordable energy. To achieve this, we must understand how to successfully integrate low carbon technologies (LCTs) into our current and future energy systems.’

The programme will encourage students to take a ‘systems-thinking’ approach to energy transition. It will also combine technical knowledge of individual LCTs – including energy efficiency technologies and renewable energies such a wind, solar and ocean energy – with non-technical aspects, such as economic and political developments.

Karl Axel Pétursson, systems engineering specialist at Vestas, said. ‘We need highly skilled and trained systems thinkers to enable renewable energy sources to become an ever-larger part of the energy FIRST

system. The complexity involved is challenging and a systems-thinking toolkit is needed to understand both the technical and social aspects of the transition ahead.’

Students will research windfarms in the region.

Alex Murley, head of project management and optimization at RWE Renewables, said: ‘Aberdeen has long been at the forefront of national and regional energy technology transitions. In the year of Scotland’s hosting the 26th United Nations Climate Change conference (COP26), and in the context of gathering global consensus regarding the required scale, speed, and form of societal transition required to meet net zero carbon objectives, it is comforting to see the University of Aberdeen launch a new degree programme dedicated to creating the industrial and academic leaders of this energy transition’s future.’

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Industry gets seismic projects boost from APA 2020 The seismic service industry has received a much-needed boost after Norway’s Awards in Predefined Areas (APA) revealed significant work programme commitments for seismic studies, reprocessing and G&G studies.

The Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy has offered 61 production licences to 30 companies on the Norwegian Continental Shelf in APA 2020.

The licences are located in the North Sea (34), the Norwegian Sea (24) and the Barents Sea (3). Thirty oil companies have been offered ownership interests in one or more production licences. Of these, 18 companies will be offered one or more operatorships.

Winners of licences/operatorships are: Aker BP (10/8); Norske Shell (1/1); Chrysaor (6/3); Concedo (1/0); ConocoPhillips (4/3); DNO (10/4); Edison (2/0); Equinor (17/10); Ineos (4/1); Inpex (2/1); Kufpec (1/0); Lime (4/0); Lotos (3/0); Lundin (19/7); MOL (1/1); M Vest (2/0); Neptune (6/3); OKEA (6/4); OMV (3/3); One Dyas (6/0); Pandion (5/0); Petrolia NOCO (3/1); PGNiG (4/0); Source (4/0); Spirit (3/0); Sval (5/1); Total (3/0); Vår Energi (10/5); Wellesley (2/1); Wintershall DEA (16/4).

Tina Bru, Norway’s petroleum and energy minister.

DNO, Petoro and Source will carry out G&G studies; at 1087, Cryrsaor and Lundin will reprocess 3D seismic and G&G studies; at 1088 Aker BP and PGNiG will carry out G&G studies; at 1089, Lundin and Crysaor will carry out G&G studies; at 1090, Var, Petro and Lundin will reprocess 3D seismic data and carry out G&G studies; at 1091, Lundin, Petoro, Lotos and KUFPEC will acquire and reprocess modern 3D seismic data and carry out G&G studies; at 1092, Lundin and Crysaor will

Thirty four licences have been awarded in the North Sea.

North Sea In the North Sea, at licence 1084 Lundin and DNO will carry out G&G studies; at 1085, Aker BP, Petoro and Edison will carry out G&G studies; at 1086, 26

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reprocess 3D seismic data and carry out G&G studies; at 1091 Crysaor, Petoro and Lime will acquire modern 3D seismic data and carry out G&G studies; at 1094, Lundin and One-Dyas will do G&G

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studies; at 1095, Lundin and Equinor will reprocess 3D seismic data and carry out an EM feasibility study as well as G&G studies. At 1096, Var, Petoro, Concedo and Sval will acquire and reprocess modern 3D seismic data and carry out an EM feasibility as well as G&G studies; at 1097, Aker BP, Equinor and Lundin will do G&G studies; at 1098, Sval and Lotos will carry out G&G studies; at 1099, Aker BP, Lotos and Lundin will reprocess 3D seismic and G&G studies; at 1100, OMV, Source Energy, and Wintershall will do G&G studies; at 1101, OMV, Ineos and One-Dyas will reprocess 3D seismic data or acquire modern 3D seismic data and carry out an EM feasibility as well as G&G studies; at 1102, Lundin and DNO will do G&G studies; at 1103, Wintershall Dea, Edison, Ineos and One-Dyas will reprocess 3D seismic data or acquire modern 3D seismic as well as carry out G&G studies; at 1105S, Neptune and Equinor will reprocess 3D seismic and carry out G&G studies; at 1106, DNO, Petoro, Petrolia NOCO and Lundin will acquire and reprocess 3D seismic data and carry out G&G studies; at 1107, Neptune, Petrolia and Wintershall will acquire and reprocess modern 3D seismic as well as carry out an EM feasibility study and do G&G studies; at 1108, DNO, Pandion and Okea will reprocess 3D seismic data and carry out G&G studies; at 1109, OMV, DNO and One-Dyas will reprocess 3D seismic data and carry out G&G studies; at 1110, Aker BP, Neptune and Wintershall will reprocess 3D seismic data and and carry out G&G studies.

