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This extensive report is written in Spanish and is available for purchase and discussion during the consultation with the author. The consultation could be in English or Spanish.
We are instrumental in our pathway to digital transformation for sustainable natural resource management. By fostering a culture of collaboration among subject matter experts (SME) professionals in the public and private sectors, we can enhance decision-making, inform policymaking, and increase transparency in the energy sector.
The Vaca Muerta Formation in the Neuquén Basin, Argentina, is a highly promising unconventional reservoir, but understanding its productive limits and sweet spots requires extensive geochemical data. Unfortunately, such data is scarce, especially around major production blocks, with only a few wells providing it. To address this, the report generates a synthetic curve based on the sonic log (DT) to estimate Total Organic Carbon (TOC) content.
The primary objective of the CAMGOM Project is to provide subscribers with an innovative tectonic and geological framework with which to re-evaluate all the basins in the region with an initial focus on basins around the southern margin of the Caribbean Plate and the adjacent northern South America plate. The Project results will be accessible online through a GIS portal and presented as a set of maps and reports for key tectonostratigraphic intervals. The CAMGOM Project will be funded by a Consortium of National Governments and private-sector E&P companies.
The main objective of this review is to compare the geology of these two conjugate margins of Nova Scotia and Cadiz /Gharb. The methodology includes are view of key public scientific references, to summarize the main geological features, such as geodynamic evolution, stratigraphic column, and salt tectonics calendar
Our approach was to deploy the wisdom and knowledge of a group of experts in petroleum geology with a track record as oil finders in Venezuela to re-contextualize relationships between scattered information sources, placing them into a geological framework that may be used to support life-of-field extensions for existing producing properties and for generating new opportunities through play-based exploration in Venezuela.
With statistical analysis used in various economic forecasting, it is essential to have a relevant framework to group parameters characterizing the technical aspects of the projects into meaningful analysis. In the Petroleum industry, lease blocks are selected based on the remaining reserves' potential and geologic insights to unlock possible discoveries even in mature basins. Significant upside potential exists in Venezuela's petroleum assets, where the oil and gas industry stopped a natural petroleum province maturation process due to political reasons in the early 2000s.
The talk visits the fundamentals of CO2 geological storage and utilization with an emphasis on a the opportunity that our countries could at this point begin to capitalize in this Energy Transition context, with favorable impacts for economy, industry and geopolitical positioning.
Entre las técnicas de control del CO2 atmosférico, la Captura y Almacenamiento Subterráneo de Carbono (CCUS) constituye una de las más viables para para suprimir a escala industrial CO2 atmosférico y de emisores industriales concentrados, almacenándolo permanentemente en recipientes geológicos a escala masiva. En Latinoamérica, la masificación de CCUS puede constituir una importante oportunidad comercial que puede apoyarse de extremo a extremo en conocimientos y tecnologías establecidas y desarrolladas desde hace décadas en la Industria y Academia de la misma región.
The authors have used those data to generate a play-level analysis of the petroleum system on the Somali passive margin. Clastic and Carbonate plays have been identified. It has been recognized that the Jurassic source rocks in the basin, unlike the equivalent interval to the south, are largely still within the oil window. This abstract summarizes the portion of that study describing the carbonate play.
Offshore Eastern Africa emerged as a significant new petroleum province through the second decade of the 21st century (2018; Davison and Steele, 2018; Sayers, 2017; Davidson et al., 2018). A combination of Jurassic source rocks (unpenetrated but inferred, e.g. Sayers, 2017) and Cretaceous and Tertiary clastic reservoirs came together to deliver world-class gas discoveries in the offshore basins of Kenya, Tanzania, and Mozambique.
A searchable database of worldwide Deepwater reservoirs (the Cossey Deepwater Database) was used to define sets of analogue data for clastic play fairways mapped in offshore Somalia. This methodology was chosen because the Somalian margin has minimal available well data, but does have good quality 2D seismic data from which reservoir presence and depth could be inferred. Using the analogues defined in this way enabled the definition of credible predictive ranges under a variety of scenarios to input to volumetric models, thereby capturing the shape of the uncertainty distribution.
Las metas globales de decarbonizar industrias y migrar a energías limpias requiren masificar el almacenamiento geológico de carbono (CCS): una tecnología probada, funcional y escalable que aprovecha espacio poroso de almacenamiento de amplia disponibilidad. Dadas las condiciones de borde del país, masificar CCS puede abrir para Venezuela importantes oportunidades de crear proyectos industriales nuevos y aprovecharCCS para decarbonizar el parque industrial, apalancado a conveniencia en recuperación mejorada de crudos. Además, el país disfruta de importantes ventajas competitivas dada la e
More than 4800 oil and gas professionals gathered at the 83d Annual EAGE Exhibition and Conference in Madrid in June of 2022, under the banner of “Leading the Geosciences in a New Era”. The Energy Transition was, of course, the crux of the “New Era” of the conference banner, and was probably foremost in everyone's mind as they prepared to attend early in the year, but inevitably current events in Europe overshadowed the meeting, bringing energy security challenges to the forefront.
