Explorer Emphasis Article

AAPG is committed to connecting promising original research with much-needed funding and is continually seeking – and finding – new ways to make that potential a reality.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Emphasis Article

MOOSE – Multiphysics Object-Oriented Simulation Environment – is a software platform designed to make predictive modeling and simulation faster and easier.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

Colombia’s unconventional and heavy oil potential are the focus of “Expanding Unconventional Resources in Colombia with New Science – From Heavy Oil to Shale Gas/Shale Oil Opportunities,” an AAPG geosciences technology workshop (GTW) set Dec. 10-11 in Bogotá.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

The second annual Unconventional Resources Technology Conference, which once again threw a multidiscipline spotlight on new approaches, technology and science being used to develop unconventional plays, attracted more than 5,000 attendees– a 25 percent increase over last year’s inaugural event – to Denver’s Colorado Convention Center in late August.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Learn! Blog

Learn the latest technologies being successfully applied in the main unconventional plays, and how the knowledge can be applied to other plays world wide.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

The title says it all: Determining Hydrocarbon Distribution Using Resistivity, Tuscaloosa Marine Shale, Southwestern Mississippi. The purpose of the study was to investigate the TMS Trend in southwestern Mississippi using electric logs and IHS’s proprietary Petra mapping software to document the structure, stratigraphy and hydrocarbon distribution.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Learn! Blog

We are just a few months out from the 2014 AAPG Fall Education Conference (FEC). This years FEC will be bringing together new technologies, techniques, and lessons learned to offer four great days of geosciencetraining to enhance and advance your career.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

Despite its “fits and starts” drilling history, the Tuscaloosa Marine Shale has begun to garner some respect– specifically, it appears to be on the brink of becoming a bona fide commercially productive play.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

Independent companies, both large and small, are widely acknowledged for spearheading the shale play phenomenon. “Nimble” usually is the operative word here.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Learn! Blog

AAPG offers two short courses in conjunction with this year’s Unconventional Resources Technology Conference (URTeC). A wealth of information in a short period of time, theses short courses are an effective and efficient way to learn about the industry.

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)

Join a TIG

Related Interests

See Also ...