Experienced oil-man John Brooks thinks that there is still a great deal of hydrocarbon potential in the deep reservoirs of the southern North Sea. To test this deep potential, we need political initiatives and the harnessing of technological innovations, coupled with a willingness by big oil, gas and energy companies to take a risk.

Canada’s hydrocarbon resources are both plentiful and varied. In addition to conventional resources of light to medium crude oil and gas that have been tapped for more than 150 years, unconventional resources like oil sand, coal bed methane, tight gas, shale gas and gas hydrates represent a vast potential for the future.

Only three years after Independence, East Timor is now ready to announce the first licensing round. With multiple oil and gas seeps onshore, several discoveries and four fields producing both oil and gas offshore, the Timorese have reason to expect significant interest from international oil companies.

For many years, Dr. Alain Gringarten considered that "Integration of geological and engineering disciplines is the key to successful exploration and production." Now Professor of Petroleum Engineering at Imperial College, he is putting this into practice.