January, 2003
HGS Meetings

HGS Environmental / Engineering Dinner Meeting

"Licensing Geologists in Texas: History, Current Status, Questions and Answers "

Abstract:

In the early 1970s Charles F. Dodge approached AAPG with a proposal to support legislation in Texas that would license geologists. In 1986 several geologists working in the engineering geological community approached the Texas Board of Professional Engineers with a proposal to license engineering geologists. Both proposals were rejected for various reasons.

In 1992 a Task Force was formed to actively pursue legislation that would license geologists in Texas. A licensing bill was drafted and a sponsor was found in the Texas House. The bill was introduced and was met with strong opposition from the engineering lobby. Over the next 10 years, the bill was modified to improve language, include language changes negotiated with engineering organizations and other interested parties, and include geophysicists and soil scientists. The bill continued to draw opposition from factions within the engineering and petroleum communities, resulting in a rift within the Task Force. The Texas Association of Professional Geoscientists (TAPG) was formed out of the rift.

In 2001, the Task Force, AIPG, AEG, AAPG, and TAPG with support from Former Speaker of the House, Billy Clayton, Mr. Fred Agnich, and elements of HGS, DGS, STGS and AGS combined forces to present a unified front to the legislature. A publication titled “The Value of Licensing Geologists in Texas,” edited by W. Kevin Coleman, coauthored by Peter M. Allen, W. Kevin Coleman, Christopher C. Mathewson, Bruce K. Darling, and John K. Mikels, with support of AEG, AIPG, and Reed Engineering Group, laid out the need for licensing geologists in Texas. The publication was presented to the State Affairs Committee of the Texas Senate and to the Licensing and Administrative Procedures Committee of the House and was later distributed to the full Senate. SB 405 passed the Texas Legislature and was signed into law on May 11, 2001. This marked the end of a very long, hard effort.

By November 2002, the Governor’s Office had appointed eight of the nine board members mandated by the bill. It was understood the final board member (a public member) was then serving as a public member of the Engineering Board, and when available, if he or she were still interested, would be appointed to the Geoscience Board. However, the board was not funded, and the board could not meet. In May 2002, details of an emergency deficiency grant from the Governor’s Office were worked out and the first meeting was scheduled.

The Texas Board of Professional Geoscientists first met on May 28, 2002. A memorandum of understanding (contract) with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation was signed that would provide administrative support for the first year within the emergency deficiency grant budget. This included drafting and adoption of the Strategic Plan, Fiscal Note, and Rules, and getting the program under way.

Although the board started approximately six months behind schedule, license applications were available on October 31, 2002, only two months behind schedule.

Applications, reference forms, and instructions (check list) can be downloaded from the Board Website at www.tbpg.state.tx.us. n

Biographical Sketch:

W. Kevin Coleman is a native of Texas. He has a BS in geology from University of Texas at Arlington, and an MS in geology from Texas A&M. He was a geologist for Sun Exploration and Production Company from 1980 to 1986. He attended Texas ‚ A&M from 1987 to 1991, specializing in engineering geology and hydrogeology. He worked as an engineering geologist and hydrogeologist for Raba-Kistner Consultants in San Antonio and returned to Dallas in 1994 to work as an engineering geologist and hydrogeologist for Reed Engineering Group. He has managed over 950 projects for Reed Engineering in Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Mexico, and Anguila. Projects have included management of geotechnical engineering projects including the geologic and groundwater components, ground- and surface-water mitigation and ground-water supply. He has also conducted geologic assessments and mapping of the Edwards Aquifer Recharge and Transition Zones in Bexar and Comal Counties and managed the geophysical investigation of Sombrero Island (Anguila).

Mr. Coleman served as President of the Texas Section of AIPG in 1998 and as Texas Section Chair of the Association of Engineering Geologists (AEG) from 1998 to 2000. He served on the Task Force for the Licensure of Geoscientists in Texas from 1994 to 2001. Mr. Coleman developed and managed the Task Force Communications Network from 1994 to 2000, when he became Chairman of the Task Force. He was awarded the Public Service Award by the Texas Section of AIPG in 1996 for his work with the Task Force, and the AEG Texas Section Floyd T. Johnston Award for Outstanding Engineering Geologist in 1998. Currently Mr. Coleman is serving as Chairman of the Texas Board of Professional Geoscientists.