Norwegian Sea In the Norwegian Sea, at licence 263F, Equinor, Pandion, Lime and One-Dyaas will carry out G&G studies; in 1111 Ineos and Lime will reprocess 3D seismic data (minimum 600 km2) and carry out G&G studies; at 1112, Shell, DNO, Neptune, Spirit Energy will do G&G studies; at 1113, Neptune, Crysaor, and Svai will acquire and/or reprocess 3D seismic data, carry out an EM feasibility study and do G&G studies; at 1114, Crysaor, Var and Svai will reprocess 3D seismic studies and carry out G&G studies; at 1115,

INDUSTRY NEWS

Wintershall and Okea wil reprocess 3D seismic data and carry out G&G studies; at 1116, Okea and M Vest Energy will do G&G studies; at 1117, Okea, Var and One-Dyas will reprocess 3D seismic data and carry out G&G studies; at 1118, Welleslley and Equinor will reprocess 3D seismic data and carry out G&G studies; at 1119, Okea, Pandion and Equinor will acquire 3D seismic data and carry out G&G studies; at 1120, DNO, Equinor, Var and Wintershall will acquire modern 3D seismic data and carry out G&G studies; at 1121, Equinor, Var and Svai will do G&G studies; at 1122, ConocoPhillips, Var, Aker BP and Wintershall Dea will acquire and/or reprocess modern 3D seismic data and carry out G&G studies; at 1123, Conoco Phillips, Aker BP, PGNiG will do G&G studies; at 1124, Aker BP, PGNiG, Equinor and Wintershall Dea will do G&G studies; at 1126, Equinor, Wintershall Dea and Lundin will reprocess 3D seismic data and carry out G&G studies; at 1127, Equinor, Total and DNO will carry out G&G studies and potentially acquire 1200m2 of 3D seismic data; at 1128, Equinor, Petoro and Wintershall Dea will do G&G studies; at 1129, Wintershall, Inpex and Lundin will reprocess

3D seismic data, carry out G&G studies and potentially acquire new 3D seismic data; at 1130, Inpex, M Vest and Wintershall will acquire 3D seismic data.

out G&G studies and potentially acquire new 3D seismic data.

Minister of petroleum and energy, Tina Bru, said: ‘The APA-rounds

Three licences have been awarded in the Barents Sea.

Barents Sea In the Barents Sea at licence 1131, Var, Petoro, Wintershall Dea and Lundin will reprocess 3D seismic and carry out G&G studies; at 1132, Var and Wintershall will reprocess 2D and 3D seismic data, carry

now include the majority of available exploration acreage on the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS). I am impressed by how the industry has dealt with the challenges of 2020, also when it comes to the applications for new acreage.’

Stryde carries out seismic studies for geothermal wells across Europe Stryde has won a contract to supply the French seismic acquisition company Gallego Technic Geophysics (GTG) with its autonomous seismic nodes.

GTG is using Stryde’s NIMBLE system to identify optimum well placement on four geothermal exploration projects across Belgium, Switzerland, and France.

Stryde’s1600 nodes weigh 240 kg, which Stryde claimed is more than eight times lighter and often more than five times smaller than conventional nodes. ‘By using the Stryde nodes, practices such as line cutting become obsolete (on the receiver side) as a two-person crew can usually deploy

or retrieve around 1000 nodes in a single shift on practically any terrain a person can walk on,’ said a company statement Mike Popham, chief executive officer of Stryde, said: ‘Subsurface imaging is the first step to accurately quantify the potential energy yield of a site, but for many years, high-definition seismic has been too expensive for players in the geothermal market to access without having an impact on the final levelized cost of energy.

‘We have designed the lightest, most cost-effective, high-quality node on the market and, as a result, our technology is opening up the benefits

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of seismic to the industries that will shape our clean energy future.’

Pierre Gallego, chief executive officer of GTG, added: ‘Throughout the pandemic, we have had to streamline our activities – limiting on-site personnel in the name of safety, but also looking back at our bottom line and trimming away not only unnecessary costs, but reconsidering the equipment we were using.

‘Stryde has been a plus for us on certain projects – light enough for one person to carry at least 50 nodes which reduces crew size, cheap enough that we can be very competitive and win more work in particular in the geothermal sector, and with a high accuracy.’

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ExxonMobil launches carbon capture business ExxonMobil has launched ExxonMobil Low Carbon Solutions, which will initially focus on carbon capture and storage.

The new venture will advance plans for more than 20 new carbon capture and storage opportunities around the world. It plans to invest $3 billion on lower emission energy solutions through to 2025.

ExxonMobil has more than 30 years of experience in CCS technology and was the first company to capture more than 120 million tonnes of CO2.

The company claims to have an equity share in about one-fifth of global CO2 capture capacity and to have captured approximately 40% of all the captured anthropogenic CO2 in the world.

The business, which will be led by Joe Blommaert, will seek to develop partnerships and collaborations on a wide range of technologies, including hydrogen, and be responsible for marketing of emission-reduction credits created through the business’s sequestration projects.

New CCS projects under evaluation include the US Gulf Coast, where ExxonMobil is assessing multiple CCS projects from industrial sources for storage in onshore and offshore geologic formations.

Included in these projects is a CCS hub concept in southeast Texas.

In Wyoming ExxonMobil has progressed permitting for the expansion of its La Barge CCS facilities, which could enable an additional one million tonnes of CO2 per year to be captured. Existing facilities currently capture approximately 7 million tonnes per year, which is the largest amount of CO2 captured by any industrial facility in the world.

