2021 Offshore petroleum exploration acreage release

2021 ◽  
Vol 61 (2) ◽  
pp. 291
Author(s):  
Paul Trotman

In 2020, the liquefied natural gas (LNG) trade saw a modest increase of 1%, which is in contrast to the strong growth of previous years. Recently, the global LNG trade has picked up following the easing of impacts from the pandemic and demand growth in Asia. An increase of 6% in the global LNG trade is expected in 2021 and 2022. Domestic demand for gas remains high, with gas being used both for residential supply and also as an essential feedstock for the manufacturing industry. With a projected domestic gas shortfall, the future exploration and development of oil and gas will play a key role in ensuring access to secure, reliable and affordable energy in the future as well as assisting economic recovery from the pandemic. The importance of remaining an attractive investment destination is essential. Our challenge is to not only strike the balance of being agile and adaptive to market disruptions but also provide robust policy and regulatory frameworks to underpin future investment in the sector. Against this backdrop, this paper provides details of the 2021 offshore petroleum exploration acreage release and information about the ongoing policy work of the department.

2019 ◽  
Vol 59 (2) ◽  
pp. 493
Author(s):  
D. Lockhart ◽  
D. Spring

Available data for 2018 indicates that exploration activity is on the rise in Australia, compared to 2017, and this represents a second year of growth in exploration activity in Australia. There has been an increase in area under licence by 92 000 km2, reversing the downward trend in area under licence that commenced in 2014. Since 2016, exploratory drilling within Australia has seen a continued upward trend in both the number of wells drilled and the percentage of total worldwide. Onshore, 77 conventional exploration and appraisal wells were spudded during the year. Offshore, exploration and appraisal drilling matched that seen in 2017, with five new wells spudded: two in the Roebuck Basin, two in the Gippsland Basin and one in the North Carnarvon Basin. Almost 1500 km of 2D seismic and over 10 000 km2 of 3D seismic were acquired within Australia during 2018, accounting for 2.4% and 3.9% of global acquisition, respectively. This represents an increase in the amount of both 2D and 3D seismic acquired in Australia compared with 2017. Once the 2017 Offshore Petroleum Acreage Release was finalised, seven new offshore exploration permits were awarded as a result. A total of 12 bids were received for round one of the 2018 Offshore Petroleum Exploration Release, demonstrating an increase in momentum for offshore exploration in Australia. The permits are in Commonwealth waters off Western Australia, Victoria and the Ashmore and Cartier islands. In June 2018, the Queensland Government announced the release of 11 areas for petroleum exploration acreage in onshore Queensland, with tenders closing in February/March 2019; a further 11 areas will be released in early 2019. The acreage is a mix of coal seam gas and conventional oil and gas. Victoria released five areas in the offshore Otway Basin within State waters. In the Northern Territory, the moratorium on fracking was lifted in April, clearing the way for exploration to recommence in the 2019 dry season. With the increase in exploration has come an increase in success, with total reserves discovered within Australia during 2018 at just under 400 million barrels of oil equivalent, representing a significant increase from 2017. In 2018, onshore drilling resulted in 18 new discoveries, while offshore, two new discoveries were made. The most notable exploration success of 2018 was Dorado-1 drilled in March by Quadrant and Carnarvon Petroleum in the underexplored Bedout Sub-basin. Dorado is the largest oil discovery in Australia of 100 million barrels, or over, since 1996 and has the potential to reinvigorate exploration in the region.


2015 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 67
Author(s):  
Demus King

The oil and gas sector is a key contributor to the Australian economy, contributing $30.8 billion in commodity export earnings in 2013–14 (Department of Industry and Science, 2015). Underpinning future growth in the value of oil and gas to the Australian economy is the almost $200 billion of investment in seven LNG projects under construction. Australia relies on foreign capital to continue to explore for, and develop, its natural resources. New challenges and opportunities are arising for the sector. Increased international competition, advancing technology, and increasing risks and volatile costs associated with the development of fields are features of the current offshore operating environment. Australia’s legislative and policy settings must be sufficiently robust and flexible to support the continued development of Australia’s offshore resources into the future. To this end, the Australian Government is undertaking a high-level strategic review of the resource management framework for offshore petroleum resources in Commonwealth waters. The review will test the robustness of the policy, legal and regulatory regime to ensure the framework remains flexible enough to keep pace with the evolving environment and continues to attract investment. The annual Offshore Petroleum Exploration Acreage Release facilitates new investment in offshore petroleum exploration. The 2015 Acreage Release is accompanied by an updated exploration guideline. The guideline increases flexibility in permit management and clarifies competitive work program bidding expectations and good standing as well as providing more flexibility in the way good standing agreements may be discharged. This will enable industry to undertake exploration with increased autonomy and reduce the administrative burden. It accommodates changing technological capacity and encourages increased exploration in Australia’s offshore waters.