Our services provide reduction of uncertainty in subsurface characterization during carbon subsurface storage permit application, construction authorization, and site operations, which requires a consistent approach using data quality and reliability assessment and applying statistically valid data analysis to better understand subsurface variability.
We summarize preliminary results of the structural styles obtained from a bibliographic review and our expertise related to the tectonic analysis, the performance of quality controls, and the balanced cross-sections throughout these basins. The seismic interpretation and the review of the surface geology also included in this work allow delimiting several structural domains. This paper will be published at the 83rd EAGE Annual Conference & Exhibition
Neogene's tectonic evolution of the southern Gulf of México (Campeche sub-basin) is associated with intense salt-mobilization, and it can be separated into 3 main episodes: 1. Late Oligocene (?) - early Miocene to middle Miocene: salt-rooted thrusts running parallel to the Paleogene Zongolica front that generated a series of northwest-southeast oriented anticlines.. 2. Late Miocene – Pliocene extension: NE-SW Macuspana depocenter. 3. Pliocene – Quaternary extension: NE-SW Comalcalco. This paper will be presented at the 83rd EAGE Annual Conference & Exhibition 2022 in Madrid.
We propose that the Play-Based methodology for characterizing the exploration potential of an area developed and successfully used in Petroleum exploration during the last two decades should be deployed for the characterization of the risks and uncertainties of the Area of Review (AoR) as defined by Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for Class 6 well (CCUS) permit approval process. Because both the application for an injection project permit is iterative, and because the development of a carbon sequestration project is a long-term, capital-intensive, multi-stage process, we further propose
We believe that the most effective way to pursue carbon storage projects is to apply E&P best practices of data acquisition/analysis and project management to the understanding of regional and local conditions necessary to deliver projects to the standard required by regulatory authorities
Look back studies help review exploratory concepts in light of recent advances. With a regional look focused on critical elements of the petroleum system, we present here a review of the Oligo –Neogene play of carbonates and related clastics present both offshore and onshore in the South Caribbean and hosts gas accumulations that range from small to medium and giant in five basins of Colombia and Venezuela.
Hydrocarbon accumulations in a Tertiary carbonate play in sedimentary basins of northern South America range from small to medium to giant. The fields are located both onshore and in shallow waters of the southern Caribbean Sea. Recent discoveries and wide variation in the play's field sizes generate renewed interest in the exploration in the region onshore and offshore. The exploratory risk could be reduced by a better understanding of controls on the field size distribution and reservoir presence and/or quality.
One of the more recent technological advances to gain traction in Oil and Gas is the application of Machine Learning processes to solve geoscience problems, such as those related to trap and reservoir identification in salt basins. With ever-increasing data processing capacity and decreasing processing costs, it's only natural for oil and gas companies to adopt increasingly efficient ML applications, pushing them to the limits of what they can do. ML is here to stay from that point of view, and investment in developing and refining ML technology will only grow with time.
U3 Explore is now one year old, and here are the highlights of our first year. U3 stands for Unlocked, Untold, Unfiltered stories of people with exploratory mindsets. These people have analytical and determined personalities. They like to collect information and figure out the meaning of their observations. They are proactive in preserving and communicating years of institutional knowledge in the integrated project delivery.
Many ascribe the recent successes of Machine Learning to an increase in available compute power; it is however also a result of 25+ years of intensive scientific research and experiences gleaned from the investment of time and money into understanding and correctly describing geoscience problems associated with petroleum systems that contribute wisdom to the outputs of a machine learning process. We have compiled a list of the top 10 geoscience concepts that machine learning -for all its strengths and benefits - is currently incapable of understanding.
An updated analysis of Conomita Fold outcrop (Barranquin Fm.) was performed using an image of a field-trip guide-book organized by PDVSA in 1993: Excursion al Frente de Montaña, Venezuela Oriental (Stop # 5). “Remote” structural analysis carried-out along this outcrop reveals the existence of several deformation episodes related to gravity-driven processes. Conomita fold appears to be a slump feature generated in a deltaic setting. Early Cretaceous rocks were strongly tilted during the Miocene-Recent tectonics phase contemporaneously to El Pilar right-lateral strike-slip fault.
