Petroleum geoscience is an exciting and complex combination of science and
business. To understand the challenges facing petroleum geoscientists in 2004,
it is important to look at recent trends and events.
Technology advances in petroleum geoscience during the last two decades have
been remarkable. We are now able to cost effectively image the subsurface in
3-D and 4-D better than ever before. In addition, we now have 3-D geological
modeling tools that allow us to do everything from tracing multi-phase fluid
flow through 3-D architectural models of hydrocarbon reservoirs to unraveling
the 4-D structural, thermal, diagenetic and fluid flow histories of entire basins.
Despite these technology improvements, exploration during the last several years
has failed to find enough new petroleum resources to offset global consumption.
Within the next few years, global consumption rates will exceed global production
capacity. Therefore, the industry must find new hydrocarbon resources at a faster
rate and it must extract more hydrocarbons from fields that have already been
discovered. Many of the emerging new technologies that will help meet these
challenges for both exploration and field development are focused on characterization
of reservoir properties and their distribution.
For exploration, pre-drill reservoir characterization has become a critical
tool for quantifying risk, predicting reservoir quality and managing prospect
portfolios. Since the mid-1990s, substantial advances have been made by combining
quantitative seismic analysis techniques, such as amplitude vs. offset (AVO),
acoustic impedance and elastic impedance, with petroleum-systems modeling to
predict reservoir quality, probability of hydrocarbon charge and hydrocarbon
type. Unfortunately, these techniques have not yet provided reliable information
about hydrocarbon saturation or quality. Within the last few months, the application
of electromagnetic seabed logging techniques is starting to provide the added
promise of distinguishing low hydrocarbon saturations and tar from producible
hydrocarbons. If these electromagnetic techniques prove successful, they will
further enhance our ability to quantify exploration risk in offshore settings.
Once a field has been discovered, 3-D geologic models are becoming increasingly
more important for designing development plans and constraining reservoir simulations
for production history matching. Research and development by petroleum companies,
vendors and academic groups is providing significant new tools for populating
geologic details into these models. First, quantitative seismic techniques are
being refined to more accurately estimate reservoir properties from seismic
attributes. One of the most intriguing new seismic techniques is the use azimuthal
velocities and azimuthal AVO to map fracture orientations and densities. Second,
several structural geology groups are building tools to construct topologically
and kinematically correct structural models that allow more accurate predictions
of fault and fracture properties in reservoirs. Third, several sedimentology
groups are working on different techniques to populate depositional fabrics
into geologic models to assess their impact on anisotropy and fluid flow in
a reservoir.
Beyond these scientific techniques for quantifying subsurface petroleum accumulations,
we were reminded earlier this year that there are often other considerations
that impact the business side of petroleum geoscience: Two international petroleum
companies announced significant reductions in their SEC Proved Reserves. Both
companies saw an immediate drop in stock price and the business community is
waiting to see what the ultimate effect of these reserves cuts will be.
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