Learn! Blog

Primary research in hydrocarbon generation is yielding new insights into the natural gas geochemical characteristics of conventional and unconventional reservoirs, along with discoveries relating to the geomechanical processes. Welcome to an interview with Chenglin Liu, China University of Petroleum-Beijing, who discusses enlightening new findings regarding the relationship between salinity and hydrocarbon geochemical characteristics.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Emphasis Article

Understanding the complex makeup of reservoirs is essential, and it requires considerable evaluation and time.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

Apache Corp. announced in early September that it had made a major oil discovery in the Delaware Basin.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Learn! Blog

The Petroleum Economics is designed for New Energy Professionals. The course consist of lecture and exercises to assist the new industry energy professionals with understanding the principles of petroleum economics; including the value of money, quantifying financials risks in petroleum investments, rates of return, forecasting cash flows and the fundamentals of capital budgeting.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Division Column EMD

There are a surprising number of AAPG Members (new and experienced) who are not familiar with the technical divisions of AAPG and what they do. Given how much excellent work is done in the divisions, everyone is encouraged to learn more about them.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Learn! Blog

Where is the oil? How much is there? and What is the best strategy for recovery? These are a few of the questions that we'll answer at the Making Money with Mature Fields - Geosciences Technology Workshop, October 5-6, 2016, Houston, TX. The goal of this workshop is to review mature fields and to identify the amount and nature of oil that can be recovered, and to evaluate competing strategies for economically producing the remaining reserves. In addition to looking closely at fields, we will review new and improved technologies that may help revitalize reservoirs and overcome problems such as low pressure, paraffin, corrosion, and more.

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American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

Registration is now open for the 4th annual Unconventional Resources Technology Conference (URTeC) to be held Aug. 1-3 at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center in San Antonio, Texas.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

“Basins to Barrels” will be the theme of the annual meeting of the Eastern Section of AAPG, which will be held Sept. 25-27 at the Lexington Convention Center complex in Lexington, Ky.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Emphasis Article

Given the high profile of U.S. shale production, it’s easy to forget this phenomenon kicked off a mere decade ago, give or take. As the number of shale oil and gas plays proliferated, so did the naysayers. The negative predictions focused on the well-known rapid decline in production that occurs once these wells go online. Instead of an early death, the ensuing boom upset the world order in oil production.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Emphasis Article

Basins around the world hold identified potential for unconventional resource development and a combination of exploration, assessment and evaluation seems certain to uncover other favorable plays.

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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