An innovative new modelling workflow for reservoir characterisation has been developed that is capable of producing an advanced 3D geomodel of any subsurface zone of interest and can identify potential sand gas or oil zones that have previously lain undetected within a producing area.

Easy access to accurate maps is an important part of exploration. Francis Cram, founder and CTO of MapStand, a new open platform for easy tracking of oil and gas activities and live geo-tagged news, explains how open data access will transform the oil and gas industry.

The upstream industry has been reluctant to invest in exploration recently, especially in wildcat wells, yet from 2013-2019, north-west Europe has seen some success through wildcat exploration.

Senegal has been propelled to the forefront of industry news in recent years after several major oil and gas discoveries in its offshore waters.

Reports that Orca is the largest gas find this year have a competing claim from Iran, where in mid-October the National Iranian Oil Company announced that it had discovered a giant natural gas field.

In November 2019 Springfield Exploration and Production Limited are reported to have made two hydrocarbon discoveries totalling over 1.2 Bb of oil in offshore deepwater Ghana.

The largest gas discovery of 2019 to date, which was made in the BP / Kosmos operated BirAllah area of offshore Mauritania, was announced in late October.

The Geophysical Institute of Israel (GII), a leading global seismic acquisition provider, has purchased a brand new silenced mini-Vibrator fleet from INOVA Geophysical and coupled it with the Quantum nodal receiver system.

Upstream data services company, Lynx Information Systems, provide an interactive web map for the latest oil and gas licensing round bid block perimeters.

By combining GEM and SEEBASE in a 4D GIS environment, Geognostics has produced a series of marginscale, time-slice-based plate reconstructions.

New nodal systems for both land and marine deployment demonstrate that it is important that companies keep innovating and collaborating to improve oil and gas technologies.

There is a trend away from frontier oil and gas exploration towards finding more in less risky proven basins, fuelled by learning gleaned from studying the most successful petroleum basins in the world.

The Middle East is best known for its conventional oil and gas reserves, which have been a critical part of the world’s supply for nearly a century. Could the US shale revolution be transferred to the Middle East? Maybe – but geology is not the only factor in the shale revolution.

A new seismic survey and integrated study reveals hydrocarbon potential in the ultra-deep offshore Gabon petroleum systems.

This year Namibia has again moved into the spotlight as major oil companies increased their presence along the Namibian margin, with plenty of onshore hydrocarbon potential just waiting for adventurous explorers.