The new May 2012 issue of First Break starts off with current EAGE and Industry News. The two Technical Articles are on A dual representation of multiscale fracture network modelling: application to a giant UAE carbonate field and The application and value of AVO and spectral decomposition for derisking Palaeogene prospects in the UK North Sea. This month's Special Topic is on Rock Physics and Formation Evaluation and includes five very interesting articles.

Karl Schleicher, Workshop co-convenor, writes:  This is a heads up for members reminding them that our EAGE Workshop ‘Open-source E+P Software - Six Years Later’ is being held on Friday 8 June at the Bella Center in Copenhagen immediately after the Annual Meeting. Open-source software has a valuable role in exploration geoscience and this is an excellent opportunity to catch up with developments.

The 17th European Symposium on Oil Recovery (IOR ’13) is planned from 16–18 April in St Petersburg, Russia in 2013, so block your agendas now! This year’s theme focuses on risk taking and progressing reserves ‘From Fundamental Science to Deployment’. Submit a paper and you will find that your industry colleagues in Russia and the CIS have been willing to take risks and ‘use the field as a laboratory’ in the upstream oil and gas business for many years.

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Only a month to go and the EAGE Annual Meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark from 4-7 June will be upon us. As the most comprehensive event of its kind in the world, the event provides a great opportunity for the geoscience and engineering community to get together in a technical and commercial environment which makes everyone welcome from experienced professionals to those seeking their first career opportunity. We expect an attendance of some 6000 at this year’s event.

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UK-based petroleum and minerals consultancy GETECH, has begun an industry-funded research study to enhance the resolution of satellite-derived gravity data used in the search for hydrocarbon-bearing structures under the world’s oceans and seas.

The nine month R&D study will determine how, and to what degree, the advanced ocean measurements from the three cycle polar geodetic mission (2011-13) of the CryoSat-2 satellite (with data provided by the European Space Agency, ESA) can improve the accuracy, resolution, and reliability of satellite derived gravity.

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Norwest Energy has completed the acquisition of 54 km of 2D seismic aimed at providing a clearer picture of the onshore Razorback prospect at the Isle of Wight permit PEDL 239. Data from the survey is said to be of excellent quality, improving on previous surveys, due to the high specification equipment used to acquire the data as well as extensive parameter testing at the beginning of the survey to optimize the acquisition parameters. Seismic contractor Tesla Exploration International took 13 recording days to complete the survey.

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TransAtlantic Petroleum has signed an agreement with Shell to co-fund a 2012 TransAtlantic programme to acquire 1000 km of 2D seismic data and approximately 8000 km of airborne gravity gradiometry and magnetic data in Turkey’s Sivas Basin, where TransAtlantic holds exploration licences covering approximately 1.6 million acres. The agreement provides an option for Shell to farm in on the leases after it assesses the data collected.

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