Edward G. Miller received his BS in geology from Texas A&M University in 1972. He began his professional career with Raba and Associates Consulting Engineers in San Antonio, in 1973, as a staff geologist. Over the next few years he became director of field exploration and testing and then vice president of geology and exploration for Raba-Kistner Consultants. In 1986, he became senior vice president of geosciences. In 1994, Mr. Miller joined Pape-Dawson Consulting Engineers to expand their services in the geoscience area.

Mr. Miller has managed over 150 miles of cross-country exploration programs for pipelines and high-voltage power lines for fossil-fuel and nuclear power plants. He has also managed investigative programs for hazardous waste characterization and site evaluation. He has conducted geologic assessments and mapping of the Edwards Aquifer Recharge and Transition Zones and hydrogeologic surveys for groundwater characterization at existing and proposed landfill sites in Texas and Florida. He has managed siting and installation of municipal and industrial water supply wells and reserves evaluation for limestone aggregates and other minerals.

Mr. Miller is a member of AIPG, the Association of Engineering Geologists (AEG), the National Groundwater Association (NGWA), and the South Texas Geological Society. He has served as AEG Texas Section chairman and vice-chairman and chairman of the AEG National Convention in San Antonio in 1993. Mr. Miller was involved in some initial efforts to license geologists in 1988 and served on the Task Force for the Licensure of Geoscientists from 1992 to 1995 and again from 2000 to 2001.

Currently, Mr. Miller is serving as vice-chairman of the Texas Board of Professional Geoscientists and as lead member of the rules work group for the board.

HGS Dinner Meeting

"Legends in Wildcatting, 2003"

Information:

Join us for a gala evening to include a social hour and formal dinner at the Westchase Hilton. Each Legend will tell his or her own story, followed by a panel discussion, featuring questions from the audience, moderated by Charles Sternbach. Meet other industry leaders who will be honored guests during the evening.

Legends in Wildcatting 2000 was a sell-out event, with attendance over 450. We are expecting a sell-out evening for Legends 2003 as well, so be sure to register early for unique event.

Panel:

William J. Barrett, Bill Barrett Corporation
Robbie Gries, Priority Oil and Gas
Marvin Davis, Davis Petroleum
Tom Barrow, formerly of Humble and SOHIO

Introduction by Michel Halbouty

Agenda:

5:30 - Social Hour
6:15 - Dinner seating begins
6:30 - Welcome from HGS President, Denise Stone (followed by student awards)
6:50 - Break
7:00 - Program begins
7:05 - Special Introduction by Michel T. Halbouty
7:15 - Panelist statements (alphabetically) Barrett, Barrow, Davis, Gries.
8:15 - Discussion- Questions/comments from the audience
8:45 - Conclusion, Awards, Photos

Brief Backgrounds on the Panelists:

Michel Halbouty is recognized as one of the great wildcatters of all time and an outstanding authority on the geological and engineering problems relative to exploration and production of petroleum. He has drilled thousands of wildcats and at 93 still goes to the office everyday where he is still drilling wells. He has authored more than 300 papers and many key books on geology and petroleum engineering, specializing on salt domes, giant fields, and stratigraphic traps. He is past president of AAPG, Sidney Powers Medallist, and this year’s recipient of the highly prestigious API Gold Medal award and is one of few independents to be accorded so high an honor. He has also has been appointed to many governmental energy-related committees and commissions where he has given much of his time and expertise to help ensure our nation’s energy stability. An internationally known speaker, he tirelessly supports his science, profession, and industry as well as many civic and educational projects.

AAPG's 2003 Discoverer of the Year, Bill Barrett has found 5 giant fields. He is one of our industry's best answers to those who claim there are no more domestic giants to be found. Armed with a geology degree from Kansas State, he began as a stratigrapher with El Paso Natural Gas, where he developed a passion for finding gas in the Rockies. He discovered Hilight (>200 mBOE) and Madden (>3-4 tcf) fields for Wolf Exploration/Inexco, and launched Barrett Resources in 1981. Flouting conventional geologic “wisdom", the new company was the first in a basin that ultimately was producing 100 BCF of gas for each square mile with estimated total reserves of 3-4 TCF. Bill’s most recent important discovery was Cave Gulch Field. Barrett Resources was ranked No. 1 in creating shareholder wealth among oil and gas independents from 1990-2000. Bill’s belief in the reserve potential of the Rockies, coupled with promising market conditions and excitement of technological innovation have led him to launch Bill Barrett Corp as a new start-up, acquiring assets in Wind River Basin.

