Related Research Articles
Petroleum engineering is a field of engineering concerned with the activities related to the production of Hydrocarbons, which can be either crude oil or natural gas. Exploration and production are deemed to fall within the upstream sector of the oil and gas industry. Exploration, by earth scientists, and petroleum engineering are the oil and gas industry's two main subsurface disciplines, which focus on maximizing economic recovery of hydrocarbons from subsurface reservoirs. Petroleum geology and geophysics focus on provision of a static description of the hydrocarbon reservoir rock, while petroleum engineering focuses on estimation of the recoverable volume of this resource using a detailed understanding of the physical behavior of oil, water and gas within porous rock at very high pressure.
Coalbed methane extraction is a method for extracting methane from a coal deposit. Coal bed methane (CBM) is one of the factors restricting safe production of coal in underground coal mines. It is also a form of high-quality energy that can be used in many fields such as power generation, heating, and chemical industries. CBM extraction is therefore carried out prior to extraction with a view of increasing the safety of mining coal beds, and as a useful energy resource to be exploited.
Petroleum geology is the study of origin, 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.
An oil well is a boring in the Earth that is designed to bring petroleum oil hydrocarbons to the surface. Usually some natural gas is released as associated petroleum gas along with the oil. A well that is designed to produce only gas may be termed a gas well. Wells are created by drilling down into an oil or gas reserve that is then mounted with an extraction device such as a pumpjack which allows extraction from the reserve. Creating the wells can be an expensive process, costing at least hundreds of thousands of dollars, and costing much more when in hard to reach areas, e.g., when creating offshore oil platforms. The process of modern drilling for wells first started in the 19th century, but was made more efficient with advances to oil drilling rigs during the 20th century.
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".
Hydrocarbon exploration is the search by petroleum geologists and geophysicists for deposits of hydrocarbons, particularly petroleum and natural gas, in the Earth using petroleum geology.
Coalbed methane, coalbed gas, coal seam gas (CSG), or coal-mine methane (CMM) is a form of natural gas extracted from coal beds. In recent decades it has become an important source of energy in United States, Canada, Australia, and other countries.
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.
Ekofisk is an oil field in block 2/4 of the Norwegian sector of the North Sea about 320 km (200 mi) southwest of Stavanger. Discovered in 1969 by Phillips Petroleum Company, it remains one of the most important oil fields in the North Sea. This was the first discovery of oil after the drilling of over 200 exploration wells in the North Sea "triggered" by the Groningen gas field discovery. In 1971, Phillips started producing directly to tankers from four subsea wells. Oil production is planned to continue until at least 2050.
Oil reserves refers to the amount of crude oil that can be technically recovered at a cost that is financially feasible at the present price of oil. Hence reserves will change with the price, unlike oil resources, which include all oil that can be technically recovered at any price. Reserves may be for a well, a reservoir, a field, a nation, or the world. Different classifications of reserves are related to their degree of certainty.
A petroleum reservoir or oil and gas reservoir is a subsurface accumulation of hydrocarbons contained in porous or fractured rock formations.
Mud logging is the creation of a detailed record of a borehole by examining the cuttings of rock brought to the surface by the circulating drilling medium. Mud logging is usually performed by a third-party mud logging company. This provides well owners and producers with information about the lithology and fluid content of the borehole while drilling. Historically it is the earliest type of well log. Under some circumstances compressed air is employed as a circulating fluid, rather than mud. Although most commonly used in petroleum exploration, mud logging is also sometimes used when drilling water wells and in other mineral exploration, where drilling fluid is the circulating medium used to lift cuttings out of the hole. In hydrocarbon exploration, hydrocarbon surface gas detectors record the level of natural gas brought up in the mud. A mobile laboratory is situated by the mud logging company near the drilling rig or on deck of an offshore drilling rig, or on a drill ship.
Petrophysics is the study of physical and chemical rock properties and their interactions with fluids.
Reservoir simulation is an area of reservoir engineering in which computer models are used to predict the flow of fluids through porous media.
Usable petroleum can be drawn out from beneath the earth's surface from a designated area in many different ways with varying possibilities of the quality and resource amount from the extraction.
Steam injection is an increasingly common method of extracting heavy crude oil. Used commercially since the 1960s, it is considered an enhanced oil recovery (EOR) method and is the main type of thermal stimulation of oil reservoirs. There are several different forms of the technology, with the two main ones being Cyclic Steam Stimulation and Steam Flooding. Both are most commonly applied to oil reservoirs, which are relatively shallow and which contain crude oils which are very viscous at the temperature of the native underground formation. Steam injection is widely used in the San Joaquin Valley of California (US), the Lake Maracaibo area of Venezuela, and the oil sands of northern Alberta,Canada.
Porosity or void fraction is a measure of the void spaces in a material, and is a fraction of the volume of voids over the total volume, between 0 and 1, or as a percentage between 0% and 100%. Strictly speaking, some tests measure the "accessible void", the total amount of void space accessible from the surface.
Heavy oil production is a developing technology for extracting heavy oil in industrial quantities. Estimated reserves of heavy oil are over 6 trillion barrels, three times that of conventional oil and gas.
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.
Gas initially in place (GIIP) or original gas in place (OGIP) denote the total estimated quantity (volume) of natural gas contained in a "subsurface" asset prior to extraction (production).
References
- ↑ "Math strikes oil!". NCE-MSTL and Engineers Ireland Mathematics Worksheets for Schools. Retrieved September 7, 2014.
- 1 2 Lisa Dean (December 2007). "Reservoir engineering for geologists. Part 3 - Volumetric estimation" (PDF). Reservoir. Canadian Society of Petroleum Geologists (11). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-12-28. Retrieved 2014-09-07.
- ↑ HCIIP Calculation and Formula on the Petroleum Geology Forums
- ↑ "Defining the Limits of Oil Production". International Energy Outlook 2008. U.S. Department of Energy. June 2008. Archived from the original on 2008-09-24. Retrieved 2008-11-22.