PRODUCTION OPERATOR II

MODULE – 1
GEOLOGY AND EXPLORATION

INTRODUCTION TO THE PETROLEUM INDUSTRY

• Oil, or petroleum to give its correct name, has been known and used for
thousands of years.
• Seepages from cracks in the ground were collected and used for lamp fuel
and medicine in the Middle East and China over 3000 years ago.
• Eternal fires due to the burning of oil seeps and gas leakage’s were recorded
in Iraq over 2,500 years ago.
• Dried out oil seeps, in the form of bitumen lakes, have been used for many
centuries to keep ships watertight, build roads and even as mortar for house
building by ancient Greeks.
• The petroleum industry as it is known today started in the USA.
• The first well to be purposely drilled for oil was at Titusville Pennsylvania in
1859.
• The oil in those days was used to make kerosene for use in oil lamps.
• The other kind of fuel oil known at the time was whale oil.
• The cost of whale oil had become so expensive that alternative fuels had to be
found.
• It was the invention of the gasoline engine, around 1900, that increased the
demand for oil.
• Kerosene had to be refined to produce the lighter grade of petroleum (gasoline)
that was needed for automobile fuel.
• This requirement generated the growth of the refinery industry.
• Demand further increased when ships changed from coal to oil for fuel. Since
those days the uses for oil and gas have steadily increased.
• The petrochemical industry uses petroleum to produce many products such as
soap, detergents, cosmetics, perfumes, plastics, drugs and medicines.
• Many new products have been developed by the industry to improve living
standards.

Today the economy of the world depends upon the petroleum industry.
• These great surges in demand led to the creation of the modern petroleum
industry with its current specialized technology.
• Rotary drilling, seismic surveying, well casing, cementing, coring, logging,, well
design, blow-out prevention, wire line servicing, workover, and offshore techniques
are examples of special services which have been developed over the years.
• More recently governments and industry have come to appreciate that
petroleum is a scarce and valuable resource.
• They have adopted conservation policies designed to prevent waste.
• In the past, the gas was flared because there was no means to harness or
use it for fuel.
• The total utilization policy of today tries to make use of all available
energy.
• Gas is dried and compressed, for re-injection into the reservoir for storage
(conservation for future utilization) or as a means of artificial lift, or for
transportation through pipelines, or liquefied for shipment to distant areas.
• Over the years the world demand for petroleum has increased. This demand will
continue to increase as more nations become industrialized
a 1900 100,000,000 (100 million) barrels,
b 1981 20,000,000,000 (20 billion) barrels.
• These figures only account for oil products. Liquefied gas levels also show
increases as more gas becomes available.
• Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) is being used in more and more domestic and
industrial applications. A study of Figure 10.01 and 10.01A will give you an idea
of the various sources of energy supply available.
• However such energy supplies and their associated technologies remain
underdeveloped while the role of crude oil continues as the prime supplier of world
energy.
FIGURE 10.01 ENERGY SUPPLY AND DEMAND
FIGURE 10.01A RATE OF CONSUMPTION OF ENERGY
 PETROLEUM GEOLOGY
GEOLOGICAL FUNDAMENTALS AND ROCK
STRUCTURES
• Rocks of the earth and in fact all our solar system, can be divided into three
main divisions.
• Igneous: formed by solidification of molten lava.
• Sedimentary: formed by material laid down by gravity.
• Metamorphic: formed by heating or re-heating the above two.
The First Sediments
• As the earth cooled and as the atmosphere developed, rain began to fall on the
rocky surface.
• Streams ran from the high peaks and collected in low valleys and shallow
depressions of the surface to form the first oceans.
• As the streams ran from the heights they removed particles of rock and
deposited them at lower places.
FIGURE 10.03 ROCK CYCLE
• Current Bedding
• There is a series of inclined planes having some relationship to the direction of
current flow, the angle of the rest of sediment and the rate of supply.
• Another term used is cross- bedding. This bedding forms when sediment,
commonly sand, is transported by wind or water, and accumulates on a sloping
surface, which may be the seam bed at the mouth of the river, or the lee side of
a sand-dune. Individual strata wedge out and are inclined in the direction of the
current, so that the original direction of flow of wind or water may be determined.

