2011-12 Tour Information
March 19 – April 6, 2012
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Quinn R. Passey
Senior Formation Evaluation Consultant
ExxonMobil Upstream Research Company (URC)
Quinn R. Passey graduated from Brigham Young University in 1978 with a BS (Magna Cum Laude) in Geology, and continued his graduate studies at the California Institute of Technology with a M.S. (1979) and PhD (1982) in Planetary Science and Geology. Currently, he is the Senior Formation Evaluation Consultant for ExxonMobil Upstream Research Company (URC). He has numerous external publications on various topics ranging from planetary geology, meteoroid breakup, isostatic rebound, and various aspects of petrophysics, including planning for formation evaluation of potential wellbores on Mars.
Although Quinn started out his career as a planetary geologist studying the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, and in discovering an earth-crossing asteroid, he has subsequently focused his interest on the "third planet" (Earth). Quinn began working with well logs when he joined Exxon Production Research Co (EPR) in 1982. His early research addressed well log evaluation of source rocks and of their sequence stratigraphic distribution—topics now relevant to evaluation of shale-gas and tight-oil reservoirs.
From 1992-1993, he participated in an Anchorage-based multicompany technical study of Prudhoe Bay field. In 1994, Quinn returned to EPR to lead a creative research team composed of geologists, geophysicists, engineers, and a mathematician in evaluating thinly bedded reservoirs. In 2006, some of this work was published as the AAPG Archie Series No. 1 book entitled “Petrophysical Evaluation of Hydrocarbon Pore-Thickness in Thinly Bedded Clastic Reservoirs”. Quinn continues to teach an annual AAPG short course on this topic.
Thus, his career evolved from looking up (the Solar System), to looking down vertically (inside the earth), and now is focused on looking sideways (in horizontal wells). His current research is on the geological and petrophysical characterization of unconventional organic-rich reservoirs.