GWL Cluster Meeting

Thursday 20^th November, 2014; 6:00 for 6:30 pm

“The North Celtic Sea Basin, a Resurgent Proven Hydrocarbon Province”

This presentation will take place in the Mostyn Art Gallery, 12 Vaughan Street, Llandudno.

Refreshments will be available from 6:00 pm.  Please note the change of venue for this month’s talk caused by the Cambrian Academy again not being available.

 Speaker & company overview:

Steve Boldy is C.E.O of Lansdowne Oil & Gas Limited, an exploration and production company focused on the Celtic Sea Offshore Ireland, which is listed on AIM in London.

After completing a B.Sc in geology at London University, he gained an M.Sc in sedimentology from Reading University and a Ph.D in geology from Trinity College Dublin.

Steve commenced working on the Irish Offshore in 1980 at the Petroleum Affairs Division of the Irish Department of Energy. He moved to Amerada Hess in London in 1984 and worked there for 19 years, primarily on NW Europe, but also on projects in South America, Africa and SE Asia.

In 2003 he returned to Ireland as Vice President Ireland for Ramco and he led the flotation of Lansdowne Oil & Gas in 2006. Lansdowne participated in the 48/24-10z Barryroe Field appraisal well, operated by Providence Resources that was completed in 2012 and tested at flow rates of close to 4,000 boepd. The Celtic Sea has seen a rejuvenation of activity, with increased licensing and the first acquisition of extensive 3D seismic surveys and this is expected to lead to further drilling.

Abstract:

Exploration in the shallow water North Celtic Sea Basin (NCSB) off the south coast of Ireland started in the early 1970’s and was quickly rewarded with the discovery of the Kinsale Head gas field by the third well drilled in the basin (48/25-2) in 1971. Gas in the Kinsale Head Field is contained in Lower Cretaceous reservoir sands and the field commenced production in 1978.

Exploration continued through the 1970’s primarily focused on inversion structures, similar to Kinsale Head and this led to the discovery of additional gas and deeper oil in the Seven Heads structure. The oil is waxy in nature, the product of Upper Jurassic lacustrine shales.

Once onstream the Kinsale Head Field fulfilled demand for gas in Ireland and in the 1980’s the exploration effort focused on searching for oil. Furthermore, spurred on by the success of Wytch Farm in Dorset, attention focused on earlier tilted fault block structures that had not been impacted to any great degree by the later effects of basin inversion in the Cenozoic. This led to the discovery of the Jurassic Helvick oil field with the drilling of the 49/9-2 well in 1983, the peak year for exploration in the NCSB with 7 wells drilled. The oil in the Helvick discovery is a low-wax, typical marine crude oil sourced from the Liassic shales.

Therefore, by the mid 1980’s three working petroleum systems had been established in the NCS, but exploration activity declined gradually through to the mid 1990’s when drilling ceased altogether for a number of years.

Since 2000 the basin has undergone a rejuvenation of activity with increased licensing, the first extensive acquisition of 3D seismic and a return to drilling.

The talk will review the history of activity, discuss the petroleum systems and discuss future potential and activity.

GWL Cluster Meeting

Date: TBC; 6:00 for 6:30 pm at the RCA, Crown Lane, Conwy

“The North Celtic Sea Basin, a Resurgent Proven Hydrocarbon Province”

Speaker Overview:

Steve Boldy is C.E.O of Lansdowne Oil & Gas Limited, an exploration and production company focused on the Celtic Sea Offshore Ireland, which is listed on AIM in London.

After completing a B.Sc in geology at London University, he gained an M.Sc in sedimentology from Reading University and a Ph.D in geology from Trinity College Dublin.

Steve commenced working on the Irish Offshore in 1980 at the Petroleum Affairs Division of the Irish Department of Energy. He moved to Amerada Hess in London in 1984 and worked there for 19 years, primarily on NW Europe, but also on projects in South America, Africa and SE Asia.

In 2003 he returned to Ireland as Vice President Ireland for Ramco and he led the flotation of Lansdowne Oil & Gas in 2006. Lansdowne participated in the 48/24-10z Barryroe Field appraisal well, operated by Providence Resources that was completed in 2012 and tested at flow rates of close to 4,000 boepd. The Celtic Sea has seen a rejuvenation of activity, with increased licensing and the first acquisition of extensive 3D seismic surveys and this is expected to lead to further drilling.

Abstract:

Exploration in the shallow water North Celtic Sea Basin (NCSB) off the south coast of Ireland started in the early 1970’s and was quickly rewarded with the discovery of the Kinsale Head gas field by the third well drilled in the basin (48/25-2) in 1971. Gas in the Kinsale Head Field is contained in Lower Cretaceous reservoir sands and the field commenced production in 1978.