In the Netherlands ExxonMobil has executed a joint development agreement to advance its interest in the Port of Rotter-

dam CO2 transportation hub and offshore storage project, known as Porthos. The project aims to collect CO2 emissions from

In Qatar ExxonMobil is a partner in several joint ventures with Qatar Petroleum that operate a CCS project with an

ExxonMobil has invested more than $10 billion in lower emission technologies. © Exxon Mobil Corporation, 2003-2021.

industrial sources and transport them by pipeline to depleted North Sea offshore gas fields. Porthos and its potential customers have applied for EU and national support mechanisms. ExxonMobil also participates in the H-Vision study into large-scale production of low-carbon hydrogen in Rotterdam.

In Belgium ExxonMobil is participating in the CCS project at the Port of Antwerp, Europe’s largest integrated energy and chemicals cluster.

Through its joint venture in the SEGAL system in northeast Scotland, ExxonMobil is in discussions to support the Acorn project, which will collect CO2 from the St Fergus gas processing complex for transport and storage in offshore gas reservoirs.

In Singapore ExxonMobil is planning a CCS hub concept to capture, transport and permanently store CO2 generated by industrial activity in the Asia-Pacific region.

annual capacity of 2.1 million tonnes at Ras Laffan. ExxonMobil is looking at adding additional CCS projects in the region.

New projects will add to ExxonMobil’s carbon capture capacity in the US, Australia and Qatar, which totals about 9 million tonnes per year.

The company is also working with FullCell Energy to advance carbonate fuel cell technology to more efficiently capture CO2 from industrial facilities, and Global Thermostat, a collaboration to advance efforts to capture CO2 directly from the air.

Since 2000, ExxonMobil has spent more than $10 billion to develop and deploy lower-emission energy solutions across its operations. The company works with about 80 universities in the US, Europe and Asia to develop low carbon technologies.

Aker signs carbon capture agreement in Norway Aker Carbon Capture has signed an agreement with Forus Energigjenvinning and Lyse to explore ways to support the development of a full-scale carbon capture and storage facility in the Stavanger/Sandnes region in southwestern Norway. The collaboration follows the recent launch of 28

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the ‘Longship’ full-scale CCS project by the Norwegian government.

The partners have agreed to explore the possibility of jointly developing a carbon capture and storage project at Forus Energi’s waste-to-energy plant at Forus outside Sandnes and Stavanger.

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They will also explore and promote the application of carbon capture in the waste-to-energy sector in Norway The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) is non-exclusive and is valid for three years, after which the companies can opt to extend further.

INDUSTRY NEWS

US fracking activity is returning to normal reports Rystad The number of drilled but uncompleted wells (DUCs) that accumulated at the height of the pandemic has subsided to pre-Covid-19 levels in the US, according to research by Rystad Energy.

After swelling to a multi-year high of 6548 wells in June 2020, the number of such wells in the country’s major oil regions slimmed down to around 5700 wells by the end of December 2020.

The inventory of ‘live’ DUCs, which excludes tentatively abandoned wells drilled a long time ago, also declined by around 800 wells in the same period, from 4353 in June to 3528 in December.

The current level of horizontal oil ‘live’ DUC count is comparable to the level seen in early 2020, just before the market downturn started.

‘Given the recent recovery in oil prices, the industry is enjoying the flexibility of further accelerating fracking activity beyond current levels in the first half of the year. Such an acceleration could be delivered, as can be implied from the ratio of the current ‘live’ DUC inventory to the run rate of fracking, which is still in the six-to-eight-month range, compared to the normal level of about three months seen in 2018-2019,’ said Artem Abramov, head of shale research at Rystad Energy.

Rystad identified 626 frac operations starting in North America in December

2020. For January 2021, it projected 830 wells would be fracked, the highest monthly total since March 2020, when the Covid-19 induced downturn began.

Back to DUCs, nearly all major oil regions first exhibited an unusual inventory build-up in the second quarter and then a gradual depletion in the second half of the year. The Permian Basin accounted for around 55% of the total horizontal ‘live’ oil DUC inventory as of December 2020, at around 900, and it accounted for a comparable share through the second half of the year, as the basin’s ‘live’ DUCs peaked at 2400 wells in June 2020.

As of December 2020, 1633 wells were still in inventory, with a 48% depletion from the level of 3246 wells seen in April 2020. The eight-month depletion pace in the three previous years was normally observed in the 80-83% range.

This implies that there are still around 1100 horizontal oil DUCs that would have been completed by now in a normal activity environment.

‘If a fracking increase materializes, DUC wells from 4Q19-1Q20 will be completed faster, but it will also require the industry to increase rig counts quicker to achieve a smoother transition from a DUC-driven activity phase to a normal operational mode. In other words, this scenario is possible, but it will require an

Hydraulic facturing: Pennsylvania.

increase in the reinvestment rates from what operators have currently budgeted for 2021,’ said Rystad in a statement.

‘Given the current environment of capital discipline and focus on free cash flow generation, we expect the industry to largely stick with its original fracking programmes in the first half of the year, but probably allocate some additional capex to a more significant increase in the rig count. This will result in an upside in frac activity from the second half of the year, and certain deviations from the maintenance programme will be visible toward the end of the year, assuming that WTI holds above the $50 per barrel mark.’

BP and Rosneft sign carbon reduction agreement BP and Rosneft have signed an agreement to collaborate on identifying carbon reduction activities and low carbon ‎opportunities.

They will jointly evaluate new projects for use of renewables, ‎opportunities for carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS), as well as ‎hydrogen.

The companies will work together on opportunities for low carbon solutions in downstream ‎businesses, including the development of advanced fuel and

evaluation of the ‎development of natural forest sinks and trading of forest carbon-offsets credits. The companies will ‎cooperate in sustainable development and social investment, including biodiversity.

