Learn! Blog

New energy technologies are making geological knowledge more important than ever, but often in unexpected ways. Welcome to an interview with Mike Stephenson, head of the British Geological Survey’s Decarbonisation Programme, which has a wide range of projects that range from geothermal, CCS, compressed air energy storage, to hydrogen storage and heat storage. (AAPG will feature presentations and panel discussions on this topic at ACE 2020 in Houston.)

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American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Division Column DEG

Coexistence of proven affordable energy, more responsible consumption and development of economically viable alternate sources by large consuming societies will be what allow us to narrow the gap between the ideals so often stated on social media platforms and the reality of keeping humanity on a path of long-term prosperity.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer President’s Column

This Executive Committee and the past five EC have been working hard on your behalf. AAPG had a couple black swan events in 2014 and 2015. The Executive Committees during these few years have been working very hard to cut costs and bring the budget into balance in this new commodity price environment. The bottom line to all this is that in five years we have righted the ship, bailed the water, and are sailing once again.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

The maturing carbon market is a major driver for carbon capture, utilization and storage projects. Both the subsurface technical knowledge and related data sets of the petroleum industry are major inputs required for the world to successfully move toward a carbon-neutral and sustainable energy future. To that end, one of the goals of the Division of Environmental Geosciences in representing AAPG is to promote what petroleum geologists can offer during an evolving energy future.

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American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Division Column EMD

What’s in a name? Should we call it a transition? A convergence? A transformation? A revolution? A tipping-point? A paradigm shift? Consider that perhaps the name is largely irrelevant, except to sell conference tickets. There’s a radical shift afoot that affects the business model for global energy delivery and consumption. And with it comes with a wealth of opportunities for energy geoscientists, as well as an obligation for every professional society to help its members prepare for the future.

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American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Emphasis Article

Take a look at many of the major energy companies’ websites and you’re likely to see a “New Energies”-section with an outlined commitment for ultimately achieving “net zero” carbon emissions. Shell, for example, has increased the number of employees in its New Energies sector from 60 to 800 in the past two years. However, when looking at the world’s energy leaders, none have agreed on a clear path forward.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Emphasis Article

Talk of mitigating carbon footprints is growing louder. Regardless of differing views on the carbon issue, many in the oil and gas industry and beyond are beginning to make changes not only to be better stewards of the environment, but to protect business from growing public and investor sentiments against fossil fuels. Public opinion is now infiltrating investor sentiments and the industry needs to adopt significant changes that will keep the public and investors on board.

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American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

Every year both the AAPG and its divisions call on its members to step forward into leadership roles as they are able. As the Immediate past president of the Division of Environmental Sciences, one way that I serve the Division is to seek officer candidates for open positions in 2020-21. Open DEG positions are the president-elect, vice-president and editor. While we have written descriptions of each office and its duties (available upon request), let me share my observations on these officer positions.

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American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer President’s Column

AAPG functions because of you, the members, and there are many different ways for you to get involved in your organization. Some choose to start in their local affiliated society, working on committees and holding offices within them. Others get involved through leadership and organizing events within the sections and regions. These are the grassroots of our membership, and AAPG leadership is working to strengthen these roots.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Division Column DEG

In order to support our modern society in an ever- growing global population, energy supplies must converge to meet that growing demand.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)

Hot Items

Explorer Historical Highlights

The Casablanca oil field, discovered in 1975 and located on the Mediterranean shelf edge, has been greatly significant in the world’s offshore oil industry activity, besides being by far the biggest oil field in Spain.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Director’s Corner

Perhaps you did a double take pulling the April issue of EXPLORER from the mailbox. What is this? If you joined AAPG in the last 40 years, you’ve only known EXPLORER in its long-standing tabloid format. It worked well for many years as our advertisers – particularly seismic companies – loved the large format and the ability to display their data on a sweeping canvas. For readers, it was a little more awkward.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Geophysical Corner

Advancements in processing and imaging techniques have continued over the last several decades, which have gradually improved the quality of the processed surface seismic data. When the quality of the existing seismic data is not adequate to perform an interpretation task reasonably, then the interpreter looks for other options. Is it feasible to acquire a new survey? In the absence of an improved survey, will reprocessing of seismic data be a good option?

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American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

A new type of buoyancy model can be used to understand the source of residual oil zones, both thick and thin, to help determine the likelihood that economically viable recoverable oil resides in transition zones of imbibition reservoirs. Application of a buoyancy and breech model will fill a void in reservoir characterization. It will help distinguish between TZs and ROZs, the first of which allows application of primary and secondary (waterflooding) oil recovery methods and the second of which requires more difficult CO2-enhanced oil recovery projects.

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American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

It isn’t news to anyone that prediction is difficult, especially when it’s the future (as a great man once said). Uncertainty and unpredictability are just a part of the job of tracking and predicting the future supply and demand of energy. That being the case, when energy analysts say that the current level of uncertainty is particularly high, it might be easy to dismiss it as a “dog bites man” story. It isn’t.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)

Headquarters Contacts

Susan Nash
Susan Nash Director, Innovation and Emerging Science and Technology, AAPG +1 405 314 7730