Exploration continued through the 1970’s primarily focused on inversion structures, similar to Kinsale Head and this led to the discovery of additional gas and deeper oil in the Seven Heads structure. The oil is waxy in nature, the product of Upper Jurassic lacustrine shales.

Once onstream the Kinsale Head Field fulfilled demand for gas in Ireland and in the 1980’s the exploration effort focused on searching for oil. Furthermore, spurred on by the success of Wytch Farm in Dorset, attention focused on earlier tilted fault block structures that had not been impacted to any great degree by the later effects of basin inversion in the Cenozoic. This led to the discovery of the Jurassic Helvick oil field with the drilling of the 49/9-2 well in 1983, the peak year for exploration in the NCSB with 7 wells drilled. The oil in the Helvick discovery is a low-wax, typical marine crude oil sourced from the Liassic shales.

Therefore, by the mid 1980’s three working petroleum systems had been established in the NCS, but exploration activity declined gradually through to the mid 1990’s when drilling ceased altogether for a number of years.

Since 2000 the basin has undergone a rejuvenation of activity with increased licensing, the first extensive acquisition of 3D seismic and a return to drilling.

The talk will review the history of activity, discuss the petroleum systems and discuss future potential and activity.

GWL Cluster Meeting

Thursday, 22nd May 2014; 6:00 for 6:30 pm at the RCA, Crown Lane, Conwy

Mongolia: Frontier Exploration Potential in an Emerging Economy

Abstract:

Mongolia is emerging from the Soviet era with a fast growing economy driven by the mining sector. The country, however, imports nearly 100% of its refined products from Russia, and exports its limited domestic crude production to China. There is a strong need to rebalance this situation as well as to prove up further reserves.

Currently a large number of sedimentary basins have been identified which still have limited or no seismic and few wells. Field work in frontier areas has proven super rich lacustrine oil shales of Upper Jurassic – Lower Cretaceous age interbedded with thick high porosity sandstones. These are stratigraphically equivalent to the proven petroleum system in Eastern and Southeastern Mongolia, as well as in many Chinese basins to the south. There is also an older petroleum system of Permian-Jurassic age proven in many Chinese basins which, although unproven in Mongolia, may also be present from field studies.

GWL Cluster Meeting

Thursday, 17^th April 2014; 6:00 for 6:30 pm at the RCA, Crown Lane, Conwy

Geochemistry and Hydrocarbon Exploration Status in Tanzania by Meshack Kagya

GWL Cluster Meeting

Thursday, 20^th March 2014; 6:00 for 6:30 pm at the RCA, Crown Lane, Conwy

Geology and petroleum systems of the Falkland Islands Basins

Speaker Profile:

Colin More is Technical Director at Falkland Oil and Gas Limited (FOGL), a company solely focused on exploration offshore the Falklands.  He is a geologist by training (BSc Glasgow, 1982; MSc Aberdeen, 1983) who, after a brief flirtation with geochemistry (1984), moved into geophysics and then exploration management.  He worked for Conoco, Cairn Energy and Paladin in various exploration and appraisal roles, before joining FOGL in early 2006.  His experience takes in numerous basins types worldwide, from intra-cratonic rifts in Sudan, China, India, UK and Thailand to thrust belts in Turkey and passive margins in NW Europe, West Africa and South Asia.  He relishes the opportunity to take a frontier basin from first commercial seismic survey, through first well, to one day (maybe), first oil in the East Falklands Basin.

Abstract:

The basins offshore the Falkland Islands can be divided into two groups.  The South and East Falklands Basins were formed during early break up of Gondwana, as Antarctica separated from the ‘African’ continent.  The South and East Falklands Basins then developed as passive margins from the Middle Jurassic, initially to the Weddell Sea but subsequently, after final separation of South America from South Africa, to the South Atlantic.  The North Falklands (NFB) Basin in contrast formed in the Late Jurassic to Early Cretaceous as a continental rift associated with the opening of the South Atlantic.

The fill of the East Falkland Basin is thought to be entirely marine.  The first wells in the basin were drilled as part of the ODP/DSDP programme on Maurice Ewing Bank on the eastern tip of the South American plate.  These wells revealed the presence of rich, upper Jurassic and Lower Cretaceous marine source rocks.  Acreage in the basin was first licensed in 2002, the first seismic was acquired in 2004 and the first commercial well was drilled in 2010.  This well (Toroa-1) demonstrated the presence of thick, good quality, Lower Cretaceous, shelfal sandstones derived from Palaeozoic quartzitic sediments which are preserved on the Falkland Islands.  This set up the main play currently being targeted in the basin: Lower Cretaceous deep marine, slope channels and basin floor fans, sitting within and above the Lower Cretaceous source rocks, proven in the DSDP wells and in the offset Magallanes basin in Argentina.