Rosneft chief executive officer Igor Sechin said: ‘Rosneft and ‎BP are united not only through the longstanding successful partnership in various areas but also in ‎the intention to leverage this experience in future prospective projects outlined in this

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agreement. ‎Joint efforts of our two companies will not only strengthen our ‎corporate aims in sustainable development, but will also provide a significant contribution to ‎overcoming the challenges the industry and the society face.’

BP chief executive officer Bernard Looney said: ‘We’ve been partners with Rosneft for many years ‎now and we learn a great deal from each other. That’s important, and I believe that this agreement ‎can be an important catalyst for progress.’

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PetroStrat acquires geology business unit from RPS Energy

Red Rock Pattern. © Petrostrat.

The stratigraphic consultancy PetroStrat has announced the acquisition of the specialist geology business unit of UK-based RPS Energy Limited.

The deal will transfer all RPS assets and 26 staff to PetroStrat, including 17 geological experts, as well as an R&D laboratory and offices in Northwich in the UK. The result will be a team of more than 100 staff and 62 geological experts, which PetroStrat claims will be the largest knowledge base of its kind in the industry.

Petrostrat said that the deal strengthens its offering in biostratigraphy, chemostratigraphy (via its JV Future Geoscience Limited with Chemostrat Limited) and sedimentology/reservoir geology.

The company said it will also strengthen its markets, particularly in northwest Europe and will also enhance PetroStrat’s existing presence in Brazil, Canada, the US and West Africa.

Finally, the deal will give Petrostrat more reservoir geology solutions as well as access to RPS’s collection of non-proprietary, multi-client well data.

Paul Cornick, managing director of PetroStrat, said: ‘The acquisition of RPS’s specialist geology business is the perfect fit for PetroStrat in terms of complementary service offerings, skill

sets and global clients. We can now offer a more complete and fully integrated geoscience package to our clients covering all crucial elements of stratigraphy and reservoir geology.

‘The opportunity we now have to merge two huge datasets and to extract more information from these, using new analytical methods, is hugely exciting.’

John Gregory, PetroStrat director, said: ‘The combined subsurface knowledge from the RPS acquisition also provides the perfect platform for our clients as they look to transition to the low carbon economy of the future. In areas such as wind engineering and carbon capture utilization and storage, our subsurface knowledge will be invaluable.’

PetroStrat is a provider of stratigraphic services at the wellsite and via office-based studies that help companies better understand the subsurface. RPS has worked for nearly 30 years supporting exploration and development initiatives, offering asset and reservoir management, drilling support and wellsite geology, field development and planning and seismic operations.

PGS to reprocess Uruguay data PGS has signed an agreement with Uruguay’s state oil company Ancap to reprocess more than 11,000 km of existing 2D lines of various vintages.

This rejuvenation will provide new, reprocessed 2D seismic data that will tie with PGS’ existing 15,600 km2 multi-client 3D survey, covering the Punta del Este and Pelotas basins.

The Punta del Este basin develops in the western part of the offshore of Uruguay near the border with Argentina.

It was formed by a failed rift structure in the Late Jurassic period, producing a northwest-southeast (NW–SE) fault trend.

The Pelotas basin develops in the eastern part of offshore of Uruguay and extends through several kilometres into

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offshore Brazil. It was formed during the Early Cretaceous period with the subsequent opening of the Atlantic Ocean, forming a NE–SW fault trend.

New regional horizon interpretation will delineate the variable structural framework and timing of faulting between these basins, which resulted in a varied depositional history during the Jurassic, Cretaceous, and Cenozoic periods.

PGS said that the area offers ‘an abundance of exploration opportunities’.

Numerous clastic-channel and fan systems, plus carbonate build-ups from stacked plays throughout the Paleozoic to Tertiary section. Most of these plays have yet to be tested. Fluid inclusions of oil and gas, gas chimneys and BSRs identified offshore

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Punta del Este data will be reprocessed.

indicate a working petroleum system with predicted source rock intervals in the Paleozoic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous formations.

INDUSTRY NEWS

Searcher reprocesses vintage Peru data Searcher Seismic is reprocessing onshore vintage data in Peru in collaboration with PeruPetro to support a bidding round later this year.

The Onshore Peru 2D & 3D Rectification project consists of both 2D and 3D vintage seismic data which has been rectified with Searcher’s proprietary poststack reprocessing method. The post-stack reprocessing rectifies navigation, metadata, amplitude, phase and time to create a contiguous database that can be easily loaded into any interpretation software.

The dataset is comprised of approximate-

BRIEFS BGP has appointed Gou Liang as managing director and Zhang Shaohua as president. Liang joined BGP in 1981.

He received his doctorate from Chengu University of Technology and a master’s degree at Tsinghua University. Shaohua joined BGP in 1991. He has a master’s degree in applied physics from Changchun College of Geology and has served as BGP’s chief geophysicist. In this role he has played an active role in the EAGE.

ly 104,500 km of 2D and more than 7000 km2 of 3D rectified seismic surveys.

From an initial delivery of at least 400 exploration wells, a subset will be selected for the Onshore Peru Well Atlas. Searcher’s G&G team will undertake a post-drill well analysis of key exploration/appraisal wells across basins to complement the onshore seismic database. The horizons will be remapped, wells reanalysed, and a detailed risk assessment undertaken to create a modern well atlas.

PeruPetro will this year launch a bidding process for six blocks in the Talara Basin.

