Explorer Division Column EMD

As North America tries to obtain energy security it will have to rely on more unconventional resources to fulfill its energy needs over the next decades – and balanced with that is the need for stewardship of the environment and the need to develop more sustainable strategies.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

The Petroleum Technology Transfer Council has been awarded a $4 million grant by the U.S. Department of Energy to provide training opportunities focused for U.S. independent producers.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Emphasis Article

European researchers, inspired by gas shale successes in the United States, have started a database in hopes of finding similar success for their continent.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Emphasis Article

Sweet smell of success: A run of offshore discoveries have made Brazil the oil industry’s story of the century – and the celebration there may just be starting.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

AAPG’s Distinguished Lecture program is reloaded and already off to a fast start for a season that will send speakers around the world, in some cases, to places never before traveled by the program.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

Show me the money: Investors are looking for new opportunities to spend their capital. Let’s make a deal?

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

The AAPG Imperial Barrel Award has had two years now of dramatic growth and enthusiasm.

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

Are you passionate about unconventional energy resources? Would you like to learn as much as possible about the latest concepts and technologies to explore and develop these?

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

As part of the focus on providing the best science, AAPG is reviewing all of our products and services against the needs of the membership.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Emphasis Article

Oil and gas finders are enamored with the Williston Basin these days, looking for the next big find in the upper Devonian-Lower Mississippian Bakken formation.

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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