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Lab exam
Question 1
Contour, trap, migration paths
Question 2
Well interpretation and interpolation
Question 3
Petromod-related
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What are unconventional
resources?
US Department of Energy (DOE):
"unconventional oils have yet to be strictly
defined"
Unconventional resources are hydrocarbon
reservoirs that have low permeability and
porosity and so are difficult to produce
Extracted using techniques other than the
conventional (oil well) method
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What are unconventional
resources?
IEA (International Energy Agency): In general
conventional oil is easier and cheaper to
produce than unconventional oil. However,
the categories conventional and
unconventional do not remain fixed, and
over time, as economic and technological
conditions evolve, resources hitherto
considered unconventional can migrate into
the conventional category
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What are unconventional
resources?
Often enhanced recovery techniques such as
fracture stimulation or steam injection must
be performed, making the process more
difficult than a conventional play
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Examples of unconventional
resources
Tight Gas
BBOE=
Coalbed Methane (CBM) Billion barrel of oil equivalent
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0.6% Ro
1.3%Ro
shale oil
shale gas
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Tight oil (or gas)
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Tight gas basins in North America
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Tight oil (or gas)
Average reservoir porosity for the producing
units 89%
Average in-situ permeabilities of hundredths
of a millidarcy
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Tight gas example
Piceance Basin, Colorado
Basin-centered gas play (situated in central,
deeper part of basin)
No relation with traps
Gas formed in situ and trapped in low
permeability reservoirs
A single large field in which the resource
density and producibility may vary both
laterally and stratigraphically
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Assessment based
on well performance
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1000s wells,
~50 fields
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Tight gas example
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More about tight gas
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Coalbed methane (CBM)
Coal seam gas (CSG)
Coal forms the source, reservoir and seal
Gas (methane, dry gas) is trapped on the
surfaces of organic matter (adsorption)
Fractures or cleats within the coal (normally
filled with water)
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Coalbed methane
Natural gas extracted from coal beds
Methane is adsorbed (adsorption is adhesion
to a surface) into the solid matrix of the coal
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Coalbed methane
Porosity of coal bed reservoirs 0.1-10%
Adsorption capacity: the volume of gas
adsorbed per unit mass of coal
Expressed in SCF (standard cubic feet, the
volume at standard pressure and
temperature conditions) gas/ton of coal
The capacity to adsorb depends on the rank
and quality of coal. The range is usually
between 100 to 800 SCF/ton for most coal
seams found in the US 19
Cleats are fractures
in coal beds
During production,
water is pumped off
first
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Cleats are
fractures in coal
beds
During
production, water
is pumped off first
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~21% of US unconventional gas production
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Coalbed methane example
Raton Basin
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Around 75 Ma: area
covered by an interior
sea
Deposition of marine
shales
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Shale gas
Natural gas found within shale formations
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Shale gas
Natural gas found within shale formations
Generally wet (10% ethane), 1200 BTU
Well produces typically 40-50 years
Wells often <700 m deep
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Shales have low permeability, and are not
conventional commercial sources of natural
gas
Gas production in commercial quantities
requires fractures to provide permeability
Shale gas has been produced for years from
shales with natural fractures; the shale gas
boom in recent years has been due to
modern technology in hydraulic fracturing
(fracking) to create extensive artificial
fractures around well bores
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Shales that host economic quantities of gas have
a number of common properties:
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Shales deposited in foreland basin ~400 Ma
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Oil shales
Fine-grained sedimentary rock
that yields oil on heating
Is contained within kerogen
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Oil shales
Extraction: mining and
transportation elsewhere
where shale is burned
Natural bitumen
even more viscous
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Oil/tar sands and heavy oil
Natural bitumen/tar sands/oil sands is found at
the margins of geologic basins and is thought to
be the residue of formerly light oil that has lost its
light-molecular-weight components through
degradation
Origin is
controversial
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La Brea tar sands of Trinidad
Petroleum seeps to surface, lighter components
vaporize
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Gas hydrates
Gas hydrates consist of gas molecules
surrounded by cages of water molecules
In Arctic permafrost areas
Also found deep marine in sediments (high
pressures, low temperatures)
Production technologies?
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Water molecules (1 red
oxygen and 2 white
hydrogens) form a
pentagonal dodecahedron
around a methane
molecule (1 gray carbon
and 4 green hydrogens).
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Found close to continents- why?
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Gas hydrate recovered in
shallow layers just below
the seafloor during piston
coring in the Gulf of
Mexico
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How is gas hydrate detected
(without drilling)?
Bottom Simulating
Reflector (BSR)
BSR often follows
seafloor
topography
BSR between fast
seismic velocities
above and slower
below
Indicates bottom of
hydrate zone
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Pennsylvania, 1861
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Pennsylvania, 1871
>100 derricks!
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Wednesday and next week:
Review
Final Exam
Saturday May 7
6-9 pm
Workman 101 53