The 73rd Annual GeoGulf Convention featured a symposium devoted to new ventures and exploration, with a focus on wildcats and company maker plays titled “Wildcattin' Ain't Dead Yet: The Next Wave of Prospecting on the Gulf Coast, USA.’” Held on April 11, 2024, the symposium featured seven talks and one panel discussion that broadly covered the topics of i) novel exploration prospects that need funding to be drilled; ii) plays that worked and plays that didn’t work: lessons learned over the last 10 years; and iii) prospect evaluation methods and technical advances for both conventional and unconventional plays. Presenters in this symposium have found a total of roughly 6 BBOE over their careers (so far) and encouraged the next generation to keep on deliberately exploring for disruptive discoveries. The theme of the symposium was inspired by the late wildcatter Matt Furin and the Armstrong team based on their presentation to the Houston Explorers Club in 2019.
Technical Session
Deborah Sacrey, president of Auburn Energy and president-Elect of AAPG, led the session with the Cindy A. Yeilding Honorary Lecture on Giant Discoveries with the presentation “Geronimo Wilcox Exploration Project.” Using state-of-the-art ML and AI capabilities, Sacrey demonstrated how successful this play could be on the Gulf Coast. Sacrey said, “I really appreciate being able to show what machine learning can do to help reduce the risk associated with a wildcat opportunity…. [This type of session] certainly highlights what geologists can do with a little imagination and seismic data.”
Barry Rava, president of Icarus Oil and Gas, presented “Subtle Faults and Future Wildcats in the Onshore Gulf Coast” for the Houston Explorers Club Honorary Lecture. Rava showed several examples of successful and unsuccessful subtle traps and asked the audience, “Would you drill this well?” Often stumped, the audience asked Rava to reveal the answer, and there were a multitude of reasons the prospectors were either humbled, or why they were correct in their analysis of the discovery.
Rava said, “As the world's population heads towards 9 billion, most of whom are not energy sufficient, demand for oil and gas both as an energy source and a raw materials source will only grow. The future is bright if the industry can meet environmental and safety constraints. There are plenty of large and small close-in and wildcat opportunities just waiting to be funded and drilled.”
Christopher Murley and Machelle Johnson, Geologic Advisers at Cantium Energy, gave the Peter J. Lellis Memorial Lecture in Petroleum Geology with the talk “Achieving Growth in a “Brownfield”: 7900 Ft Sand Development in Main Pass 41 Field, Gulf of Mexico.” Murley and Johnson demonstrated how a wildcatting mentality enabled Cantium to find multiple HRHU wells in a field that was deemed unworthy of additional development.
Robert Pascoe, managing director for Dynamic Group, presented “The Deep Miocene Potential of the Outer West Louisiana Shelf: An Underexplored Play” for the Roger M. Slatt Memorial Lecture in Deepwater Stratigraphy based on one of his invited talks for the GCSSSEPM Foundation 39th Annual Perkins-Rosen Research Conference at Equinor. Pascoe explained that billion-barrel discoveries could be found in the Middle and Upper slope of the Gulf of Mexico, since exceedingly few wells have tested these traps that are only modestly deep based on today’s state-of-the-art drilling technology.
Richard Sears, retired Shell executive and gamechanger, presented “Exploration and Wildcatting–Risk in our Business and What it Really Means.” The focus was on risk being ever-present in our business and the need to accept that and drill smart wells. When asked by an audience member, “Why didn’t you mention anything about portfolio analysis?” Sears responded, “Because if you don’t have a correct interpretation of risk and uncertainty of your prospects, the portfolio analysis is meaningless.”
Danny Williams, CEO of Supreme Source Energy Services, presented “Technology Triggered Stranded Assets–the New Wildcatting” and illustrated that in the state of Texas alone, stranded oil and gas assets are valued at a whopping $170 billion. Williams provided compelling evidence that the new age of wildcatting involves scalable deployments of the most up-to-date collaborative completion technology not used in older wells, which can now be leveraged to recover left behind oil and gas. “It’s not about what we used being right or wrong back then, but whether what we used was the correct collaborative technology to mitigate the right and wrongs,” he said.
Selim S. Shaker, director at Geopressure Analysis Services, presented “Exploring the Missing Blind Zone in the Gulf of Mexico Shelf.” In this presentation, the merger of sequence stratigraphy–correct recognition of the maximum flooding surface (MFS)–and where the geopressure zone boundaries cross the MFS, leads to a successful interpretation of the oil and gas trap. Shaker illustrated this concept with several modern examples from the Gulf Coast, where sequence stratigraphy was first established by scientists at Exxon and other companies decades ago.
What Does it Take to Bring Out the Wildcatters in All of Us?
After lunch, Cindy A. Yeilding, retired SVP at BP and Denbury board member, presented the workshop “What Does it Take to Bring Out the ‘Wild Cats’ in All of Us?” In this workshop, Yeilding discussed pertinent topics in exploration that she and Susan Morrice have mastered over their careers. The main objective was to offer insights on the past, present and future industry through the lens of “wildcatting” while highlighting the roles and need for geoscientists today and into the future. Yielding explained, “Wildcatting is historically associated with resource exploration. Dictionary.com defines wildcatting as “to search an area of unknown or doubtful productivity for oil, ore, or the like, especially as an independent prospector.”
