Chapter 1 - Best Practices, Collection & Methods

01-00 - Introduction (11 min.) Sample Lesson
01-01 - Program Design, Principles & Implementation (19 min.) Quiz: 01-01 - Program Design, Principles & Implementation
01-02 - Sample Collection (26 min.) Quiz: 01-02 - Sample Collection
01-03 - Geochemical Methods (31 min.) Quiz: 01-03 - Geochemical Methods

Chapter 2 - Resource Density Assessment

02-01 - Mobility Definition (5 min.) Quiz: 02-01 - Mobility Definition
02-02 - Oil in Place (OIP) (23 min.) Quiz: 02-02 - Oil in Place (OIP)
02-03 - Production Fractionation in Tight Reservoir Applications (21 min.) Quiz: 02-03 - Production Fractionation in Tight Reservoir Applications
02-04 - Organic Facies & Mobility (16 min.) Quiz: 02-04 - Organic Facies & Mobility
02-05 - Integrating Resource Density & Production Allocation (15 min.) Quiz: 02-05 - Integrating Resource Density & Production Allocation

Chapter 3 - Production Allocation: Quantitative & Qualitative

03-01 - Principles of Allocation (21 min.) Quiz: 03-01 - Principles of Allocation
03-02 - Error Analysis in Allocation Workflows (17 min.) Quiz: 03-02 - Error Analysis in Allocation Workflows
03-03 - Defining End Members (17 min.) Quiz: 03-03 - Defining End Members
03-04 - Mathematical Approaches to Allocation (19 min.) Quiz: 03-04 - Mathematical Approaches to Allocation
03-05 - Allocation Toolkits: Graphical & Matrix Approaches (11 min.) Quiz: 03-05 - Allocation Toolkits: Graphical & Matrix Approaches
03-06 - Allocation Toolkits: APT Allomon (18 min.) Quiz: 03-06 - Allocation Toolkits: APT Allomon
03-07 - Qualitative Evaluation Using Similarity Indices (SI) (19 min.) Quiz: 03-07 - Qualitative Evaluation Using Similarity Indices (SI)

Chapter 4 – Production Allocation Case Studies

04-01 - Case Study I - Lithology Considerations (21 min.) Quiz: 04-01 - Case Study I - Lithology Considerations
04-02 - Case Study II - Baseline Proximity & Coverage (22 min.) Quiz: 04-02 - Case Study II - Baseline Proximity & Coverage
04-03 - Case Study III - Evaluating Conventional, Unconventional Plays (28 min.) Quiz: 04-03 - Case Study III - Evaluating Conventional, Unconventional Plays
04-04 - Case Study IV - High Maturity Wolfcamp (26 min.) Quiz: 04-04 - Case Study IV - High Maturity Wolfcamp
04-05 - Case Study V - Targeting the Barnett/Woodford (28 min.) Quiz: 04-05 - Case Study V - Targeting the Barnett/Woodford

Chapter 5 - Gas Allocations

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

Chapter 6 - Production Monitoring

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

Chapter 7 - Cross-Discipline Integration

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

Chapter 8 - Well Integrity

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

Chapter 9 - Production Metrics

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

Geochemistry for Unconventional Play Development and Optimization / Chapter 1 - Best Practices, Collection & Methods

Lesson 01-00 - Introduction

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Transcript

01. Lesson 1.00: Introduction 02. Geochemistry Across the Asset Lifecycle 03. Learning Objectives 04. Chapter & Lesson Structure

01. Lesson 1.00: Introduction

Welcome to our course on Using Geochemistry for UnconventionalPlay Development and Optimization. My name is Craig Barrie. I'm a senior geochemist for Applied Petroleum Technology. And myself and Eric Michael our chief geochemical advisor for North America, are going to spend the next 26 lessons running through the principles of geochemistry in unconventionals, along with how to integrate legacy data, how to collect good samples, and with case study examples that has been deployed primarily in North America, but with some international examples as well. Eric and I have worked in virtually every major play in North America and most internationally. Eric, in particular, has covered almost any major basin around the globe. And Eric will introduce himself when he gives his first lesson properly.

02. Geochemistry Across the Asset Lifecycle

So what we're gonna talk about today is unconventionals. And what we're going to talk about in unconventionals is geochemistry applications. This is really what the course is focused on. It's applied geochemistry. It's how you use it. It's why you use it. And it's a lot of considerations you need to be looking at. So there's 4 areas across the asset lifecycle which we're going to be discussing over the next few hours and through the next 26 lessons or so.
Where we're going to spend quite a lot of time early on is on this initial area, exploration and appraisal. And for unconventionals, really, it's the appraisal side of things we're looking at. Where the focus lies there is often around resource density evaluation. So how much hydrocarbons do I have in my stratigraphy? How saturated are those ones and how mobile they are? All of that has an impact on what is going to produce. We'll touch upon fluid property mapping and prediction, pay zone identification,oil in place.
And then once we've covered that area, we'll move on to the development section. And that's where we're also going to spend a considerable amount of time over the next few hours. And that's primarily going to be focused on production allocation for unconventionals, a lot around the principles behind it and how it's been deployed and lots of good case study examples. And all the case studies have been selected because they show something different, something interesting and something you have to bear in mind when you do these projects. And this area is important because this is how you understand welldrainage "how's". It's how you understand how you maximize spacing and stacking patterns. That's the information you gain from production allocation in unconventionals.
We're also going to touch on completions and how you use production monitoring and time lapse geochemistry to understand the effectiveness of your fracs before you move into what you can do with it from a refrac standpoint.
And then where we'll finish off is around production and moving intodecline curve analysis and also evaluation of well integrity, which actually, it's crucially important. Generally it becomes increasingly important as fields mature and so forth. So we're going to show geochemistry across the asset lifecycle and the importance it plays.

03. Learning Objectives

These are most or at least the most important learning objectives we're going to have for this course. I will reiterate as we get through the lessons, good data starts in the field. And so you have to be able to collect good samples. And you have to understand what is meant by good samples. And so we'll cover that, not just for oils but also gases, cuttings, core, and all of the crucial understanding which needs to be borne in mind while doing that. As well as how you justify a geochemistry program.
How you utilize the geochemistry methods for estimating oil in place? Oil in place being a crucial component of this type of work.
We'll also spend quite a bit of time on fluid mobilityand the principles behind that, what it means and how you integrate it.
We'll look at time lapse geochemistry and the importance of understanding your flowback fluids. There's many ways of getting understanding. Some are quantitative, some are qualitative. All hold value. And just because you perhaps don't have a pilot hole, a baseline from which to work, does not mean you cannot do a geochemical program. It doesn't mean there's not information that can be gained.
And so we'll discuss quite a bit about how you build end member baselines.
We'll discuss quite a bit the principles behind building end member baselines and what the inherent limitations are because there are challenges in doing it. And I'll give a sneak peak now to say one of the challenges is oil-based mud. It's the enemy of geochemistry. And it's something which, if you want to work with cuttings, makes it virtually impossible. But there are routes through it and there's routes to understanding.
We'll look at not just oil allocations, but oil, water, and gas. What the approaches are? How they differ? Where you can go with it?
And what are the important areas we like to focus on is mathematics. There are lots of ways to get data, as noted, but if you want to do quantitative allocation, there is a gold standard in terms of what you should be doing and what you should be considering; ratios and concentrations.
We'll also look at what is meant by end members. I mean, there's a lot of geochemistry programs out there, and there's quite often a lot of misunderstanding of how you define a proper end member, what the limitations are, and how far you can push it in allocation workflows.
Geochemistry should not be an island. Data integration is hugely valuable. It can be challenging to talk to other disciplines, but geochemistry should work with geology. It should work with petrophysics, it should work with engineering. We should be incorporating tracers in geology. I can give a story, I can give understanding. But the full story comes from pulling all that data and those disciplines together. So we'll touch upon that quite a bit with some good examples of why it's important and why the story doesn't necessarily change but is refined.
We'll also, as noted, look at how we use geochemistry for completions and understand refrac effectiveness.
And we'll touch on well integrity and how you build a baseline for well integrity and how you can assess it geochemically.
Before finishing off by looking at geochemical approaches to decline curve models. And that's a relatively inexpensive way of getting a quick understanding of your decline curve models and what you're going to see down the line. How are you going to forecast? Again, it's complimentary to other tool sets. There's a lot of complimentary geochemistry which can be deployed.

04. Chapter & Lesson Structure

So we have a number of chapters. And each chapter is designed to build understanding before you move on to the next area. You don't have to follow an order, but it does offer much more value if you do.
So Chapter 1 is going to focus on Best Practices, Collection & Methods. So we'll look at the various geochemical methods out there. Gas chromatography, mass spectrometry, so forth. How they're utilized. What they mean. Just to give you a basic understanding. We'll look at sample collection and we'll look at program design, principles and implementation. How are we designing these programs? Why are we designing them the way we are?
We then have a large chapter, Chapter 2, on Resource Density Assessment. And my colleague, Eric Michael, will cover most of that area. What we mean by mobility, what we mean by oil in place, and how production fractionation, which is a big challenge and something which needs to be understood and assessed in this program, where it plays a role in tight reservoirs, before moving on to organic facies and how we integrate this data with our next chapter.
And our next chapter is going to be Quantitative Allocation. That will largely be given by myself across 7 lessons. And we're looking at the principles of allocation, error analysis, how we define end members, what the mathematical approaches are, what the various toolkits are out there, how you could take your legacy data and build these models yourselves, our own toolkits, and what you might want to do from a qualitative standpoint. Maybe you don't have a baseline. So what can you do? We'll show you what you can do. Again, do it with your legacy data. Do it with the data you have from any of the service companies you have collected your data from. Give it value.
Chapter 4, again, another one which I'll largely cover, is going to be the Case Studies. We have 5 production allocation studies. A number from the lower 48 in the US, some international. All covering specific aspects of principles behind allocation, but also some nice nuances and understanding. Particularly, as most operators in the lower 48 now are targeting shallower horizons than they used to, so there are considerations when you're moving into the middle Spraberry or the upper Spraberry, so forth. But they're also going deeper. They're going into the Wolfcamp C, the Wolfcamp D, theBarnett, the Woodford where they wouldn't go before. And there are challenges and considerations to be borne in mind there. And so we'll show some nice examples from that.
Chapter 5: we're going to touch on Gas Allocations. As noted, you don't just do allocations on oil, you can do it on gases. And we have some nice examples there from work actually in Canada and the lower 48 in the US.
Chapter 6 is going to look at Production Monitoring. What we can do from a well interference monitoring standpoint and where you can go when you're considering refracs and how we do that, why we do that, what the principles are.
Chapter 7 is going to be Cross-Discipline Integration. So this is where I say geochemistry shouldn't be a standalone island. There's lots of value from bringing geology in, bringing petrophysics in, bringing engineering in. And that will look at some nice case studies there and why those integrations were crucial to getting at the correct answer.
Chapter 8 is going to look at Well Integrity and what we mean by fugitive hydrocarbons.
And then Chapter 9, we'll finish off looking at Production Metrics. And then that will give you a good handle and a comprehensive understanding of how geochemistry can and is deployed right across the asset lifecycle in unconventionals.
So I look forward to seeing you in the first lesson, which will be program design principles and implementation.