This article is some what unusual in that it consists mainly of the body of a talk that I gave at the recent AAPG-sponsored APPEX 2008 conference in London.
To summarise my conclusion it is that there are plenty of 'hot' frontiers left in the world, all of them with significant "below ground" and "above ground" risks, and that, with the risk of huge generalisations, the IOC approach to them today can be summarised as:
The Majors have the “Know How” and the teams to manage “below ground” risk and have the financial ‘muscle’ to explore, develop and produce. However, one has the impression that they are increasingly run by engineers and accountants, and have Boards and auditors who don’t understand ‘Frontiers’ - the Gulf of Mexico and the rest of North America is so much more ‘comfortable’!
At the opposite end of the size range, AIM-sized companies may not have the “Know How”, the teams or the financial ‘muscle’ but may be more entrepreneurial and willing to take “above ground” risks. They may have a BA Gold Card….but not win the ‘best’ concessions as the best endowed NOCs may not be too happy to see their prime opportunities being taken by very small companies and therefore insist on some fairly tough pre-qualification criteria such as requiring a company to be producing more than, say, 30,000boed.
This begs the question - who is actually going to explore these 'new frontiers'?
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Author:
David Bamford
Monday, March 10, 2008 20:05