HomeScience Play Types Bitumen/Heavy Oil (Oil Sands)

Bitumen/Heavy Oil (Oil Sands)

Explorer Article

Shallow water, deep treasure: The recent Davy Jones discovery is a game-changer for the Gulf of Mexico – and maybe the entire industry.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

Experts have spoken about its oil potential for decades. Finally, Iraq is primed to fulfill its promise – and its opportunities aren’t just for the super-big players, either.

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 Article

The best paper and poster presenters have been selected from the 2009 annual meeting.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

A personal connection with a legendary geologist Hollis Hedberg triggered Georges Pardo’s personal connection with Cuba – and that bond has led to a new AAPG book on the island’s geology.     

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Emphasis Article

A gift from above: North Dakota’s Red Wing Creek Field is among a handful of oil and gas fields in the world that can trace its potential to meteorite impact.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Emphasis Article

The Covenant was so promising, but what else does Utah hold up its sleeve? The search for additional fields continues in a challenging, complex region.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

Putting it together: Success at Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay was the result of a team effort involving geologists and geophysicists.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

North Africa is not generally known for its elephants – that is, creatures of an animal nature. But recent activity offers hope for elephants of a hydrocarbon nature.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

Europe needs a remedy: Years of worry about reliable gas supply from Russia has Europe looking north for gas exploration. Algeria may be just what the doctor ordered.

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.

Show more

Request a visit from Ameed Ghori!

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)

Committee

Related Interests

See Also ...