The first wells were drilling in the NFB in 1998 and although no commercial discoveries were made the key elements of a working hydrocarbon system were proven.  The basin is predominantly filled with lacustrine and fluvial sediments with fully marine conditions only established in the Tertiary.  The primary source rocks in the NFB are Lower Cretaceous (Barremian to Valanginian) lacustrine, oil-prone, algal shales deposited within the early post-rift sequence.  These extraordinarily rich source rocks are mature for oil generation below 2500m but it is the juxtaposition of source and reservoir that could make the NFB a prolific province.  Lacustrine reservoirs, shed as fans from a fringing shelf on the eastern basin margin and inter-bedded with the mature source rocks, are the current focus of exploration.  The billion barrel (STOIIP) Sea Lion field, discovered by Rockhopper Exploration in 2010, is testament to the effectiveness of the play.

This talk will focus on the East Falklands Basin where the Noble Energy, Edison SPA and Falkland Oil and Gas joint venture has recently acquired over 10,000sqkm of 3D seismic.  However, the basin and plays will be compared and contrasted with the coeval NFB.  The 2012 drilling campaign (South and East Falklands Basins) demonstrated the presence of a working petroleum system.  The Scotia (FOGL), Loligo (FOGL) and Stebbing (Borders and Southern) wells contained gas and the Darwin well (Borders and Southern) discovered a very rich, gas condensate.  The current play focus may be the Lower Cretaceous deep water systems but numerous other plays have barley been tested; like the Tertiary anticlines in the southern fold belt (Scotia Sea margin) and classic titled fault blocks in Upper Jurassic and Lower Cretaceous shelfal sands.

In frontier exploration, understanding the early basin evolution can be as important to success as prospect mapping on modern 3D.  Plate models, play models and prospect examples will be presented to illustrate what could become a major new petroleum province in the South Atlantic.

Digital Outcrop Models of Hydrocarbon Reservoir Analogues: An example from Alderley Edge, Cheshire

Date: Thursday, 20th February 2014

This presentation will take place at the Royal Cambrian Academy headquarters in Crown Lane, Conwy at 6.30pm.  Refreshments from 6.00pm.

Speaker Overview:

Dr David Hodgetts – Senior lecturer in Petroleum geology and Reservoir Modelling.  Basin Studies and Petroleum Geoscience Group.

David received an honours degree in Geology from Durham, followed by a Computing in Earth Science MSc from Keele University where he stayed on to undertake a PhD in 3D numerical modelling of continental lithospheric deformation. After a short post doctoral research position at Keele working on 3D structural restoration algorithms he moved to Liverpool to join the Strat Group, working on a diverse range of projects both subsurface and fieldwork related. He joined the University of Manchester in 2003, and is currently a Senior Lecturer in Petroleum Geology and Reservoir Modelling.

David has 18 years’ experience of working on petroleum industry projects ranging in scope from forward modelling, geological software development, seismic interpretation, field mapping and reservoir modelling primarily focussing on siliciclastics. His research over the past 10 years has focussed on the application of digital data acquisition techniques, in particular terrestrial laser scanning (lidar) to field geology. This research has focussed on outcrop description and extraction of geostatistical data to assist in subsurface reservoir characterisation. In order to achieve this he has developed software called VRGS (Virtual Reality Geological Studio) to facilitate the processing, interpretation and modelling of lidar and other digital outcrop data types.

Abstract:

Lidar mapping is rapidly becoming a regular addition to the field geologists toolkit. Using Lidar data it is now easy to make photorealistic models which involve producing a triangulated irregular network (TIN) or mesh of the point cloud, and then texture mapping digital images onto the mesh via projective texturing techniques. This approach produces visually pleasing models which are easy to interpret, however this is only the case if the features of interest are clearly visible in the digital photograph, which in rocks of fairly uniform colour may not always be the case.

The high resolution nature of lidar derived digital outcrop models facilitates the generation of surface attributes (such as curvature, co-planarity and roughness for example) which may be used to highlight features not easily seen in the photo-realistic model. These surface attributes not only make manual interpretation of the data easier, but facilitate the development of more automated mapping and tracking tools, which are essential in the large datasets provided by terrestrial and airborne laser scanning. 

