Learn! Blog

Designed to expose geoscientists to the language and methodologies commonly employed by reservoir engineers to estimate oil and gas reserves, this course will include a brief review of reservoir rock properties, introduction to fluid properties, reservoir drive mechanisms, and commonly used techniques for estimating reserves including analogy, volumetric analysis, material balance, decline curve analysis, and computer simulation.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Energy Policy Blog

There may be job openings on Capitol Hill as some Senators and Representatives, and their staffs are replaced after the election. If you want to apply for one of those staff jobs check out HillZoo.com.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Energy Policy Blog

Those of us in the petroleum industry have been tracking the rapid expansion of oil and gas production from shales and in the process we may not have noticed the rapid expansion of renewable energy, especially wind. Read the latest Energy Information Administration (EIA) statistics.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Energy Policy Blog

China plans to significantly increase its natural gas consumption to help cut its appalling air pollution. But natural gas is still a small part of its energy mix. In addition, and to confound environmentalists, a significant part of China’s gas supply comes from Coal-to-Gas technology, which generates large volumes of greenhouse gas and other pollutants, but does allow China to deliver clean-burning gas to locations with severe air pollution.

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American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Energy Policy Blog

This is Energy Week in the House, bringing a flurry of hearings and votes. But, topics in the news may not be on the agenda; for example, induced seismicity is an area of public concern, but Congress will not be considering the topic.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Energy Policy Blog

Carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) is perhaps commercially viable but not proven at commercial scale, according to 100 clean-energy experts that recently released their recommendations to the White House: 'Powering Forward: Presidential and Executive Agency Actions to Drive Clean Energy in America.'

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Emphasis Article

The supergiant Mamba gas discovery has proved East Africa's potential is real.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Director’s Corner

Global demand for natural gas continues to grow and the search is on to meet that demand in both the eastern and western hemispheres.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Emphasis Article

A new technical paper takes a look at the ongoing exploration success that can be found in the eastern Mediterranean's Levant Basin

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer President’s Column

My co-author for this month’s column is Jim McGhay, AAPG Treasurer. Later this month, you will receive your dues statement, where there are two items that might attract your attention. We address them here.   

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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