Son of two geologist parents, Thomas Barrow learned geology around the dinner table and in the field. He also earned his Ph.D. at Stanford under A.I. Levorsen, where his dissertation provided an extensive look at the wells and geology of East Texas, and was instrumental in convincing Humble Oil to drill the 100MBO Neches Field. He joined Humble Oil in 1951, working his way from geologist to President and board member, responsible for Exxon's worldwide exploration, production and research activities. While at Exxon, Barrow was instrumental in recognizing the stratigraphic trap component of the Prudhoe Bay Field. After retiring from Exxon, Barrow joined Sohio as Vice Chairman, where he was responsible for oil and natural gas exploration and production activities, corporate planning, research and development, and technology functions.

Marvin Davis joined his father in the creation of Davis Oil, one of the premier wildcat drilling operations in the country. Always at the forefront of exploration, Davis has had virtually unparalleled longevity and diversity of success. His company has drilled or helped drill over 10,000 wells. During the 1970’s, only three other companies – Shell, Amoco and Exxon – drilled more exploratory oil wells in the United States. After making his fortune drilling for oil in the Rocky Mountains, Gulf Coast, and Oklahoma he then invested in real estate and the film industry. He has again turned his attention to the oil business and his privately-held company Davis Petroleum is exploring in his old Rocky Mountain stomping grounds and the Gulf Coast. He has also formed a company, Davis Offshore LP to drill in the OCS Gulf of Mexico deep waters.

Robbie Gries learned early to think creatively. Recent past President of AAPG, she has been a pioneer in many ways. Gries has developed a reputation within the industry for hard work, integrity and an ability to accomplish ambitious endeavors. After earning a B.S. and M. S. she began her career with Texaco, looking at Precambrian mountain front sub-thrusts, stratigraphic and combination stratigraphic/structural prospects in the Rockies, many of which eventually were successfully developed. Later she joined a small independent, Reserve Oil Inc, and continued unconventional exploration, doing field work and acquiring acreage on frontier plays in the Idaho portion of the Basin and Range, the Colorado San Luis Valley, the Wyoming Hoback Basin, and many others. In 1980 she began building her company, Priority Oil & Gas, drilling close to proved production, and buying production where infill development is possible, as well as unconventional prospects.

HGS International Dinner Meeting

"Tectonics of the South China Sea Region "

Abstract:

The tectonics of the South China Sea (SCS) region influence the petroleum systems of each of the seven surrounding nations, all producers, as well as form a touchstone of sorts in understanding the geology of all of Southeast Asia. Yet many of the broad issues in its geology remain controversial, due in part to the complexity of the geology, but also to conflicting paleomagnetic data, spotty geochronology, few constraints from ocean spreading, and confidential treatment of data by Asian nations. Even the opening history of the SCS, which forms the single largest piece of ocean crust internal to the Southeast Asian region, is still open to revision. Nevertheless, analysis of regional geological data geographically registered with a comprehensive gravity and magnetic database, in a GIS, has proved helpful in predicting some poorly understood aspects of the geological relationships of the region.

Unraveling the pre-Tertiary tectonic history has largely been an academic endeavor based on onshore data. The continental crust of Southeast Asia was constructed in the pre-Tertiary, with the assembly of terrains around the Kontum massif, overprint of several phases of Indosinian orogeny, its accretion onto China, and the construction of one or more Andean-type orogens on the eastern flank in China, Vietnam, the Sunda craton, and in Borneo. The current SCS continental crust lay to the east and north of these granitic belts and appears to be largely composed of the forearc of the Andean-style orogens, including any exotic terranes that may have collided with the arcs. Any assessment of the petroleum potential should, therefore, take account of the possibility of unforeseen source rock systems and unique maturation histories.

The Tertiary of Southeast Asia is a story the interactions of several smaller “plate-like systems” trapped between Eurasia, Indo-Australia, and the Pacific. Within Indochina, the unifying concept of “escape tectonics” has become the overriding theme of Tertiary deformation. Sea floor spreading in the SCS during the Oligo-Miocene is often linked to the Red River fault system, the major boundary between Indochina and China and a pivotal element in the escape tectonic approach. The linkage has been viewed several ways, but by using plate kinematic principles the situation is best viewed in terms of the breakdown of an unstable ridge-transform-transform triple junction and migration of the SCS spreading center to the south.

