Most of you who know me have probably heard me refer to myself as a “Seismic Geologist”.  I began my career as a data processor for Western Geophysical and learned not to fear the “wiggle trace”.  In 1980 the industry was ravenous for young geologists and geophysicists and, as I have said (facetiously), I could spell “geophysicist” so Conoco made me one.  It really wasn’t that easy, but that was the beginning of my career in Exploration.  Conoco had a wonderful perspective for explorers.  They didn’t care so much what your title was but expected you to be able to work with whatever tools (well log data, seismic, gravity, magnetics, …) existed in the area to which you were assigned.  That paradigm became the basis for how I approached my career from that point until now.  Being able to integrate both the “geology” and “geophysics” gives the Explorer a more complete perspective of the basins/rocks we deal with and increases our ability to do what we are supposed to do – come up with exploration ideas and identify and mitigate the risks of any prospect.

2015 has been an eventful year – to say the least – both for the industry and for me personally. Everyone is painfully aware of the precipitous fall in the price of oil and gas, and the effect that is having on all of us. While we started the year with the hope that the downturn would be short term, these prices are starting to look like the new normal. However, there are so many uncertainties out there in the market and geopolitics that, as I’ve said before, trying to predict timing is a “fool’s errand”.

The one thing of which we can be certain is that 2016 will be full of uncertainty, which is pretty common. We all try to maintain a degree of certainty, but that is pretty much an illusion. Exploration geoscientists are familiar with uncertainty – otherwise known as risk, and it is our job as geoscientists to identify and try to quantify that risk. What is often unknown is the thing or things we can’t or don’t identify that effect the risk (uncertainty) of our prospect – be it exploration or development.

Dry holes!  Who needs them?  What do you do if you’ve drilled one?  How are you going to deal with one and your prospect doesn’t turn out the way you expected?  These are all questions that face every geologist in our industry who is doing any kind of exploration, and they even happen in development scenarios!

First of all, we all need those dry holes (preferably those drilled by someone else)!  They are the data points we all use in our exploration efforts.  Just think of the vast area between producing fields that comprise the area in which we conduct most of our exploration.  About the only source of data in those areas (other than geophysical data) is the dry hole.