Publications

Bulletin Article By Hugh Daigle,Kehua You,P. Kevin Meazell,Peter B. Flemings,Ricardo Vargas,Sergio Nuncira,Stephen C. Phillips,Yi Fang

A review of the Bakken petroleum systems in the United States and Canada: Recognizing the importance of the Middle Member play

With the development of unconventional play opportunities, the Middle Member of the Bakken Formation, Williston Basin, is of renewed interest. Geochemical techniques are used to calculate mobile oil saturation to fully define this member as the key reservoir of the Bakken petroleum system.

Added on 01 September, 2021

Bulletin Article By Hugh Daigle,Kehua You,P. Kevin Meazell,Peter B. Flemings,Ricardo Vargas,Sergio Nuncira,Stephen C. Phillips,Yi Fang

Petroleum distribution in the Montney hybrid play: Source, carrier bed, and structural controls

Unconventional hybrid systems such as the Montney hybrid play represent a continuum between shale plays and conventional reservoirs, and they share common characteristics with both. The authors integrate publicly available data to illustrate regional and local controls on petroleum distribution.

Added on 01 September, 2021

Bulletin Article By Hugh Daigle,Kehua You,P. Kevin Meazell,Peter B. Flemings,Stephen C. Phillips,Yi Fang

Using high-resolution microresistivity image logs to reconstruct paleoenvironments and stratal architectures: An example from the McMurray Formation, Leismer area, northeastern Alberta, Canada

Sedimentologic interpretations from microresistivity image logs offer an unparalleled method of accurately reconstructing point bar architectural elements and mapping their distribution. Point-bar units can easily be correlated using bedset dip characteristics to confirm the continuity of macroforms.

Added on 30 July, 2021

Explorer Article By Heather Saucier

Despite Pipeline Cancellation, Canadian Oil Still Flows

In North America’s history of building pipelines to transport oil, natural gas and petroleum products, somewhere along the way, the process became political. By pulling the presidential permit on the Keystone XL pipeline, President Joe Biden sent a powerful message: Even if a pipeline benefits citizens and trade relations with important allies, and even if it has met or exceeded design and regulatory requirements and secured community support, its fate can ultimately be determined by a whim.

Added on 01 June, 2021

Explorer Article By Heather Saucier

Keystone XL Cancellation: A Victory for the Environment?

When the Biden administration effectively canceled the Keystone XL Pipeline as a first order of business in January, environmentalists all over North America celebrated a major victory. “There was no magic to how we beat the Keystone XL Pipeline – it was grit, shared leadership and never forgetting who and what we were fighting for,” said the chair of the Nebraska Democratic Party. But did they really know what they were fighting for?

Added on 01 May, 2021

Bulletin Article By Hugh Daigle,Kehua You,P. Kevin Meazell,Peter B. Flemings,Stephen C. Phillips,Yi Fang

Predicting unconventional reservoir potential from wire-line logs: A correlation between compositional and geomechanical properties of the Duvernay shale play of western Alberta, Canada

A novel workflow provides a robust correlation between compositional, mineralogical, and geomechanical properties of unconventional shale plays and wire-line log signature. It reveals a strong tie among these properties in the Duvernay shale of western Alberta.

Added on 23 April, 2021

Explorer Article By Heather Saucier

What Does the Cancellation of the Keystone XL Pipeline Mean?

Desperate to ship crude oil from the oil-rich province of Alberta to the Irving Oil Refinery on Canada’s east coast, Cenovus Energy took the path of least resistance last summer. It sent oil 710 miles through the Trans Mountain Pipeline to its west coast terminal in British Columbia, loaded it on a tanker, and began a 7,500-mile journey – through the Panama Canal – and up the eastern seaboard to New Brunswick. To an outsider, that statement might seem absurd, when the distance between Alberta’s prolific oil sands and the refinery is 2,600 miles – less than a third of the distance traveled by Cenovus. Yet, it was considered a successful transaction, given the fact that there is no pipeline connecting Alberta, the location of the world’s third largest oil reserves, to Canada’s east coast, the location of the country’s largest refinery.

Added on 01 April, 2021

Explorer Article By Heather Saucier

Virtual Field Trips Yield Real Life Results

Last summer, nearly 30 geoscientists and engineers from the Canadian Society for Unconventional Resources trekked through an array of outcrops in the Sulphur Mountain Formation to piece together how the Montney Formation – Western Canada’s most prolific resource play – was formed. Rock by rock, they saw how the outcrops revealed a history of sedimental deposition, sedimentary structures, trace and body fossils, and even a bone bed. And, rather than getting there by airplane or car and hiking over tumultuous terrain, they navigated each nook and cranny from the comfort of their homes. For most CSUR members, it was their first virtual fieldtrip and will likely not be their last.

Added on 01 March, 2021

Explorer Director’s Corner By David Curtiss

An Opportunity in Disguise?

First there was Peak Oil, the Malthusian fear that the world was running out of oil. This idea has been around for a long time but had its most recent renaissance in the mid- 2000s with a host of books warning that global demand was going to overwhelm the industry’s ability to supply. The expansion of unconventional oil and natural gas production quieted concerns about supply constraints. The world is not running out of hydrocarbons.

Added on 01 February, 2021

Bulletin Article By Hugh Daigle,Kehua You,P. Kevin Meazell,Peter B. Flemings,Stephen C. Phillips,Yi Fang

Life span of oil reservoirs: Examples from three old reef pools in Alberta, Canada

Declining history of oil production of oil pools in Alberta, Canada, can be divided into two phases: a short (4-11 yr) substantially declining phase and a long (25-35 yr) gradually declining phase. Both can be described by power regressions with high correlation coefficients of 0.95-0.99.

Added on 18 January, 2021

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