Remote Sensing Satellites are great because of its availability, cost-effectiveness, and easy to program tasks. On the other hand, in most countries, you have to go through a lengthy process to be able to take an aerial photograph (digital or analog) if you use an aircraft. This is one of the many advantages to use satellites instead of aircraft and also It is more practical from the project standpoint. But sometimes you need high-resolution imagery to perform engineering or cadastral grade work. Would it be neat to be able to do it with satellite imagery instead?
2020 is coming to an end, and it is time to reflect on it and plan for 2021. Virtual experiences have touched us all. Many of you were forced to adapt rapidly without prior experiences in virtual meetings and virtual business administration. The U3 Explore community had many private conversations on virtual business with our technology partners and found the advice we provide for each other very valuable. We want to extend the knowledge of the subject, share our experiences, and answer any questions on the best practices of the orchestration of the virtual office's business activities.
The best new techniques that are appearing in geoscience toolkits today make use of Machine Learning and AI technologies to analyze massive quantities of seismic data with understood geological codependences. Coincident with the rapid acceptance and deployment of these tools by major E&P companies must however come a pivot in the way that we as geoscientists approach interpretation. In this paper we focus on the new balance between human and machine roles in the interpretation of 3D seismic data.
What do the two sciences need to know about each other to deliver practical results? On the image above is a wavelet displayed to scale next to a wave-shaped building. Appreciation of scale is one of the skills critical in oil and gas AI projects. On the other side, to be a successful petroleum geoscientist in the post-COVID requires a set of very specific new skills in addition to the understanding of geologic concepts. These new skills are not normally associated with geoscience but are fast becoming critical for geoscientists to operate in an E&P environment.
It is overall our view that creaming curve analysis is most valuable when it discriminates between the plays and playtests, when it may indeed identify missed opportunities or even new plays when combined with as thorough an understanding of the history of the basin as possible. "Lumping" the statistics together appears not to serve this purpose, at least in predictive mode, when trying to build a new portfolio and incorporate the potential value of speculative or conceptual plays.
Basin and play exploration are inherently governed by the management of risk and uncertainty at the portfolio level. Exploration investment decisions biased by risk-averse teams are susceptible to first-order basin statistics which may reflect a historical “poor” exploration history and exhaustion of existing play concepts. New concepts, new models, new thinking, and consideration of alternatives often result in a paradigm shift despite previous negative results.
The purpose of the survey is to collect information across different companies and geographies and help the industry in recovery after the crisis. There are many publications about how lost we became and the recognition that people want to return to a "new normal." There is an understanding that this "new normal" should reflect not only our new hygiene practices but also help us to reconnect with our lives, families, and friends, make our work more meaningful, and help us to focus on things that are important in our lives.
An example of the difference between U3 Explore and LinkedIn approach to professional networking. I use LinkedIn regularly myself following the posts of the people whose opinion I value and from whom I learn. Today on LinkedIn, I came across a simple explanation of why building a Value Network that is assembled and promoted not by paid campaigns but by our personal experiences will save us from trouble. The bottom line is that paid advertisements do not guarantee the quality of advice or service. Reference-based relationships do.
Technical expertise and business acumen have differentiated sustainable performance among E&P competitors. 2020 First Quarter earnings results evidence the pressures that face the future direction of the global E&P industry. Capital discipline strategies have reshaped the forward outlook of companies and for industry professionals uncertainty will be foremost in their thoughts. What will emerge from this period?
The success of oil and gas production from shale plays in the U.S in the last decade has also drawn attention to the most prolific source rock of the Neuquen Basin in Argentina, which is called Vaca Muerta Formation. Today, with approximately 110 MBls/d of oil and 1 Bcf of gas production from 1400 wells, it represents 5% and 23% of the total production of oil and gas of Argentina respectively.
This analysis uses the data collected over March 25th- April 5th. By the digital nature of our survey, the responses are biased towards technically enabled companies and individuals that were set up for occasional remote work. We analyze 1- the overall level of the system preparedness for such an extraordinary situation when the majority of the workforce is working from home, where the entire family is streaming homeworks, videos, and videoconferencing; 2- social aspects of the remote working; 3- feedback on the support provided for remote workers and ideas on post-crisis recovery
Located in southwestern Argentina, it covers around 15000 Km2, with more than 10.000 ft. thickness in the depocenters. The basin has more than 100 years of exploration history started with the exploitation of 10 barrels a day from 4 wells in “Arroyo de La Mina” oil seepage. This report summarizes the new exploration ideas, based on geochemical data and outcrops description that allows the existence of a hypothetical new petroleum system. This idea generates high exploration potential in undrilled deep sections of big structures.