After many million years, the sediments which have built up on the lower
floors of the Earth's surface (or substance if deposited at river mouth
such as illustrated in Figure 10.02)
 Graded Bedding
• This is a sedimentary stratum which displays a sorting effect with the “Coarsest”
material at the base and the “finest” material at the top. This type of bedding is
formed by the rapid settling of large quantities of sediment so that larger particles,
settling more rapidly, accumulate at the bottom, and the slower settling finer
material remains at the top.
• In strongly folded rocks this feature can be used as a method of determining the
orientation ( “the right way up') criteria.
Slump Bedding
• This type is a folded or contorted structure produced by the sliding or slumping of
wet, recently deposited sediment, down a slope on the sea floor.
• It is often associated with graded bedding.
Ripple Marks
• These are commonly seen on bedding planes and are produced by the movement
of water or wind over the sediment, thus shaping it into parallel ridges.
BEDS (Graded bedding)
BEDSSICILIY
CHILLMIRGIN FOLDED (Slump Bedding)
RIPPLES MARKS
CHILLMIRGIN
DIPBED
DISHARM (FOLDING)
GNEISSIBAND
GRANDCANYON (STRIAGHT BEDDING)
LISTNORMAL
THRUST FAULT
 Unconformity
• An unconformity in a succession of rocks represents a time interval during which
there was erosion, followed later by further deposition.
• The time gap represented may have been of short duration so that the older and
newer series of rocks are parallel (sometimes called a disconformity);
sometimes, however, the time space was sufficiently long enough for there to
have been either considerable erosion or for the older rocks to have been tilted
before the newer rocks were deposited.
• Such unconformities can sometimes be traced for considerable distances, and
may be of importance in correlating one sequence of rocks with another.
• They are indicative of relative movements of land and sea.
AGE OF ROCKS
• There are two principal methods for determining the age of rocks or the stratum
to which they belong.
SICCAR/UNCONFORMITY FAULT
 a) Relative age
• The relative age is based on the principle that in a sequence of
sediments the lowest is the oldest; igneous rocks are younger than
those they intrude; and folded rocks are older than the earth movements
that folded them.
• A sequence of rocks in one place and another sequence in a different
place can be compared by its fossil fauna and flora.
• Thus a scale can be made up, stretching back to the first rocks
containing fossils. This scale is known as the stratigraphical column.
b) Age in years
• The age in years is determined by radioactive dating.
• If the amount of radioactive element can be measured in a rock and the
amount of decay found (half-life) then the time since the particles started
to accumulate can be measured.
• The age of the earth is thus: 4.6 X 10 9 years
• First fossil : 2.5 X 10 9 years
• Life in abundance: 0.6 X 10 9 years
 Stratigraphical Column
• The earth was barren for over half of its life; then at some indeterminate
point of time life began in the oceans.
• These life forms were buried in the sediments and continued to
accumulate.
• At the beginning of the Cambrian period, life was abundant in the
oceans, but it was not until the Devonian period that vegetation
became widespread on the land areas, and later still before land
animals became common.
• Because life has continuously evolved from the time it started late in
• Precambrian time, the fossil remains of animals and plants (fauna and
flora), succeed one another in a definite and determinable order. This
has enabled the succession of rocks to be subdivided into eras called
• Palaeozoic,
• Mesozoic, and
• Cenozoic and
• smaller subdivisions of period and epoch (see Table 10.01).

Palaeontology
• Palaeontology is study of prehistoric animals and plants of which remains
or other indications are found in sedimentary rocks and which are
described as fossils.
• A fossil represents part of a once living creature or plant, or has been
formed by the action of a once living organism.
• Examples: the bones of dinosaurs are fossils and so also are the footprints
which a dinosaur made in wet sand.
• The term fossil means great age since it only refers to the remains of
organisms which dies in prehistoric times.
• It does not imply however that all fossils must represent extinct organisms;
a wide variety of forms living today are known also from the fossil record.
• GEOLOGICAL PROCESSES
Deposition
• After heavy rains the rivers carry prodigious amounts of mud and sand
to the sea and the discoloration of the sea shows how this material
becomes distributed along the coast. It becomes deposited on the
continental shelf and although exceptions are abundant, the finest
material generally gets carried out further to sea, while the coarsest
becomes deposited first. Smaller contributions to these deposits come
from wave action along the coast and from wind-blown sand and dust.
• A rapid increase in slope of the surface begins at about 600 feet and
from there the surface drops more rapidly to the ocean depths.
• It should be noted that the oceans are the main receptacles for
sedimentary deposits; while in general, the land surface is an area of
active denudation.
• The sediments on deep burial eventually become consolidated to
sedimentary rocks; mud to mudstone; sand to sandstone; pebbles to
conglomerate and calcareous material to limestone.
• Detrital material is a term applied to any particles of minerals, or more
rarely, rocks which have been derived from pre-existing rock by
processes of weathering or erosion. Some detrital minerals are
economically important; most of the world's tin supplies come from
detrital cassiterite, while gold, diamonds and titanium are also found in
this form.
• Materials can also be transported in solution and deposited later by
evaporation and chemical precipitation (rock salt, phosphates,
hydrates). Finally organic matter, such as the remains of vegetation,
can be transported, deposited and consolidated to form peat - and later
coal.

Geosynclines
• These consist of elongated basins which become filled with a very great
thickness of sediment and because of this fact, progressive
subsidence of the basin floor must have occurred. The accumulated
pile of sediments is subsequently strongly deformed by organic forces
into a fold-mountain chain, and during this process the lower portions of
the sedimentary pile may become highly metamorphosed and granite
emplacement may take place
• Volcanic rocks are also found interconnected with sediments. It has been
suggested that the Gulf of Mexico is a modern example of this process. Refer to
Figure 10.04.

Deltaic Deposition
• A delta is a deposit of sediments formed at the mouth of a river where it enters a
lake of the sea.
• It is normally built up only where there is no tidal or current action capable of
removing the sediment as fast as it is deposited, and hence the delta builds
forward from the coastline.
• This process of building up is complex, and leads to the formation of a number of
separate channels (distributors), isolated lagoons, levees, marshy ground and a
network of small creeks.
• Most deltas are complicated and multiple, but in a simple delta three main types of
bed may be distinguished:
• a The bottomset beds - forming on the sea bottom beyond the seaward
face of the delta.
• b The foreset beds - building outward from the seaward face of the
delta over the bottom set beds.
• c The topset beds - which are deposited above the already deposited
foreset beds. This triple structure may be seen
on a small scale in cross-bedding.

• Deltaic sediments can generally be recognized by this type of sedimentary feature.

Sediments found are, in general sands of various sorts, clay material and silts,
together with a certain amount of organic debris.
• A good deal of deposition takes place by the flocculation of colloidal material in the
river water when it comes into contact with the sea.
• Occasionally conglomerates are deposited during extreme floods.

TYPES OF SEDIMENTARY ROCKS AND

THEIR PROPERTIES
• There are four principal types of sedimentary rock. Sandstone and shale (both
known as clastics or rocks which are formed from fragments of other rock), and
limestone and evaporates (both known as chemical deposits as they are formed by
chemical precipitation from sea water).
• The basic rock properties of interest in the search for hydrocarbons are porosity
and permeability, see Figure 10.05.
Porosity.
• This is the amount of space between the grain particles in the rock, available for
holding fluids. Porosity is measured in percent.

