Offshore Gas Exploration Prospect – Geoscience Peer Review

Overview

An international oil and gas operator approached RISC to provide an independent peer review of an exploration prospect within one of their UK offshore licences. The licence was due to expire in the near future and the operator was considering whether or not to seek a licence extension.

Our approach

The RISC team started with a dataroom style evaluation of the prospect, with an audit of the technical evaluation including the regional geological context, seismic interpretation, depth conversion, geological evaluation, seismic amplitude anomaly and prospect definition.

This allowed the team to identify the key uncertainties of the seismic amplitude anomaly and the impact of changing lithology on the seismic acoustic impedance. The RISC team were also able to leverage extensive seismic amplitude and regional geological knowledge in this basin in order to provide the client with valuable insight and a different perspective on the prospect evaluation.

RISC assessed the Geological Chance of Success (GCoS) and validity of the proposition that the seismic amplitude was a Direct Hydrocarbon Indicator in the basin. This was also calibrated against decades of exploration experience in multiple basins around the world.

The results of RISC’s findings and interpretation of the prospect risks were then communicated to the client during a focussed work session and presentation.

Outcome

Our client used RISC’s evaluation of the prospect to assist them in their decision whether to extend the licence or let the licence expire, ultimately, choosing the latter. A combination of factors contributed to this decision including modest prospect GCoS, several key prospect uncertainties and perceived difficulties regarding potential future development in the event of a discovery.

The client greatly valued RISC’s analysis and contribution and gave the following testimonial:

“RISC performed a prospect peer review for us, it was pitched at the right level of detail, turned around in good time and was within budget. We would use RISC again.”