Shearwater GeoServices has won a contract for a marine seismic 3D survey in South East Asia. The two-month project, commencing in Q2, covers 1500 km2.

Magseis Fairfield has won a 4D Ocean Bottom Node monitor survey in the Norwegian North Sea for a big E&P company.

The one-month survey is scheduled to start late in the first quarter of 2021. The company has also won a contract for a deep-water ocean bottom node baseline survey (3D) offshore Angola for an international energy company. The three-month project is expected to start in Q2.

Oil majors report big fourth quarter losses BP has announced a record loss of $5.7 billion for 2020 compared to a $10 billion profit in 2019. The result was impacted by ‘significant impairments and exploration write-offs.

Equinor has reported adjusted earnings of $0.76 billion and a loss of $0.55 billion after tax in the fourth quarter of 2020.

IFRS net operating income was a loss of $0.99 billion and the IFRS net income was a loss of $2.41 billion, following net impairments of $1.3 billion and a write down of $0.98 billion related to the Tanzania LNG project. During 2020 Equinor delivered $3.7 billion in capex and cost reductions.

Exxon Mobil has reported a fourth quarter 2020 loss of $20.1 billion. Fourth quarter capital and exploration expenditures were $4.8 billion, bringing full-year spending to $21.4 billion, $9.8 billion lower than the prior year.

Additional annual structural operating expense reductions of $3 billion are expected by 2023, resulting in total annual structural reductions of $6 billion versus 2019.

ConocoPhillips has reported a fourth-quarter 2020 loss of $0.8 billion compared with fourth-quarter 2019 earnings of $0.7 billion. Excluding special items, fourth-quarter 2020 adjusted earn-

The UK Oil and Gas Authority has received an application for a carbon dioxide appraisal and storage licence in the Southern North Sea of the UKCS. The Republic of Ireland is to introduce legislation to ban licences for new oil and natural gas exploration. The legislation will be included in the Climate Action and Low Carbon Amendment Bill which will go before the Oireachtas. Legislation will not affect existing authorisations.

Exploration spending has been slashed.

ings were a loss of $0.2 billion, compared with fourth-quarter 2019 adjusted earnings of $0.8 billion.

Full-year 2020 earnings were a loss of $2.7 billion compared with full-year 2019 earnings of $7.2 billion. Excluding special items, full-year 2020 adjusted earnings were a loss of $1 billion compared with full-year 2019 adjusted earnings of $4 billion.

Shell has reported fourth-quarter adjusted net income of $393 million, down from $2.93 billion in Q4 2019 and $955 million in the third quarter of 2019.

Total’s has reported adjusted fourth-quarter net income up from the third quarter by more than 50% to $1.3 billion.

It reported cash flow of $4.9 billion.

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Shell, C3 AI, Baker Hughes and Microsoft have launched of the Open AI Energy Initiative (OAI), an open ecosystem of artificial intelligence-based solutions for the energy and process industries. The OAI provides a framework for energy operators, service providers, equipment providers, and independent software vendors for energy services to offer interoperable solutions, including AI and physics-based models and monitoring, powered by the BHC3 AI Suite and Microsoft Azure.

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South African geophysicists develop seismic mining techniques Geophysicists from Wits University in South Africa have developed seismic technologies to help make mining exploration more sustainable.

The project led by the Wits Seismic Research Centre in the School of Geosciences is an active-passive seismic approach aimed at reviving the seismic mining methods in the country.

‘For economic and environmental reasons, the use of traditional active seismic methods has been slowly abandoned in South Africa. Our innovative seismic approach is bringing some hopes to revive this activity and bring solutions to the mining industry,’ said Professor Musa Manzi, director of the Wits Seismic Research Centre.

The project aims to combine active and passive seismic methods, using a combination of instruments for exploration in noisy gold and platinum mines at 300-3500 m depths.

Last year, the team tested its seismic method at an underground platinum mine in Rustenburg in an experiment that aimed to reduce drilling costs, lower exploration costs, maximize mine safety, increase the

Geophysicists at Wits University have developed a cableless system for mines.

possibility of finding new prospects, and increase the life of mine.

Manzi added that cableless systems are ‘easier to adapt to a small-scale seismic survey inside the mine where space is limited and conditions are challenging.’ The land streamer saves time as it eliminates the need to plant traditional geophones on the ground, which can also be difficult to do in mine tunnels, he added.

The team is collaborating with local and international researchers to improve

the passive seismic imaging resolution.

‘The project has involved more than 25 young professionals (honours, masters, PhD, early-career researchers and technology developers),’ said Manzi. ‘The data collected will continue to be used for research purposes at postgraduate level at Wits.’

He believes that the project has the potential to enrich exploration geophysics in Africa with new instruments and survey design methodologies to improve acquisition and processing.

CGG completes satellite mapping in the Barents Sea CGG has completed a high-resolution hydrocarbon seeps study commissioned by the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD) to increase petroleum system knowledge across a relatively

data-poor area of the northern Barents Sea. CGG Satellite Mapping used custom-tasked next-generation SAR satellites to acquire a large collection of high-spatial-resolution SAR imagery

Satellite image of part of the Barents Sea. (Courtesy: CGG – MODIS data courtesy of NASA).

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at a high revisit frequency. Subsequent advanced processing and analysis by its experts identified the presence of smallscale naturally occurring seepage slick features, unlocking valuable subsurface intelligence.

