OUR STORY
In 2017, significant amounts of core started to be released for disposal by the oil and gas industry. After learning about this, Henk began a collection of material in his garage with the aim of saving key sections. In 2018, in partnership with Kirstie, they set up North Sea Core to collect and distribute legacy core material.
As geologists, we believe long after core has served a purpose in the petroleum industry, it still has the potential to answer new questions. Core can have a second life in making geology accessible to non-scientists, educating the next generation of geoscientists and aiding in the research for future energy needs.
Since 2018 we have grown into an established business, helping to create employment opportunities, facilitate new links between industry and academia and becoming recognised as a centre for UKCS core material and knowledge.
Despite this, North Sea Core CIC remains a largely volunteer run initiative and most work is undertaken in the free time of our team. Please note any views expressed are our own and not those of employers, societies we may be affiliated with, sponsors or donating companies.
MEET THE TEAM
Our team consists of professionally trained geoscientists who work with geological data every day and recognise the value of core.
Henk Kombrink
Director and Founder
Henk is a geologist with a background in North Sea regional geological studies, He sees the possibility of distributing the material as a great opportunity to raise awareness of this unique geological material and thereby to inform people about the fascinating geological history of one of the most famous petroleum provinces in the world.
Kirstie Wright
Director and Communications
Kirstie is a geoscientist with a background in subsurface data analysis and has worked across industry and academia. She sees the use of subsurface core as vital for the research and education into the energy transition and sustainable geoscience, and is a strong advocate for science accessibility and communication.
Angie Bruce
Geological Assistant
Angie is a geologist with a background in core damage and formation testing, having managed large projects for several major oil companies. She is excited to be involved in the work North Sea Core CIC does and appreciates the importance of preserving our offshore geoheritage.
OUR SUPPORTERS
We are supported by a group of wonderful people who help us collect material, source geological data and prepare resources for shipping.
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Emma Fraser
Past Geological Assistant
Emma previously worked as the North Sea Core Geological Assistant before moving on to start her career with Fugro. She believes North Sea Core is an excellent initiative and recognises examining core is invaluable in so many aspects of geoscience. She is excited to be involved in such a worthwhile project and enjoys being exposed to a wide variety of fascinating core.
Emily Tame
Past Geological Assistant
Emily previously worked as the North Sea Core Geological Assistant before moving on to start her career with Fugro as a trainee Geophysicist. Fascinated by rocks, she enjoyed the chance to handle such a wide variety of relinquished core, especially famous formations from her previous studies. She is a firm believer in North Sea Core importance to the geology community.
Lawrie Cowliff
Volunteer
Lawrie was inspired by North Sea Core efforts to preserve and reuse core material. He understands the importance of old data and the value it can add to future understanding. Lawrie helps out by trawling the public domain literature and databases to add useful and interesting metadata to the core supplied.
Duncan Anderson
Volunteer
Duncan heard of the work North Sea Core were undertaking to make relinquished core available for educational and more general interest purposes and offered to help. Originally a chemist by training, he is an amateur geologist and has almost 25 years association with subsurface geology and has worked in various areas of the oil & gas industry. Duncan helps to prepare core material to help educate the next generation of geologists, while being able to handle core samples fascinating.
Noah Jaffey
Volunteer
Noah is a geologist working for Shell in Aberdeen. As well as having a keen interest in field geology, he enjoys climbing, caving and generally being around rocks. He volunteers for North Sea Core CIC by help to prepare samples as he thinks it’s an excellent initiative and he gets to see a variety of beautiful core material, which is a total win-win.
Ben Hedley
Volunteer
Ben was inspired by the efforts of the team to save and redistribute core material to aid the next generations of geoscientists. Ben is currently a Exploration Geoscientist who loves nothing less than regional geology and clastic sedimentology. It was during this that he discovered the importance of publicly available core data for use in research. Ben helps out by moving and packaging core, while getting distracted by all the wonderful sandstones in the North Sea Core collection.
OUR SUPPLIERS
We are fortunate to collaborate with skilled suppliers who work with us to produce the materials we distribute.
Pat McCabe
Joiner and Carpenter
Pat is a joiner and carpenter with many years of experience, working in and around Aberdeenshire. He creates beautiful frames to display our slabbed core material, as well as installing work space at the North Sea Core HQ and Core Store to help us store and work with the large amount of core material we have.
Jamie Watson
Graphic Designer
Jamie is director of Studio No7 and has over 13 years’ experience in graphic design. He is accustomed to delivering innovative art and design that reflects the core values of a company, and has worked with North Sea Core on serveal projects. For more information please see his brochure or contact him at jamie.watson@studio-7.co.uk.
CORE DONATION
All the core we receive is from company samples and has been cleared for donation under the Petroleum Operations Notice (PON) 9 guidance set out by the North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA). We also collaborate with the British Geological Survey (BGS) to identify key sections for the BGS Core Store and National Archive, with this taking priority over the selection of material for redistribution through North Sea Core.
We are grateful to the following companies for supporting North Sea Core by donating material:
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PROJECT SPONSORS
Our work is largely self funded through our products and projects, with the money reinvested into our inititative (we are a Community Interest Company). If you or your organisation are interesting in supporting North Sea Core to help us continue our work, please contact us.
Our current sponsors are Equinor, HRH Geology, ONE Dyas and AFES, who have sponsored a range of material. We are also grateful to DUG for the provision of their DUG Insight software which helps us provide subsurface data to accompany our core material.
Our inititative has been previously sponsored by the following organisations:
We would also like to acknowledge the following organisation for their assistance in our operations:
