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EAGE workshop on Developments in Land Seismic Acquisition for Exploration
- Conference date: 17 May 2010 - 19 May 2010
- Location: Cairo, Egypt
- Published: 18 May 2010
51 - 73 of 73 results
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Project Management Principles & Technology Applied to Tight Gas Development: A Case History from the Piceance Basin
By G. FlahertyChevron holds more than 75,000 acres in Skinner Ridge, Colorado, located in the westernmost part of the Piceance Basin. As hydraulic fracturing technology and the regional unconventional resource assessment matured, Chevron’s teams recognized the potential for significant tight gas production from Upper Cretaceous fluvial sands of the Williams Fork member of the Mesaverde group. GIP is estimated at 4.5 TCF and ultimate recovery at 3 TCF from a core focus area of 35,000 acres. We have completed two stages of development drilling, drilling 9 pads with 195 wells. The wells have been completed with an average of 8 frac stages. Current production is 26 MMcf/D. The success of the project has been realized by applying project management principles, integrating appropriate technology and a relentless focus on efficiency and cost reduction.
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Filling the Empty Quarter: Workflows for Hydrocarbon Exploration in the South Rub al Khali Basin, Saudi Arabia
Authors W. Voggenreiter, C. Harvey, G. Holstege and D. SkaloudThe South Rub Al-Khali Company Ltd (SRAK) is an Incorporated Joint Venture between Shell Saudi Ventures Limited (50%) and Saudi Arabian Oil Company (50%). It was set up to explore for non-associated gas in the South Rub ‘al Khali Basin as part of the Natural Gas Initiative in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
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Cost Effective Integrated Geophysical Approach for Exploration of Unconventional Shallow Target
Authors P. Singh, A.M. Al-Fares and R. HusainSeismic imaging of shallow unconventional reservoirs of heavy oil requires data with focussed acquisition and processing parameters and entails huge investment. Keeping in view the cost factor, the existing 2D regional seismic data has been reinterpreted for shallow objective and integrated with the gravity data. Reinterpretation of seismic data unravel atleast three sand sequences within Lower Fars Formation overlain by a shale cap rock. The seismic data shows an erosional truncation of these sand sequences where the blocks are uplifted due to the Late Miocene to Pliocene tectonics in the Arabian Plate. Correlation with second derivative of gravity data indicates that 70-80% wet wells are located on local gravity highs where pay sands show Toplap relationship with cap rock. The shallow heavy oil plays are a combination of structural and stratigraphic traps. Inexpensive and fast unconventional surface geochemical, high resolution airborne magnetic and electromagnetic techniques can be employed for delineation of prospective areas.
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Unconventional Exploration Opportunities in the Arabian Gulf
By P. TitleyThe Arabian Gulf lays in one of the most prolific hydrocarbon provinces in the world. Most of the fields discovered in the Gulf are “conventional” in the sense that they contain medium gravity oil in good sandstone and carbonate reservoirs in structural traps. Additional exploration opportunities are recognized in the Gulf in naturally fractured and heavy oil reservoirs. Naturally fractured reservoir fairways and heavy oil prospects in the Gulf will be shown in this presentation.
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Petroleum Systems Modeling of the Haynesville Shale Gas Play
Authors E. Mavridou, M.C. de Lind van Wijngaarden, A.I. Kauerauf, T. Hantschel, K. Kornpihl and I. BryantA BPSM analysis of the Haynesville gas shale will be presented, with emphasis on the potential value of this analysis prior to extensive drilling in an unconventional play.
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Light & Tight in the Empty Quarter: Cretaceous Carbonate Source Rocks in the South Rub al Khali Basin, Saudi Arabia
Authors C. Harvey, A.H. Azzouni, H. Droste and A. WeedonThe Cretaceous period saw the development of a vast epeiric platform covering the margin of the Arabian Plate and facing the NeoTethys Ocean. Sea levels were 150-200 m higher than present with many continental margins covered by broad shallow seas. These seas along the NeoTethys margin were dominantly carbonate platforms stretching westward from Arabia across Egypt and Tunisia. The Cretaceous deposits of the Arabian Peninsula show an evolution from a shelf margin to an epeiric platform.
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Theory and Approach for Mapping Hydrodynamic Traps and a Middle East Example
Authors Y. Yang and K. Al MahmoudProvided hydraulic heads in the ground water surrounding a hydrocarbon accumulation are the same, the only force acting on the hydrocarbon body is buoyancy, which is vertical. This force results in the horizontal contact between oil and water. If hydraulic heads are different, the hydrocarbon body is also subjected to a lateral hydraulic force. The direction of the resultant force of buoyancy and hydraulic force is not vertical. As a result, the oil water contact is tilted. Obviously, for a given trapping structure, the boundary of hydrocarbon accumulation for tilted oil water contact is different from the one of the horizontal oil water contact. This hydrodynamically influenced trapping phenomenon has been observed worldwide. Hubbert (1953) developed an approach to map such hydrodynamic traps based on lengthy and complicated mathematical manipulations. It is important to correctly map the tilted oil water contact in order to delineate the accumulation and evaluate the reserves. Based on explicit hydraulic principles we derived an equation to locate oil water contact from simple mathematical manipulations. We then developed a clear approach to delineate hydrodynamic traps using our constructed equation. We applied our approach to exploration prospects and the results explained the observed findings from the drilled wells.