2018 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
pp. 465
Author(s):  
Lisa Schofield

The Australian Government’s 2018 offshore petroleum exploration acreage release was announced by the Commonwealth Minister for Resources and Northern Australia, Senator the Hon Matthew Canavan at the 2018 APPEA conference. This paper provides insights into the processes that the Australian Government has undertaken to select the final release areas and goes into detail on the ongoing petroleum related activities of the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science (the Department). The annual acreage release is a central component of ensuring ongoing, sustainable and responsible investment in Australia’s offshore petroleum sector. The annual acreage release remains the primary mechanism for securing investment in offshore oil and gas exploration in areas of known petroleum potential and new geological frontiers. Continued exploration for oil and gas in Commonwealth waters is a central component of ensuring Australia’s future energy security. Australia’s well established and independent environmental regulator, NOPSEMA (the National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority), ensures all petroleum activities in Commonwealth waters are performed safely and in an environmentally responsible manner. Combined with NOPTA’s (National Offshore Petroleum Titles Administrator) leading practice titles administration, Australia remains an attractive investment destination while offering industry leading environmental protections and ensuring safe working conditions industry-wide. Australia offers investors access to data, secure tenure, a stable economic environment and a well-established transparent regulatory system for offshore petroleum activities. A key driver for sustainable activity in Australia is the acceptance of multiple use access to Australia’s marine resources. Recognising this, the department consults with a range of stakeholders on the areas it proposes to release for petroleum exploration. This consultation process provides an opportunity for all interested parties to provide comments and feedback on the areas proposed and in particular highlight how interested parties or the areas might be impacted by exploration activities. The 21 areas in the 2018 offshore petroleum exploration acreage release are located in the offshore areas of Western Australia, South Australia, Victoria and the Ashmore-Cartier Islands. These areas will enable the next wave of investment in the Australian resources sector, and the prospect of new oil, gas and condensate production.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pieter van Mastrigt ◽  
Michael J. Quinn

Abstract For any given Exploration oil and gas portfolio and associated opportunities, successful business decisions can only be made on the basis of technically robust estimates of the subsurface risk versus the resource potential and estimate of the associated upside(s). Ideally, these estimates should incorporate the entire spectrum of opportunities for the complete portfolio and they should be made in a consistent and comparable way. However, as Explorers, we are often faced with data that is incomplete, limited, of variable quality, and/or inconsistent. As a result, subsurface evaluation may be seen more as educated guessing rather than a robust science of evaluation grounded in facts and defensible logic. In their January 2020 paper "Randomness, serendipity, and luck in petroleum exploration" authors Milkov and Navidi (Ref 1.) go quite a bit further and demonstrate that luck is a significant factor in the exploration success equation. They also showed a general lack in long-term consistency in exploration results of individual companies. Indeed, after we looked at PETRONAS’ own historical POSg versus actual technical success rates and observed only a fair to poor relation between actual technical success rate and the pre-drill POSg estimate. A similar—albeit less worrisome—observation was made for volume ranges and fluid phase predictions. Clearly, there is, and always has been, a phenomenal challenge for the Petroleum Geoscientists to provide the sought after estimates as accurately as possible, and we were no exception. In a bid to improve on this PETRONAS set out on a more disciplined approach to characterizing subsurface uncertainties on its conventional exploration efforts. Over time, more accurate characterizations of such exploration risk and resource potential have followed from a series of procedural guidelines, enhanced capability training program and careful governance of exploration workflows. With improved capabilities and workflow consistency, our evaluation teams have delivered substantially better subsurface evaluations. This in turn has led to more confident decision-making on e.g., individual drilling decisions and new play entries. While our newly implemented workflows are not groundbreaking in isolation, in combination they have delivered notable success and an improved ability to shape the future growth for PETRONAS. In this article, we will highlight the main contributing changes and demonstrate that the overall improvements are indeed impactful. We are not directly challenging the article of Milkov et. al., but are convinced that professionalism and scientific discipline is the deciding factor in the Exploration success equation.


2019 ◽  
Vol 118 (2) ◽  
pp. 7-12
Author(s):  
Ok-Hee Park ◽  
Kwan-sik Na ◽  
Seok-Kee Lee

Background/Objectives: The purpose of the paper is to examine how family-friendly certificates introduced to pursue the compatibility of work and family life affect the financial performance of small and medium-sized manufacturers, and to provide useful information to companies considering the introduction of this system in the future.


