What's new in exploration

I am sure that most of you have seen the graphic depictions of automobile crash tests, wherein the auto plows into a wall. The wall seems to be unscathed. The automobile is not so fortunate. That is a realistic depiction of the result of a collision between politicians, and the oil and gas industry. The politicians are, of course, the immovable wall. And the oil and gas industry is, obviously, the mangled auto.

This scene was played out again in the U.S. recently, with the passage of a small “budget” bill designed, the politicians maintained, to avert another government shutdown. The bill actually increases spending in its first two years and only barely decreases spending over the next eight.

I know you are wondering what this has to do with oil and gas exploration. As it turns out, a little noted addendum to the bill kills the Research Partnership to Secure Energy for America (RPSEA), a government-funded, upstream R&D initiative in partnership with industry and academia, both of whom provide additional funding. The partnership was, for the U.S., a first-of-its-kind program to ensure energy supplies for the future. And, it included a number of exploration-oriented technology development projects that have, or would have, added to our capability to find and produce oil and gas. Among these were:

Geophysical Modeling for Studying Acquisition and Processing Methods in the Deepwater Gulf of Mexico. This project was designed to contribute to the evolution of geophysical imaging technology by providing a realistic, benchmark geological model containing multiple geophysical attributes, along with two synthetic seismic datasets and three synthetic non-seismic datasets that will allow industry to assess individual, as well as joint, geophysical acquisition and processing techniques for generating images of hydrocarbon reservoirs beneath, and surrounding, massive, complex salt bodies.

Early Reservoir Appraisal Utilizing a Well Testing System. The objective of this project was to define appropriate cost-effective systems for testing deepwater reservoirs to avoid the use of expensive production and storage facilities or Mobile Offshore Drilling Units. It is designed to build a database on deepwater GOM reservoirs, define the tests to be conducted and equipment for testing, and provide software written specifically to assess alternative equipment and estimate costs for conducting specific tests. The project team reviewed eight alternative approaches, determined their Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs), identified technology gaps, and prepared a conceptual design for a practical, effective, low-cost system.

Ultra-Deepwater Resources to Reserves Development and Acceleration through Appraisal. The project’s objective is to facilitate development of ultra-deepwater resources by devising techniques to assess the connectivity characteristics of deepwater sediments, based on analysis of reservoir analogs, reservoir databases, and a model for a mature reservoir. A key focus will be the development of guidelines for acquisition of additional reservoir information (e.g., well tests) using value-of-information concepts. Additional objectives are to prove that geologic models can be developed and to determine the level of details that can be obtained from well test data, alone.

A 1,000-Level Drill Pipe-Deployed, Fiber-Optic, 3C Receiver Array for Deep Boreholes. This project will design a drill pipe-deployed, 3C borehole seismic array that is capable of deploying 1,000 3C sensors, i.e., 3,000 channels, using novel broadband fiber optic geophones that can be deployed to at least 200ºC, and 30,000 psig, to a drilled depth of 30,000 ft. The objectives include manufacturing, testing and evaluating the performance of the 100-level 3C Prototype System, using the recorded test data sets.

Multi-azimuth Seismic Diffraction Imaging for Fracture Characterization in Low-Permeability Gas Formations. This project’s objective is to create the seismic technology for fracture detection, using P-wave diffraction imaging, and test it against realistic fracture patterns. Also, the project will perfect sidewall-core and wireline-based methods that can be used to verify the new seismic method.

Evaluation of Fracture Systems and Stress Fields within the Marcellus Shale and Utica Shale, and Characterization of Associated Water Disposal Reservoirs: Appalachian Basin. In this project, rock physics modeling, in combination with new seismic data-acquisition technologies based on cableless boxes and accelerated-weight and vector-explosive sources, is to be used to demonstrate how combinations of offset-dependent and azimuth-dependent P-wave and S-wave attributes can be used to optimize exploitation of fractured, shale gas reservoirs.

Predicting Higher-Than-Average Permeability Zones in Tight-Gas Sands, Piceance Basin: An Integrated Structural and Stratigraphic Analysis. The research objective is to investigate depositional geometries and fabrics, such as fluvial channel architecture, channel orientation, accretion sets, sedimentary fabrics, grain-size and sorting; and control the mechanical properties, lateral extent and thickness of beds and, thus, the fractures within those beds. A better, more integrated understanding of the structural, stratigraphic and diagenetic controls on tight gas sandstones would allow the development of more sophisticated E&P strategies.

The results of these projects, a couple of which are completed but not widely distributed, might have resulted in an increase in our exploration and reservoir characterization capabilities. But that, of course, pales beside the benefits to politicians who left Washington for the holidays shortly after the bill, proclaiming to the public that they had protected them from Washington’s fiscal irresponsibility—really, they did.