Permeability
This is the ability of the liquids to flow through the rock; the liquid flowing through
the pores around the grains of rock. Permeability is measured in millidarcies.
• The tremendous weight above the deeply buried sediments gradually compressed
them into layers of sandstone, shale, limestone, dolomite and other types of
sedimentary rock. This process was helped by heat, pressure, bacteria,
chemical and radioactive reactions.
• If silica (present in most sands) is present in the deposit it will dissolve in the water
contained in the deposit.
• Due to the effects of the heat the silica solution will re-crystallize between the rock
particles. If the deposit is sufficiently permeable, flow of water through the
particles may occur.
• Any carbonates dissolved in the water will also be precipitated due to the higher
temperature.
• These two processes, silica re-crystallization and carbonate precipitation, are
referred to as Cementation since they act to bind the individual grains together.
• In general, the deeper a rock has been beneath the surface of the earth (which is
not necessarily the depth at which it is found) the greater will be the degree of
cementation.
• This process of pressure increase, temperature increase, and cementation, is
known as ‘diagenesis'.
• The greater its degree of cementation the lower the porosity and the
permeability.
• The different sedimentary rock types often occur in combination, i.e.
sandy limestones, calcareous mudstones, saliferous (salty) shales etc.
• The principal characteristics of each type are as follows:
 Sandstone.

Consists of sand size grains composed predominantly of quartz. Often

cemented by a silica or carbonate cement. It is the typical oil reservoir
rock.
• The porosity occurs as spaces between the grains and the amount of
porosity depends on the grain size, the grain shape, the degree of sorting
and the amount of cement.
• The permeability of a rock does not correlate directly with the porosity but
it is usually good in a clean porous sandstone.
Shale/mudstone/claystone/siltstone.