Richard Burren, director of satellite mapping, CGG, said: ‘Satellite Mapping provides clients with previously unobtainable insights into the presence and behaviour of natural seepage in offshore environments. These studies hold great value for increasing geologic system knowledge and decreasing risk, which is of particular interest across marginal areas of mature basins at present. They also complement our Seep Explorer product, the industry’s only integrated global onshore and offshore seeps database for regional-to-target subsurface source derisking.’

INDUSTRY NEWS

Elon Musk launches $100 million carbon removal competition The Musk Foundation has launched the $100 million Xprize carbon removal competition for solutions to remove 1 tonne of CO2 a day.

The four-year contest invites innovators to create and demonstrate a solution that can pull carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere or oceans and lock it away permanently in an ‘environmentally benign way’.

Winners must demonstrate a rigorous, validated scale model of their solution and further demonstrate to the judges that their solution can be economically scaled to gigaton levels. The objective of the competition is to help scale efficient solutions to collectively achieve a 10 gigaton per year carbon removal target by 2050.

The full competition guidelines will be announced on 22 April, which is when team registrations will begin, and the contest will last until Earth Day 2025. After 18 months the 15 top teams selected will receive $1 million each. Milestone awards will kickstart team fundraising for their operating budgets to achieve the full-scale demonstrations required to win the prize.

In the same timeframe, a total of 25 $200,000 student scholarships will be

Climeworks carbon sucking plant in Switzerland is the type of scheme Musk wants to inspire.

distributed to student teams competing.

The remaining $80 million in purses will be given to the winner ($50 million), second place ($20 million), and third place ($10 million).

‘We want to make a truly meaningful impact,’ Elon Musk, founder of Tesla and SpaceX, said. ‘The ultimate goal is scalable carbon extraction that is measured based on the fully considered cost per tonne which includes the environmental impact. Whatever it takes. Time is of the essence,’ Musk added.

Peter H. Diamandis, founder and executive chairman of Xprize, said: ‘We are challenging engineers, scientists and

entrepreneurs to build and demonstrate carbon removal systems that work. We hope this Xprize will activate the public and private sectors to get involved in the same way that the £10 million Ansari Xprize brought about the commercial spaceflight industry,’ he added.

On 21 January Musk announced on Twitter that he was donating $100 million towards a prize for the best carbon capture technology.

Xprize is a nonprofit organization, which describes itself as the global leader in designing and implementing innovative competition models to solve the world’s grandest challenges.

Seabird reports Q4 revenues of $1.9 million

Seabird vessel Eagle Explorer.

SeaBird has reported revenues of $1.9 million for the fourth quarter of 2020, down from $7.6 million in Q4 2019. However, EBITDA improved to a loss of $1.1 million compared with a loss of $5.6 million in Q4 2019.

For the full year of 2020 EBITA was a loss of $0.2 million compared with a loss of $5.6 million in 2019.

Fleet utilization was 29%, down from 42% in Q4 2019. For the full year of 2020, fleet utilization was 34% compared to 62% in 2019.

Amid what the company called ‘signs of market recovery’, it also reported the award of a 2D contract in the Eastern Hemisphere with an expected duration of 120 days.

Meanwhile, SeaBird has agreed to sell 100,500 shares in its new venture Green Minerals to several buyers at a price of 20 NOK ($2.36) per share, raising some $273,000. Following the transaction, Sea-

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Bird has retained ownership of 76.8% of Green Minerals.

‘The company has decided to meet the interest from these buyers in the market place, but do not intend to sell any further shares in Green Minerals before the planned listing in Q1 this year,’ said SeaBird in a statement about the new venture which it is championing as a change of strategy and a commitment to the energy transition. ‘The company anticipates that the application to Euronext Growth Oslo will be filed shortly and that its planned time schedule for a listing in Q1 2021 will be met.’

Finally, SeaBird said that a ‘complete rebranding of the group’ will be presented at the company’s AGM in May.

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TGS reports fourth quarter net loss of £23 million

CGG to be carbon neutral company by 2050

TGS has reported fourth quarter net loss of $23 million on overall revenues of $143 million, compared to a net profit of $70 million on overall revenues of $219 million in Q4 2019. The results were impacted by amortization of the multi-client library and other impairments of $172 million.

The company reported an operating loss of $49 million compared with an operating profit of $70 million in Q4 2019.

Q4 segment revenues were $120 million, compared to $232 million in Q4 2019.

Multi-client investments of $28 million compared with $62 million in Q4 2019. Net late sales of $103 million compared with $201 million in Q4 2019. Proprietary sales of $3.7 million compared with $5.4 million in Q4 2019.

Free-cash flow was $28 million in Q4 2020. After a dividend payment of $15 million the cash holding increased by $16 million to $196 million on 31 December 2020. TGS’ improved cash position has enabled it to repurchase up to $20 million worth of shares.

TGS reported a full-year net loss of $205 million on revenues of $319 million compared with a net profit of $113 million on revenues of $586 million in 2019. Fullyear operating loss was $292 million compared to an operating profit of $129 million in 2019. Full-year segment revenues of $449 million compared to $773 million in 2019.

‘The results continue to be affected by the Covid-19 situation and the

Sophie Zurquiyah, CEO, CGG.

CGG has pledged to become carbon neutral by 2050 in scopes 1 & 2 of the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol.

Company-wide efforts are focused on continuing to improve the power usage efficiency of its data centres, offices and factories, along with increasing the share of sustainable energy in its energy supply mix, mainly through the energy purchased from utility providers.

