Petroleum System Analysis
About the Course
This course delves into the foundational aspects of the Petroleum System, offering a comprehensive perspective on its operational mechanisms. This knowledge is indispensable for geoscientists and engineers engaged in the intricate landscape of both conventional and unconventional exploration and development endeavors. The essential elements comprising the Petroleum System, namely Charge, Trap, and Reservoir, are systematically delineated within the context of play and prospect evaluation.
The Charge element initiates with the deposition of the source rock and the establishment of its volumetric potential, acting as the primary feedstock for the entire system. Charge access involves the transformation of this potential into expelled volumes, orchestrating the movement from the source bed to the trap/reservoir. In the case of certain unconventional reservoirs, this process occurs either within or adjacent to the source bed itself.
A trap serves as the recipient of charge, fostering the accumulation of petroleum columns along its boundaries until it reaches the capacity limit or spills over at the critical weak point. Meanwhile, the storage and deliverability of reservoir rock undergo modifications due to mechanical and chemical compaction, alongside alterations in fluid properties, thereby significantly influencing project economics. These fluid properties further impact economic considerations through their effects on the value of the resultant product.
Course Objectives
▪ Utilize the holistic framework of Petroleum System concepts for comprehensive risk assessment and volume estimation during the evaluation of plays, prospects, and reservoirs.
▪ Forecast and validate the distribution of source rocks by leveraging rock and fluid data, enabling the estimation of volumetric potential.
▪ Predict the temperature, timing, volumes, compositions, and phases expelled from kitchens, and the controls exerted by hydrodynamics and capillarity on migration from source bed to trap/reservoir. ▪ Describe a trap in terms of the critical weak points on its edges.
▪ Estimate column heights containable by those edges.
▪ Understand the Petroleum System that controls reservoir rock quality.
▪ Understand reservoir and reservoir fluid properties that govern deliverability, well recovery, and economics (rate, product value)
Course Content
▪ Petroleum Systems in E&P
▪ Charge | Source Potential: source rock deposition
▪ Charge | Source Potential: type and organofacies
▪ Charge | Access: temperature and thermal stress, thermal stress indicators and maturity
▪ Charge | Access: petroleum generation, cracking, and expulsion; petroleum product composition and phase.
▪ Charge | Access: oil and gas geochemistry (biomarkers, isotopes) as a function of organofacies, maturity and biodegradation
▪ Charge | Access: basin thermic; thermal modeling; volume and timing of expelled products; fluid phase properties
▪ Charge | Access: capillarity; pressure; primary and secondary migration from source to trap; charge vs. trap timing
▪ Trap | Container Geometry: understand trap geometries that govern accumulation; container type and number of edges.
▪ Trap | Column Capacity: fluid phase properties density and interfacial tension; rock capillarity; hydrodynamics; capillary vs. fracture leakage; column capacity prediction methods; tertiary migration/leakage and seepage
▪ Reservoir | Storage: effective stress and mechanical compaction; thermal stress and chemical compaction; how reservoir filling controls fluid phase saturation; fluid formation volume factor and gas expansion factor; geochemical methods of estimating fluid phase saturation
▪ Reservoir | Deliverability: P, T and compositional controls on fluid viscosity; segmentation; reservoir pressures and connectivity
▪ Value: the $ value of the produced petroleum product itself
