Explorer Emphasis Article

Back to the future: New technology, new techniques and new visions have turned Alaska’s venerable Cook Inlet into a place of new exploration possibilities.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

It's an unconventional success story of a New Yorker and a Californian 're-winning' in Wewoka. 

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Historical Highlights

Despite the fact that exploration in the Mahakam Delta started more than 40 years ago, with large discoveries made in the mid-1970s, plans are being considered to develop and redevelop several gas fields of the area.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Regions and Sections

It is a little over 25 years since the Iagifu 2-X well drilled by Niugini Gulf Oil discovered Papua New Guinea’s first commercial oil field – the Kutubu field, which was put into production in 1992 by Chevron Niugini Pty Ltd. after they acquired the assets of Gulf Oil.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Historical Highlights

The history of oil in the Middle East is essentially a story of giant oil fields (each containing over 500 million barrels).

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Emphasis Article

Doug Strickland dreamed big when his work led to discovery of the Covenant oil field in central Utah.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

The Rovuma Basin off the coast of Mozambique is not on the radar screen of a whole lot of folks.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

The Biblical land of milk and honey, aka Israel, has long been considered a kind of enigma in the oil-rich Middle East.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Geophysical Corner

A pair of scissors always sat next to the box of colored pencils on Kees Rutten’s desk, littered with seismic sections, time-to-depth curves and well logs.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

James R. “Jim Bob” Moffett, co-chairman of the board at McMoRan Exploration, likes to say he cut his teeth on the onshore Miocene.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
VG Abstract

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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American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)

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