What's new in exploration

Within the pages of this magazine, you read the latest in exploration, at least where or what the explorationists want us to know. Information sources, such as World Oil, tell us about important data related to what others are doing, but only after they are done or are preparing to do it. I am late to the show, so to speak, as a reader.

Exploration is a process. A few bold folks cut trail for the rest of us. What we do, should not involve a near-Ponzi scheme, similar to the early shale oil plays that required continuous drilling to keep annual SEC reserves up for the shareholders. Fast drainage is what we wanted for cash flow. What did we expect, when we drained in one year what we had been producing in four? That massive, all-industry trend wiped out 90% of conventional O&G exploration. The greatest land grab of the century almost ruined us. The good news is we did show that sometimes, the most obvious source of oil and gas can be, and has been, overlooked by thousands of professionals. So, where is the “new obvious” now?

Explorationists who get something done are intuitive detectives, using the slimmest of information to guide others into the riskiest of financial and sometimes hazardous situations. Lately, we are morphing into the clean-up crew. Reservoir evaluation is still honorable, since that has been called exploration since 1992. Today, we look more at how not to disturb people with induced seismicity from our production (rare) or from post-production water injection (not so rare). Since seismic work is down a bit, we spend effort to resuscitate EM and resistivity, and call it CSEM. Gravity, well, we know more now, how to process data, but microgravity is still not nanno gravity. CSEM and gravity are still scalars in a potential field.

Simulated production for the SEAM time lapse model. The color scale superimposed on this top-down view of the reservoir (gray) is the net oil pay [SEAM/RPSEA project 12121-6002-02].

Climate change geophysics has been stolen from us by the political elite. Water resource exploration is now water control and disposal. Nuclear [geo]physics is still a dirty word, except in Argentina, Armenia, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Japan, South Korea, Netherlands, Mexico, Pakistan, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Ukraine, and North Korea and Iran. But, thankfully, not all of these countries allow fracing, since they think O&G may not be safe. I am glad they have not heard about the dangers of methane emissions from pick-up trucks or cattle.

The BIG item, however, is that people still study rocks, shoot seismic, and drill wells. Massive hydrocarbons exist almost everywhere that the Cretaceous existed. Since everyone on this planet uses hydrocarbons and will pay something (blood or money) for it, research into more effective, efficient and safer O&G extraction and production still has value. This was made obvious at the public, RPSEA “Best of 10 Years of Research” conference, held in Galveston, Texas, this past August. Participants discussed advancements in offshore and onshore science and engineering, unlike any university research convention. These advancements have immediate commercial legs.

Details were generally more in depth than, say, a normal society conference. “Why,” you say? Well, there’s nothing to hide, since close to 80% of the funding was by DOE, and all the ideas came from people like you. Everything is sharable for free, or for a modest price. Final reports are online for a while. RPSEA is closing its Section 999 DOE program while working with industry and government to find new sources of funding to continue the program of developing leading-edge practical research. From Bob Hardage in 2007, to SEAM in 2016, frac detection, frac water, and microseismic and safety in exploration, have been in the front of research at RPSEA [and at other famous places]. There is a long list of participants that can be seen from the RPSEA main page or on SEAM’s main page. Take advantage of that while you can.

RPSEA is working with the Bureau of Economic Geology in Texas, to find some more industry money to test fiber optic VSP sensors, with microseismic sources for real-time frac detection. SEAM is working to expand its Pore Pressure and Time Lapse projects into a full-out study of Life-of-Field. These are two examples of where industry interest is right now. More is at the annual SEG convention in Dallas this month.

The latest time lapse work at SEAM/RPSEA is showing tremendous revelation of modeling “perfect” seismic within complex turbidite reservoirs. Calculating what should be the seismic response before, and after, first production is finally being addressed as a joint study among petroleum engineers, geologists, petrophysicists and geophysicists. I just ask that the results remain mostly in color graphics, so that investors and management understand the results.

About the Authors

William (Bill) Head

Contributing Editor

William (Bill) Head is a technologist with over 40 years of experience in U.S. and international exploration.