Geochemistry for Unconventional Play Development and Optimization Course

Eric Michael and Craig Barrie

Geochemical workflows are recognized in the oil and gas industry as an important component in the evaluation, and better understanding, of petroleum systems. In conventional systems the role of geochemistry has historically been utilized to de-risk exploration, and appraisal phases with only a minor application in development and production phases.
In unconventional resource plays (UCR), operators produce from hydrocarbon rich stacked formations and often the source rocks themselves. This style of development has led to new geochemical applications that assist with asset optimization. These new techniques have added to the industry’s scientific knowledge of source rock and fluid-rock interactions as well as expanding practical applications of geochemistry. These practical applications, that have been proven to be significant in improving resource play recoveries, are the subject of this special section.
The intent of this course is to introduce participants to practical, applied workflows derived from geochemical data. The use of geochemistry to quantify total and mobile oil in-place (OIP), determine vertical drainage height (drained rock volume) and production allocation by zone, covering both quantitative and qualitative approaches, will be covered in detail. Throughout the course best practices in rock and fluid sample collection, program design and cross-discipline (e.g., petrophysics, tracers and engineering) data integration will be presented. The course will focus on case studies from across the US L48 but will include both data and case studies from unconventional plays right across North America as well as emerging plays internationally.
This course will be beneficial to geoscientists, petrophysicists & engineers of any experience who wish to gain an understanding of how to successfully deploy applied geochemical programs and how to better utilize any legacy datasets.Read more...

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Course contents

    Chapter 1 - Best Practices, Collection & Methods

    01-00 - Introduction (11 min.)  Sample Lesson

    01-01 - Program Design, Principles & Implementation (19 min.) Quiz

    01-02 - Sample Collection (26 min.) Quiz

    01-03 - Geochemical Methods (31 min.) Quiz

    Chapter 2 - Resource Density Assessment

    02-01 - Mobility Definition (5 min.) Quiz

    02-02 - Oil in Place (OIP) (23 min.) Quiz

    02-03 - Production Fractionation in Tight Reservoir Applications (21 min.) Quiz

    02-04 - Organic Facies & Mobility (16 min.) Quiz

    02-05 - Integrating Resource Density & Production Allocation (15 min.) Quiz

    Chapter 3 - Production Allocation: Quantitative & Qualitative

    03-01 - Principles of Allocation (21 min.) Quiz

    03-02 - Error Analysis in Allocation Workflows (17 min.) Quiz

    03-03 - Defining End Members (17 min.) Quiz

    03-04 - Mathematical Approaches to Allocation (19 min.) Quiz

    03-05 - Allocation Toolkits: Graphical & Matrix Approaches (11 min.) Quiz

    03-06 - Allocation Toolkits: APT Allomon (18 min.) Quiz

    03-07 - Qualitative Evaluation Using Similarity Indices (SI) (19 min.) Quiz

    Chapter 4 – Production Allocation Case Studies

    04-01 - Case Study I - Lithology Considerations (21 min.) Quiz

    04-02 - Case Study II - Baseline Proximity & Coverage (22 min.) Quiz

    04-03 - Case Study III - Evaluating Conventional, Unconventional Plays (28 min.) Quiz

    04-04 - Case Study IV - High Maturity Wolfcamp (26 min.) Quiz

    04-05 - Case Study V - Targeting the Barnett/Woodford (28 min.) Quiz

    Chapter 5 - Gas Allocations

    05-01 - Allocating Gas Samples (26 min.) Quiz

    Chapter 6 - Production Monitoring

    06-01 - Well Interference Monitoring & Refrac Evaluation (26 min.) Quiz

    Chapter 7 - Cross-Discipline Integration

    07-01 - Cross-Discipline Integration With Geochemistry (25 min.) Quiz

    Chapter 8 - Well Integrity

    08-01 - Fugitive Hydrocarbons & Well Integrity Studies (14 min.) Quiz

    Chapter 9 - Production Metrics

    09-01 - Time Lapse Fluids & Production Metric Assessment (17 min.) Quiz