CGG has also set itself an intermediary milestone to reduce by half its 2019 levels of scope 1 & 2 GHG emissions by 2030.

Sophie Zurquiyah, CEO, CGG, said: ‘After exiting the geophysical data acquisition services business in 2020 and becoming an asset-light people, data and technology company, CGG has already considerably reduced its carbon footprint. Our pledge to become carbon neutral by 2050 also aligns well with our commercial strategy of continuously advancing our technologies to best support our clients in achieving both their business and transition goals.’

steep reduction in oil companies’ capital spending. It is evident that the market for exploring new oil and gas resources is in a deep cyclical trough. However, the lack of investments may cause a strong cyclical recovery when we can put Covid behind us and demand for oil and gas comes back to normalized levels,’ said Kristian Johansen, CEO at TGS. Meanwhile, TGS has launched a new business unit called New Energy Solutions to provide provide data and insights for industries reducing GHG emissions, such as carbon capture and storage (CCS), deep sea mining (DSM), geothermal energy, wind energy and solar energy. ‘The starting point is the company’s vast subsurface data library, combined with core skills in geoscience, data processing, data management, data analytics and AI. This will be complemented by relevant additional data types and subject matter expertise,’ said a company statement.

‘Many of the investments required in renewable energy and CCS have long payback times. It is therefore critical to make well-informed and precise investment decisions. Our aim is to be the leading provider of data and insights that help derisk investments and reduce the time to market. We have been helping our oil and gas customers to derisk investment decisions for 40 years.

With NES we will use our experience, global presence and core strengths to help new and existing customers with the energy transition,’ said Johansen.

Shearwater wins two surveys offshore Western Australia Shearwater Geoservices has won two 3D surveys offshore Western Australia while opening an imaging and processing centre in the Australian city of Perth.

‘Shearwater has extensive experience operating offshore Australia and we are delighted to strengthen our position with new work in this active region. We look forward to leveraging one of Shearwater’s advanced multi-sensor equipped vessels to support our client in achieving their

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objectives,’ said Irene Waage Basili, CEO of Shearwater.

The three-month campaign comprises more than 3200 km2 and is expected to commence in Q2 2021. The vessel Geo Coral will use her multi-sensor streamer system with a zero-offset configuration.

The announcement coincides with Shearwater’s decision to open a processing and imaging centre in Perth to serve Australian and Asia-Pacific clients.

MARCH

2021

Geo Coral will acquire some 3200 km2 of data.

Special Topic

MODELLING / INTERPRETATION Modelling and interpretation is a rapidly developing area for geoscientists with artificial intelligence and machine learning continuing to pave the way for swift advancements in the industry. The latest high-performance computing and algorithmic innovations aimed at enhancing the quantity and quality of modelling and interpretation of the most challenging seismic data are presented here.

Tony Martin et al describe an efficient modelling of reflectivity to drive full waveform inversion and demonstrate how reformulating the variable density acoustic wave-equation in terms of vector-reflectivity represents a step towards full automation, and enables a greater diversity of applications.

Paul de Groot et al describe a machine learning seismic classificiation workflow in which thousands of class labels needed for training a deep graph are automatically generated from just a handful of manually picked seed positions.

Christoph Georg Eichkitz et al discuss directional dependencies in post-stack seismic data that are not directly linked to velocity variations.

Huw James presents latest innovations to improve velocity for inversion.

Colette Lyle demonstrates the use of many 1D basin models to reduce risk on undrilled prospects in the Venus prospect, offshore Namibia.

Dona Sita Ambarsari et al evaluate the effects of the lithology and facies types on the anisotropy parameters and upscaling factor.

A. Gisolf et al demonstrate the use of modelling and interpretation with inversion to show how elastic wave equation is the correct way to link seismic data to the properties of the subsurface through which the seismic waves are propagating and achieves a wider spatial bandwith.

Submit an article

Special Topic overview March

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

Unconventionals and Passive Seismic

May

Global Exploration Hotspots

June

Geoscience & Engineering in the Energy Transition

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

July

Digital Transformation in Geoscience

August

Near Surface Geo Mining

September

Reservoir Characterization

October

Delivering for the Energy Challenge: Today and Tomorrow

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!

Hey Siri/Alexa – tie my wells In this fourth Whatsup! feature, Peter Rowbotham reflects on software.

How many different software packages do you use every day?

And how many of those do you use well? How much of your time is wasted looking for that elusive button or wondering why your computer gave you a different answer today than last week with an identical workflow?

In a typical day I may use two different seismic interpretation software packages, a third for well-seismic tying, yet another for seismic decomposition, one for accessing production history, not to mention packages designed for keeping the business running (time-writing, invoicing, expenditures etc) as well as the ubiquitous Microsoft packages. Other software I could open for map making, seismic inversion or petrophysical analysis, but I know my limits!

This article was triggered by a recent survey I filled in on how IT has benefited my experience of working from home during the pandemic, with a blatant premise that all IT was wonderful. I used my answers to bemoan our current disjointed work environment, no doubt surprising the questioners.

The olden days My clearest memory of visiting my father’s work in the mid-1970s is of the IBM mainframe; card-fed programs, whirring tape readers and flashing lights (think James Bond). Computers and software were either technical specialist or for payroll. Only over the following 20 years did workstations arrive on everyone’s desks, and some time in the early 1990s I recall being shown into a darkened room to witness the first 3D seismic interpretation workstation during a student visit to Shell UK’s office, which jives with the timelines documented by Chopra and Marfurt (2012). The internet’s birth only gradually brought in the possibility of home working, or indeed monitoring processing jobs whilst out of the office. This required elaborate scripting to overcome the hurdles put in place by managers, wary of opening up internet access from the office.

