Explorer Division Column EMD

To address some of what appear to be competing issues, the Canadian Society of Petroleum Geologists (CSPG) and the AAPG will host a joint, multidisciplinary technical symposium on oil sands and heavy oil: “Oil Sands and Heavy Oil Symposium: A Local to Global Multidisciplinary Collaboration.”

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Learn! Blog

Get a first-hand look at the global nature of oil sand resources, a better understanding of advances in recovery processes, and what contributions resource geoscientists can make to the challenges of environmental protection and social license as well as driving prosperity and better standards of living for all through sustainable energy development.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Energy Policy Blog

The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) recently published a series of reports assessing how rapid growth in U.S., and possibly global, oil and gas production from shales may impact various net-energy exporting or importing countries.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Emphasis Article

As Colorado goes, so goes the nation when it comes to energy and environmental policy and the court of public opinion.

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

Every six months, chairs of the Energy Minerals Division committees convene and report on developments in the areas they cover. In this column, we highlight important observations from these recent reports.

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

Concepts and technologies developed for liquid-rich unconventional plays in North America are on the verge of being exported worldwide.

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

You don’t have to spend much time around the oil and natural gas industry to understand that it is political.

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

I can remember hearing, way back in 1977, the president of a major oil company that I worked for say that the United States had run out of oil and gas – there was not much left to find and develop.

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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