N250 Evaluation Methods for Shale Reservoirs
Course Facts
- Course Code:
- N250
- Duration:
- 5 days
- Type:
- Classroom
- CEU:
- 4.0 Continuing Education Units
- PDH:
- 40 Professional Development Hours
- Certificate:
- Certificate Issued Upon Completion
Summary
The evaluation of shale reservoirs presents a challenge: whereas some of the approaches applied are the same as those used for conventional reservoirs, some new tools and many new methodologies have been developed for this rapidly evolving subject. More than ever, the evaluation requires an integrated, multi-disciplinary effort by geoscientists, petrophysicists, and engineers. This course presents current views on the evaluation methodsrequired to assess new plays, identify sweet spots, and select optimal landing zones.
Duration and Training Method
This is a five-day seminar-style classroom course featuring lectures from specialists in various fields. Lectures are enhanced with classroom exercises.
Participants will learn to:
- Determine the key geologic parameters that control the attributes of shale reservoirs, including hydrocarbon storage and deliverability.
- Establish the components of basin analysis required when scoping a new shale play.
- Evaluate the variety of depositional processes and changes in environmental conditions recorded in a shale succession and tie that information back to well-log character.
- Assess the basic stratigraphic framework of shale reservoirs and understand how systematic vertical changes relate to fabric, composition, texture, geomechanics, and, ultimately, reservoir quality.
- Select methods for determining reservoir properties of shales.
- Assess geomechanical properties of shales.
- Understand basic geochemistry results and apply geochemical techniques to evaluate and target tight oil
- Determine petroleum quality and production potential
- Assess general gas and oil production potential of candidate shale reservoirs.
- Select limiting factors in shale hydrocarbon production such as faults, regional fractures, fluid saturations, natural fractures, and frac barriers.
- Assess technologies and factors that can influence hydraulic fracture growth.
- Evaluate the role that pre-stack seismic inversion tools can play in characterizing unconventional reservoirs.
- Investigate methods to predict geomechanical reservoir properties using seismic data.
This seminar-style course will present an overview of the mudrock petroleum system and then offer views from technical experts on recent evaluation trends on each of several topics: petrophysics and geomechanics, geochemistry, reservoir and completion engineering, and microseismic monitoring.
The course will cover the following items:
Day 1 and 2: The Mudrock Petroleum System- Deposition, Stratigraphy and Basin Setting (Jeff May)
- Introduction
- Mudrock Definition
- Lithologic Heterogeneity
- Critical Play Elements - Data Mining ( Play Reconnaissance) and Regional Basin Analysis (Sweet Spot Evaluation)
- Published Literature
- Existing Production
- Mudlog Shows and Tests
- Core, Cuttings, Outcrop Samples - Stratigraphic Framework
- Depositional Processes
- Stratigraphic Cyclicity
- Well-Log Patterns
- Sequence Stratigraphy
- Regional Correlations and Variations - Core Description
- Mudrock Classification
- Composition and Texture
- Sedimentary Structures and Depositional Processes
- Mechanical Stratigraphy - Rock Description (Reservoir Quality)
- Mineralogy
- Pore Sizes and Pore Throats
- Matrix and System Permeability
Day 3: Petrophysics and Geomechanics for Shale Reservoirs (Rick Lewis)
- Introduction
- What is a Shale Reservoir? - Log Evaluation - Petrophysics
- Log Responses for Organic Shales
- Mineralogy Determination
- Quantifying Kerogen / TOC
- Porosity
- Saturation
- Permeability - Log Evaluation – Geomechanics
- Lateral Evaluation
Day 4, morning: Shale Completions (George King)
This section presents explanations of and practical understanding of completion methods for shale reservoirs.
- Basic shale candidate selection using petrophysical, geochemical and petroleum engineering information
- Well planning, construction, and stimulation
- Production forecasting
- Environmental conservation
- It is illustrated with examples from five commercial North American shale plays: Barnett, Eagle Ford, Gothic, Horn River and Marcellus.
Day 4, afternoon: Seismic Interpretation Workflows for Unconventional Reservoirs (John Randolph)
This section will present an overview of current seismic interpretation workflows designed to characterize unconventional reservoirs and also to extract geomechanical properties useful in wellbore/completion designs. Topics will include:
- Overview of reservoir responses to seismic waves.
- Seismic inversion tools.
- Seismic-well calibration using petrophysical cross plots.
- Case studies.
Day 5: Geochemistry for Shale Reservoirs (Dan Jarvie)
- Conventional vs Unconventional Petroleum Systems
- Basic Definitions in Source Rock Evaluation
- Analytical Screening Methods
- Organic Matter Type and Maturity
- Origin and Correlation of Natural Gas
- Shale Resource Data Collection and Integration
Who should attend
All subsurface professionals who are involved in the evaluation of shale resources. Geologists, geophysicists and petrophysicists will learn about recent developments in their own areas of expertise, while drilling, completion, and reservoir engineers, will benefit by increasing their awareness of the geologic attributes that affect targeting and volumetrics.