The present At home and work, try imagining how we would cope without the computer revolution of the last 50 plus years. Truly we are ‘Standing on the shoulders of giants’. The Covid-19 pandemic has forced many companies to embrace remote working, something that they may have been reticent to support previously. We now see that hardware and software availability for our jobs is a matter of price rather than technology.

So why in this world of endless possibilities enabled by IT aren’t I glowing in my praises. Let me list my concerns: • We have too much choice, but not enough time. None of us can remember the functionality and hidden windows of all the software packages we have access to.

• We are not as free to choose the best solution as we wish.

What software we can use is determined by legacy decisions and databases (for fun, consider what is the oldest bit of software you use, and why?). Traditional software pricing plans, with purchase and then support and maintenance, lock companies into continuing with software packages beyond their (logical) expiry date. In larger organisations, users may have little influence on IT decisions.

• The real cost of our IT choices (not the price tag) is hidden to us and decision makers in our organisations. Perhaps replacing all software packages with one integrated platform (something attempted over the years by several vendors to create their own exclusive ecosystems) could produce better technical and financial results, and save human effort wasted on unfamiliar software. That would be extremely hard to quantify, and in so doing, would we be stifling innovation and the ‘young pretender’ vendors delivering future solutions?

• And our reaction to these constraints? I have been as guilty as everyone else in writing my own scripts to circumvent the hurdles, but I’m no software engineer and I pity any future worker stumbling across this amateur code. If not well managed, the recent trend of adding external Python interfaces to software packages will encourage us amateur coders even more.

The future ‘What do you see as the future of geoscientific software?’ When I responded to this question in 2005 with ‘Voice activated software, no mouse’ my co-workers thought I was being flippant, but I was deadly serious. There have been several initiatives to change the way we interact with our software, through eyeball tracking and 3D immersion (VR, AR) and of course touch screens have become ubiquitous in the phone and tablet markets, but as yet these have failed to impact most of our working day. We are still at the behest of our mice and keyboards.

I agree with Chopra and Marfurt when they wrote “We may well find in the future that the greatest limitation to industry progress is people, not the workstation tools, nor the data available.”

In the meantime, let’s continue the good fight against the anarchy, the gripes and the clunkiness of moving data around various software platforms to get the job done and deliver value from our data. And software developers – we users do appreciate every time you enhance the user experience and simplify workflows.

We’re just not great at saying ‘Thank you!’

Chopra, S. and Marfurt, K.J. [2012]. Evolution of seismic interpretation during the last three decades. The Leading Edge, 31(6), 654-676.

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 19-22 APRIL 2021

IOR 2021

Online www.eage.org

March 2021 1‑4 Mar

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

Online

8-9 Mar

Second EAGE Workshop on Machine Learning www.eage.org

Online

14‑19 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

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

Online

19‑23 Apr

EAGE Asia Pacific Virtual Geoscience Week www.eage.org

Online

19-30 Apr

vEGU General Assembly 2021 www.egu21.eu

Online

April 2021

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Russia

Australia

CALENDAR

20, 27 Apr & 4, 11 May

EAGE Online Series: Putting Carbon Underground - Key Strategies to Reach Net Zero Emissions www.eage.org

Online

26‑30 Apr

Engineering and Mining Geophysics 2021 www.eage.org

Gelendzhik and online

Russia

26‑30 Apr

Marine Technologies 2021 www.eage.org

Gelendzhik and online

Russia

26‑30 Apr

Engineering and Mining Geology 2021 www.eage.org

Gelendzhik and online

Russia

27 Apr

EAGE Workshop on Geophysics in Environmental Studies www.eage.org

Gelendzhik and online

Russia

10‑12 May

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

Amsterdam

Netherlands

17 May

Seismic 2021 www.spe-aberdeen.org/events/seismic-2021

Online

24‑28 May

Horizontal Wells 2021 www.eage.org

Astrakhan

26- 28 May

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

Online

4‑9 Jul

Goldschmidt 2021

Lyon and online

France

27-29 Jul

First EAGE Guyana Basins Conference www.eage.org

Georgetown

Guyana

May 2021

Russia

July 2021

August 2021 19‑20 Aug

First EAGE Workshop on Geothermal Energy in Latin America www.eage.org

Guanacaste and Online

Costa Rica

29 Aug ‑ 2 Sep

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

Bordeaux

France

September 2021 6‑7 Sep

EAGE Workshop on Computational Sciences for New Energy and Oil Recovery www.eage.org

Kuala Lumpur and Online

Malaysia

6‑8 Sep

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

Milan and online

Italy

6‑10 Sep

Geomodel 2021 23 th conference on oil and gas geological exploration and development www.eage.org

Gelendzhik

Russia

9‑11 Sep

Second EAGE Conference on Pre-Salt Reservoir www.eage.org

Rio de Janeiro and Online

Brazil

12-17 Sep

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

Montpellier and online

France

27‑29 Sep

Fourth EAGE Borehole Geology Workshop www.eage.org

Online

October 2021 4‑7 Oct

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

Manama

Bahrain

18 Oct

Third Young Professionals Summit yp-summit.org

Amsterdam

Netherlands

18-21 Oct

82 nd EAGE Conference & Exhibition www.eageannual2021.org

Amsterdam and online

Netherlands

EAGE Events

Non-EAGE Events

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