John Nicholson has 24 years' experience as an international petroleum geology consultant, following 11 years with BP, Britoil and West Australian Geological Survey. He is a citizen of the UK and of Australia and has worked as a geologist in many of the world's prospective basins including the Northwest Shelf of Australia and Papua New Guinea; the Gulf Coast of the USA; the UK and Norwegian Northern, Central, Southern, Danish and Dutch North Sea; the English Channel and Southwestern Approaches basins; the UK Midlands and Dorset; in the Andes in Argentina, Bolivia and Colombia; and in nearly all of the offshore and onshore basins of India. 

As Owner and Managing Director of Highland Geology and Digital Geology Limited since 1996, he has provided services for approximately 30 international exploration companies and institutions. John specialises in identifying and describing new exploration and development opportunities in the oil and gas business, and is available to assist with project support and technical advice on a short- or long-term basis. 

He has very substantial experience in structural geology and interpretation of seismic data, and he specialises in oil and gas exploration in extensional basins and fold belts. He is innovative and highly experienced in evaluation of exploration and development opportunities, and has led teams which have been successful in drilling wildcats both onshore and offshore. He has a strong interest in software development for seismic interpretation and since 1997 he has designed, funded and completed a series of projects in depth conversion, section restoration using the seismic image, and intelligent seismic interpretation technology. In 2002 Highland Geology won a major SMART award for advanced interpretation software development, and this project led to the TraceInterpreter program. 

A particular specialisation area over the past 5 years has been India. As Technical Adviser to the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons, Delhi, for license round NELP III he carried out reviews of 20+ blocks short-listed for offer, including Saurashtra basin, Krishna-Godavari, Kerala, Tripura, Mizoram, Pranhita, Himalayan foothills, Ganges Valley, west Bengal. In NELP IV he carried out reviews of 24 blocks short-listed for offer, including deep water Andaman, Mahanadi Basin,and Krishna-Godavari, offshore Palar, offshore Kerala-Konkan, blocks onshore Cambay, Rajasthan, blocks in Assam-Arakan, Cauvery basin in Tamil Nadu, and he wrote an independent report for Industry on the petroleum geology of the blocks offered in that license round, advising a number of companies on application policy. 

Since late 2004 to 2007 Highland Geology has been contracted as Exploration Adviser to Norwest Energy, the Perth WA-based exploration company active in Australia, India and UK. John has completed numerous project evaluations and mapping exercises with Kingdom software for Norwest in the North Sea, Australia and India, recommending and executing licence application strategy in NELP V, VI and in the UK and Australian recent Rounds, and playing a major role in establishing Norwest’s Delhi office. Of particular note has been the mapping and farmout of blocks 48/1b-2c, a year or so’s work involving re-mapping with PSDM data and presentations to around 20 UK and Indian companies, culminating in the successful farmout in late 2006 to an Indian consortium. He has also focussed on blocks in the Timor Sea for Norwest Energy, mapping and assisting in the successful farm-out of the AC/P32 licence, and has evaluated numerous blocks in the Perth Basin. 

In 2007 he also completed a contract for AMC in Tomsk and Moscow, centred on eastern Siberia. 

Highland Geology Limited owns and maintains licences for the Kingdom 2d/3dPAK and VuPAK software packages.  John can work closely with exploration and development teams, or carry out projects without any direct support at all.  With excellent contacts in the industry he can put together and manage project teams on request.