Josip Sečen, DSc
Editor-in-Chief
"Nafta" journal
Message to the Readers
Recently, Austrian OMV has announced its intention to sell all subsidiaries in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina and to withdraw completely from this market. It is explained by the change of strategy; their gradual move from refining and sale toward oil and gas exploration and production and energy. As we have already informed our readers, they were successful in their intention throughout the world. They shall focus on retail sale and commercial business on the markets with integrated supply; Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina do not completely fit into this picture. OMV has been present in Croatia in retail and commercial business since 1992. With its 63 petrol stations in Croatia, it holds market share of 13%. One of the reasons for OMV withdrawal from Croatian market might be the announcement made by Austrian banks that support OMV in which they consider withdrawal from eastern and central European countries due to the fear that Euro zone crisis might affect this region as well. According to this program, OMV subsidiary in Turkey has sold 52% share to Cyprian retail company Kibris Türk Petrolleri Limited Sirketi at the end of November.
This double issue of our journal brings you three papers along with information from oil and gas industry.
The first one is titled "Identification of Paleoenvironments Using Clustering Methods and Indicator Kriging, Case Study from Late Miocene Sandstones, the Sava Depression" prepared by J. Horvat and an associate. The clustering and Indicator Kriging methods are standard exploration tools in solving geological problems and the paper presents a case study for the identification of depositional environments using two kinds of clustering processes in the Indicator Kriging. The clustering is based on Kohonen's neural network and hierarchical agglomerative clustering. Through the resulting clusters, the geometry of depositional sub-environment can be visualized and can be interpreted by the probabilities of clusters through the Indicator Kriging. In this manner, the clustering tools can be defined as a spatial pattern recognition method. The research area in the demonstrated study is located in Sava Depression, Croatia.
The second one titled "Application of Oil - Slimes in Road Base and Surface Construction" was prepared by T.N. Bokovikova and associates. Concerning the level of negative effect on the environment, oil industry takes one of the leading places among the branches of national economy. Losses of petroleum, contained in waste, according to the experts' research, equal to approximately 3% of its yearly production. With yearly oil production of 491.4 million tons in Russia annual volume of wastes generated, may reach 15 million tons. It is worth noting, that the existing at present methods of oil wastes utilization are either too expensive or, as a rule, entail irretrievable loss of precious hydrocarbon material. The importance of the problem is specified not only by considerable quantity, but as well by the negative impact of oil-slimes virtually on every environmental component.
The third paper titled "Subsurface Stratigraphic Mapping Using Geoelectric Method and its Impact on Development" was prepared by Murana and associates. A resistivity survey has been carried out in order to determine the subsurface stratigraphic mapping. Twenty four Vertical Electrical Soundings (VES) have been conducted with maximum current electrode separations of 200 m. Schlumberger array has been used. WinGlink software has been used in interpreting the results. Two and three subsurface layers exist in the study area. The results show that the area can support low to giant engineering structure.
At the end of this year, on behalf of our journal and myself, I would like to wish you joy of Christmas holidays and let its spirit follow you throughout New Year. In 2012, I wish you to have the most important things - good health and satisfaction in your private, as well as professional lives.
