f Derisking Of Unconventional Gas Opportunities: Application Of Basin Modelling

Unconventional Light Tight Oil (LTO) and shale gas (SG) plays are self-charged systems, relying on the indigenous organic matter as the source of hydrocarbons. The finegrained organic rich sediments or tight layers in their vicinity act with their residual pore space as the reservoirs. Pressure and temperature can significantly increase during burial and even more decrease during erosion and uplift. These changes strongly influence the phase behaviour of the generated and trapped hydrocarbons thereby affecting their flow properties, potential migration routes, retention capacity of the source rock, and predicted volumes initially in place. Shell’s integrated Cauldron Shale Gas Simulator calculates resource density on a regional to basin scale, typically during the opportunity identification and screening phase. Informed decision-making in exploring for such unconventional opportunities relies on integrating all available (i.e., sometimes scarce) data and their associated uncertainties for basin scale physical elements and processes into a working geologic model.