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Distinguished Lecturer Steve Dorobek’s Asia Pacific Region tour, originally slated for March, has been delayed until May – but the AAPG DL program will remain active in March with four speakers ready to tour.
Once it became clear that natural gas prices likely will remain dismal for some time, many companies working the shale gas plays recognized they had best punch up their production by adding some respectably-priced oil and liquids-rich gas.
Conduct a poll among E&P folks regarding seismic, and it’s likely the consensus would be that advanced seismic technology – especially 3-D and 4-D – is the greatest thing to happen since sliced bread and cold beer debuted.
A delicate balance: Some see beautiful vistas, abundant wildlife, a recreational paradise. Others see a promising geologic structure and a beautiful energy potential. What’s next for the Pinedale field?
On the road again: February is going to be a busy month for AAPG’s Distinguished Lecture program.
When it comes to natural gas and its potential in the future energy mix, there’s both pessimism and optimism – depending on who’s talking.
Something old, something new: For decades, production in the Granite Wash has been a steady, ongoing story – but the book is getting an exciting new chapter, thanks largely to horizontal drilling.
Angola’s oil industry continues to benefit from new oil discoveries and ever increasing oil production, according to a paper presented at the Deepwater Offshore West Africa Conference (DOWAC) by AAPG member, Tako Koning.
Still standing: Despite the ill-fated Macondo disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, the industry not only weathered the storm but emerged strongly, thanks largely to notable discoveries around the world.
As I have traveled to AAPG conferences during the past year-and-a-half I have been impressed by the number of symposia on shale gas.
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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