Petroleum geology is the study of the origins, occurrence, movement, accumulation, and exploration of hydrocarbon fuels. It refers to the specific set of geological disciplines that are applied to the search for hydrocarbons.
In petroleum exploration and development, formation evaluation is used to determine the ability of a borehole to produce petroleum. Essentially, it is the process of "recognizing a commercial well when you drill one".
In the oil and gas industry, the term wireline usually refers to the use of multi-conductor, single conductor or slickline cable, or "wireline", as a conveyance for the acquisition of subsurface petrophysical and geophysical data and the delivery of well construction services such as pipe recovery, perforating, plug setting and well cleaning and fishing. The subsurface geophysical and petrophysical information results in the description and analysis of subsurface geology, reservoir properties and production characteristics.
Schlumberger NV, doing business as SLB, also known as Schlumberger Limited, is an American oilfield services company. As of 2022, it is both the world's largest offshore drilling company and the world's largest offshore drilling contractor by revenue.
Exploration logging is the process of wireline logging, geophysical logging, geotechnical logging or geological logging of a drill hole, its core, or its rock cuttings for petrophysics or petrology. The practice is usually used in the mining, mineral exploration or oil and natural gas sectors.
Well logging, also known as borehole logging is the practice of making a detailed record of the geologic formations penetrated by a borehole. The log may be based either on visual inspection of samples brought to the surface or on physical measurements made by instruments lowered into the hole. Some types of geophysical well logs can be done during any phase of a well's history: drilling, completing, producing, or abandoning. Well logging is performed in boreholes drilled for the oil and gas, groundwater, mineral and geothermal exploration, as well as part of environmental and geotechnical studies.
A drilling rig is used to create a borehole or well in the earth's sub-surface, for example in order to extract natural resources such as gas or oil. During such drilling, data is acquired from the drilling rig sensors for a range of purposes such as: decision-support to monitor and manage the smooth operation of drilling; to make detailed records of the geologic formations penetrated by a borehole; to generate operations statistics and performance benchmarks such that improvements can be identified, and to provide well planners with accurate historical operations-performance data with which to perform statistical risk analysis for future well operations. The terms measurement while drilling (MWD), and logging while drilling (LWD) are not used consistently throughout the industry. Although these terms are related, within the context of this section, the term measurement while drilling refers to directional-drilling measurements, e.g. for decision support for the wellbore path, while LWD refers to measurements concerning the geological formations penetrated while drilling.
A drill stem test (DST) is a procedure for isolating and testing the pressure, permeability and productive capacity of a geological formation during the drilling of a well. The test is an important measurement of pressure behaviour at the drill stem and is a valuable way of obtaining information on the formation fluid and establishing whether a well has found a commercial hydrocarbon reservoir.
Petrophysics is the study of physical and chemical rock properties and their interactions with fluids.
In the oil and gas industry, coiled tubing refers to a long metal pipe, normally 1 to 3.25 in in diameter which is supplied spooled on a large reel. It is used for interventions in oil and gas wells and sometimes as production tubing in depleted gas wells. Coiled tubing is often used to carry out operations similar to wirelining. The main benefits over wireline are the ability to pump chemicals through the coil and the ability to push it into the hole rather than relying on gravity. Pumping can be fairly self-contained, almost a closed system, since the tube is continuous instead of jointed pipe. For offshore operations, the 'footprint' for a coiled tubing operation is generally larger than a wireline spread, which can limit the number of installations where coiled tubing can be performed and make the operation more costly. A coiled tubing operation is normally performed through the drilling derrick on the oil platform, which is used to support the surface equipment, although on platforms with no drilling facilities a self-supporting tower can be used instead. For coiled tubing operations on sub-sea wells a mobile offshore drilling unit (MODU) e.g. semi-submersible, drillship etc. has to be utilized to support all the surface equipment and personnel, whereas wireline can be carried out from a smaller and cheaper intervention vessel. Onshore, they can be run using smaller service rigs, and for light operations a mobile self-contained coiled tubing rig can be used.
A cement bond log documents the evaluation of the integrity of cement work performed on an oil well. In the process of drilling and completing a well, cement is injected through the wellbore and rises up the annulus between the steel casing and the formation.
In geophysics, seismic inversion is the process of transforming seismic reflection data into a quantitative rock-property description of a reservoir. Seismic inversion may be pre- or post-stack, deterministic, random or geostatistical; it typically includes other reservoir measurements such as well logs and cores.
In the oil and gas industry, reservoir modeling involves the construction of a computer model of a petroleum reservoir, for the purposes of improving estimation of reserves and making decisions regarding the development of the field, predicting future production, placing additional wells and evaluating alternative reservoir management scenarios.
Omnishale process is an in situ shale oil extraction technology to convert kerogen in oil shale to shale oil. This process is classified as an externally generated hot gas technology. The technology is developed by General Synfuels International, a subsidiary of Earth Search Sciences.
The Queen's Award for Enterprise: Innovation (Technology) (2010) was awarded on 21 April 2010, by Queen Elizabeth II.
ESG Solutions is a geophysical products and services company specializing in microseismic monitoring. ESG manufactures and installs microseismic instrumentation and performs microseismic data processing and interpretation services. It is headquartered in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, with operations in Calgary, Houston, and Beijing and offices in Brisbane, Surabaya and Dallas. The company was purchased by Deep Imaging in May 2021. Prior to this the company was purchased by FTSE 250 Index constituent, Spectris, in December 2014.
Mount Elbert Methane Hydrate Site is a natural gas test site within the Alaska North Slope. The well was first drilled in 2007 as part of a Cooperative Research Agreement with BP Exploration (Alaska), Inc. (BPXA) and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) in collaboration with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). The aim was to help determine whether natural gas hydrate in the area can become a commercially viable gas resource. Results so far are promising.
Miller and Mochen, Ltd. is a petroleum consulting company based in Houston, Texas. The firm provides services including reserves certifications, audits, and independent evaluations. They prepare evaluations according to the standards of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Regulation S-X and the Petroleum Resources Management System (PRMS) published by the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE).
Wireline quality assurance and quality control is a set of requirements and operating procedures which take place before, during, and after the wireline logging job. The main merits of wireline QA/QC include accuracy and precision of recorded data and information. Accuracy is a measure of the correctness of the result and is generally depended on how well the systematic errors are controlled and compensated for. Precision is depended on how well random errors are analysed and overcame.
