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Operations Geology Conference: 'Bridging the Gaps'
2-3 November 2016, The Geological Society, London
The 2016 Operations Geology Conference will aim to move the professional and technical discussion to a wider audience with a direct call to our industry colleagues from associated disciplines. In addition to our core operations geologists we seek active participation from personnel in subsurface, drilling and engineering to significantly broaden the four main conference themes outlined below.
As key oil industry professionals we need to ask ourselves serious questions during this time of constrained conditions. We should challenge ourselves to work better together by fully integrating with associated disciplines, optimising our processes and enhancing communications. The ultimate aim is to become more cost effective and to deliver better results while enhancing safety performance.
- State of the Discipline – Who are we? Demographics, diversity, update on our profession and where we are going in in a lower oil price environment. What are our key challenges going forward?
- Focus on the Wellsite – Wellsite geology, focus on re-invigorating/updating/more fully exploiting fundamental techniques, use of real-time data, daily work flows and innovative processes.
- Integrating Teams – Working better together with wellsite geology, geomechanics, well engineering, biostratigraphy, geochemistry, wireline, petrophysicists, mudlogging and LWD. Improving communications.
- Working Smarter – What tools and techniques do we need to ‘work smarter’, more cost effectively and safely?
Abstract book:
Mesozoic Resource Potential in the Southern Permian Basin
7-9 September 2016, The Geological Society, London
The Southern Permian Basin covers a large geographic area of northern Europe including the UK, Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Denmark and Sweden. For many operators it has, and continues to be, a heartland for hydrocarbon production from Permian reservoirs.
However, in this mature basin many opportunities remain within the overburden and particularly within the Mesozoic succession associated with heterolithic source rock, reservoir and seal facies and complex tectonics. Interest in this interval has also increased due to its geothermal energy and unconventional hydrocarbon potential. In this conference, we aimed to bring together academics and industry workers from across the region to share ideas on the following themes:
- Regional cross-border stratigraphic correlation.
- Sedimentology including reservoir/seal extent, facies and diagenesis.
- Structural evolution and styles.
- Regional and local-scale hydrocarbon generation and charge.
- Examples of geothermal developments in the basin.
- Hydrocarbon field-scale observations (including geophysical, petrophysical and production data) and their application to further exploration, hydrocarbon/geothermal development within the Mesozoic.
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Palaeozoic Plays of North West Europe
26-27 May 2016, The Geological Society, London
Palaeozoic hydrocarbon plays in NW Europe remain relatively under-explored, both on- and offshore, despite the great success of local plays such as the Carboniferous and Permian in the southern North Sea. There is renewed momentum to understand and explore these plays further, including for example the joint-industry Palaeozoic Project, part of the UK Industry/Government’s “21st Century Exploration Roadmap” initiative.
This Petroleum Group conference was intended to bring together new and existing knowledge about the Palaeozoic in NW Europe. Themes included, but are not limited to:
- Palaeozoic exploration plays
- Outcrop analogues
- Palaeozoic source rocks
- Palaeozoic shale oil and gas
- Existing oil and gas field examples
- Pre-Mesozoic fractured plays
Abstract book:
East Africa: From Research to Reserves
13-15 April 2016, The Geological Society, London
Recent exploration campaigns both on- and offshore East Africa have discovered a tremendous resource, which has propelled the region from being one of possibilities to one with commercial opportunities of significant scale. These discoveries are set to make East Africa a major energy resource player in the 21st Century, yet many challenges remain.
The meeting brought together experts from industry and academia to present the latest data and research with submissions already received from Anadarko, BG Group, BP, Genel, ION, Total, Tullow, Schlumberger, Halliburton, with numerous Universities, Consultancies and government agencies. An excellent response was obtained to the first call for papers and only a few oral and poster slots remain.
Abstract book:
Rifts III: Catching the Wave
22-23 March 2016, The Geological Society, London
A world-class international 3-day technical conference.
- Processes and Structures
- Models, Observations and Interpretations
- Implications for Petroleum Geology
Given the significant advances in the science of rifts and rifted margins and the increasing availability of new regional seismic and well data, it seems appropriate to revisit the rapidly evolving subject matter and concepts.
The objectives of the conference are to challenge paradigms and consider the applicability of new ideas to the latest sub-surface datasets. Contrasting and contradictory models have emerged in the last 5 years from both industry and academia regarding the evolution of rifted margins. Geological “laboratories” such as the Alps, Afar, East Africa the South Atlantic and the Labrador-Iberia conjugate margin are yielding new models for rift evolution with implications for heat flow and creation of accommodation space.
The technical program will be designed to address many of the critical parameters raised in these areas e.g. rift architectures, break-up models, continent- ocean boundaries, subsidence patterns, facies distribution and heat flow. The three-day conference was constructed around six half day sessions and four broad themes of oral presentation that will polarize the scales of investigation and reveal the direct applicability of the emerging theorems. Many rift model paradigms underpin our understanding and exploration of rifted continental margins and new exploration concepts need to be consistently applied.
However, numerous aspects of crustal evolution and lithospheric extension remain contentious, and new sub-surface datasets have highlighted important apparent conjugate paradoxes. Heat flow, subsidence and passive margin formation appear to be subject to both temporal and spatial anomalies related to rift processes. The future success rates of exploration of deep-water continental margins will require the deployment of new insights rapidly and effectively. The third conference in this world-class series seeks to attract leading-edge science with a Thematic Publication planned.
Abstract book:
European Oil and Gas History Conference
3-4 March 2016, The Geological Society, London
This joint conference between the Petroleum Group of the Geological Society, the History of Geology Group of the Geological Society and the Petroleum History Institute was held in London in March 2016. It will mark several important anniversaries including 150 years of oil exploration in Poland & Romania, the centenary of the drilling of the first oil well in the UK and 50 years of oil production onshore Spain.
The focus of the conference was be to examine the history and heritage of the oil and gas industry in Europe from the earliest onshore drilling (and digging) to its development into the industry that we know today and also to examine the transition from conventional to unconventional resource plays in the onshore arena.
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