Have you ever wondered what it takes to be an oil and gas explorer, or how they think about the world? In a series of articles on Exploring the Explorer I want to put a focus back onto these professionals to give insight about their careers in exploring for oil and gas. Explorers are perhaps seen as less important these days due to the necessity to move towards renewable energy, but regardless I hope you read on to find out about the breed of professionals responsible for value creation over the past 30 years and more.
Based on initial results of my own survey of exploration professionals I will share insights on topics such as inspiration for geoscience, the explorer personality, motivation, resilience, the rush of discovery, and views on moral issues such as corruption and climate change.
Today’s insight is all about Discovery.
1) Discovery
This first insight is all about discovery. Exploring for oil and gas is a risky endeavour. A typical frontier well may have only a 15-25% chance of success. Wells in established basins may provide better than 1 in 3 chance of success and the chance of commercial success is often less than 20% overall. Sounds good to you? As exciting as Exploration may be, it is not an end in itself. In terms of oil and gas exploration the aim is to find useable fossil energy resources, at scale.
I asked a range of seasoned explorers about their own success in finding these precious resources during their career and what it felt like to be involved in one of those discoveries that can be a real company maker. One in three of the explorers had either not been involved in a discovery or had only been indirectly involved. The remaining two thirds of respondents had been directly involved, usually as a team, in a commercial hydrocarbon discovery. So, how does it feel to make a discovery? Here are some of the phrases used by successful explorers:
Hugely exciting, a big rush
A feeling of euphoria
It’s a buzz, and fun
A life experience that impacts your career for ever
Like a child being born – many tense moments and joy at the birth
Very gratifying to be involved with a success
Best feeling comes from collective team success
Making a discovery evokes feelings of getting high, like the effect of some benevolent drug giving a reward for all the long years of effort that always precede exploration drilling. That discovery buzz is powerful and forms a fundamental driver for people in exploration.
Respondents also reflected on the failed attempts at exploring for oil and gas:
A massive let-down when you drill a dry well
Failure will inevitably result in fingers being pointed
Explorers develop resilience to overcome failure and learn for the next time
A discovery may often be followed by a reality check that it is not commercial, a so-called ‘Technical Discovery’. In these cases, the elements of a hydrocarbon system are proven to exist, but this is never likely to impress your CEO!
A big pick-me-up is needed after a failed well and I will share insights next time into why explorers keep coming back again and again after failure, in pursuit of the elusive big one.
The question for the future will be if such feelings of discovery can also be generated from the quest for renewable energy and mitigation of emissions. My view is that this future quest will also have its band of explorers and the satisfaction of discovery will rise to a similar level.
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