Subsurface conditions may play a significant role in cutting back emissions by the use of fossil fuels through CCS. But also, more generally, resource and land management such as water in conjunction with the production of biofuels will call upon skills sets in the domain of geoscientists. 

Underneath these changes lies the need for more data driven “reservoir” management. Ranging from energy to resources including hydrocarbons, deeply integrated with for example surface engineering facilities used to inject, produce or store and monitor resources. 

Finally, we need to translate operational geophysical solutions into effective hazard and risk management used by regulators and local communities. Hence, I believe that in the future, geoscience skills sets would be needed for a broader spectrum of opportunities, better integrated with efforts to build a sustainable, safe energy system. 

This is also true for the more conventional role of geoscientists in hydrocarbon reservoir management. The predictability of production volumes and performance needs to increase, as competition from other investments such as in wind farms will rise. This may be possible to develop more integrated workflows and become more data driven, exploiting artificial intelligence-based techniques to recognise subsurface conditions faster and with more certainty than is possible with just model driven approaches.   

The need for such workflows is further emphasised as the business becomes more value-driven and less volume-driven. This increases the need for shorter cycle times from exploration to production in more mature heartlands, where exploration, development and production are all happening simultaneously in the same basin sometimes in the same geology. This means that we have access to more data - data that we did not have access to before. To maximise the opportunities that this brings, we need to (and can!) deeper integrate exploration, development and production.

The EAGE Geophysical Monitoring Technology conference and exhibition offers an excellent opportunity for the geoscientist and geophysicist community to come together. The integration between the different programmes is a great way to mix with other disciplines. It also provides a forum to discuss how we can effectively address specific energy transition challenges. Our integrated subsurface discipline skills are needed more than ever to help solve these challenges!

I invite you to join the leading experts in geoscience, reservoir engineering, drilling and data science to tackle some of the major challenges and opportunities facing the industry. I look forward to seeing you in The Hague.

Dirk Smit

Local Conference Chair