The demands of the E&P marketplace are growing -- and with the upstream spread thin, some needs and challenges are being exposed. Much of the excitement in the geophysical industry today stems from the need for, and development of, new technologies and approaches to meet new challenges. Indeed, ordinary 3-D seismic has become just so, well, ordinary in many cases.
Abstracts are still being sought for the next AAPG Hedberg Conference, which deals with “Heavy Oil -- Origin, Prediction and Production in Deepwaters.” The abstract deadline, however, is fast approaching; abstracts must be submitted by Aug. 15.
Some people who believe in Peak Oil look very worried. They say that society, governments, nations have to act today to avoid an economic disaster in the future. But they have a problem. How do you sound an alarm without sounding alarming?
Officials are calling the first-ever AAPG European Region conference to be held in Mallorca, Spain, a “great success.” The conference, “Architecture of Carbonate Systems Through Time,” was held in late April and attracted over 130 attendees from 31 countries -- and over half of those attending were members of AAPG.
An oil executive talking in the heart of the Gulf Coast pointed to an unexpected locale in forecasting the “it” place for future gas production. His pick to be the soon-to-be-crowned king of natural gas: the Rocky Mountains.
The Rocky Mountain region is poised to become the center of U.S. onshore gas production. The reserves are there, Rutt Bridges told a gathering in Denver earlier this year, but the big question hovers: Is the price right?
Environmental concerns are a major factor in all U.S. exploration, but it is especially true in the West. That includes Wyoming’s Pinedale Field, a tight gas sand giant in the northwest part of the Greater Green River Basin.
Dick Findley has two pieces of advice for working petroleum geologists. You’ll want to pay attention. Findley opened up a Bakken formation play that led to development of the giant Elm Coulee oil field in eastern Montana. The field now produces almost 50,000 barrels a day of high-quality crude.
The recent increases in petroleum prices have spurred renewed interest in the development of oil shale resources worldwide, including the vast deposits of the Green River Formation in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming.
Even for a faith-based company drilling test wells in Israel, science is at a premium.
Production from unconventional petroleum reservoirs includes petroleum from shale, coal, tight-sand and oil-sand. These reservoirs contain enormous quantities of oil and natural gas but pose a technology challenge to both geoscientists and engineers to produce economically on a commercial scale. These reservoirs store large volumes and are widely distributed at different stratigraphic levels and basin types, offering long-term potential for energy supply. Most of these reservoirs are low permeability and porosity that need enhancement with hydraulic fracture stimulation to maximize fluid drainage. Production from these reservoirs is increasing with continued advancement in geological characterization techniques and technology for well drilling, logging, and completion with drainage enhancement. Currently, Australia, Argentina, Canada, Egypt, USA, and Venezuela are producing natural gas from low permeability reservoirs: tight-sand, shale, and coal (CBM). Canada, Russia, USA, and Venezuela are producing heavy oil from oilsand. USA is leading the development of techniques for exploring, and technology for exploiting unconventional gas resources, which can help to develop potential gas-bearing shales of Thailand. The main focus is on source-reservoir-seal shale petroleum plays. In these tight rocks petroleum resides in the micro-pores as well as adsorbed on and in the organics. Shale has very low matrix permeability (nano-darcies) and has highly layered formations with differences in vertical and horizontal properties, vertically non-homogeneous and horizontally anisotropic with complicate natural fractures. Understanding the rocks is critical in selecting fluid drainage enhancement mechanisms; rock properties such as where shale is clay or silica rich, clay types and maturation , kerogen type and maturation, permeability, porosity, and saturation. Most of these plays require horizontal development with large numbers of wells that require an understanding of formation structure, setting and reservoir character and its lateral extension. The quality of shale-gas resources depend on thickness of net pay (>100 m), adequate porosity (>2%), high reservoir pressure (ideally overpressure), high thermal maturity (>1.5% Ro), high organic richness (>2% TOC), low in clay (<50%), high in brittle minerals (quartz, carbonates, feldspars), and favourable in-situ stress. During the past decade, unconventional shale and tight-sand gas plays have become an important supply of natural gas in the US, and now in shale oil as well. As a consequence, interest to assess and explore these plays is rapidly spreading worldwide. The high production potential of shale petroleum resources has contributed to a comparably favourable outlook for increased future petroleum supplies globally. Application of 2D and 3D seismic for defining reservoirs and micro seismic for monitoring fracturing, measuring rock properties downhole (borehole imaging) and in laboratory (mineralogy, porosity, permeability), horizontal drilling (downhole GPS), and hydraulic fracture stimulation (cross-linked gel, slick-water, nitrogen or nitrogen foam) is key in improving production from these huge resources with low productivity factors.
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