First Break - Volume 17, Issue 2, 1999

First Break intends to continue following the crucial debate on global warming and measures to cut emissions around the world. Rodney Chase, president and deputy chief executive officer, BP Amoco last month spoke to a meeting of the Fabian Society in London about how the British government might address the sensitive issue of energy tax as a way forward. Below we publish extracts from the speech. Any discussion on energy taxes runs the risk of degenerating into a partisan battle of words between those with complete, and those with little, confidence in the ability of taxes to influence consumer behaviour and encourage energy efficiency. True to the stereotype, business is perceived as belonging to one camp and the environmentalist to another. Each questions each otherís motives, and everyone goes away at the end convinced they are unloved and misunderstood. I accept that there is a limit to what firms will do voluntarily to curb their energy emissions, and that tax can undoubtedly be a powerful instrument for changing behaviour, particularly if it is carefully directed and if energy users face genuine alternatives. But I equally believe that, in many instances, there are other economic instruments which offer greater benefits than taxation. I also believe that some taxes do more harm than good, and that 'an energy tax on business' could easily fall into this category if we are not very careful with its design. So, this is not a simple case of being 'pro' or 'anti' energy taxes. There are risks and uncertainties on both sides, and we need to move cautiously.

Pete Taylor has made a career of steering his own course in the seismic business, notably keeping Ensign Geophysics in business as an independent seismic data processing company for the last 15 years. He tells Andrew McBarnet a little about his time in the industry and characteristically asks some searching questions on oil company strategy in times of crisis. Anyone whoís wondered why UK seismic processor Ensign Geophysics has never been swallowed up by a larger organization hasn't reckoned with Pete Taylor, the company's independentminded, resolutely British managing director. Meeting him at Petex last December, he was expressing some characteristic exasperation at the way oil companies were reacting to the oil price crisis and, more self-interestedly, proposing a saner way of charging for seismic data processing jobs. He says he can't understand why integrated oil companies should be worried about the price of crude oil. 'It's an internal cost, so why does it matter?' he asks. 'I can see if you're an exploration only company, there's a problem. But the integrated oil companies control everything from finding through to refined product prices. The demand is still there - we're still using petrol, chemicals, aviation fuel, everything.' Taylor challenges someone to tell him why these companies are so bothered. One senior executive told him it was all about infighting over which division was getting its costs right. To which Taylor retorts, so what!

The arrival of commercial sea-bed recording systems has led to a recent rapid growth in sea-bed shear seismic acquisition. The data acquired, particularly in the North Sea, thus far have generally been of high quality. Sea-bed shear seismic acquisition is now becoming an accepted technique for `seeing' through gas, for lithology prediction and for differentiating between lithology and fluid amplitude effects. As the processing and analysis of such data become more secure it is certain that improved resolution, improved imaging and improved reservoir characterization through the availability of additional parameters will result in most cases. The ability to predict whether mode-converted shear surveys will provide a solution to a particular problem before acquisition commences is of great value. Such studies will also establish the best parameters for the acquisition, processing and imaging. In many offshore fields, particularly in the North Sea, a great deal of rig-source, deviated well VSP data exists in Oil Company files. Much of these data are recorded using threecomponent geophones and therefore characterize the complete elastic wavefield, including mode-conversions, as generated and propagated around the vicinity of the well location. Other types of VSP geometry such as walkaways, fixed offset source and vertical well and walkabove configurations also contain information with regard to the mode converted shear activity and can be used for a similar purpose. This paper serves to show how such data are integrated with other available data to test the likely value of a sea-bed multicomponent survey in helping to resolve a defined problem. Also illustrated is the information that such a preacquisition study provides for acquisition design and processing parameter selection.