This Hedberg conference addressed current research lines and applications related to Petroleum System Modeling (PSM), with a focus on geologically and technically challenging modeling aspects of petroleum systems, such as tight rocks, unconventional resources, complex structural settings with geomechanical issues, Arctic latitudes, or deep and hot basins.
The conference aimed to share ideas and stimulate R&D in the following fields where progress is expected in the future:
- knowledge and understanding of complex physical processes controlling sedimentary basin evolution and petroleum systems. Those include:
- the geomechanical control of tectonics and deep burial on petroleum systems,
- hydrocarbon migration and trapping mechanisms in low porosity rocks
- extreme climatic conditions as in the circum-Arctic and their impact on petroleum systems
- the diagenetic processes which have affected porosity and permeability of deeply buried reservoirs
- new workflows and new calibration methods to characterize and quantify such complex physical processes
- development of new numerical modeling techniques that will help to quantify and predict distributions of rock properties. Special attention will be given to stratigraphic modeling, diagenesis modeling, and geomechanical modeling
- application of new workflows and decision methods that will improve exploration risk assessment using petroleum system modeling, especially when new complex physical processes need to be incorporated in the Petroleum System Modeling process. This goal is also related to uncertainty assessment in PSM and how this impacts decision-making.