Prerequisites and linking courses
Participants should have a familiarity with resource plays prior to taking this class, such as is offered in N313 (Evaluating Resource Plays).Several Nautilus Training Alliance courses expand on concepts discussed in N250. These include N241 (Depositional Processes, Fabrics and Stratigraphic Framework of Mudrocks: Application to Shale Reservoirs, CO and WY, USA), N409 (Improved Hydraulic Fracture Design Using Microseismic Imaging), N944 (Shale Gas and Shale Oil Completions using Multi-Staged Fracturing and Horizontal Wells), and N470 (AVO Reflectivity, Pre-stack Inversion, and Quantitative Seismic Interpretation).
Click on a name to learn more about the instructor
Dan Jarvie
Dan Jarvie
Background
Dan Jarvie is a petroleum systems analyst specializing in assessment of unconventional shale resource systems. He has studied or been involved in evaluation of both conventional and unconventional petroleum systems around the world including Europe, Africa, Asia (China) and Australia. His work on these systems includes complete source rock analysis and assessments as well as detailed assessment of gas and oil.
Mr. Jarvie’s work history includes both laboratory analyses and interpretive assessment of these data. He has published papers on basic source rock characterization, source rock kinetics from open and closed systems for bulk and compositional kinetic parameters, detailed light hydrocarbon analyses, Williston Basin oil and source rock systems, organoporosity-nanopore imaging in association with the Bureau of Economic Geology at the University of Texas, identification of bypassed pay zones, catalytic activity, producibility assessment including pre-drill GOR and API gravity estimations, and numerous papers on unconventional shale gas and shale oil/hybrid resource systems.
He founded Humble Instruments and Humble Geochemical Services in 1987, which were sold to Weatherford International in 2007. From 2008 to early 2013, Mr. Jarvie worked as a consultant to industry and taught geochemistry classes relevant to unconventional shale resource systems. He spent 2009-2010 as visiting scientist at Institut Français du Pétrole (IFP) in Rueil-Malmaison, France, where he worked on compositional kinetic modeling with Francoise Behar and shale resource systems in Europe. From 2013 to 2015 Dan was the Chief Geochemist at EOG Resources, the leading producer of oil in the onshore lower 48 states. He is also an adjunct professor at Texas Christian University (TCU) and a member of the TCU Energy Institute Advisory Board.
He served in the U.S. Navy from 1969-1975 and was assigned communications responsibility for the Commander, Pacific Submarine Fleet, Pt. Loma Naval Station, San Diego primarily on the USS Sperry AS-12, but also with duty at Treasure Island (San Francisco), Norfolk, VA and Charleston, SC.
Mr. Jarvie earned a B.S. from the University of Notre Dame and was mentored in geochemistry by Wallace Dow and Don Baker of Rice University. He was the recipient of the EMD Best Poster Award in 2008, the AAPG National Convention Top Ten Oral Award and the AAPG A. L. Cox Award in 2007, the AAPG Levorsen Best Paper Award in 2005, and the AAPG EMD Best Poster Award in 2004.
Affiliations and Accreditation
BS University of Notre Dame - Organic Chemistry
Member:
American Association of Petroleum Geologists, Rocky Mountain Association of Geologists, West Texas Geological Society,
American Chemical Society-Geochemistry Division, Society of Petroleum Engineers, The Society for Organic Petrology, and European Association of Organic Geochemists.
Courses Taught
N250: Evaluation Methods for Shale Reservoirs
George King
George King
Background
George E. King is a Registered Professional Engineer with over 39 years oilfield experience since starting with Amoco in 1971. His technical background includes basic research on energized fracturing, acidizing, asphaltenes, perforating cleanup, complex formations (North Sea chalk, San Juan coal, Alaskan and Canadian heavy/viscous oil, US tight gas, GoM Deep Water, and Niobrara shale), unconventional resources (Tier 1, 2 and 3 Barnett shale completions) sand control, low pressure gas wells and applications work on coiled tubing, perforating, tubular cutoff, formation damage and well repair operations.
Technical accomplishments include 60 technical papers, a book on completions and workovers, Distinguished Lecturer on foam fracturing for the SPE during 1985-86, and a Completions Course Lecturer in the SPE Short Course series in 1999. Industry positions held include Technical Chairman of the 1992 SPE Annual Fall Meeting, past API subcommittee chair on perforating, eleven years adjunct professor at the University of Tulsa (teaching senior level and graduate credit well completions and fracturing courses at night), and numerous SPE committees on forums, paper selection committees and Applied Technology workshops. Awards include the Amoco Vice President’s Award for technology from Amoco in 1997, API service award in 1994, and the 2004 SPE Production Operations Award.
