Re:Industry Paleontology

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One of the problems (as I see it) for palaeontologists within the oil industry
is historical in that, until recently, all palaeontologists did was give an age
breakdown of a well with no real thought as to why the information was needed.
That and being viewed as decidedly odd people - why would anybody want to spend
hours a day looking down a microscope at dead things?  Unfortunately most, if
not all oil companies, are run by bean counters (pot calling kettle black).
Consequently we have to show that we can make a positive contribution
financially to an oil company.

One area where this has been done successfully, as pointed out by Dennis Logan,
is horizontal drilling.  I have spent the last six years working mainly offshore
on horizontal production wells in the Norwegian sector for Phillips and Amoco.
I'm a micropalaeontologist so I guess ppco use micro to steer their wells aswell
- sorry Dennis.

We have gone from a single palaeontologist, grudgingly accepted by the drillers,
to having two or even three palaeontologists (two of one discipline working back
to back and the other discipline working swing shift) on some wells with the
drillers wanting to know why not if we don't!  We must be doing something right.
As Dennis pointed out we can keep a wellbore within a pay zone for thousands of
feet/metres thereby increasing production by tens of thousands of barrels and
millions of dollars, yet we are still considered expensive.

We are, however, significantly cheaper than MWD - nor do we "crap out", fall
down the hole or lose radioactive sources.

Moving on to casing points:
1.  There is the safety aspect of drilling into a vastly overpressured horizon
with too low mud weight - potential of blowout or wellbore caving in and
grabbing the pipe.

2.  The financial aspect
	a. drilling into a low pressure horizon with vastly overbalance mud
leading to loss of expensive mud.  
	b. even in well known fields localised faulting can lead to loss of the
reservoir - a palaeontologist on site saves the time and cost of casing.

Picking TD - picking TD points from seismic can be tricky - if the TD horizon
comes in a couple of hundred feet high, not unknown, a days rig time can be
saved (over $100,000 at current rig costs in the North Sea).

Having said all this are we still academic and expensive? I think not!
Hopefully for those of you that didn't already know, what I have just said will
have dispelled that myth.  We need to market ourselves better as a very
cost-efficient,  essential member of the drilling team.


Re: Martin Jakubowskis comments on industry training

In the past the career path for palaeontologists was from MSc straight to oil
company or (more commonly perhaps) to a consultancy firm and then to an oil
company.  Recently, however, oil company biostrat departments have been
decimated - particularly noteworthy is BPs - and very few stratigraphers have
been taken on.  When they have been taken on it is usually from another oil
company with no new jobs created.  This has been mirrored in the consultancies
with only one major company left in the UK.  Yes this company has been employing
a few postgraduates but other companies doing so are few and far between and
often these are short term contracts only.  A large number of experienced
biostratigraphers in the UK are now independent.   Another facet of recent years
is specialisation - many palaeontologists now only specialise in one part of the
strat column of one area, let alone only forams, ostracods etc.

The last few years has also seen the demise of MSc's at Hull and Aberystwyth and
the apparent swallowing of Southamptons by oceanography.  Ultimately, taking
into account postgraduates that don't go into industry and those that do but
then decide its not for them, where is the next generation of industry
biostratigraphers going to come from?

Gareth Jones