Middle East Blog

This is your last chance to register for the Source Rocks of the Middle East GTW, taking place in Abu Dhabi, UAE on 25-26 January. Do not miss out this exciting workshop!

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Latin America Blog

Looking for hassle free, cost-effective ways to keep your employees and your company competitive during the industry downturn? AAPG can provide you with customized in-house courses offered at reasonable rates.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Middle East Blog

Registration deadline for workshop field trip is 12 January 2016 - don't miss your chance to explore the Natih Formation Source Rocks.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Learn! Blog

The AAPG course on “Reservoir Engineering for Petroleum Geologists” is designed for persons who wish to acquire a broad understanding of the factors that influence the production of oil and gas from reservoirs. It will be useful for geoscientists, land management specialists, managers and others with no previous training in reservoir engineering. This course is part of AAPG’s upcoming Fundamentals Education Conference, taking place November 9-13, in Houston, TX.

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American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Learn! Blog

The objective of the AAPG course on “Clay Minerals (Classification, Structure, Chemistry, Properties, Diagenesis) in Reservoir Evaluation” is to instill enough fundamental and applied information about clay minerals so that a person will know what questions are relevant when formulating a work flow for a project, when evaluating real data, or when trying to figure out what might have “gone wrong” during a project. This course is part of AAPG’s upcoming Fundamentals Education Conference, taking place November 9-13, in Houston, TX.

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American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Learn! Blog

The AAPG course on “Quick Guide to Carbonate Well Log Analysis” provides just that – a quick guide that concentrates on methods used to analyze carbonate reservoirs. It is an advanced course and assumes the course participants are already well informed about basic well logging principles. This course is part of AAPG’s upcoming Fundamentals Education Conference, taking place November 9-13, in Houston, TX.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Learn! Blog

The AAPG course on “Rock/Fluid Interactions and Natural Fracture Development and Alteration” provides a practical approach to defining reservoir fluid and pressure related natural fracture generation and fracture property alteration in conventional and unconventional reservoirs. This course is part of AAPG’s upcoming Fundamentals Education Conference, taking place November 9-13, in Houston, TX.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Learn! Blog

The AAPG course on 'RQ Toolkit – Using Rock Data for Reservoir Quality Assessment' is designed to provide a general background in optimized reservoir quality assessment using rock data (core, SWC, cuttings, outcrops). This course is part of AAPG's upcoming Fundamentals Education Conference, taking place November 9-13, in Houston, TX. 

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Learn! Blog

The AAPG course on “Practical Geomechanics” is designed for geoscientists interested in stress measurements and their application to problems arising from rock failure. This course is part of AAPG’s upcoming Fundamentals Education Conference, taking place November 9-13, in Houston.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Learn! Blog

The AAPG course on “Concepts, Models and Case Studies of Dolomitization”  summarizes the major advances and current controversies in dolomite research, and would be great for petroleum geologists who work in any type of carbonate hydrocarbon reservoir, especially those in working in dolomitized reservoirs. Material will be presented through a combination of lectures, case studies and class exercises.  This course is part of AAPG’s upcoming Fundamentals Education Conference, taking place November 9-13, in Houston, TX.

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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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