HOTTING UP THE SEARCH FOR OIL AND GAS

The success of any company involved in the exploration and production of hydrocarbons lies in its ability to discover oil and gas. This abil ity does not come easily. Reservoirs are often situated thousands of m etres below the earth's surface, often under the world's fiercest seas . The high cost of exploration precludes drilling test wells purely on 'a hunch'. Much depends on the geologists' and geophysicists' interpr etation of the possibility of finding hydrocarbon accumulations. Incre ased research is being made into interpreting data to produce precise models of sedimentary basins. This includes the traditional data of mi neralogy, fossils, faults, folds etc. which have been standard tools s ince the early days of geology, and particularly on the 'hidden' data of temperature and the nature of paleofluids, which are vital for dete rmining the hydrocarbon potential of sedimentary basins.