All of the sedimentary basins along the South China and Vietnam coast are intimately linked to the evolution of the spreading system, as are their petroleum potentials. The Pearl River Mouth Basin and Beibuwan form a nearly purely extensional arm of the triple junction and were de-activated at the point of sea floor spreading. The 15-km deep Song Hong basin appears to be a hyperextended detachment basin localized at the unstable triple junction during the process of its breakdown. Basins along the Vietnam coast are part of a continental borderland and should have petroleum systems akin to other strike slip systems of the world, provided a source rock exists and the maturation history proves favorable in relative to trap creation.

The southern margin of the SCS is dominated by the geology of consumption of the proto-SCS, the collision of the SCS terranes with Borneo, and thick overlap assemblages in the Baram and Rajang deltas. Very little exploration has taken place in the central SCS for a variety of reasons, but interest remains high, especially in shallower water. Because of its geological history, perhaps the single most important risk factor will be the thermal history in that the heat flow has varied widely with time. Because the ridge has migrated with time, no single heat flow history can characterize the whole of the SCS, but the general pattern will be from low during the forearc history to high in stretched crust to very high in areas directly affected by successful sea floor spreading.

Biographical Sketch:

James W. Granath received BS and MS degrees in geology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a PhD in structural geology from Monash University in Australia. Since 1976 he has taught at SUNY Stony Brook and spent 18 years in Conoco in research, international exploration, and new ventures. In 1999 he opened a consulting practice focused on structural geology and tectonics as applied to exploration problems. He is a member of AAPG, AGU, GSA, HGS, GITA, and SEAPEX and is a certified petroleum geologist (#5512). Jim’s expertise lies in structural analysis, regional synthesis, and prospect and play evaluation. Recent projects have focused on the thrust belts of Europe and the Andes and GIS applications to Southeast Asian tectonics and the petroleum basins of Mexico. He can be contacted through granath@attglobal.net.

Poster:

Finding the Pearl in the Pearl River Mouth Basin, Offshore China: A Deepwater Turbidite Oil Play?
By Jan Christ, Bill Dickson, Jim Granath and GETECH

HGS North American Exploration Dinner Meeting

"Elephant Hunting in Nevada"

Abstract:

The central Nevada thrust belt provides an opportunity to explore for giant oil and gas fields. Thick, thermally mature, organic-rich, lacustrine oil shales deposited in the Mississippian Antler basin flood plains are the source beds for the fifty million barrels of oil already produced in Nevada. Karsted unconformities, stromatoporoid reefs, impact breccias, and sandstones make Nevada's Devonian reservoir rocks most favorable for giant accumulations. Late Cretaceous thrusting created the compressional features of the Canadian foothills, Utah/Wyoming thrust belt and the central Nevada thrust belt that established such large traps and structures.

Typically, oil seeps are associated with oil-bearing thrust belts worldwide. However, a blanket of Tertiary volcanics sealed in many of Nevada's oil seeps. Some of these seeps including Grant Canyon, Blackburn, Trap Spring, and Eagle Springs oil fields built up enough oil to become commercial. So far, all of Nevada's crude has been produced from these commercial oil seeps. Little effort has been expended to identify the source of these commercial oil seeps because of the lack of an accurate geologic map and model. The state of Nevada has never had a geological survey. The cursory geologic mapping by the federal government is not adequate for exploration purposes. Old depositional and deformational models, based on insufficient data, have been entrenched into the literature, thus impeding exploration.

An old model championed by the United States Geological Survey is the theory that the Mississippian Antler Basin siliciclastics were deposited as flysch turbidites into a deep foreland basin between the Antler highlands in central Nevada and the Utah hingeline in central Utah. However, new field data indicates regressive sequences containing vascular plant roots (Stigmaria) penetrating bedding planes and lacustrine palynomorph assemblages. This new data dispel the old model and support a new depositional environment model. The new model shows that the richest and most oil-prone Mississippian source rocks are lacustrine oil shales. This greatly enhances the exploration potential of the Antler Basin. Cumulative thicknesses of these world-class lacustrine oil source rocks are measured in thousands of feet in outcrops and wells. They are thick enough and rich enough to generate trillions of barrels of oil.