Wildcatting provided the foundational resources of the oil and gas industry and enabled the energy industry to develop globally. But what about “wildcatting” in new energies and low carbon? The entrepreneurial spirit historically embodied by wildcatters can provide the momentum, creativity, and science to develop new opportunities in energy.”
Yeilding provided perspective on the following main themes of the discussion, beginning with:
- “What does it take to be a wildcatter?”
Yeilding said, “Seeing opportunities where others don’t AND putting together a credible investment story. You need to be a dogma buster, exercise creativity, tenacity (grit), patience, inclusion–the central themes to the explorer’s mindset.”
- “What is “Wildcatting in 2025”?”
Yeilding responded, “Seeing the gaps and opportunities and assessing potential using good science and logical costs. For example, [assessing potential] as we grow and transform the energy system and incorporate more CCUS projects.”
- “What messages would you like folks to take onboard as they ‘wildcat’ over the next few decades?”
“Please be sure you know what problem you are trying to solve. Refer to the Bob Dudley and Dan Yergin example: Are we ‘…racing to renewables or trying to reduce emissions?’
“We need more open-minded, innovative free thinkers to really think outside the barrel!” added Susan Morrice, founder and chairperson of BNE, and co-author on the abstract.
How to Develop the Next Generation? A Brainstorming Activity
One symposium participant noted, “While enrollments are low in earth science programs around the nation and the world, the Gulf Coast is one region where seasoned industry professionals are taking the initiative to coach and develop the next generation of explorers.” How are Gulf Coast geoscientists doing this? As Dr. Per Avseth said in The Explorer’s Mindset, “[On creativity in the exploration process, you need to] think outside the box, because there is no box.”
To conclude the session, Yeilding conducted a 20-minute interactive brainstorming challenge and group exercise. The challenge was: What things are you doing to help raise awareness of earth systems? Yeilding showed a few personal examples of a gem and mineral birthday party, talks at schools, practicing random acts of geology—sharing fossils, rocks, and minerals with schools. These programs raise awareness about earth systems and encourage the next generation of explorers.
After the group discussions, members of the audience shared their feedback:
Charles Sternbach, president of Star Creek Energy, summarized his group’s findings and recommendations, "There are many ways to get the next generation involved, and to cultivate young earth scientists. Mike Halbouty wrote a paper titled ‘Why we need more dry holes.’ He cleverly implied that we need more drilling, leading to more discoveries. Ted Godo's type locality Discovery Thinking presentation showed how ten years of failed attempts in the Norphlet led to the giant Appomattox Discovery. As Marlan Downey said, “History is extremely valuable: A shortcut to wisdom and additive to personal experience...” We need to learn from analogs and wildcat failure as well as success."
Jerrika Stark, geology student at The University of Texas at the Permian Basin, said, “If we want to cultivate successful energy contributors of the future, we need to fully embrace today's obstacles as opportunities for innovation. One way we can do this is by mentoring the next generation of geoscientists with a Renaissance Ethos to create and ensure a legacy of success.”
Laura Pommer, CEO of EnergyFunders and co-chair of the Wildcattin’ symposium at GeoGulf ‘24, said, “Creative thinking, innovation, and the ability to share these ideas in a coherent way that gets them funded are really the basics of wildcatting, and one can apply them to many different things: new types of energy, new ways of thinking about old ideas (innovations in fundraising, innovations in technology, innovations in the way your company approaches data or learning, etc). Don't be discouraged if you are a wildcatter at heart and don’t have the appearance or job role of a real wildcatter, you can still be one, even if you are in HSE or HR.”
John Casiano, wildcatter and GeoGulf chair, said, “Wallace Pratt's insight from his 1952 AAPG Bulletin paper, stating, ‘Oil fields are found, in final analysis, in the minds of (geologists),’ resonates deeply within our presenter’s expertise, creativity, and tenacity. Similarly, Teddy Roosevelt's timeless wisdom, ‘Nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care,’ reflects the passion these geologists bring to their work. I'm grateful to GCAGS and AAPG for fostering a community where we can collaborate and make new discoveries. I want to work with these geologists who dedicate their lives to producing the oil and gas that continues to carry the world toward an even more prosperous future.”
Dallas Dunlap, program manager at the BEG and GeoGulf Technical Program co-chair, said, “Bringing talented geoscientist and engineers together in venues like these are key to passing along that shared knowledge to the next generation, what makes this industry so special is the collaborative support and mentorship of those experienced in finding energy resources and their zeal for sharing that know-how to that next crop of explorationists!”
Yeilding closed with, “Stop waiting on the ideal program to be developed. Get out there and share! Bottom’s up not just top-down action. Make geology accessible to future explorers: eradicate jargon, keep it simple wherever possible.”