Re: Oil Futures

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Date
There have not been too many replies to Norm's questions on the oil industry
so maybe nobody out there is really that interested. However, as a former
oil industry biostratigrapher I thought I would pen a few brief words on my
perception of the current role that the biostratigrapher plays in the industry.

Palaeontologists can certainly play a major role in maintaining and
improving oil reserves, a role which is often under-sold in the industry and
one which has changed significantly in recent years. Some oil companies have
never had, or will have, dedicated biostratigraphers on staff. Others have
changed in recent years and are no longer staffed by large teams of
palaeontologists carrying out in-house routine biostratigraphical analyses.
Nowadays, this work is more likely to be farmed out to consultancy
organisations. The skills required to work in either the consultancy or the
oil company are quite different. Within oil companies the biostratigrapher
can often be a single individual, the sole voice for the preservation of
sound biostratigraphic principles. He needs to have a broad based
understanding of all the major disciplines including pollen, spores,
dinoflagellates, foraminifera and calc. nannofossils and be conversant with
other oil exploration technologies. He/she is the one who 'sells' to his
colleagues the value of the palaeontological data supplied by the
consultancies. The consultant needs to be a global expert in his/her
respective discipline but can also be used because of his/her expert local
knowledge. In the absence of an in-house biostratigrapher within the oil
company then the consultant needs to ensure that his data is utilised in the
right manner. The training that will allow the oil company biostrigrapher
and the consultants to carry out their roles effectively can therefore be
quite different.

One of the major challenges facing oil companies today is to add barrels to
the reserves portfolio, in a harsh economic climate of increasing completion
and low oil prices. A thorough understanding of the stratigraphy and
lithofacies variation within a basin and therefore the prediction of these
is of paramount importance to the assessment of the prospectivity of a basin
or play. Biostratigraphic data is still one of the main pillars of
integrated stratigraphic evaluation and prediction whether at regional,
basin, prospect or reservoir scale. It is only one of the pillars however
and therefore the success of the biostratigraphic data relies upon its
interpretation and integration with other geological disciplines. Therefore,
the biostratigrapher needs to be familiar with these other prediction
techniques (seismic stratigraphy, seismic prediction tools, petrophysics,
sedimentology etc.) to ensure that the data is utilised correctly and
effectively. The rise of sequence stratigraphic techniques in the late 70's
gave biostratigraphy a boost because it highlighted the need for a sound
stratigraphic framework and for integration. It also provided a vehicle for
the integration process and brought different specialists together exposing
them to the value of biostratigraphic data and the part that it can play. 

At the regional scale the palaeontological data places the three major
components of reservoir, seal and source rock facies into a time framework.
When these data are integrated with regional seismic evaluation the temporal
and spatial variation of these components can be constructed, assisting an
early evaluation of the hydrocarbon potential of the area. The information
that the palaeo. data provides is therefore central to the evaluation.

At the other end of the scale in a mature oil province (e.g. North Sea
Basin) the big oil discoveries have generally been made, although we do
still get the odd surprise (e.g. BP/Shell activity west of Shetlands).  The
oil plays in the mature basins therefore become smaller and play concepts
more subtle. Often these prospects cannot be resolved by seismic evaluation
alone and require more refined techniques. Problems of resolution at the
sub-seismic scale cannot be resolved without a robust stratigraphic
framework which is again provided by the biostratigraphic data and a good
understanding of straigraphic principals. 

To the enlightened and battle scarred biostratigraphers in the industry
these are probably obvious statements but they are often not always
appreciated by our geological colleagues. 

P.S.
I do not have any ready answers to the question of how long oil will last,
I'll leave that one to the economists.





Martin Jakubowski
Head of Curation, Dept. of Palaeontology
The Natural History Museum
Cromwell Road
London, SW7 5BD
Tel: 0171 938 8902
Fax: 0171 938 9277
EMail: marj@mailserver.nhm.ac.uk