The Sherwood Sandstone Formation (SSF) is an important economically in the UK as both aquifers and hydrocarbon bearing reservoirs.  In this study digital outcrop modelling approaches integrated with traditional fieldwork aims to shed new light on this important geological group.  Lidar data collected from extensive mine workings in the Alderley Edge are used to build digital outcrop models allowing accurate mapping and measurement of key stratal surfaces, structure and sedimentology, with a focus on understanding fault geometry, and fracture distribution in relation to those faults and to the mechanical stratigraphy of the SSF.

The Alderley Edge Mines themselves are distributed over an area of 1.5km x1.0 km approximated with around 16km of passages and caverns down to a depth of 60m. The mines (originally used for minerals such as copper, lead and cobalt) are cut through the Sherwood Sandstone offering exceptional and unparalleled 3D exposure of the Sherwood sandstone.

1 An view of a Lidar data based model from the Alderley Edge Mines. The image colour shows the reflection intensity of the laser. Several scans are merged together to form this model.

Recent Publications

• Hodgetts, D., in press. Laser Scanning and Digital Outcrop Geology in the Petroleum Industry: A review. Marine and Petroleum Geology.
• Rarity, F., van Lanen, X.M.T., Hodgetts, D., Gawthorpe, R.L., Wilson, P., Fabuel  Perez, I., Redfern, J., 2013. Quantifying depositional elements: LiDAR-based digital outcrop datasets for integrated sedimentological analysis, in: Martinius, A.W., Howell, J.A., Good, T. (Eds.), Sediment-Body Geometry and Heterogeneity: Analogue Studies for Modelling the Subsurface. Geological Society of London.
• Seers, T.D., Hodgetts, D., 2013. Comparison of digital outcrop and conventional data collection approaches for the characterization of naturally fractured reservoir analogues, in: Spence, G.H., Redfern, J., Aguilera, R., Bevan, T.G., Cosgrove, J.W., Couples, G.D., Daniel, J.-M. (Eds.), SP374 Advances in the Study of Fractured Reservoirs. Geological Society, London, Special Publications.
• Fabuel-Perez, I., Hodgetts, D., Redfern, J., 2010. Integration of digital outcrop models (DOMs) and high resolution sedimentology – workflow and implications for geological modelling: Oukaimeden Sandstone Formation, High Atlas (Morocco). Petroleum Geoscience 16, 133-154.

Seismic Interpretation – Ten Ways to be wrong

Date: Thursday, 21st November 2013

This presentation will take place at the Royal Cambrian Academy headquarters in Crown Lane, Conwy at 6.30pm.  Refreshments from 6.00pm.

Speaker Overview:

Dr Andrew Hopkins is an independent seismic interpretation consultant based in London, where he is currently working on the Carboniferous of the Southern North Sea. Andrew received his BSc from Imperial College in 1980, and has worked for various oil companies, contractors and consultants, including Enterprise Oil, Endeavour Energy, Horizon Exploration, and Helix-RDS, on seismic data from many of the world’s hydrocarbon provinces. In 2007 he completed a PhD at Cardiff University on the seismic interpretation of Cretaceous and Cenozoic contourites in the Walvis Basin, offshore Namibia. Before becoming freelance, Andrew was Chief Geophysicist at African Petroleum.

Abstract:

The last several decades have seen the dynamic growth of a global database of high-quality seismic reflection data, both 2D and 3D, which has been almost entirely driven by hydrocarbon exploration. Consequently, seismic data now provide the pre-eminent means we have of investigating sub-surface geological phenomena which would otherwise be inaccessible. Indeed, seismic interpretation has been the key component of many of the significant advances in structural geology and stratigraphy in recent years. These include for example, major developments in our understanding of fault dynamics, salt tectonics, fluid-rock interactions, igneous and sedimentary intrusions, not to mention the creation of the entire field of seismic and sequence stratigraphy. Although the mechanics of the process of seismic interpretation have been extensively dissected and reviewed in textbooks, courses and on the internet, this talk will propose that a valuable set of insights may yet be gleaned from a little-known and under-appreciated text book, now more than 20 years old. While the subject of “To Interpret the Earth” (1991) by Stanley Schumm, is geomorphology rather than seismic interpretation, its wisdom has relevance across all the earth sciences. Schumm sub-titled his book “Ten Ways to be Wrong” and he identified a series of problems of interpretation by which the unwary geoscientist may be led astray. He placed these problems into three broad classes, scale and place, cause and effect, and system response. The talk will attempt to transpose these “ways to be wrong” from their original geomorphological context into the milieu of the seismic interpreter. Numerous examples from the literature and from the speaker’s experience will be presented.

Directions to the venue:

RCA, Crown Lane, Conwy, LL32 8AN