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Potential for Basin-Centred Gas in Saudi Arabia; Southwest Ghawar Basin - A Case Study
Authors M.A. Al-Duhailan, A. Al Naim and M.J. Al-MahmoudThe potential for basin-centered gas (BCG) accumulations in Saudi Arabia was investigated by reviewing the Paleozoic petroleum system elements. As a case study, a detailed analysis was conducted on the Southwest Ghawar Basin.
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Appraising a Tight Gas Discovery
Authors S. Al Kindy, M. Weissenback, S. Al Mahruqi and H. Al SiyabiThis paper presents a tight gas accumulation which was discovered in 2009 following the drilling of a vertical pilot hole and subsequent highly deviated hole. Both holes were successfully drilled using the under-balance drilling (UBD) technology which enabled gas flow to be recorded at surface while drilling the reservoir interval.
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Underbalanced Drilling as a Tool to Test Tight Gas Plays: An Example from the Empty Quarter, Saudi Arabia
Authors A. Briner, A. Axon, L. Arseneault, Y. Al-Maashari and V. VyasUnderbalanced drilling was implemented in one of SRAK’s exploration wells, Zaynan-2, as the deeper Palaeozoic reservoirs in the Rub’ al Khali are known to be commonly tight and susceptible to near-wellbore formation impairment during conventional drilling. UBD offered a possible solution for reservoir evaluation and demonstrating any possible flow. In other prospects, previous conventional drilling, stimulation and well clean-up had typically failed to unambiguously characterize pay and produce hydrocarbons to surface.
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Application of LPG Fracturing for Unconventional Resources
More LessHolditch (2009) suggested that the Total Recoverable Resource from unconventional gas reservoirs in any basin will be about 10 times more than the ultimate recovery of all the conventional oil and gas reservoirs in the same basin. Exploration for these huge unconventional resources has grown globally in the last several decades, especially for tight gas sands, tight oil carbonates, and gas shales.
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Shuaiba: The Challenging Unconventional Trap
Authors G. Al Sahlan, G. Gega, R. Blackford and P. ClewsSequence Stratigraphy of Shuaiba Post Deposition; Digenesis
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Reservoir development and entrapment mechanisms for the basal Zubair Formation in Kuwait
Authors S.K. Tanoli, A.A. Al-Fares and O. Al-KhalidThe paper presents the reservoir sandstone development associated with the Late Valanginian sequence boundary. Both conventional and unconventional entrapment occurs. The conventional entrapment envisages the presence of top seal and a four way closure structure. Unconventional entrapment can take place where sealing facies impinge against a paleohigh providing vertical as well as lateral seal. The play is assessed at local scale for development and regional scale for exploration purposes. For the former geophysical attributes are used to determine the reservoir distribution. For regional analysis paleodrainage pathways are determined to figure out the possible loci for sandbody development.
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Looking for Sand in the Empty Quarter: Exploring for Permian Stratigraphic Traps in the South Rub al Khali Basin
Authors G. Pike, C. Harvey, M. Hulver, P. van Mastrigt and W. VoggenreiterA number of stratigraphic traps were identified and de-risked through SRAK’s Upper Paleozoic Play Based Exploration project. The essential component was the recognition of thickening seismic geometries off-structure that were related to potential Nuayyim Formation (Unayzah ‘A’ Reservoir Unit) sandstone development and/or Jawb Member (Unayzah ‘B’ Reservoir Unit) onlap.
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Tight Gas and Oil Reservoirs in Kuwait - An Overview
Authors N. Mohammed Al-Ammar, R. Husain, B.Z. Khan, F. Hussain, A. Prakash and R. MulyonoTight reservoirs of Kuwait of different ages have been discussed.Four major tight reservoirs are Triassic Lower Jilh, Jurassic Najmah-Sargelu and Cretaceous Makhul and Minagish reservoirs. These reservoirs are prospective in areas of natural fracture development. Major challenges and way forward for exploration of these targets have been elaborated.