Shale is composed of silt sized grains and smaller. Clay particles make
up a large percentage of the rock. It usually displays laminations parallel
to the bedding plane.
• The porosity of the shale is often as large as that of the good sandstone, the pores
are so small and the pore throats so restricted that the effective porosity is zero.
• The rock is usually impermeable, unless it is fractured which allows flow or storage
of hydrocarbons.
Limestone.
• A general term for rocks containing at least 80% by volume, calcium or
magnesium, carbonates. It often occurs as a bedded and distinctly jointed rock
which is the consolidated equivalent of limey mud, calcareous sand or shell
fragments or all three in combination.
• Usually it has no primary (or intrinsic) porosity. In time a secondary porosity may
develop as a result of joints and cracks being developed and enlarged by ground
water action.
• Evaporates. Salt, gypsum (CaSO4.2H2O) and anhydrite (CaSO4) are thus
termed.
• Usually found to have no porosity or permeability. Their ability to flow
plastically has very important implications for geologists and drilling
engineers.
• Generally speaking, sandstone reservoirs are more porous than those of
limestone.
• The least consolidated, younger sandstones are more porous than the
more tightly compacted, older or more deeply buried formations.
ROCK STRUCTURES
Folds
• When there are repeated movements of the Earth's crust even a few
inches at a time - over millions of years the shape of the crust is changed
dramatically.
• When strata are upfolded into an arch like form, the structure is called an
anticline.
• When the beds are downfolded into a trough like structure they are
termed syncline or synclinal.
• The two sides of each fold are referred to as limbs and the plane which
bisects the limbs is called the axial plane. Refer to Figure 10.06.
FOLDING
• The line marking the highest points on the same bed of an anticlinal fold is
called the crest. Similarly, a trough line marks the lowest points on the
same bed in a synclinal fold.
• If the axial plane is vertical and the axis horizontal, the fold is upright and
symmetrical. If the axial plane is inclined, the fold is said to be an
asymmetrical or recumbent fold, as the axial plane becomes increasingly.
• inclined towards the horizontal. See Figure 10.07 If in an inclined fold the
two limbs tend to dip in the same direction at different amounts (one limb
inverted), the fold is said to be overturned. Folds in which the interlimb
angle is greater than 700 are said to be open or gentle, if between 300 and
700, closed, and below 300 tight. If the two limbs are parallel, the fold is
said to be isoclinal. Refer to Figure 10.07.
• An anticlinal structure which plunges in all directions is called a dome,
while a syncline which dips inwards in all directions in known as a
structural basin. Refer to Figure 10.08.
Faults
• A fault is a fracture surface along which the rocks have been relatively
displaced. Vertical displacement of several hundred meters, and
horizontal displacement of up to 50 km are common.
• In none of these is there any reason to believe that the total movement
occurred during a single super catastrophe.
• Earthquakes result from sudden movements along faults but
displacements are rarely more than a metre. Even so, engineering
constructions should not be built across faults that are still active.
• The attitude of a fault plane is described by the angle and direction of its
dip.
INTERGRAINSCC FAULT (intergrainal fault)
• If the direction of movement on the fault plane is parallel to the dip of the
fault (i.e. upwards or downwards) the fault is said to have a dip-slip
movement.
• If the direction of movement along the fault plane is in any other direction,
the fault is said to have an oblique-slip movement. An oblique slip can
always be resolved into dip-slip and strike-slip components.
Normal Fault
• A fault with a major dip-slip component in which the hanging wall is on the
down-throw side is referred to as a normal fault. Refer to Figure 10.09.
Reverse Fault
• A fault with a major dip-slip component in which the hanging wall is on the
up-throw side is referred to as a reverse fault. See Figure 10.09.
• http://www.tinynet.com/faults.html?x=39&y=20
 Tear Fault
• A fault in which the movement is dominantly horizontal. The terms dextral
and sinistral are applied to tear faults to describe the apparent direction of
movement as illustrated in Figure 10.10.
• Regions divided by faults into relatively elevated or depressed blocks are
said to be block faulted.
• Upstanding mountains which may be plateaux or long ridge like block
mountains are called horsts.
• The fault blocks depressed below their surroundings are called fault
troughs. In these huge valleys, deposition of sediment from adjoining
uplands is likely.
• A long fault trough - or tectonic valley - bordered by fault blocks is known
as a rift valley or graben.
 THE ORIGIN AND COMPOSITION OF PETROLEUM
THE ORIGIN OF PETROLEUM
• Petroleum - or oil, as it is known universally - retains no evidence of the nature of
material from which it was formed. It has been suggested that it was formed by
volcanic or deep seated chemical processes akin to the production of acetylene by
the action of water on calcium carbide. But all relevant evidence points to one of
organic origin.
• This evidence leads to the conclusion that petroleum originates from the organic
matter or muddy sediments deposited in depressed areas of the sea floor, where
water as stagnant and deficient of oxygen.
• Under such conditions anaerobic bacteria would be expected to abstract
oxygen from the organic matter, so transforming it molecule by molecule,
into a fatty and waxy substance.
• The lighter members of the paraffin and hydrocarbon series appear to be
later derivatives, produced by natural refining under increasing pressure
and temperature during deep burial, together with continued bacterial
activity.
 THE COMPOSITION OF PETROLEUM
• Terms such as petroleum, crude oil, natural gas, petroleum gas are not
precise and can only be defined by their chemical and physical properties.
The names describe different mixtures of hydrocarbons.
• There are hundreds of different hydrocarbon molecules, but petroleum is
made up principally of only two main families of hydrocarbons.
• The Paraffin or Alkane series
• The family of hydrocarbons follows the
• [Cn H2n+2] formula to calculate the relation between the carbon and
hydrogen atoms in its molecules.
• It is made up of straight or branched chains of molecules. The first four
members of the family are gas at normal or standard temperature and
pressure.
The next 11 members are liquid (oil) and any other members are solid
(wax) hydrocarbons. Table 10. 02 shows the members of the paraffin
series.
 The Naphthene Series
• The formula [CnH2n] describes this family of cycloparaffins which are ring Shaped
compounds. Two liquid members of this series, cyclopentane [C5H10] and
cyclohexane
• [C6H12] predominate in most crude oils. Because it is a ring based series the
minimum number of carbon atoms is three so the first member of the series is
cyclopropane, a gas.
• The aromatic compounds, based on the benzene ring and having the general
formula CnH2n-6, also occur in many crude oils but they normally comprise less
than I0 percent of the crudes and in very few crudes do they exceed 10 percent.