Author(s):  
Paul Stevens

This chapter is concerned with the role of oil and gas in the economic development of the global economy. It focuses on the context in which established and newer oil and gas producers in developing countries must frame their policies to optimize the benefits of such resources. It outlines a history of the issue over the last twenty-five years. It considers oil and gas as factor inputs, their role in global trade, the role of oil prices in the macroeconomy and the impact of the geopolitics of oil and gas. It then considers various conventional views of the future of oil and gas in the primary energy mix. Finally, it challenges the drivers behind these conventional views of the future with an emphasis on why they may prove to be different from what is expected and how this may change the context in which producers must frame their policy responses.


2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 323-338
Author(s):  
Xiong-Qi Pang ◽  
Zhuo-Heng Chen ◽  
Cheng-Zao Jia ◽  
En-Ze Wang ◽  
He-Sheng Shi ◽  
...  

AbstractNatural gas hydrate (NGH) has been widely considered as an alternative to conventional oil and gas resources in the future energy resource supply since Trofimuk’s first resource assessment in 1973. At least 29 global estimates have been published from various studies so far, among which 24 estimates are greater than the total conventional gas resources. If drawn in chronological order, the 29 historical resource estimates show a clear downward trend, reflecting the changes in our perception with respect to its resource potential with increasing our knowledge on the NGH with time. A time series of the 29 estimates was used to establish a statistical model for predict the future trend. The model produces an expected resource value of 41.46 × 1012 m3 at the year of 2050. The statistical trend projected future gas hydrate resource is only about 10% of total natural gas resource in conventional reservoir, consistent with estimates of global technically recoverable resources (TRR) in gas hydrate from Monte Carlo technique based on volumetric and material balance approaches. Considering the technical challenges and high cost in commercial production and the lack of competitive advantages compared with rapid growing unconventional and renewable resources, only those on the very top of the gas hydrate resource pyramid will be added to future energy supply. It is unlikely that the NGH will be the major energy source in the future.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Armstrong Lee Agbaji

Abstract Historically, the oil and gas industry has been slow and extremely cautious to adopt emerging technologies. But in the Age of Artificial Intelligence (AI), the industry has broken from tradition. It has not only embraced AI; it is leading the pack. AI has not only changed what it now means to work in the oil industry, it has changed how companies create, capture, and deliver value. Thanks, or no thanks to automation, traditional oil industry skills and talents are now being threatened, and in most cases, rendered obsolete. Oil and gas industry day-to-day work is progressively gravitating towards software and algorithms, and today’s workers are resigning themselves to the fact that computers and robots will one day "take over" and do much of their work. The adoption of AI and how it might affect career prospects is currently causing a lot of anxiety among industry professionals. This paper details how artificial intelligence, automation, and robotics has redefined what it now means to work in the oil industry, as well as the new challenges and responsibilities that the AI revolution presents. It takes a deep-dive into human-robot interaction, and underscores what AI can, and cannot do. It also identifies several traditional oilfield positions that have become endangered by automation, addresses the premonitions of professionals in these endangered roles, and lays out a roadmap on how to survive and thrive in a digitally transformed world. The future of work is evolving, and new technologies are changing how talent is acquired, developed, and retained. That robots will someday "take our jobs" is not an impossible possibility. It is more of a reality than an exaggeration. Automation in the oil industry has achieved outcomes that go beyond human capabilities. In fact, the odds are overwhelming that AI that functions at a comparable level to humans will soon become ubiquitous in the industry. The big question is: How long will it take? The oil industry of the future will not need large office complexes or a large workforce. Most of the work will be automated. Drilling rigs, production platforms, refineries, and petrochemical plants will not go away, but how work is done at these locations will be totally different. While the industry will never entirely lose its human touch, AI will be the foundation of the workforce of the future. How we react to the AI revolution today will shape the industry for generations to come. What should we do when AI changes our job functions and workforce? Should we be training AI, or should we be training humans?


2016 ◽  
Vol 138 (01) ◽  
pp. 30-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gary Cowger

This article highlights advantages of Lean Manufacturing in the manufacturing industry. The U.S. Bureau of Census survey shows that leaner the company, the faster it grows and the more profitable, productive, and innovative it becomes. It is a constellation of interrelated processes that improve productivity and reduce waste through continuous monitoring, evaluation, and improvement. The successful results of lean implementation have shown that workers are going to have to take more responsibility for outcomes, and managers are going to have to treat workers like partners. However, lean brings out the skepticism in many engineers and owners of small- and medium-sized businesses. It takes a lot to convince them to invest the time and money needed to transform even a modest factory into a lean operation. Lean has proven to be a philosophy of continuous improvement, as learning how to expose and fix problems creates sustainable advantages that are expected to continue in the future.


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