Spanish IOC Repsol’s foray into Mexican waters has paid good dividends, nailing impressive offshore hydrocarbon discoveries on their first two tries.

Improvements in seismic processing are revealing huge offshore oil and gas potential in the southern Gulf of Mexico.

Five years on, what has Mexico’s energy reform delivered for the country’s oil and gas exploration and production ambitions?

In January 2020, Apache Corporation announced several oil and gas shows in the Maka Central-1 well, offshore Suriname, in the Campanian sands and the Upper Cretaceous Santonian clastics.

Two discoveries in Guyana were announced on 16 September 2019, further progressing the exciting story of oil in South America.

Although underexplored, two oil-bearing provinces have been identified in Cuba and there is plenty of open acreage available in the ongoing oil and gas licensing round.

With 14 oil discoveries adding up to an estimated six billion barrels of recoverable oil over the last two years in just one block (Stabroek), offshore Guyana is proving to have quite a promising outlook for hydrocarbon production.

The hydrocarbon prospectivity of the deepwater outboard Santos Basin is revealed by new 3D seismic.

The AAPG International Conference and Exhibition 2019 took place in Buenos Aires, Argentina, with a key focus on expanding frontiers and unlocking oil and gas resources for future generations. This conference round-up is brought to you in association with Indalo International Ltd.

The largest tar pit in the world, La Brea Pitch Lake in Trinidad, has a fascinating history and awaits approval as a Unesco World Heritage Site – even if it resembles a somewhat neglected car park!

This black shale has been known and exploited as a source rock for over 100 years, but in a potentially game-changing event, the first exports from the Vaca Muerta itself were delivered in June 2019.

There are wide lessons to be learned from the controversy over the origins of the enigmatic Cretaceous lacustrine carbonate reservoirs of offshore Brazil.

The timing of continental extension relative to salt deposition and the impact of pre-salt faulting is critical to reservoir formation and exploration success in the South Atlantic. Major advances in broadband seismic data processing offer clearer imaging, allowing a closer look at the elements of the prolific plays and their tectono-stratigraphic boundary conditions.

Over the next few years the exploration drive in the pre-salt hydrocarbon plays of Brazil is going to shift away from national oil company Petrobras towards the global oil majors.

A brief overview of the history and future of oil and gas exploration in Latin America.