• Exceptions are a handful of highly aromatic and paraffinic crudes from basins in
South East Asia and North Africa.
• Paraffin-base crudes, the original staple of the refiners and still the most
prized of all oils, constitute only a tiny fraction of modern world crude
supplies (by 1980, about 2 percent).
• Only about 15 percent of world crude supplies in 1980 were truly
naphthene-based; they are the ‘black oil’ of Venezuela, Mexico, parts of
California and the Gulf Coast, and many Russian crudes. The great
majority of crude oils are of mixed base (naphthene-paraffin); they include
nearly all Middle East, Mid Continent, and North Sea oils.
• The non-hydrocarbon constituents commonly found in crude oils and
natural gases are sulphur, nitrogen, and oxygen and certain heavy metals
(principally vanadium and nickel). Natural gases may also contain
nitrogen, carbon dioxide, sulphur or mercury.
• Sulphur provides by far the most important of the hetero-compounds. Few
oils are wholly without it; relatively few contain more than 3 percent of it by
weight. Sulphur content is higher in heavy oils than in light oils.
• Crude oils containing detectable amounts of hydrogen sulphide (H2S) are
called sour crudes. If the sulphur is in some other form than H2S (as it
usually is) , the oil should be called a high-sulphur crude and not a “sour'
crude.
• Very ‘sweet’ crudes, with sulphur content as low as 0.1-0.2 percent, are
concentrated in African basins (in Algeria, Angola, Nigeria). Low-sulphur
crudes contain less than 0.6 percent sulphur by weight; intermediate 0.6 -
1.7 percent; high-sulphur crudes contain more than 1.7 percent sulphur by
weight.
• The highest percentages are found in reservoirs of dolomite - anhydrite
facies (many fields in the Middle East - Arabian ‘heavy' fields, Iran, Divided
Zone, Suez graben - yield oils ranging from 2.8 to 4.9 percent sulphur).
• Sour gases contain H2S, which must be extracted during processing of the
gas for domestic or industrial use.
• Gases high in H2S occur typically in carbonate-sulphate reservoirs, and
are consistently associated with higher than normal concentrations of
nitrogen and carbon dioxide.
• Concentrations of H2S exceeding 100 ppm (in gas or oil) are considered
dangerous; they are also highly corrosive to drilling equipment in deep
wells where temperatures are high.
 TERMINOLOGY
• The naturally occurring mixtures of hydrocarbons are variously described,
i.e. crude oil, petroleum, gas, natural gas, etc. Sometimes they exist as a
solid deposit such as tar.
• The many different terms used to describe various hydrocarbon
mixtures are listed below.
Petroleum.
• A mixture of hydrocarbons which is liquid at standard conditions and liquid
in the reservoir. The properties of petroleum are variable depending on
the mixture of hydrocarbons and impurities.
• Typical viscosities could range from 0.01 poise to 13.0 poise. Density from 0.7
to 1.02 gm/cc. Colour can be green, brown, black or colourless.
Crude oil.
• Petroleum (as above).
Natural gas.
• Consists of hydrocarbons which are gaseous at standard conditions and in the
reservoir.
Dry gas.
• Gas composed almost entirely of methane.
 Wet gas.
• Gas in which the proportions of ethane and heavier molecules
Associated gas.
• exceed some arbitrary value.
• Gas which is directly or closely associated with an oil reservoir.
Non-associated gas.
• Gas which is not associated with an oil-field.
Condensate.
• Light hydrocarbon liquids that are in a gaseous state in the reservoir.
Natural Gas Liquids
• 1 Light hydrocarbon liquids recovered from wet natural gas.
• 2 Liquid petroleum gas (LPG) which are propane and butane that is readily
liquefiable and extractable from wet gas.
Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG).
• Liquefied dry gas, essentially 100% methane.
Coal gas -
• Gas formed by modification of coal, essentially 100% methane. Much of the
world's natural gas is coal gas.
 Marsh gas.
• Gas formed by bacteria operating at low temperatures or organic matter near the
Earth's surface.
REFINED HYDROCARBONS
• The mixture of hydrocarbons recovered from an oil field as petroleum or crude oil
is refined in an oil refinery to produce the various different fractions required in the
market place.
• The basic refining process separates the hydrocarbons according to the size of
their molecules. The size range of some common fractions is as follows:
• Product No. of carbon atoms
• Gasoline and naphtha 4 - 10
• Kerosene and illuminating oils 11 - 13
• Diesel and light gas oils 14 - 18
• Heavy gas oil, home heating oil 19 - 25
• Lubricating oil, light fuel oil 6 - 40
• Heavy fuel oil, residual oil 40+
 ORIGIN OF HYDROCARBONS
• Although scientists report finding traces of hydrocarbons in rocks more
than 1,000,000,000 (1 billion) years old, they consider that most of the
petroleum was formed less than 500,000,000 (500 million) years ago.
• Some deposits may have been formed as recently as 10,000,000 (10
million) years ago.
• The geological periods under consideration are the carboniferous to the
cretaceous.
• Oil is almost always in the sedimentary beds deposited in ancient seas.
These seas once covered much of the present day land surfaces.
• According to the organic theory, oil began with the remains of billions of
tiny creatures and plants (plankton) that lived in the sea.
• Dry gas and coal gas are derived from land based vegetation which was
buried in swamps and later became coal.
• The gas was formed as a by-product of the process of converting the
vegetation into coal. Natural gas is commonly associated with coal
deposits.
• The process of converting the buried organic matter to oil, gas or coal
requires two factors, time and temperature.
• Pressure may also play a part, but the essential control is a time-
temperature relationship.
• The term ‘cooking time’ is used to describe how long (millions of years) the
buried matter was at sufficient temperature to undergo conversion to oil or
gas.
• The rate at which the conversion takes place doubles with every 50OF rise
in temperature above 140OF which is the critical temperature below which
the conversion will not take place at all.
• Above a temperature of 250 OF the conversion process breaks down the
organic matter and any oil is formed into gas. So the term oil window is
applied to zones of buried sediments that lie between 140OF and 250OF.
• Above 250OF to about 620OF lies the gas window. Both these zones are
sometimes referred to as the ‘kitchen' as it is within this area that oil and
gas are formed provided the ‘cooking time’ is right.
• Beyond 620OF hydrocarbons are destroyed and reduced to carbon or coke.
• Sediments experience a rise in temperature as they are buried deeper and deeper
below the surface with the passage of time.
• Typically a 30OF rise in temperature is experienced from every 100 ft of burial.
• The rate of increase in temperature with depth is known as the geothermal
gradient and it varies from basin to basin.
• Knowledge of the geothermal gradient is important as it determines the location in
depth terms of the ‘Kitchen' in which oil and gas could have been produced from
the original organic matter.
• Knowledge of earth movements is important as it determines the length of time
that the sediments remained in the ‘kitchen'.
• The longer a sediment has been buried the lower the threshold
temperature required to convert its organic matter to oil.
• From Figure 10.11 it can be seen that the Jurassic sediment needs only
