AAPG/EAGE Joint Workshop on High CO2, High Contaminant Challenging Fields and Alternative Energy - Impact and Monetization
23 - 25 November 2021, Online
To stay relevant with the current times, the Organizing Committee has decided to revise the format of the AAPG/EAGE event High CO₂, High Contaminant Challenging Fields, and Alternative Energy – Impact and Monetization. There will now be six exciting panel sessions virtually from 23–25 November 2021 at 2:00pm – 5:45pm (Singapore time).
The new schedule of this virtual workshop will be split across three afternoon sessions (Singapore time) and involve a more interactive format comprising two panel sessions each day. Panel sessions will involve the invited speakers sharing a 10 minute pre-recorded presentation and then 60 minutes live panel/Q&A session.
The focus of this workshop is to highlight the important role geoscience has in predicting, avoiding, or managing major co-contaminants: a challenge faced by the region. Putting the ‘geoscience’ back in AAPG and EAGE, we have brought together a program that addresses the many issues that are challenging the industry and the contaminants impacting our reservoirs. We will open up the discussion highlighting how these challenges can be overcome and share examples from within the Asia Pacific region on how geoscientists are helping to contribute to the solutions.
This workshop will journey through the origins of contaminants; Carbon Dioxide, Hydrogen Sulphide, and Mercury, to the tools and technologies applied to identify, manage, and safely dispose of these contaminants. What skills do we require for the future to take custody of these challenging fields, as the energy mix continues to evolve? We have panelists confirmed from many companies and spread across the Asia Pacific and beyond to showcase the latest technologies, experiences, and projects.
Together with our supporting organizations CCOP, CSIRO, CO2CRC, Global CCS Institute, The Geological Survey of Thailand, The Indonesian Petroleum Association, The Malaysian Geological Society, PESA, and SEAPEX, we hope that this format change will not materially affect you or your company and we look forward to your ongoing support for this joint event.
High CO2 as well as high contaminant fields are prevalent challenges facing the industry in the Asia Pacific. The genesis of some is fairly well known but prediction has been difficult. The impact that it has on field development are tremendous and varies from field to field. In exploration, these have typically been shunned due to high costs involved in developing these. However, the industry has been caught by surprise time and again due to the low sampling rate in exploration phase. We often decide whether it is worth continuing to the next phase based on a single wildcat and limited data availability. There have been cases of high contaminant(s) discoveries which after appraisal, reveal a much lower percentage in the reservoir. The inverse has been proven as well, pointing to the difficulty in quantifying contaminant(s) during exploration phase. Even amongst the high contaminant fields, often there are low contaminant(s) fields nestled in between and varying concentration of contaminants from shallow to deeper reservoirs with no obvious trend.
Learning from best practices (innovative technology, cluster development etc.) and risk-based planning are some of the things we can do to help commercialise these fields and bring them online. On the other hand, development of these resources will be competing with new (alternative) energies. Even as the whole industry re-orients itself to play an ever more active role in combating climate change, carbon capture, utilization and storage will be playing a pivotal role starting from exploration, appraisal stage. How will all these fit into the energy transition? What role will the geoscientists and engineers play in these changing times? Government and regulators will need to be part of the conversation as we need a holistic solution from the technical space to the regulatory space. Active conversation will be needed in the region that involves public-private participation on how best to prepare and tackle this issue.