Principal consultant Bill Power is a geoscientist with over 30 years consulting experience in both minerals and energy. He has held both industry and research positions, and first came to Australia to work for CSIRO. Since then he has worked for various consulting and resource companies, including Fractal Graphics, Geoinformatics Exploration, Task Geoscience, and Baker Hughes Geomechanics Division. Since 2016 Bill has been running with his own consulting practice (Power Geoscience).
Bill received BS, MA, and PhD degrees in the 1980s from Caltech, University of California, and Brown University (all in the USA). His PhD work focussed on the application of laboratory rock friction studies to natural fault zones, including aspects of earthquake prediction. Bill and colleagues received a basic research award from the US National Committee for Rock Mechanics for one of the publications that arose from the research.
Bill was invited to Australia in 1989 to work with the CSIRO Division of Geomechanics, which ultimately became the CSIRO Division of Exploration and Mining. His work at CSIRO included modelling and analysis of fault zones and gold deposits and the structure and syntax of geoscientific data, as applied to the design and evaluation of mining and exploration software.
In 1997, Bill started consulting in mineral exploration and mining, working for small, Perth-based consulting firms and mineral exploration companies Fractal Graphics, Fractal Geosciences, and Geoinformatics Exploration. His main activities during these years were analysis and 3D modelling of mineral deposits. In 2001 Bill was involved as a team member of the winning entry in the GoldCorp challenge, which was one of the first crowd sourced scientific investigations.
In 2007 Bill started work in the oil and gas arena, first at Task Geoscience Asia (structural geology and analysis of image logs) and then later at Geomechanics International/Baker Hughes, where Bill concentrated on gemechanics, specifically analysis of insitu stresses and applications to wellbore stability, fluid flow in fractured media, infrastructure planning, sand and solids production, and fault reactivation analysis.
From 2016 Bill has run his own consulting company, whilst remaining active as an independent researcher in rock mechanics and fault zone evolution. In these years Bill has remained active in mineral exploration and field work (travel to Africa to investigate a fault-hosted gold deposit and a major project in theArchaean Yilgarn terrane of Western Australia). He has also collaborated extensively with Titus Murray from Southern Highlands Structural Geology on fault seal analyses in oil and gas, and has completed 5 major projects in this area. Titus and Bill have also been working on groundwater flow through and around faults. Bill remains active in the research world with recent publications on fault seal analysis.
With a strong background in both traditional geoscience and quantitative analysis/information technology, Bill can bridge the gap between the reality of complex geological situations and the quantitative needs of engineering and risk management. His main emphases at the moment are fault seal risk in oil and gas exploration, fault seal in groundwater, and fieldwork and mineral exploration. Bill says "I count myself amongst the lucky ones to have this diversity in my career as a geoscientist".
Presentations by Bill Power (most recent first)
Validation and Analysis Procedures for Fault Seal Analyses in Oil and Gas Exploration, Presented at the SEAPEX Bi-Monthly technical meeting held in Singapore, August 23, 2019. View/Download PDF.
Stochastic Trap Analysis: Regional Validation of Traps in the Otway and Bass Basins, SE Australia, Presented at the AAPG annual meeting held in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA May 23, 2018. View/Download PDF.
Validation and Analysis Procedures for Fault Seal Analysis in Oil and Gas Exploration, Presented at SEAPEX meeting in Singapore, 23 August, 2019.
The GoldCorp Challenge 2000 – A Look at the Winning Entry – What has Changed, What is the Same? Presented at the AIG (Australian Institute of Geoscientists) MEGWA meeting in Subiaco, Western Australia, 23 October, 2017.
Geomechanics - Pore Pressure and Fracture Gradient Estimation: Drilling Applications. Presented at a specialist seminar “Geomechanics Fundamentals, Applications, and Advances” organized in by the SPE Western Australia, 24 October, 2016.
Fault Seal Studies in the Perth Basin, Western Australia. Presented to FESAUS in Perth, March, 2016 (Formation Evaluation Society of Australia). View/Download PDF.
Basic Geomechanical Model Construction for the Rang Dong Field, Offshore Vietnam. Presented to the SPE in Ho Chi Minh City, May 18, 2011. View/Download PDF.
