APRIL 19, 2007 LUNCH MEETING
"EXPLORATION
TRENDS IN THE TEXAS AND lOUISIANA GULF COAST
A 50,000'' VIEW"
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mark
nibbelink
ABSTRACT:
In an era of high wellhead prices it''s no wonder that
the development of in-field acreage is the quickest way to cash flow. It''s also
a good incentive for taking on more E&P risk. But how aggressively is our
industry looking for new reserves? And how well is our community of Gulf Coast
explorationists defining and meeting the challenge of adding meaningful new
reserves?
We''ll take a look at drilling and leasing trends and
look at both the character and pace of new reserve additions, with an emphasis
on defining the kinds of companies that are providing leadership.
BIO:
Born into an Army
family in 1949, Mark Nibbelink spent the first 18 years of his life traveling
the world as his dad served in the military. Upon graduation from high school in
Hawaii in 1967, Mark attended Dartmouth where he studied igneous and metamorphic
petrology. Gulf Oil hired Mark in 1972 while still in graduate school, to work
the Mississippi Interior Salt Basin in Jackson Mississippi. Additional
assignments included the mapping of a large offshore 2D data set over the
Baltimore Canyon/Eastern Shelf area of the US OCS.
After Gulf Mark
joined ERA North America, a small consulting group based in Connecticut that
advised and positioned a joint venture of 4 companies bidding on Eastern OCS
acreage. After successfully joining a major oil company’s bid group at the
Federal OCS sale, Mark became a geological dive observer on dives #785 and # 781
aboard the R.V. Alvin. These dives included making the first descents to -5000’
and -6000’ into the submarine canyons off Georges Bank describing the
stratigraphy of the outer continental shelf.
Mark returned to
the oil industry in 1980 and began seismic interpretation and well-site work in
the South Central Texas Austin Chalk play. In 1986, Mark became an independent
geologist pursuing the Jurassic in the under-explored areas of East Texas.
In 1999, Mark co-founded DrillingInfo.com and has been its President since its
inception.