Primary and secondary oil recovery methods can leave as much as 75% of the oil in the ground. For many long-established wells such as those in California, Oklahoma, Texas, and Mexico where much of the easy-to-produce oil has already been extracted, tertiary or enhanced oil recovery (EOR)—although expensive in comparison to primary and secondary recovery—is…
Dealing with the fundamental uncertainty of subsurface environments and their hydrocarbon resources is one of the major industry challenges. Seismic and borehole technologies improve our ability to acquire greater volumes of geologic information. Ever-increasing processor power crunches these data more efficiently to create models to help geoscientists and reservoir engineers understand the interaction between geology…
Accurate characterization of the geology of oil and gas fields is an essential aspect of successful field development. Identifying and avoiding or mitigating risks as early as possible reduces development costs. With the wealth of geologic and other subsurface data and efficient analytic software tools, geoscientists can be better informed than ever before regarding the…
Doglegs are a fact of life in most/many well planning and drilling operations. Properly planned and drilled, doglegs are part of an optimized wellpath, avoiding problematic formations and maintaining the right drilling angle to reach the pay zone. Many factors influence whether the dogleg location and curvature are appropriate or undesirable. The more accurate and…
Greater accuracy in reservoir modeling supports better field development and operational decisions. With the wealth of geologic, stratigraphic, geophysical, and petrophysical data, geoscientists have never been in a better position to build models that characterize reservoirs at the macro and micro level. At the micro level, 3D geocellular modeling is vital to characterizing reservoir potential…
Well placement optimization is an exercise in maximizing the economic return from hydrocarbon reserves while minimizing cost and risk. It’s a complex practice and is often conducted with a considerable degree of geological uncertainty. However, continually improving technologies for gathering geological data and methods for analyzing and interpreting that data have led to greater success…
Precise geological modeling depicting intricate relationships among lithology, rock properties, and faults in structurally complex reservoirs are essential to successful hydrocarbon production. With access to detailed models geologists, geophysicists, and reservoir and production engineers are better informed to make critical decisions affecting reservoir development and operations. For many operators, combining the various datasets to create…
Advances in drilling technology continue to reduce the cost and risk of multi-lateral well construction. Multi-lateral wells improve reservoir production by maximizing drainage and sweep efficiency with only incremental increases in drilling and completion costs. Multi-lateral wells also solve the problem of reaching structurally isolated zones in spite of limited slots in offshore platforms. Working…
Geomechanical analysis is critical to understanding reservoir thickness changes that occur due to production and injection. With an accurate understanding of subsurface mechanical responses, geologists and engineers gain greater confidence in planning and operational decisions. Leveraging a geomechanics workflow for reservoir analysis can lead to a more efficient way to guide all phases of a…
Geologic complexity and a maze of existing wellbores can challenge the best well planners to navigate subsurface environments and determine the optimum wellbore trajectories for new, sidetrack, multilateral, or infill wells. Well planners share the responsibility with geologists, geophysicists, and drilling engineers to minimize drilling risks while cost-effectively reaching targets. The volume and variety of…