Explorer Article

A multi-disciplinary team of geoscientists has developed a new framework for the north Red Sea region – and their findings may cause a new reassessment of the area’s resource potential.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

The fast-approaching AAPG International Conference and Exhibition in Milan will showcase – in association with EMD – a comprehensive unconventional resources program with global scope, ranging in scale from the nanopore to the petroleum system, exploring the latest in applied geoscience and engineering.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Historical Highlights

A winning strategy: When geologist Don Todd was told that Indonesia had a lot of oil in the ground, he knew immediately what his next career move would be.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

The Cook Inlet was a popular topic at both an oral session and field trip during the Pacific Section's annual meeting in Anchorage, Alaska.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

Sparsely drilled Scotian Basin larger than Gulf of Mexico.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

A Fairway to paradise? Nova Scotia’s offshore energy industry is in the global spotlight after an enticing assessment of resources in the Scotian Basin.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Spotlight On…

The international competition, involving the world’s leading universities in petroleum geosciences, is hosted annually by AAPG and designed to give students an opportunity to use real technology on datasets, receive feedback from an industry panel, have the opportunity to impress potential employers in the audience and win cash awards for their schools.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Emphasis Article

Oil and liquids-rich gas deposits are hot targets today among prospectors and operators – and the action in the self-sourced Niobrara shale play in the Rocky Mountain region is about as fired up as it can be.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Regions and Sections

The first Geosciences Technology Workshop ever held in the Middle East Region proved to be an enormous success and a remarkable accomplishment for the geosciences community in the area.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

Encore presentation: Last year was the biggest and most successful year ever for AAPG's international Distinguished Lecture program – and organizers are hoping this year brings more of the same.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
DL Abstract

Paleozoic North America has experienced multiple mountain building events, from Ordovician to Permian, on all margins of the continent. These have had a profound effect on the resulting complex basins and their associated petroleum systems. Subsequent uplift, erosion and overprinting of these ancient systems impedes the direct observation of their tectonic history. However, the basin sedimentary records are more complete, and provide additional insights into the timing and style of the mountain building events. In this study, we employ ~90 1D basin models, ~30 inverse flexural models, isopachs, and paleogeographic maps to better understand the Paleozoic history of North America.

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Request a visit from Kurt W. Rudolph!

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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Request a visit from Ameed Ghori!

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)

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