140OF threshold as it has over 150 million years in which to "cook" organic
matter. To cook significant quantities of organic matter of tertiary age
requires a threshold of 175OF - 212OF over the period of less than 40
million years which is available to it.
• Figure 10. 12 illustrates the concept of the oil and gas windows or zones
of formation of oil and gas. It will be noticed that above the threshold
temperature of 140OF oil is still produced from organic matter, but in
smaller quantities.
• The upper zone of gas formation represents marsh gas produced by
factorial degradation of organic matter at or near the surface and at normal
temperatures. While significant volumes are created in this way, it is rarely
trapped in geological structures to form an economic accumulation of
natural gas.
RESERVOIR FORMATION
• The previous sections have outlined the geological, chronological and
geo-chemical parameters of interest to the petroleum exploration industry.
In this section these parameters are examined together to see how they
can be combined to produce oil and gas reservoirs.
• Briefly the process is as follows.
• As sediments are buried beneath the sea, their pore spaces remain filled with salt
water.
• With increasing depth the muddy organic rich rocks move into the hydrocarbon
generation window.
• Oil and gas is formed and is squeezed out of these source rocks, it migrates by
various pathways, along fault planes, through permeable beds until it seeps to the
surface as illustrated in Figure 10.13 or it is trapped by an overlying impervious
cap rock (see Figure 10.14) so that it accumulates below it. Of necessity the rock
in which the hydrocarbon accumulates must be permeable and porous.
• This is the reservoir rock. So five essential components can be identified
for the development of a hydrocarbon reservoir.
• 1. A mature source rock
• 2. A migration route.
• 3. An impervious cap rock.
• 4. A permeable reservoir rock.
• 5. A trapping structure.
• The oil displaces the salt water or brine in the pore spaces as it flows upwards
through it to fill the reservoir rock under the trap.
• Because the reservoir is originally saturated with salt water, the oil migrating into it
only displaces some water.
• It leaves a film of water around the sand grains and leaves the smaller pores full of
water.
• The operating force is capillary pressure and the smaller the opening, the more
difficult it is to displace water from the water-wet rock.
• Assuming a liquid hydrocarbon with its gas phase in solution is involved, if the
initial porosity is 25%, then typically the pores will contain 80% hydrocarbon and
20% water.
• In attempting to recover the oil the same capillary forces work in reverse and often
only 30% of the oil in place can be recovered to surface.
• The rest is trapped in the smaller pore spaces. See Figure 10.15.
• There are several different geological situations that can give rise to suitable traps.
• Traps can be formed by folding rock into an anticline.
• The formation of salt domes is another mechanism as is faulting.
• A trap may result from a change in the type of sediment being laid down, this is
called a stratigraphic trap. See Figure 10.16 and 10.16.
• There are many varieties of underground (subsurface) traps. They are generally
classed as structural if the obstacle to regional oil migration is a dome, see Figure
10. 17, or a fault plane, and stratigraphic where a reservoir rock ‘pinches-out’
• Another type of trap is the combination trap, which may be a combination of
structural and stratigraphic, or of two structural trap elements, such as fault on one
side of the oil accumulation and the downward sloping part of an anticline or dome
on the other side.
• The most important point to remember is that there is almost an infinite variety of
geological conditions that go together to form a trap. When studying a trap, the
geologist should ask himself, “What geological conditions had to develop for the
trap to form?”
• The question ‘How does one look for oil and gas?' may be answered simply yet
accurately: ‘Look for the trap and then drill into it'. A person able to find traps is a
successful petroleum geologist; he is assured of nothing more; for if he drills
enough wildcat wells into traps in a petroliferous region, he is assured of
discovering oil and gas.
• Commercial hydrocarbon deposits are classified as accumulations, fields and
provinces. The simplest unit of commercial occurrence is the accumulation. It is
defined as the body of oil or gas, or both, occurring in a separate reservoir and
under a single pressure system. An accumulation may be small, underlying only a
few acres, or it may extend over many square miles. Its content may be entirely
gas, or it may be entirely or mainly oil.
• When several accumulations are related to a single geological feature, either
structural or stratigraphic, the group of accumulations is termed a field.
• The individual accumulations in a field may occur at various depths, one above
another, or they may be distributed laterally throughout the geological feature.
Geological features that are likely to form fields are salt plugs, anticlinal folds,
multiple sands, and complex combinations of faulting, folding and stratigraphic
variations.
• A geosynclinal that is hydrocarbon bearing will have many different fields but with
many similar characteristics. Such an area is considered an oil or gas province.
• The petroleum reservoir is the part of the rock that contains the accumulation of oil.
The location of every oil and gas accumulation may be said to be the result of
complex or interrelated geological conditions. Each reservoir is unique in its
details. The commonest names for reservoir rocks are ‘pay’, ‘pay sand’, ‘oil sand’,
‘gas sand’, and ‘sand’
EXPLORATION - LOOKING FOR OIL
EARLY TECHNIQUES
• The most successful method in the early days of oil exploration was to drill in the
vicinity of oil seeps.
• The presence of oil seeps on top of anticlinal structures was observed as early as
1842.
• When it was discovered that oil could be found in anticlinal structures which did not
have oil seeps, geological mapping of the surface, and later aerial photography,
became the most important method of exploration. Surface mapping left a lot to be
desired as the structures containing petroleum often had no surface expression.
• Therefore new methods of exploring the subsurface were developed and are
widely used today. These are known as geophysical prospecting methods. There
are three principal techniques; gravity, magnetic and seismic surveying.
• Gravity and magnetic anomalies can be used to identify sedimentary basins in the
first instance and also to identify anomalies within those basins which might
indicate probable trap structures.
• Seismic surveys are used to give a detailed picture of the internal structure of a
sedimentary basin.
MAGNETIC SURVEY
• Igneous and metamorphic rocks are magnetic to different degrees, but
sedimentary rocks are practically nonmagnetic. The variations in magnetic
properties of subsurface rocks will therefore affect the Earth's magnetic field in
different ways. It is this effect on the Earth's magnetic field that the magnetic
survey measures.
• Changes in magnetic values, therefore, indicate the presence and extent of
sedimentary formations.
• The property measured in this survey is very feebly recorded by present