Until the early 1980's the typical exploration practice in Nevada was to drill just the Tertiary valley fill in synclines. Therefore, most of the eight hundred wells drilled in Nevada penetrate only syncline valley fill. Few wells have penetrated any Paleozoic section. However, two significant fields were found by drilling “too deep” and penetrating Devonian rocks below the Tertiary unconformity. Oil flows from Devonian reservoirs in the Blackburn and Grant Canyon oil fields. One well in Grant Canyon flowed 4000 barrels a day for ten years. It has now produced more than 15,000,000 barrels of oil since its discovery in 1983. The Grant Canyon reservoir consists of 200 to 400 feet of karst breccia at the top of the Middle Devonian Simonson Formation. This karst interval is found in wells and measured sections throughout the eastern Great Basin. In addition to the karst interval, stromatoporoid reefs, impact breccia, quartz sandstones and other intervals provide world-class reservoir rocks within the eastern Great Basin Devonian sequences. An isopach of all the Devonian sequences reveals a structurally compressed basin, the Sunnyside Basin, and can be used to predict the spatial distribution of potential Devonian reservoir rocks. The Simonson karst breccia interval alone has the capacity to store billions of barrels of oil in certain structures. A careful analysis of logs from the few wells that penetrated other significant portions of Paleozoic rocks shows that, contrary to preconceived notions, many intervals provide similar reservoir rocks. Another deeply entrenched notion that discouraged exploration investment is that the north-south structural grain of the eastern Great Basin was caused by Tertiary extension which could have compromised seals on older, compressional structures. However, new mapping is revealing many uncharted compressional features and a lack or extensional features. The new maps demonstrate that the region underwent much more compression than previously thought. Furthermore, some of these features show no evidence of being broken by major Tertiary extensional faults. Several unbroken compressional structures in the Timpahute Range, 50 miles south of the prolific Grant Canyon field, are exposed.

Another example of an intact compressional feature is the Golden Gate fault fold 40 miles south southeast of the prolific Grant Canyon field and ten miles north of the Timpahute Range. The Golden Gate fault fold is ten miles long and five miles wide and has more than five thousand feet of closure. It may have trapped billions of barrels of oil before it was breached by headward erosion of the Colorado River. New mapping reveals that no Tertiary extensional faults compromise the structure. Similar structures, along strike that have escaped erosion, likely contain billions of barrels of oil and trillions of cubic feet of gas. Oil seeping from these giant fields is probably the source for the commercial oil seep fields in Nevada. However, old opinion and theories based on little or poor geologic mapping have obscured the true understanding of Nevada geology for at least five decades. As a result, past oil exploration efforts in Nevada based on old tectonic and depositional models have been disappointing.

Biographical Sketch:

Alan K. Chamberlain received his BA and MS from Brigham Young University and his Ph. D. from Colorado School of Mines. His dissertation, Structural Geology and Devonian Stratigraphy of the Timpahute Range, Nevada, provides a new exploration model that could lead to significant discoveries in this frontier region. After he worked for Exxon, Gulf, Marathon, and Placid, he became president of Cedar Strat Corp. in 1984.

Cedar Strat was organized at the request of several major oil companies to fill a need for exploration data for Great Basin exploration. Alan conceived the idea of using a scintillation counter to create a surface gamma-ray log of measured sections while working for Gulf Oil after having worked for Exxon Minerals USA in uranium exploration. It was not until Placid hired him away from Marathon to head up their Great Basin program that he had the freedom to test the idea. At Placid, Alan had the unique opportunity to visit many of Shell Oil Company’s staked measured sections by helicopter with former Shell geologists. They had been involved in measuring the sections in the 1950's and 1960's. Using the Shell measured sections he learned the Paleozoic stratigraphy of the Great Basin. As he remeasured many of the sections he applied his new technique of surface gamma-ray logs. He earned the Best Poster of the Session Award at the 1983 National American Association of Petroleum Geologists when he presented his work on surface gamma-ray logs in the Wyoming thrust belt and in the Great Basin. His abstract and subsequent paper attracted the attention of national and international oil companies that have applied his surface gamma-ray log technique world wide. Development of this successful technique resulted in the formation of Cedar Strat Corp. in 1984. A presentation to the American Association of Petroleum Geologists of the results of Alan’s new, sequence stratigraphic model of the Mississippian Antler Basin including lacustrine source rocks secured him the Levorson Award in the late 1980's.

