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Bitumen/Heavy Oil (Oil Sands)

Explorer Article

Home grown: A recent National Petroleum Council study suggests America has enough oil resources to meet its growing demand for several decades.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

The rest of the story? High expectations dominate current outlooks for U.S. energy independence, but a past AAPG president warns against overenthusiasm on shale capacity.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Policy Watch

A wise adage states that anything worth having is not easily obtainable – and it just so happens that the most promising source of cleaner, domestic, cost-effective energy of the near future also is incredibly controversial.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

Anne Oudinot has won the A.I. Levorsen Award for presenting the best paper at the recent Eastern Section annual meeting.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Historical Highlights

After World War II – possibly as part of the Marshall Plan – Shell was obliged to give an American company a half interest in the acreage it held in Netherlands.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

Let’s make a deal: AAPG’s annual Prospect and Property Expo – best known as APPEX– is the place to be to find international potential.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

The way we were: 2011 was a busy year for the oil and gas industry – huge economic problems, yes, but a lot of great success stories.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Emphasis Article

Downhole reservoir monitoring is a concept that’s generated a lot of buzz.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

State geologists in South Dakota believe the hot activity that defines the celebrated Bakken Shale play is about to move south to their locale. Expanded Web Version

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Historical Highlights

It was nearly midnight on a Saturday late in June 1971 when BOCAL’s new palynologist Barry Ingram telephoned chief geologist Peter Kaye to tell him the gas discovery in North Rankin-1 were in Triassic sediments.

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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