instrumentation and the anomalies looked for require a great deal of skill if they are
to be detected, see Figure 10.18.
 GRAVIMETRY SURVEY
• The gravimeter measures inequalities in the force of gravity. The Earth's field of
gravity attracts mass towards the core. Irregularities in the composition of the
Earth's crust create variations in the gravimetric readings. These irregularities can
be ones of rock type, due to varying densities, or they may be due to structural
warping which might have brought denser material close to the surface. Thus it
is also possible to locate low density cores of rock salt whose intrusion may have
pushed up oil-bearing strata. See Figure 10.19.
SEISMIC SURVEY
• Of the various geophysical methods used, however, the seismic method is
by far the most useful.
• There are two methods; reflection or refraction. The latter is only used for
shallow, local interpretation.
• The reflection method (which is the most useful of the two) is based on the
observation that sound waves may be created artificially. These will be
reflected from strata of varying density back to the surface where the
sound waves can be recorded and timed.
• During the past decade explosives, as the source of energy for creating the
seismic waves, have been generally replaced by more sophisticated methods.
• These substitutes are: weight dropping, Vibroses (a mobile machine which vibrates
the surface) gas guns, air guns (used in marine seismic exploration) and
detonating cords.
• When the energy (vibration, explosion, etc.) has been released, the resultant
sound waves travel at about 3,000 meters per second through the rock strata
beneath and are reflected back to the surface.
• Where the rock strata are bowed up into a dome favourable for oil accumulation,
the sound waves will be reflected back more quickly to the overlying recording
instruments than those waves reflected from the deeper synclinal waves.
• The waves reflected back by the geological interfaces are picked up by the
geo-phones, converted into voltage and transmitted by electrical cables to
the recording instruments where they are filtered and amplified.
• This voltage is then sampled at constant time intervals of some few
milliseconds, digitized and stored on magnetic tape in binary form. See
Figure 10.20.
• The tapes containing the field recordings are then transmitted to a
computer centre, where, by using electronic computers, they are
processed and finally displayed in the form of seismic sections.
• These sections are then analysed by geophysicists who transform the
geometric images into a geological picture of the subsurface.
• Seismic surveys- which could be described as X-rays of the subsurface -
help to determine the shape of the folds and to locate potential
hydrocarbon traps.
• If the trap is of considerable size an exploration well is drilled in order to
find out whether the trap actually does bear hydrocarbons.
DRILLING PROPOSAL
• Before an oil company drills into a trap or ‘structure' it must decide if that
trap could contain sufficient volume of hydrocarbons to make the venture
worthwhile.
• This requires a knowledge of the typical distribution of fluids in a reservoir.
• A detailed geophysical and geological prognosis of the prospective
structure is made and upon this is based an estimated chance of the
prospect containing hydrocarbons. The likely volume of recoverable
hydrocarbons is estimated as follows:
1 Estimate the volume reservoir rock enclosed by the trap.
2 Assume the typical porosity and oil saturation. This gives a total oil in
place figure.
3 Apply an average recovery factor and allow for volume change in
bringing the oil to surface temperature and pressure.
• Armed with this estimated recoverable oil volume, the oil company decide
if the prospect is worthwhile drilling in terms of the likely return on the
investment.
• The geologist then decides where the well should be drilled to test if his
assumptions are correct.
• In a new basin or a previously undrilled area this well is known as a
wildcat well or exploration well and the object is to give the geologist
access to the formation which he wishes to test for oil or gas
accumulation.
• The other types of well that may be drilled are known as appraisal (or
step-out) wells and production or development wells.
• Appraisal wells. If the first well (wildcat) finds oil or gas further step-out
wells will be required to allow an accurate appraisal of the volumes of oil
or gas present.
• Production wells. Production drilling is also known as development
drilling.
• Now the decision has been made to develop the field commercially, and
the number of wells required to produce from the field is decided.
• These wells must be accurately designed and last for the life of the field.
OIL FIND APPRAISAL AND DEVELOPMENT
STUDIES
• Once the exploration well has shown that oil is present all possible
information must be gathered about the find to assist on planning its
appraisal and possible development. Both the porosity and permeability of
the rocks must be determined before the field flow mechanisms can be
established.
• Following the discovery of hydrocarbons, a flow test is conducted. It
should give the following information:
a bottomhole crude sample,
b flow rates,
c bottomhole flowing pressures for known flow rates,
d approximate gas/oil ratio,
e approximate water/oil ratio,
f bottomhole flowing temperature.
• Several appraisal development wells are required before the extent of
the hydrocarbon reservoir can be fully assessed.
• The information from these appraisal wells allows maps to be produced
showing gas/oil elevations and oil/water elevations, assuming the three
phases exist in the reservoir.
• Thus as reservoir porosity is already known, an ‘oil in place' volume can
be calculated.
• In assessing the potential financial returns from a potential reservoir, it must be
remembered that a reservoir can rarely be made to produce more than 30% of its
contents without pumping or other assistance.
• In some cases the figure is much smaller. Also, even with assistance, a reservoir
can rarely be made to produce more than 50% to 60% of its contents.
• No method has yet been devised to enable the final 30% or so to be produced.
• Enough information will now have been provided to allow production well location
to be selected. For the diagram shown in Figure 10.21 wells have been placed at
points 1 to 10 where gas and water flow into the well are least likely to occur. Well
spacing is based on adoption of 'average per well' which is based on experience.
• Development studies must also consider the type of reservoir discovered and the
composition of hydrocarbons in it.
• This will have an important bearing on the production mechanism and the
surface treatment and processing facilities required. The possible types of
reservoir are considered in the next section
 RESERVOIR CLASSIFICATION
• Hydrocarbon reservoirs can contain any of the three main phases - liquid
hydrocarbons, gaseous hydrocarbons and water. Where all three phases exist
they will normally be found in horizontal layers. Each of these three main phases
can contain quantities of non-hydrocarbons, hydrogen sulphide or carbon dioxide.
• The proportions of the hydrocarbon mixture and the variety of possible pressures
and temperatures at different fields give rise to the reservoir fluids existing in a
variety of physical states or phases.
• This variety includes single phase gaseous systems called gas reservoirs; or