Affiliations and Accreditation
MSc University of Tulsa - Petroleum Engineering
BSc University of Tulsa - Chemical Engineering
BSc Oklahoma State - Chemistry
Courses Taught
N250: Evaluation Methods for Shale Gas Reservoirs
N944: Shale Gas and Shale Oil Completions Using Multi-Staged Fracturing and Horizontal Wells
Rick Lewis
Rick Lewis
Background
Rick was the developer of the gas shale evaluation workflow that was initially fielded ten years ago and has been applied to more than 3000 wells in North America. In his current position, Rick manages a group responsible for the continual improvement for this workflow, for its introduction and application to the international market, and for the development of workflows for the evaluation of liquids-producing shales. He is also the interface to the Schlumberger research and engineering groups for the development of evaluation technologies for unconventional reservoirs.
Prior to this assignment, Rick was responsible for wireline interpretation development for the central and eastern United States. He is located in Dallas. Rick has also worked for Shell Oil, Battelle, and the U.S. Geological Survey.
Affiliations and Accreditation
PhD California Institute of Technology - Geology
MSc California Institute of Technology - Geology
BSc University of California - Geology
Courses Taught
N250: Evaluation Methods for Shale Gas Reservoirs
Jeff May
Jeff May
Background
Jeff has worked in the oil and gas industry for over 30 years: as a research geologist with Marathon Oil Company (1981-1994); as a geological and geophysical consultant with Enron Oil & Gas (1994-1996) and GeoQuest Reservoir Technologies (1996-1998); as an exploration geoscientist with DDD Energy (1998-2001); and with EOG Resources (2001-2011), first as Chief Stratigrapher and most recently as Chief Geologist.
Jeff’s work has entailed sedimentology and sequence stratigraphy from outcrops, cores, and well logs, plus seismic stratigraphic studies of basins and fields worldwide. Areas of expertise include onshore and offshore Gulf of Mexico; onshore and offshore California; Uinta, Green River, Washakie, Denver, Powder River, and Williston Basins; northern and eastern Egypt; and Natuna Sea, Indonesia. At EOG, he provided regional to prospect-scale stratigraphic interpretation and evaluation plus training in support of all divisions. Jeff also conducts a variety of classroom and field seminars on clastic facies, deep-water sandstones, mudrock deposition and stratigraphy, and sequence stratigraphy, most notably for the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, Nautilus, and many universities. In addition, he has published numerous papers and abstracts on deep-water sandstones, sequence stratigraphy, and geophysical interpretation.
Affiliations and Accreditation
PhD Rice University - Geology
MSc Duke University- Geology
BA Earlham College - Geology
Courses Taught
N046: Submarine Canyon, Channel and Slope Systems (California, USA)
N251: Well Log Sequence Stratigraphy: Applications to Exploration and Production
N241: Depositional Processes, Fabrics and Stratigraphic Framework of Mudrocks: Applications to Shale Reservoirs (Colorado and Wyoming, USA)
N250: Evaluation Methods for Shale Reservoirs
John Randolph
John Randolph
Background
John has over 40 years experience in the Oil and Gas Industry and is currently Technical Manager for Nautilus geophysical programs in North America. During his career, John worked as a seismic interpreter for Texaco, a geophysical project manager for The Louisiana Land and Exploration Company, and he served in the role of Chief Geophysicist for Burlington Resources. John retired from Burlington Resources in 2005 as General Manager of Exploration responsible for the company’s exploration activities in the US, Latin America, the UK, Algeria, and China. While working as Chief Geophysicist, John was also responsible for training and career development for Burlington’s geoscience professionals. Since 2005, John has also worked as a consultant to independent oil and gas companies and also national oil companies assisting them with various project management issues.
In addition to his passion for teaching seismic interpretation, John enjoys travel, biking, and hiking. John also taught scuba diving classes for many years.
John and his wife Cheri live in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Affiliations and Accreditation
MS Business Administration
BS Physics and Mathematics
SEG -Member
AAPG - Member
Courses Taught
N080: Geophysics for Subsurface Professionals
N085: Introduction to Seismic Interpretation
N165: Fundamental Concepts of Seismic Techniques
N250: Evaluation Methods for Shale Reservoirs
N281: Introduction to Seismic Interpretation for Exploration and Production
N394: 3D Seismic Interpretation Workflow
N408: Seismic Imaging for Coal
N420: Introduction to Seismic Interpretation for Coal Mining
N443: Essentials of Geophysics
John is a contributer to the following courses:
N092: Reservoir Geophysics
N286: Seismic Acquisition Principles and Practice
Dates for this Course
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“ I consider this a must course for those actively involved in shale plays, unless you are an absolute expert, you will learn something useful from this course.”
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