Britain’s determination to protect its claim to potential oil resources around the Islands is illustrated by its response to the Argentine government’s decision to commission two US companies, Geophysical Services International and Western Geophysical, to carry out seismic surveys of the waters off the Argentine coast in early 1977 – a first step towards issuing oil-exploration licences. One of the surveys was underwritten by BP, Chevron, Mobil, Elf Aquitaine and Total, reflecting multinationals interest in the area (Anglin, 1977).
(Source: Livingstone, Grace. “Oil and British Policy towards the Falkland/Malvinas Islands.” Revista SAAP. Publicación de Ciencia Política de la Sociedad Argentina de Análisis Político 14, no. 1 (2020): 135
What have seismic surveys got to do with the issuance of licenses for oil exploration?
Thank you in advance.
Seismic surveys (and other forms of geophysical remote sensing) are the first step in identifying if there is potential oil in a location. Exploratory oil drilling can then happen to validate the results, and to better confirm the extent and quality of any oil deposits.
Thank you, Banksiaman.
Can seismic surveys only be used for earthquake investigations? What criteria must be met by the country that owns the oil in order to issue a license for oil extraction if oil reserves are present under the ground?
In general you can’t conduct exploration without a license. Countries control licenses carefully.
Typically a region will be carved up into individual leases, and at a given time bidding is opened. Companies bid for an exploration license on individual leases and that license comes with a range of requirements. They are usually time limited, require that surveys actually happen within a time period and often require that the survey data becomes the property of the owner nation after some time period.
Exploration does not provide a license for production. That is separate. Production can cost vastly more, and joint ventures are common. As they are for expensive exploration.
The reasons for the rules are driven, in part, to prevent companies engaging in predatory or other forms of bad behaviour. Inside knowledge of the better prospects is very valuable. Countries don’t tend to like companies squatting on good prospects and holding down valuable resources that could be producing and making the owner country money. Also it avoids gold rush behaviour. Metering out resources on a timetable that provides long term assured return income. There is a lot of effort expended to level the field.
Prior to opening up bidding for exploration, a country may well try to sweeten the deal by providing some initial data that can guide bidding on exploration. By providing at least broad understanding of the geology, regions that are more or less favoured can be outlined. Preconditions for finding oil are well understood, so a lack of appropriate preconditions alone is a huge help.
Seismic can tell you a fair bit about the structures, in particular faults. But given the cost of doing them, there needs to be an economic payoff. You won’t be shooting seismic just for the academic value.
Whatever the country thinks is appropriate is what needs to be done. Sovereign ownership gives them the right to make the rules. Where it becomes a bit messier is the law within a country wrt land ownership and rights to mineral wealth. Some countries basically say the wealth belongs to the country, others that it belongs to the landowner, some have interesting laws that split the difference. Permits for exploration and production may need to run the gauntlet of everything from snouts in the trough, corruption in high and low places, and a goodly dose on NIMBY.
Seismic waves produced by explosions or vibrating controlled sources are one of the primary methods of underground exploration in geophysics (in addition to many different electromagnetic methods such as induced polarization and magnetotellurics). Controlled-source seismology has been used to map salt domes anticlines and other geologic traps in petroleum-bearing rocks, faults, rock types, and long-buried giant meteor craters.
Actually there @pjd I think you nailed the OP’s confusion. Seismic surveys are one of the first steps in prospecting for oil. They aren’t about earthquakes at all.
The larger context of the OP’s cited article is that Britain = UK and Argentina both claimed the right to the Falklands / Malvinas islands, and to the surrounding seafloor that (as far as was known then) might or might not have oil under it.
Some private company getting a license from Argentina amounts to another bit of accumulating “proof” that the area really belongs to Argentina, not to the UK. So of course UK had to push back at those licenses by asserting they were false and illegal, since only the UK had the right to issue licenses in that area.
A position the UK eventually backed up with military force. After the Argentines had also escalated things several notches with military force.