Saturday, September 01, 2012

...perhaps that it can help us go beyond the ~10% of discovered oil that has been produced so far!

Daniel Yergin, a well known and recognized expert in the oil industry often states that most of the problems involved in producing more oil today are “above ground and not below ground”. To a great extent he is right, but I am sure that he would also agree that there is a lot of oil trapped in global oil fields and today’s oil recovery technology has not been successful in recovering a significant portion of remaining original-oil-in-place. A significant percentage (an average of 65%) of discovered oil resources remain trapped and cannot be recovered using conventional methods and processes - until now.

Saturday, July 14, 2012

...and I'm not talking to the tax man!

With future, major, investment, the UKCS sector of the North Sea has a fantastic future. What contribution can oil field service companies make to making sure it is delivered?

Saturday, July 14, 2012

...and Hot Rocks

Perhaps more than any other sector of the oil and gas business, exploration encourages rumour and anecdotes, with much important information being traded by ‘networking’. For example, sitting at lunch at a recent Finding Petroleum event, I learned more about the reported 2.5 billion barrel Johan Sverdrup oil discovery in Norway than I could attending a year’s worth of formal presentations!

Saturday, July 14, 2012

...the full story!

A new report shows that Deep Water exploration is of continuing importance and emphasis, although perhaps there is a tendency of exploration companies to behave like a swarm of 8 year old’s playing soccer – to be drawn magnetically to where the ball is! This seems to be true not only geographically but geologically. The evidence is that explorers perceive prospective rocks in basins that are currently Frontier are restricted to plays in the Cretaceous and younger – however history tells us that as a basin Matures, insight and innovation will lead to a breakthrough in understanding – and therefore discoveries - in older rocks.

Sunday, July 08, 2012

...before 'they' plaster the UK countryside with them!

As I have remarked before, one intriguing aspect of media commentary on the hoped for ‘turnaround’ in global economic fortunes is a perception that the energy industry may play a key role, by dramatic increases in supply, thereby dragging prices, especially oil prices, down.

Friday, June 22, 2012

....let's get off our butts!

Now diving into the website of the Bank of England is not a normal activity for me, you understand, but I was searching for a copy of their latest Quarterly Bulletin in which, according to the Times this week, they attribute part of the UK’s drop in productivity to the decline in output from the North Sea; and sure enough I read: “Norway is similar to the United Kingdom; both have seen falls in energy and utilities productivity over both the recession and recovery periods. This is not a surprise as they extract oil from common waters — the North Sea. The absolute fall at the aggregate level is larger in Norway, as extraction and utilities are a larger share of GDP ( Table A ).(4) As the decrease in oil production from the North Sea is likely to be structural rather than cyclical in nature, this evidence points to a fall in the level and growth rate of aggregate underlying labour productivity ( Chart 8 ).”