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Jilh Formation: Sedimentology and Diagenetic modifications with reference to Reservoir characteriztion, Kuwait
Authors M.M. Al-Ajmi, D.A. Khan and R. HusainThe Jilh Formation in Kuwait is an unconventional reservoir with various Facies Associations suggesting the deposition in restricted environment with supratidal and intertidal to sub-tidal depositional conditions with occasional development of shoals. Diagenetic modifications are important as they have played an important role in modification of reservoir quality. Fractures helped in enhancing the reservoir quality and have played a major role in the prospectivity of Jilh Formation
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Integrated Formation Evaluation Of Triassic Jilh Dolomite Reservoir, acase study from Sabriyah Field North Kuwait
Authors M.A Musaed, A.R. Ahmad, R.H. Riyasat and A.A. AbdulazizWith overstraining of conventional reservoir,the exploratory efforts are focused on unconventional reservoirs in frontier areas.The Jilh Dolomite,a tight reservoir occurring in the middle part of Late to Middle Triassic Jilh Formation,is investigated in Sabiriyah area of North Kuwait for its hydrocarbon prospectivity.The Jilh Dolomite had shown hydrocarbon potential on logs but the testing results did not match the conventional log interpretation.This has adversely impacted the hydrocarbon assessment of this reservoir,thus affecting reserve accretion targets.The re-evaluation of hydrocarbon potentials of Jilh Dolomite has been carried out utilizing all the relevant data particularly well logs,well testing,mudlog reports,drilling reports and core reports.The objectives of the petrophysical interpretation is fresh evaluation of intervals with anomalous testing results to confirm the presence of potential hydrocarbon bearing intervals in the non-conventional reservoir Jilh Dolomite.A clear cut workflow involving synergistic interpretation of different datasets has been evolved and lithological and flow properties and saturation models have been prepared.The petrophysical evaluation results show that there are possibilities of having hydrocarbons in the top part of the reservoir in North Kuwait.
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Preliminary Biofacies Studies of the Ratawi, Minagish and Makhul Formations Kuwait: The Search for the Subtle Trap
Authors S Crittenden and M. Al-BaghliThe Berriasian to Hauterivian stages of the Lower Cretaceous succession in the State of Kuwait are dominated by relatively shallow marine carbonates of the Makhul, Minagish and Ratawi formations. Exploration for hydrocarbons in Kuwait has during the last 75 years concentrated on the search for structural traps. It has only been in the last 10 to 15 years that effort has been given to the search for the more subtle stratigraphical plays and traps. The pursuit of the stratigraphical trap in the Lower Cretaceous Makhul (Tithonian in part), Minagish and Ratawi formations of Kuwait relies therefore upon the interpretation and thorough understanding of the large amount of data generated from the preceding structural phase of exploration. One interpretation technique is the integration of biofacies analysis data (from core thin sections) with geological core derived data (sedimentology, lithofacies and petrology) and with wireline logs
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Sequence Stratigraphic Framework of the Late Albian-Early Cenomanian
Authors A. H. Youssef, A.P. Kadar and R. Moralesthis study discusses how the sequence stratigraphic analysis is important in defining the uncoventional stratigraphic traps.
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Potential Field Anomalies and Oil-Gas Traps
By A.A. ChernovThe materials of regional gravity and magnetic researches are used a reliable basis for definition of the structural plan of territories, revealing of buried rises, basic tectonic blocks and basic disjunctives, that was confirmed for the first stages of study of the West-Siberian plate oil and gas bearing. As is known, in many cases the direct connection of deposits HC with abnormal gravitational (and or magnetic) field is found out. There is a plenty of such data on various regions: western Siberia, Byelorussia, Ustiurt, PreKaspiy, Canada etc. [1]. For water areas of Ob and Taz bays the most precise conformity extremuma of geopotential fields to the overwhelming majority productive anticlinal structures is observed.
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Buried Reefs Investigation by Gravity Data
By A.A. ChernovThe analysis of gravity anomalies (scale 1:25 000) in researched site was carried out with the purpose of revealing and mapping of oil and gas perspective objects in a difference sedimentations. As is known, buried reefs are shown in gravitational fields by local anomalies of four types: 1) local maxima; 2) anomalies such as "sombrero"; 3) negative anomalies with an appreciable maximum in middle; 4) negative. There are anomalies such as "a gravitational step" less often.
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Seismic Data Conditioning and Combination Attribute for Fault / Fracture Detection
Authors A. Prakash, R. Husain, A. Nada Mohamad and M. RinaldiUnconventional resources are those resources which require greater than industry standard technology or invesment to harness them. Tight sand gas is one such resource. The small faults and fractures play majot role in determining the reservoir quality in such cases. This paper discusses about data conditioning to retain appropriate signal band that enahnces small faults and then studying combination attributes to identify the areas of high fracture density.
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Integrated Modeling to Mitigate Risk in Frontier Exploration Offshore Brazil
Authors I.D. Bryant, A. Bender, A. Lovatini and B. Wygrala and P. XuMultipurpose 3D geological models were used for an integrated evaluation of the exploration potential of the offshore portions of the Potiguar and Ceará basins of Brazil. Multiclient, prestack depth-migrated 2D seismic data that covered the deeper parts of the basins were tied to released wells in the shallower part of the basins. The well data enabled depth conversion of the seismic data and interpretation of eight horizons. Geochemical data and the geological model were combined to build a 3D basin and petroleum systems model of the area that predicted the amount and location of yet-to-be discovered hydrocarbon accumulations.
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