Application of Unconventional Technologies to Appalachian Basin Conventional Reservoirs. Presented by Dan Billman at AAPG/DPA Playmaker Forum in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on 13 April, 2016.
With the advent of the Marcellus Shale discovery and development in
the Appalachian Basin in the mid-2000’s, an entirely new and different
set of oilfield tools as well as the professionals that know how to use them, entered the Appalachian Basin. Almost overnight wells in the basin
went from predominately shallow, “conventional” reservoirs, drilled vertically, to deeper, “unconventional” reservoirs, drilled horizontally.
Numerous operators have used the “new” tools at their disposal to drill lateral wells in reservoirs that traditionally, within the Appalachian
Basin, would have been drilled and completed in a vertical borehole.
These reservoirs include coal beds, Upper Devonian Sandstones, the
Oriskany Sandstone and Trenton/Black River hydrothermal dolomites. One similarity of all these conventional reservoirs is that they are highly
compartmentalized.