Explorer Geophysical Corner

Since 1984 the Reservoir Characterization Project at Colorado School of Mines has been working on shale reservoir development. RCP began its first study at Silo Field, Wyo., recording the first land 3-D multicomponent (9C) seismic survey focused on characterizing the Niobrara fractured reservoir. The result of RCP’s work led to the first horizontal drilling in the Rockies in 1990 and led to the drilling of the most successful well in the field.

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American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

We joined the Houston Geological Society shortly after arriving in Houston as new-hire geologists in 1984. We met thousands of fellow geoscientists by attending, and organizing, hundreds of technical talks for 39 years. We learned about exciting discoveries, plays and technology from those who made them happen. Along the way, we became friends with a few legends. We are grateful for the deep friendships that arose while serving as HGS volunteers. With a grateful heart, we are happy to share our committee’s plans to celebrate the centennial year.

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American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

Depleted horizontal oil and gas wells could have a second life storing renewable energy, according to researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Because renewable forms of electricity generation like solar and wind require low-cost energy storage, the NREL researchers propose using depleted hydraulically fractured oil and gas wells to store electrical energy in the form of compressed natural gas to be released to spin an expander/generator when electrical demand is high.

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

During the height of the pandemic, Society of Exploration Geophysicists Executive Director Jim White and I discussed how we could work better together – delivering an innovative conference for petroleum and energy geoscientists that also involved other geoscience disciplines focused on solving real world challenges. Our elected leaders at the time supported the vision for AAPG and SEG to create a new, joint annual meeting: the International Meeting for Applied Geoscience and Energy, or “IMAGE,” conducted in cooperation with SEPM. We’re eager and ready for IMAGE ’22 in Houston at the end of this month, and hope that you are, too.

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American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Emphasis Article

People familiar with the energy business know that most existing vertical wells produce little oil or gas. They might be surprised how many horizontal wells fall into the same category. Under the right circumstances, this growing number of wells in decline could represent an investment opportunity. Or, it might become a giant abandonment headache for the oil industry.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

The AAPG Women’s Network is excited to provide attendees at next month’s International Meeting for Applied Geoscience and Energy with a variety of events throughout the conference. There is something for everyone!

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Geophysical Corner

The challenges in acquiring quality laboratory flow measurements in very low-permeability reservoir rock samples has furthered the development of image-based rock physics simulations of multiphase transport properties. The concept of “digital rocks” originated 50 years ago and has become more widespread recently with advances in imaging technology, computing power and robust algorithms for representing complex multiphase flow behavior at the pore scale. Simulation results based on high-resolution images have the dual role of complementing laboratory measurements on conventional reservoirs and acting as a stand-alone predictive tool for unconventional reservoirs where the very low permeability values limit what can be measured in the laboratory.

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American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

These days, more uncertain than the price of gas, especially with the announcement last month from the administration to ban the import of Russian oil and gas, combined with the European Union’s decision to cut imports by 80 percent, is the question of whether the world will get the energy it needs – and who will provide it. To that end, it’s worth considering what conventional oil and gas reservoirs here in America can be drilled and placed online quickly to help fill that need.

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American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

Worldwide oil and gas exploration results took a major hit from reduced investment and the ongoing COVID pandemic last year. Cautious industry spending and overall selectivity over prospects likely reduced discoveries to their lowest annual level in 75 years. Here’s the recommendation from one industry analyst for 2022’s global exploration and supply outlook: Stay chill for now.

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

Listening to “A Change Is Gonna Come” as I write prompted me to think about change. For some of us, change is not a comfortable thought because we focus on how change affects our sense of self, or we fixate on the potential loss of comfortable routines and familiar circumstances. For others, change is the stuff of life because it promises something new and exciting. For AAPG, change is inevitable as we prepare to serve future generations of petroleum geologists and geoscientists in closely related fields like environmental geology, geothermal energy and the burgeoning hydrogen industry.

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American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Online e-Symposium
Thursday, 12 July 2012, 12:00 a.m.–12:00 a.m.

This presentation will look at well placement vertically in the pay, well azimuth and well trajectory with explanations of how geology and post-depositional effects can make the difference between a successful well and a failure.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Online e-Symposium
Thursday, 19 May 2011, 12:00 a.m.–12:00 a.m.

This e-symposium presents and discusses the results of laboratory tests and research relating to determining shale prospectivity in general, and specifically in the Black Warrior Basin, Alabama.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Online e-Symposium
Thursday, 22 July 2010, 12:00 a.m.–12:00 a.m.

Upon successful completion of this course, you will be able to describe geomechanics in shale reservoirs and discuss differences between plays.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Online e-Symposium
Tuesday, 14 December 2010, 12:00 a.m.–12:00 a.m.

Recent interest in unconventional gas resources has attracted several oil and gas explorers to sedimentary basins in Southern Quebec.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Online e-Symposium
Thursday, 9 September 2010, 12:00 a.m.–12:00 a.m.

The presentation will focus on hydraulic fracture geometry in shales, the materials used in the fracturing process, and treatment monitoring via microseismic.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Online e-Symposium
Thursday, 24 October 2013, 12:00 a.m.–12:00 a.m.

This e-symposium will be introducing signal processing techniques as a means to maximize extracting geomechanical data from petrophysical logs.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Online Certificate Course
Tuesday, 1 January 2013, 12:00 a.m.–1:00 a.m.

There are approximately 1,000 oil and gas fields in the world that have been classified as 'giant,' containing more than 500 million barrels of recoverable oil and /or 3 trillion cubic feet of gas.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Online e-Symposium
Thursday, 26 September 2013, 12:00 a.m.–12:00 a.m.

The presentation will discuss key reservoir information and how to develop a predictive pressure model.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Online e-Symposium
Thursday, 10 May 2012, 12:00 a.m.–12:00 a.m.

Recognition and Correlation of the Eagle Ford, Austin Formations in South Texas can be enhanced with High Resolution Biostratigraphy, fossil abundance peaks and Maximum Flooding Surfaces correlated to Upper Cretaceous sequence stratigraphic cycle chart after Gradstein, 2010.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Online e-Symposium
Thursday, 30 October 2014, 10:00 a.m.–11:00 a.m.

Cross disciplinary workflows play an important part of successful characterization of shale reservoirs. This course discusses how the artificial kerogen maturity of organic-rich Green River shale affects the petrophysical, micro-structural, geochemical and elastic properties.

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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