The Petroleum Geology of NW Europe: 50 years of learning – a platform for present value and future success. An overview

Abstract

The conference ‘50 Years of Learning – A Platform for Present Value and Future Success’ was the eighth in a series that has accompanied the exploration and development of the offshore oil and gas resources of NW Europe since 1974. The 2015 event was timed to mark the 50th anniversary of the first commercial offshore discovery in the North Sea: the West Sole gas field in Block 48/6 off the Humber estuary in the UK sector in 1965 (Winter & King 1991). BP have the honour of being the operator of that discovery well. The conference also coincided with a collapse in oil prices. The Brent crude oil price during the meeting, on 28 September 2015, was $48 per barrel, which compares with $109 on the day of the first Technical Committee meeting on 16 August 2013! In such circumstances, the steadfastness of the conference's three sponsoring organizations – The Energy Institute, The Geological Society of London and the Petroleum Exploration Society of Great Britain – is to be admired. As, of course, is the generous support, in straitened circumstances, of the corporate sponsors. The subtitle of the conference, ‘A Platform for Present Value and Future Success’, was chosen to reflect the aim of enabling those Earth scientists and subsurface practitioners currently working on hydrocarbon resources across NW Europe to make optimal use of the considerable past investments in the largely offshore facilities, as well as the scientific understanding and knowledge gained. The ultimate focus is to maximize the safe and effective use of the investments to create and deliver resources for a low-cost energy-hungry society. A modest number of papers also specifically looked forward to the re-purposing of oil and gas facilities for a low-carbon-energy future. The conference was attended by 530 delegates. These included postgraduate students from the …