HGS Lunch Meeting

"Burgos Basin Play Analysis Reveals Frio-Vicksburg Exploration Focus Areas"

Abstract:

Recently, Scotia and Pemex completed a detailed analysis of the Burgos basin’s Frio-Vicksburg play to identify future exploration focus areas. The Frio-Vicksburg play is one of five Tertiary producing trends, which are, from the west to east, Paleocene-Eocene, Wilcox-Queen City, Jackson-Yegua, Frio-Vicksburg and Miocene. The Frio-Vicksburg and Wilcox-Queen City plays together produce 97% of the gas in the Burgos basin. The Frio-Vicksburg play alone has produced more than 4.1 tcf.

This study involved the regional mapping of major structural elements, definition of the Frio-Vicksburg stratigraphic framework, mapping of depositional systems, reservoir sands, well performance and show data, and integration and comparison with the Frio-Vicksburg in south Texas. Fifty-two subplays were identified within 13 stratigraphic units across the study area, which were recombined into six plays to aid in comparison with south Texas producing analogs. Plays were then ranked and stacked to identify future focus areas.

Three structural provinces are recognized across the study area. In the northwestern part of the Burgos basin, Vicksburg expansion dominates the first province, whereas in the second province, east of the Frio Francisco-Cano fault system, an expanded Frio section dominates. The third province is distinguished by a northeast- to southwest-trending normal fault system that extends across the entire southern half of the study area.

The top of the Frio formation is relatively unstructured in the Burgos basin and displays a north-south structural grain and gentle east dip. Significantly more structural relief exists at the Lower Frio SB30 level, particularly east of the Francisco-Cano expansion fault. Sediments outcrop in the west and reach greater than 5,000 m in the east. Both the Frio and Vicksburg traps include high-side and low-side fault-dependent structures and combination structural-stratigraphic traps.

Depositional systems mapping and play analysis

Depositional architecture mapping has identified major depositional systems that include

The most dominant subplays include those in the barrier-lagoon and wave-reworked delta systems, which together make up 24 of the 52 subplays. These cover 34% of the total area, yet contribute 74% of the Frio-Vicksburg production. The next largest contributors are bedload-fluvial and fluvial-dominated deltas, which cover 19% of the total play area and have contributed 18% of the Frio-Vicksburg production. Both shelf and slope have been historically poor producers, while interdeltaic embayment subplays have no production to date.

Comparison with Texas analogs

South Texas is geologically and geographically contiguous with the Burgos basin and, because of its maturity of hydrocarbon exploration and development, offers a unique opportunity for ‚ providing insight into the future potential of the Burgos basin. In the simplest comparison, significantly more wells have been drilled in Texas than in the Burgos basin, over 83,000 wells in Railroad District 4 (RRD4), some 28 times more than the 2,900 wells drilled in the Burgos basin. Similarly, there are currently 9,299 producing wells in RRD4, compared with 800 in the Burgos basin. To facilitate comparison between Texas and the Burgos basin, the Frio-Vicksburg trend was divided into six play regions based on tectonic and depositional systems and hydrocarbon trapping styles. Four of the Texas plays can be correlated with major producing regions in the Burgos basin. n

Conclusions

There is considerable exploration potential and reserves growth opportunities from field rehabilitation in Mexico’s Burgos basin. The greatest potential in Vicksburg reservoirs is interpreted to exist in the deeper stratigraphic units where extending the structural mapping along trend from current production may define additional anticlinal closures. Shallower Vicksburg and Frio units also have potential in untested fault blocks. In the deep Frio unit, rollover anticlinal traps south of the Reynosa-McAllen fault zone and fault traps along other major growth faults are expected.

Biographical Sketch:

Mark A. Cocker is senior vice president of geology for The Scotia Group, Inc., Houston, a full-service oil and gas advisory group, providing consulting services in exploration and development, reserves analysis, and property valuation. He has over 25 years’ domestic and international experience in the industry, conducting geological studies from prospect to basin scale, and has been involved in studies in Mexico for the last four years. Mr. Cocker holds a BS Honors in geology from Aston University in Birmingham, England. He is a member of AAPG, SPE, SPWLA, and the Houston Geological Society.