single phase liquid systems - usually called undersaturated oil reservoirs.
• Saturated oil reservoirs usually have a gas cap or gas phase.
• Only testing, by P-V-T techniques (phase diagrams), provides a sure answer to the
question 'What sort of reservoir is being produced?'
• At the time the P-V-T analysis provides clues as to the optimum conditions for
producing the reservoir
• Sampling, for testing, may be performed at either the wellhead or at the bottom of
the well, and it is very important to get a good representative sample of the
reservoir fluid because major decisions on the future development of a field must
be taken on the basis of the P-V-T analysis results of that sample.
PHASE DIAGRAMS OF RESERVOIR FLUIDS
• The phase of a reservoir fluid can be seen from the diagram if its pressure and
temperature are correlated; the overall composition is assumed to be fixed.
• Such a diagram is called a phase diagram and looks like an envelope as shown in
Figure 10.22.
• This diagram will indicate the phase changes that must occur when the pressure
and temperature of the reservoir system are varied.
• The point where the bubble point curve and the dew point curve meet is known as
the ‘critical point'. Other terms used to define the location of various points on the
phase envelope are:
• a circondenbar - maximum pressure at which liquid may exist,
• b circondentherm - maximum temperature at which liquid and gas may
co-exist in equilibrium.
• The critical point is also the point where all the equality lines meet.
Suppose a system originally at point is cooled at constant pressure along
the path JN in Figure 10.22. The following phase changes occur:
a the system is originally in the vapour state,
b at the dew point K liquid begins to form,
c in passing from K to M more liquid condenses,
d at the bubble point M, the system is saturated liquid,
e at point N the system is in the sub-cooled liquid state. A liquid at point
N is also called undersaturated.
• From the diagram it is possible to predict how much of the reservoir fluids
would be gas or liquid at any particular temperature and pressure.
• If point A represents the initial reservoir conditions and point B represents
the conditions at the wellhead then line AB represents the conditions in the
well bore during production.
• The line BC similarly represents the approximate conditions of
temperature and pressure from wellhead to the treatment centre.
• Thus at the wellhead (point B) only about 75% of the original reservoir
contents will still remain in liquid form. The remainder will be in gaseous
form and will flow in the vertical well bore as a separate gas phase. From
the wellhead to the treating centre phases will remain little changed as
shown by the line BC.
• There will be a loss of temperature and some loss in pressure but little, if
any, further release of gas from the original reservoir fluid.
• If on the other hand the reservoir sample comes from a gas condensate
reservoir its phase diagram and production parameters will look like those
drawn in the diagram for condensate reservoir, shown in Figure 10.23.
• It will be seen in this case that at the wellhead approximately 4% of the
original reservoir fluid will have changed into a liquid phase.
• At the treatment centre this will have increased to approximately 9%.
• If however, the reservoir sample comes from a dry gas reservoir the phase
envelope and production parameters would be as drawn approximately in Figure
10.24 (phase envelope No. 1). We can see in this case the product of the
reservoir will be a single phase gas at the wellhead and at the treatment centre.
• However if the reservoir is a wet gas reservoir (phase envelope No. 2, in the
diagram) the flow at the wellhead will be single phase gas but at the treatment
centre some liquid will appear and a separator will be required to separate these
phases.
• Thus using phase diagrams and with a knowledge of pressure and temperature in
the reservoir and pressure and temperature in the separator, you can predict what
fraction of reservoir products would be gas and what fraction would be liquid.
• In other words the gas-liquid ratios can be determined.
• Based on theoretical studies by Standing and others, reservoir characteristics were
summarized as follows:
• a A monophasic gaseous system at reservoir conditions yielding for instance
GOR's from 800 to 10,000 m of gas to l m of oil at separator conditions will usually
be the products from a condensate at reservoir conditions in the range 150OF -
3000F.
• b A monophasic liquid system at reservoir conditions yielding for instance
GOR's below 350m of gas to lm of oil at separator conditions will usually be
the products from a crude oil reservoir.
• c Systems displaying GOR's between 350m and 900m of gas to 1m of oil may
be produced from either of the two types of reservoirs mentioned above.
Their performance will depend upon temperature and chemical composition.
• Only testing, by PVT techniques (phase diagrams), provides a sure answer to the
question, ‘What sort of reservoir is being produced?‘
• At the same time PVT analysis provides clues as to the optimum conditions for
producing the reservoir.
• Sampling, for testing, may be performed at either the wellhead or at the bottom of
the well.
TYPES OF RESERVOIRS
• Figure 10.25 illustrates the use of the phase envelope for reservoir prediction.
• Four different types of reservoirs are shown in the figure. The points 1, 2, 3 and 4
represent the initial reservoir conditions, i.e. the bottom hole conditions.
• Reservoir (1) is called a black oil reservoir. Its temperature is less than
the critical temperature. The reservoir, as shown, is undersaturated. No
gas will form in the reservoir until the pressure reaches the bubble point,
at which point it becomes saturated; as shown, gas would form in the
well bore.
• Reservoir (2) is called a volatile oil reservoir. It also occurs to the left of
the critical temperature.
• But the gas/oil ratio is higher than for a black oil reservoir. The oil may
be lighter in colour but not necessarily. once again, no gas forms in the
reservoir until the bubble point pressure is attained, even though gas
occurs at the wellhead.
• Reservoir (3) has a temperature that is between that of critical and
circondentherm. Such reservoir is called a gas condensate reservoir. As
the pressure reduces below the dew point, liquid forms in the reservoir.
Liquid formation increases as long as the pressure is in the retrograde
region. Below this region some re vapourization occurs.
• Reservoir (4) is a dry gas reservoir. It occurs at a temperature above the
circondentherm. No liquid can form in the reservoir at any pressure.
• If the wellhead conditions or the conditions at the treatment centre are
inside the phase envelope, however, some liquid will form.
• The reservoir is then referred to as a wet gas reservoir. If, on the other
hand, no liquid is formed even at the treatment centre, the reservoir is
called a dry gas reservoir.
• NOTE: in this context the terms ‘wet’ and ‘dry’ refer to the presence
of hydrocarbon liquids and not water
• Thus using the phase diagrams and with knowledge of pressure and
temperature in the reservoir, and pressure and temperature in the
separator, you can predict what fraction of reservoir products would be gas
and what fraction would be liquid. In other words the gas/liquid ratios can
be determined.
END